AI Crowns the Most Beautiful Artworks of All Time for World Art Day
DAIVID, a creative data firm, repurposed its AI platform to rank the world’s most beautiful paintings for World Art Day. The algorithm, trained on tens of millions of human emotional responses, placed Botticelli’s *The Birth of Venus* at the top, followed by Vermeer’s *Girl with a Pearl Earring* and della Francesca’s *The Baptism of Christ*. The study also mapped broader emotional patterns, finding Renaissance and Impressionist works dominate aesthetic appreciation while horror scores peak with Munch’s *The Scream* and Goya’s *Saturn Devouring His Son*. These findings suggest measurable, repeatable audience reactions to visual art.
Locala Unveils Planning Agents That Push Agentic Advertising Beyond Automation
Locala launched Planning Agents, an evolution of its Omni Planner platform that links advanced market insights directly to activation-ready strategies. The new agents combine proprietary signals, strategic reasoning, and activation readiness in a single workflow, enabling brands to execute granular,...
FreeWheel’s AI-Driven Context Engine Enables Global Contextual Targeting Across Premium Video
FreeWheel launched Context Engine, an AI‑driven feature inside its Streaming Hub that automatically tags premium video content with contextual signals such as emotion, location and objects. The tool combines computer vision, machine learning and generative AI to process millions of...
GoWit & Numatec Forge Retail Media Partnership in Spain and Italy
GoWit announced a strategic partnership with Numatec to roll out its AI‑driven retail‑media platform across Spain and Italy, leveraging Numatec’s local martech network. The deal targets the fast‑growing European retail‑media market, projected to reach €31 bn (≈$33 bn) by 2028, with Spain...
Ad Quality Is a Monetisation Problem: What Publishers Need to Do Now
The article frames ad quality as a core monetisation issue, noting that deceptive or disruptive ads erode user experience and revenue. AppHarbr has launched the In‑App Network Ad Quality Index, a quarterly benchmark that analyzes billions of impressions to rank...
Digest: Ad Companies in Boycott Settlement Talks with FTC; Court Orders Meta to Face Youth Addiction Suit; YouTube Raises Premium...
The FTC is in settlement talks with major ad agencies over a probe into coordinated boycotts of platforms like X, proposing rules that would prevent steering spend based on political content. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has allowed a...
Rewriting the Rules of Ad Tech: Intent-Driven Discovery, Meaningful Human Connections, and Transparency
Ad‑tech in 2026 is pivoting from cookie‑based, destination browsing to intent‑driven discovery powered by AI agents and conversational interfaces. The rise of agentic AI is automating media buying, slashing execution workload by up to 80%, while privacy regulations force a...
Displayce Powers Ubisoft’s Multi-Country DOOH Campaign for Just Dance 2026
Ubisoft teamed with Displayce, Artefact and VIOOH to launch a programmatic digital‑out‑of‑home (DOOH) campaign for Just Dance 2026 across the UK, France, Germany and Australia. The effort ran on 179 premium screens—86% in shopping malls—targeting families within 0.5‑1 km of key retailers such...
Digest: OpenAI Lowers Minimum Spend for Ads Pilot; Meta Pulls Ads for Addiction Lawsuits; YouTube Tests 90-Second Unskippable Ads Amid...
OpenAI has quietly launched an Ads Manager and slashed the minimum spend for its pilot program to $50,000, aiming to attract a broader range of advertisers. Meta Platforms is pulling dozens of ads that recruit plaintiffs for social‑media addiction lawsuits...
New Data From DAIVID & Kinetiq Shows BODYARMOR Debut Increased Coca-Cola’s March Madness Visibility By 55%
Coca‑Cola’s $5.6 bn acquisition of BODYARMOR has reshaped its NCAA March Madness strategy, replacing POWERADE after 15 years. Data from DAIVID and Kinetiq shows BODYARMOR ads aired 55% more often, with a 71% surge in the men’s tournament and a jump to...
The Stack: Streaming Shake-Up
This week streaming platforms embraced AI and new partnerships while facing legal scrutiny. Tubi launched a ChatGPT‑native app, and Microsoft deepened its agentic‑marketing tie‑up with Publicis, signaling automated ad buying. CNN International Commercial announced an in‑house AI‑driven media‑trading infrastructure slated...
