Elyse Myers on Why Making ‘Something Cool’ Is Better Than Going Viral
Elyse Myers, a TikTok creator with 7.1 million followers, emphasizes authenticity over curated personas, even as she sets strict personal boundaries around family content. She selects brand partnerships based on creative control, using a simple metric—whether she’s proud enough to show the work to her husband. Myers argues that trust from brands like Audible fuels higher creativity and better campaign outcomes. Ultimately, she believes consistent, quality content outweighs chasing one‑off viral hits for sustainable growth.
Women’s Sports Are Booming and Adtech Must Keep Pace
Women’s sports are experiencing a surge, highlighted by the U.S. women’s hockey team’s overtime gold medal and WNBA star Caitlin Clark’s measurable “halo effect” on ticket sales and merchandise. The growth creates unpredictable inventory spikes that demand scalable adtech, prompting...
EXCLUSIVE: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Butts Heads With Former FTC CTO Over AI Regulation
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt debated AI regulation with former FTC CTO Latanya Sweeney at the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate. Schmidt warned that emergent AI behaviors are unpredictable, limiting pre‑emptive safety controls, while urging tolerance for ongoing development. Sweeney countered...
The Design Playbook Keeping Glenfiddich on Top of the Single-Malt Scotch Market
When William Grant & Sons launched Glenfiddich in the United States in 1963, it introduced a premium single‑malt whisky to a market dominated by blended scotches. Over six decades later the brand remains the top‑selling single‑malt in America, thanks to...
Walmart and Target Are Battling to Show Up in AI Shopping Tools. Here’s How Their Strategies Compare
Walmart and Target are racing to embed artificial intelligence in the shopping journey, but their tactics diverge sharply. Walmart is building four proprietary AI "super agents" to power consumer assistance, supplier operations, and internal workflows, leveraging its massive transaction data....
Gen Z Fave Dua Lipa Joins George Clooney as Nespresso’s Global Ambassador
Nespresso has appointed pop star Dua Lipa as its new global ambassador alongside longtime face George Clooney. The partnership will launch on April 14 with the “Vertuo World” campaign, signaling a creative shift aimed at attracting Gen Z coffee drinkers. Nespresso’s...
Stephanie Ruhle Moves to Mornings in Major Programming Reshuffle at MS NOW
MS NOW announced a sweeping programming overhaul set for June, aimed at capitalizing on double‑digit viewership gains and positioning the network for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential race. Late‑night anchor Stephanie Ruhle will leave her 11 p.m. slot to host...
New Report ‘Brings the Receipts’ on ROI of Women’s Sports Ads
WPP Media’s new “Women’s Sports Playbook” report shows rapid growth in advertising within women’s sports. Ad impressions rose 79% year‑over‑year and overall spend reached about $127 million, up roughly 70% YoY. Brands such as Ally Financial saw 85% higher engagement on...
Costco Adds Adtech Firm Moloco to Scale Retail Media Network
Costco has teamed up with ad‑tech firm Moloco Commerce Media to enhance the relevance of ads on its e‑commerce platform. The partnership will be rolled out as a beta program in Q2, coinciding with the launch of Costco Velocity, the...
In a Play for Profitability, Kraft-Heinz Kicks Off Five-Year Alliance with the NFL
Kraft Heinz announced a five‑year deal to become the NFL's official condiment partner, giving roughly 20 of its brands high‑visibility placements at games and related events. The agreement arrives as the company has paused a planned split into two publicly...
Ugg Brings Back the Fluff Yeah Sandal With a Sci-Fi-Inspired Twist
UGG has revived its popular Fluff Yeah fluffy sandal for a limited Spring 2026 run after strong fan demand. The brand launched a sci‑fi‑inspired campaign starring comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, featuring a hand‑crafted miniature Los Angeles set and a Venice Beach pop‑up on...
Uber Emboldens St Patrick’s Day Partygoers to ‘Irish Exit’ with a Quick Getaway
Uber has launched the "IrishXit" campaign for St. Patrick’s Day, urging partygoers to leave safely via UberX. The initiative features Love Island star Maura Higgins in a meta‑creative spot that dramatizes an "Irish exit" from a party. Partnering with Mother New York,...