LoopMe Launches Chartboost Direct, Bringing Brands Into Mobile Apps to Drive Publisher Growth
LoopMe has unveiled Chartboost Direct, a brand‑focused SDK that lets mobile app publishers tap directly into brand demand without overhauling their ad tech stack. The solution offers direct pay, direct deals and marketplace deals, enabling real‑time transactions with premium brand...
Clinch Bolsters North American Growth with Appointment of IPG Veteran Melvin Stern as VP
Clinch, an AI‑powered omnichannel advertising platform, announced the appointment of Melvin Stern as Vice President of Growth for North America. Stern arrives from IPG’s MediaBrands Content Studio after nearly two decades leading performance‑content initiatives for brands such as the NBA,...
Fifty Hires AudienceScan’s Charlie Firebrace as Growth Director
Fifty announced the hiring of Charlie Firebrace, former head of strategy and partnerships at AudienceScan, as its new Growth Director. Firebrace brings nearly two decades of B2B revenue experience across ad‑tech, digital and emerging‑technology platforms and will lead the global...
2026 FIFA World Cup Viewing Set to Fragment Across Linear & Streaming in UK, Nexxen Forecast Finds
Nexxen released a forecast for UK audiences of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, showing that while TV remains dominant, viewing is increasingly split between linear and streaming platforms. The report finds 24% of fans will blend traditional TV and streaming,...
Scaling Success: How AI Is Reshaping Publisher Deals
Advertisers and publishers are turning to contextual AI to replace static private marketplace (PMP) deals with dynamic, real‑time audience expansion. Illuma’s AI analyzes live content consumption, scaling reach while preserving relevance without relying on cookies or personal identifiers. A pilot...
Digest: CMO and Execs Exit The Trade Desk; BBC Studios Launches Airline Streaming; Tesco Media Introduces Premium Video Ads
The Trade Desk announced a leadership shake‑up, with CMO Matthew Henick and two senior executives departing and Anna Sayre stepping in as interim CMO while Rob Caruso leads its Ventura TV platform. BBC Studios launched BBC Player, a rights‑cleared streaming...
Silverpush’s Paul Briggs on Navigating YouTube and Using Contextual to Regain Visibility and Control
Silverpush’s Paul Briggs emphasizes that video now accounts for over 80% of internet traffic, making it a full‑funnel performance driver. He argues that contextual intelligence can map real‑time content intent to deliver ads at the precise moment of user engagement,...
Teads Expands Commitment to Inventory Quality & Safety Through Partnership with NewsGuard
Teads announced an expanded partnership with NewsGuard to apply the latter’s human‑vetted reliability ratings across its global ad marketplace. The move covers English, French, German and Italian‑language sites in key markets such as the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and...
BIGO Ads Becomes a Registered Vendor Under IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF)
BIGO Ads, the programmatic advertising platform of JOYY Inc., has been added to IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) v2.2 vendor registry. The registration confirms BIGO Ads’ compliance with GDPR and ePrivacy standards, enabling it to operate across the...
Digest: Publicis Acquires 160/90 to Expand Sports Marketing; Universal Music Gets €55bn Takeover Bid; Netflix Launches Kids Gaming App
Publicis Groupe has acquired sports and culture agency 160/90, adding 670 staff worldwide and linking the firm to its Epsilon data platform to turn sports marketing into a measurable, end‑to‑end channel. Pershing Square, led by Bill Ackman, has launched a...
When Ad Tech Sprinkles Fairy Dust…
The column likens ad‑tech hype to cosmetic “fairy dusting,” where buzzwords like retail media, CTV, and agentic AI are added in trace amounts to sell a narrative rather than deliver measurable performance. It shows how each hype cycle—first‑party data, AI,...
Petri Kokkonen Appointed Co-Lead of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Working Group
Petri Kokkonen, CEO of Relevant Digital, has been appointed co‑lead of the IAB Europe Programmatic Working Group alongside Sportradar’s Ralf Ollig. The group unites European ad‑tech stakeholders to shape standards, drive research, and improve transparency as AI reshapes programmatic buying....
Happydemics Launches ‘In-Flight Mode’ to Optimise Brand Outcomes While Campaigns Are Still Airborne
Happydemics has introduced “In‑Flight Mode,” a real‑time brand‑lift measurement tool that embeds outcome tracking directly into live campaigns. Marketers can now monitor consideration, purchase intent and other brand KPIs as ads run, and instantly tweak creative, targeting or media mix....
Digest: OpenAI Buys TBPN; CNN International Commercial Builds Agentic Infrastructure; SpaceX To Mandate Grok in IPO?
OpenAI’s purchase of the Technology Business Programming Network marks the AI leader’s first direct foray into media ownership, positioning the three‑hour daily show TBPN under chief political operative Chris Lehane. CNN International Commercial is building an in‑house agentic infrastructure, aiming...
AI Agents Are Becoming the Fourth Place of Commerce and OOH Is Shaping Their Choices
AI agents are emerging as a fourth place of commerce, moving beyond stores, e‑commerce, and mobile. These assistants now not only answer queries but automatically select brands based on data signals such as search demand, reviews, and online conversation. Out‑of‑home...
Adtelligent Ranks Among the FT’s ‘America’s Fastest Growing Companies 2026’
Adtelligent Inc., a full‑stack advertising technology firm, has been named to the Financial Times and Statista ‘America’s Fastest Growing Companies 2026’ list, which spotlights firms with the strongest revenue growth from 2021 to 2024. The ranking underscores Adtelligent’s rapid expansion, driven by...
The Stack: AI Surges While Social Platforms Face Scrutiny
OpenAI secured a $122 billion funding round, lifting its valuation to about $852 billion and hinting at a future public listing. The company also extended its advertising pilot to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, giving brands more time to test AI‑assistant ads. In...
Attekmi’s Roman Vrublivskyi on Ad Tech Trends, Ad Strategy, and AI
Attekmi CEO Roman Vrublivskyi outlines the five ad‑tech trends shaping 2026, highlighting first‑party data and AI as the top drivers. He explains that privacy‑driven first‑party data is replacing third‑party identifiers, while AI now powers bidding, creative generation and forecasting. Supply‑path...
Adzymic Powers Omnichannel Grimace Shake Campaign for McDonald’s Singapore
Adzymic, in partnership with OMD, is powering McDonald’s Singapore’s Grimace Shake launch through an omnichannel campaign that blends digital out‑of‑home, premium programmatic display, and dynamic creative optimisation. The activation places gamified DOOH screens at high‑traffic Gen Z hubs, offering a...
Native Advertising, Recommendation Widgets, and the Toenail Fungus Problem
Shirley Marschall argues that recommendation widgets, not native advertising itself, are the primary cause of low‑quality, click‑bait ads that appear alongside premium editorial content. These widgets are engineered to maximize clicks, often delivering sensational or unsettling content like "toenail fungus"...
PubMatic & Amnet Launch the First Agentic Advertising Campaign in France Using the Claude LLM
PubMatic and trading desk Amnet have launched France’s first Agentic advertising campaign, built on PubMatic’s AgenticOS and the Claude large‑language model, for client Interbev. The video‑focused effort targets cooking enthusiasts and consumers of responsibly sourced French meat, aiming for high...
xpln.ai Supports WPP Media & AXA in Driving More Sustainable Advertising Attention
xpln.ai teamed with WPP Media to help AXA launch a multi‑market campaign in the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico and Thailand that puts sustainability at its core. Using proprietary eye‑tracking technology, the firm measured advertising attention for each impression and paired...
Dig-In Target a New Generation of Fitness Focused Students
Dig‑In partnered with Warrior Protein to distribute Warrior Creatine Plus samples to 200,000 university students in 1,003 halls across 130 UK cities. The on‑campus tote‑bag activation targeted students at the start of their academic year, a key habit‑forming period. Post‑campaign research...
30% of Open-Web Video Players Shrink After Page Load, Finds Picnic
Picnic’s new PIQ analysis shows that roughly one‑third of open‑web video players shrink after the initial page load, while 15% continue playing after users scroll past and 12% of sites host multiple videos simultaneously. The study highlights a gap between...
Brits Buying More Chinese Cars – But Prefer Reading About Classic US & European Brands
Chinese‑made vehicles accounted for 9.7% of new UK registrations in 2025, up from 4.9% in 2024, signaling rapid market penetration. Taboola data shows BYD attracted 250,000 pageviews, yet Ford dominated readership with 1.9 million views. Despite the sales surge, British audiences...
Limelight’s Adaptive Rules Centre Delivers 4× Auction Success for Performance-Based SSP
Limelight Inc. introduced its Adaptive Rules Centre (ARC) to a performance‑based supply‑side platform (SSP) struggling with empty VAST creatives that bid without delivering impressions. By deploying a single "Add Creative ID to List" rule, the SSP automatically detected and blocked...