7 Cinematic Ads From the 2026 Oscars
During the 98th Academy Awards, advertisers turned the commercial break into a showcase of cinematic storytelling, with brands such as Coinbase, Burger King, Mazda, Disney Cruise Line, Credit One Bank, Panera Bread and L’Oréal unveiling high‑production spots. The ads leaned...
EXCLUSIVE: Dow Jones Bolsters Brand Team By Hiring Former Droga5 Chief Andrew Essex
Dow Jones has appointed former Droga5 chief Andrew Essex as its brand director in residence and veteran Delwyn Gray to head events. Essex will oversee brand strategy across Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal assets, managing consumer and B2B campaigns...
OpenAI Is Testing An Ads Manager, As Its New Ads Business Fights Growing Pains
OpenAI has begun piloting an Ads Manager dashboard with a select group of partners, allowing real‑time creation, monitoring, and optimization of ChatGPT‑powered ad campaigns. Early testers receive weekly CSV reports detailing clicks, impressions, and spend. The program requires a minimum...
Ticker: Former MSNBC Head Rashida Jones to Lead Piers Morgan’s Uncensored
Rashida Jones, former head of MSNBC, has been appointed CEO of Piers Morgan’s digital‑first news venture, Uncensored. The outlet announced a new funding round backed by Raine Ventures, Antenna Group and the Reuben Brothers, bolstering its growth capital. Jones, who...
EXCLUSIVE: NewsGuard Taps Startup Pangram to Identify AI-Generated News and Misinformation
NewsGuard has launched an AI content farm detection tool built with Pangram Labs’ proprietary models to spot sites that mass‑produce AI‑generated news without disclosure. In its first rollout, the system helped flag roughly 3,000 AI farms, more than double the...
2026 NCAA Men’s Tournament Ad Sales Seeing ‘Tremendous Demand’
CBS Sports and TNT Sports announced that ad demand for the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is "tremendous," though they withheld specific pricing or inventory numbers. Executives emphasized that live sports continue to cut through the clutter, driving revenue across...
The Growth Paradox: Jeff Greenspoon of Kantar on Brand Power
Jeff Greenspoon, Kantar’s Americas CEO, explained on Adweek’s Adspeak how brand tension fuels growth through the “Meaningful and Different” framework. He argued that cutting brand spend during budget squeezes can forfeit three to five years of growth, while sustained investment...
How Time Turned Events Into Its Biggest Revenue Driver
Time has transformed from a legacy news brand into an events powerhouse, with event revenue projected to account for half of its total earnings in 2025, up from 28% in 2023. The company hosted 11 events in 2022 and will...
Women in Advertising Are Closing Every Gap They Can. The Pay Gap Persists Anyway
A new study of 900+ U.S. advertising professionals finds women earn about 5% less than men, rising to 8% for mothers, even after adjusting for education, experience, hours, geography and agency type. The research, led by Jess Watts with UCLA...
Luma AI’s AI Agents Promise to End the Multi-Tool Mess
Luma AI, a Palo Alto‑based startup, unveiled a new class of end‑to‑end “creative agents” that unify text, image, video and audio generation for brands and agencies. The platform stitches Luma’s proprietary 3D, image and video models with third‑party tools such...
Ad Agencies Are Embracing ‘Vibe Coding’ to Build GEO Products for Clients
Ad agencies such as Havas, Broadhead and Supergood are rapidly creating generative engine optimization (GEO) tools by "vibe‑coding" on top of large language models, often within a single work session. Havas’ Brand Insights AI, built with Anthropic’s Claude Code and Replit,...
Havas Bets on AI Veteran Sharona Sankar-King to Lead Proprietary Tech Push
Havas Media Network North America has hired Sharona Sankar‑King as chief data and product officer to steer its proprietary AI platform, Converged.AI, and the broader analytics practice. Sankar‑King arrives from Harte Hanks after more than 25 years in agencies, consultancies...
Brands May Actually Benefit From Advertising Next to AI Content, Per Study
A new OM Media Trials and Zefr study of nearly 5,000 U.S. and Canadian consumers finds that ads placed after certain AI‑generated videos can actually enhance brand perception, especially when the content is satirical, youthful, or artistic. Conversely, ads next...
Third-Party AI Agents Can Now Plug Into LiveRamp’s Platform
LiveRamp announced that third‑party AI agents can now plug directly into its data collaboration platform, removing the need for custom API calls. The integration enables agents to automate audience planning, segmentation, measurement and to interact with partner and proprietary agents....
Plurio Raises $3.5 Million to Bring Agentic AI to Performance Marketing
San Francisco‑based Plurio announced a $3.5 million seed round to accelerate its AI‑driven performance‑marketing agent. The platform ingests cross‑channel campaign data, forecasts downstream results and can automatically apply approved changes on Meta, Google and TikTok. Plurio already oversees more than $100 million...
Stagwell and Emberos Launch Agentic Tool to Help Brands Navigate AI Search
Stagwell, together with AI‑visibility startup Emberos, has launched Stagwell Search+, an AI‑agent‑driven platform designed to boost brand discoverability in AI‑generated search results. The solution, built by Assembly, combines monitoring, predictive strategy, workflow automation, e‑commerce focus, and governance across paid, owned,...
AnswerLab Rebrands As Research Moves Into the AI Era
AnswerLab announced a full rebrand and the launch of a 5,700‑square‑foot innovation space in New York, signaling a move beyond traditional UX research. The agency now positions itself as a strategic partner that helps clients test, refine, and invest in...
EXCLUSIVE: These Super Bowl Ads Won With AI, but Not Social Media
Emberos’ AI Influence Index reveals that several Super Bowl 60 commercials are ranking highly inside AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok, even when their social‑media engagement lags. The study shows social activity accounts for only 30‑45 % of...
Pinterest’s Kate Hamill on Visual Search, AI, and the New Path to Purchase
Pinterest is shifting from a pure inspiration platform to a measurable commerce driver, according to VP of North America enterprise sales Kate Hamill. The company is leveraging visual search and AI to compress the funnel between discovery and conversion, enabling...
Drivers Wanted (Again): Volkswagen Balances Automation With the Human Side of Mobility
Volkswagen is reviving its iconic "Drivers Wanted" campaign as a cultural statement that champions personal mobility in an era of ride‑sharing and autonomous tech. The brand’s recent Super Bowl spot reinforces this narrative, uniting dealers, employees, and partners around a...
Super Bowl Hot Take: Microsoft Shows Copilot’s Power, But Not Its Personality
Microsoft aired a 30‑second Super Bowl‑adjacent ad highlighting Copilot’s real‑time data and reasoning features within Excel. The spot shows recruiters using AI‑driven filters, charts, and predictive models to pick ideal linebackers. Unlike rivals’ emotionally‑charged AI ads, Microsoft’s message is purely...
Wix Hails New Era of Web Design in Super Bowl Return
Wix returned to the Super Bowl after a seven‑year break to unveil a hybrid AI‑drag‑and‑drop website editor. The 30‑second ad, “The New Way to Create,” shows a woman building a handmade‑furniture site using simple prompts, emphasizing AI as a creative...
EXCLUSIVE: 6AM City Is Swapping Reporters for AI in Markets It Can’t Afford
6AM City, the newsletter‑driven local media publisher, is trimming its footprint to chase profitability after a decade of rapid growth. The company reduced its core markets from roughly 30 to 19 and cut about 35 jobs, leaving a staff of...
How CMOs and CEOs Are Rewriting the Rules of Leadership in the AI Era
ADWEEK convened a select group of CMOs and CEOs at Davos for its inaugural Marketing Vanguard Inspiration Excursion, partnering with Adobe and Microsoft. Over two days, participants explored agentic AI, ethical governance, brand evolution, and the necessity of C‑suite alignment...
Google Bets on ‘Helpful AI’ to Push Gemini Into the Zeitgeist in Super Bowl Ad
Google is debuting a 60‑second Super Bowl commercial titled "New Home" to promote its Gemini generative‑AI assistant. The ad follows a mother using Gemini’s image‑generation tools to visualize a move, emphasizing the platform’s "helpful AI" narrative. The spot anchors an...
Chris Hemsworth Thinks AI Is Trying To Kill Him in Amazon’s Super Bowl Ad
Amazon debuted its new generative AI voice assistant Alexa+ in a 60‑second Super Bowl spot starring Chris Hemsworth. The ad humorously imagines Alexa plotting lethal scenarios, from decapitating Hemsworth to trapping him underwater, before ending with a benign massage booking....
Gemini Set to Bring Significant Improvements to Google’s Ad Business
Google's parent company sees AI bringing major benefits across all areas of marketing.
Publicis Expands Working With Cancer Initiative With New Research and AI Coach
Publicis Groupe expanded its Working With Cancer initiative on World Cancer Day, unveiling peer‑reviewed research and an AI‑powered coaching tool. The study, led by Memorial Sloan Kettering and Mayo Clinic, analyzed 25 years of data across 20 countries, showing that...
Base44’s Super Bowl Debut Is As Simple As Its App Building Platform
Base44, an AI‑powered no‑code app builder, debuted a Super Bowl commercial just a year after its launch. The platform, part of the emerging "vibe coding" movement, lets users create live apps from simple text prompts without programming. In June, website...
Brand Building: How Lowe’s Is Transforming Into a Culture-Driven, AI-Powered Lifestyle Brand
Lowe’s is repositioning from a traditional home‑improvement retailer to a culture‑driven, AI‑enabled lifestyle brand. The shift reflects a broader view of the home as a space for personal expression, supported by AI tools that help associates and shoppers visualize projects....
Svedka Bets on AI and Its Fembot to Make Super Bowl History
Svedka, now owned by Sazerac, launched “Shake Your Bots Off,” the first primarily AI‑generated Super Bowl commercial and the inaugural vodka ad in the game. The spot revives the brand’s Fembot after a 12‑year hiatus, adds a new Brobot character,...
Publicis CEO: We Won’t ‘Marry’ Our Business to One Single AI Player
Publicis Groupe posted strong Q4 and 2025 results, with organic growth of 5.9% and net revenue reaching $17.18 billion, up 5.6% year‑over‑year. The firm generated $8 billion in new business, adding major accounts such as Coca‑Cola North America, Mars, and Nespresso. AI...
Amazon Opens Its Ad Stack to AI Agents With MCP Rollout
Amazon announced an open‑beta of its Ads Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, a unified gateway that lets AI agents connect to Amazon Ads with a single integration. The MCP translates natural‑language prompts into structured API calls, turning multi‑step advertising tasks...
Ring Reunites Lost Dogs in New Super Bowl Spot
Ring, an Amazon subsidiary, debuted a 30‑second Super Bowl ad unveiling its new Search Party for Dogs feature. The tool leverages AI‑driven image recognition and opt‑in Ring cameras to coordinate neighborhood searches for missing pets. The spot, Ring’s first linear‑TV...
Anthropic’s Claude Is Williams F1’s ‘Thinking Partner’ as AI Brands Race Into Sports
Anthropic has signed a multi‑year deal with the Atlassian Williams Formula 1 team, naming its Claude chatbot the “Official Thinking Partner.” Claude will be used by engineers and strategists for race strategy, car development, and operational decisions, with branding appearing on the...
EXCLUSIVE: X’s Memelord Product Chief Has a Plan to Save the Platform—If Grok Doesn’t Destroy It First
X’s product chief Nikita Bier unveiled a multi‑phase strategy at CES 2026 aimed at reviving the platform by leveraging meme‑centric content and AI‑enhanced advertising. The plan introduces AI‑curated meme feeds, new short‑form ad formats, and tighter integration with the upcoming...
Salesforce President Ariel Kelman’s 25-Year Playbook for Marketing at Scale
Salesforce President and CMO Ariel Kelman shared his 25‑year marketing playbook on the Marketing Vanguard podcast, emphasizing trust‑driven storytelling, AI grounded in first‑party data, and executive‑led AI experimentation. He illustrated the “show, don’t tell” approach with the AgentForce City exhibit,...
Meet the $1.3 Billion Startup Behind Madonna and Will Smith’s AI Video
Higgsfield, a generative‑AI video platform founded in October 2023, has raised an $80 million Series A extension, pushing its valuation past $1.3 billion. The startup reports $250 million in annual recurring revenue and a creator base exceeding 15 million, with 85 % of usage now driven...