Open Media Expands Programmatic Digital Out-of-Home Offering with VIOOH Partnership
Open Media announced a programmatic partnership with VIOOH, linking its premium digital out‑of‑home inventory to the leading global supply‑side platform. The deal adds 42 high‑visibility LED screens to VIOOH’s marketplace, generating over 120 million monthly impressions and representing roughly 1‑2 % of...
Álvaro Mayol Appointed CEO of Taptap Digital
Taptap Digital, a global location‑intelligence marketing platform, announced Álvaro Mayol as its new CEO, while founder Álvaro del Castillo shifts to a non‑executive President role. Mayol, who has spent over a decade building Taptap’s product, client, and operational capabilities, previously...
Digest: Partners Complain About Slow Ads Rollout on ChatGPT; Musk Liable in Twitter Fraud Case; Broadcasters Push EU for Tougher...
OpenAI’s pilot of ads inside ChatGPT has attracted major agency groups, but partners complain the rollout is slower than promised, even as some allocate up to $250,000 per test. A San Francisco jury found Elon Musk liable for misleading statements about...
GoWit & Futura DDB Form Exclusive Retail Media Partnership in the Adriatic
GoWit and Futura DDB have announced an exclusive retail‑media partnership covering Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia. The deal combines GoWit’s AI‑first omnichannel commerce platform with Futura DDB’s regional creative and market expertise, delivering a unified dashboard for multi‑market campaign...
Azerion Promotes ‘Leading DOOH Specialist’ Rebecca Callaghan to Head of Out-of-Home
Azerion has created a new Head of Out‑of‑Home role and promoted Rebecca Callaghan, a recognized DOOH specialist, to lead it. Callaghan brings more than a decade of experience across traditional and programmatic OOH, including prior stints at Yahoo, JCDecaux and...
Vocento Unlocks Advertising Inventory Value with Opti Digital Demand Hub
Vocento, Spain's leading regional press group, partnered with ad‑tech firm Opti Digital to deploy its Demand Hub solution. The platform adds an AI‑driven, attention‑based demand layer that serves high‑impact social display ads only when they enter the user’s viewport. This...
Singapore’s AI Investment: What Does Marketing Stand to Gain?
Singapore’s 2026 budget earmarks roughly $111 million for the Enterprise Compute Initiative and about $27 billion for the RIE2030 research plan, alongside a 400 percent tax deduction on AI spending. The government aims to turn the city‑state into the ASEAN “control room” for...
Shaping Supply: Is Curation the Antidote to Ad Wastage?
Connected TV (CTV) ad spend in the U.S. is set to near $38 bn this year, cementing its role as a core media channel. However, the rapid expansion of premium SVOD, FAST channels, and OEM interfaces has fragmented the supply, making...
The Stack: Ads, Accountability, and AI
Meta is under fire in the UK after the FCA uncovered 1,052 illegal high‑risk financial ads in a single week, many from previously flagged accounts. Whistleblowers allege Meta and TikTok deliberately amplified harmful, outrage‑driven content to boost engagement. Trust issues...
The Last Mile Problem: Why Publishers Need Independent AI/ML Infrastructure for Yield Optimisation
Publishers are still using manual, weekly rules for ad‑yield while buy‑side platforms have leveraged real‑time machine learning for years. The gap, called the "last mile" problem, stems from the complexity of building impression‑level data pipelines, feature engineering, and sub‑50 ms inference...
Venatus Delivers 5x Higher Video Ad Attention by Activating Audiences “In the Zone”- Lumen Research Finds
Venatus Media, in partnership with Lumen Research, reports that its video‑ad platform achieves up to five times higher attention by targeting audiences "In the Zone"—users deeply engaged in gaming, sports or entertainment. The technology assesses mindset, context and timing to...
Digest: Publicis Advises Clients to Avoid The Trade Desk; Meta Misses Illegal Financial Ads; Alibaba Forms New AI Business Group
Publicis Groupe told select clients to pause work with The Trade Desk after an independent audit flagged questionable fee applications and opaque cost reporting. The Trade Desk rejected the allegations, citing confidentiality constraints on the auditor’s data requests. Meanwhile, Meta...
UK Programmatic DOOH Spend to Rise 41% as It Becomes Core to Omnichannel Planning
VIOOH’s 2026 UK programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) report shows the channel now appears in 34% of campaigns, up from 31% in 2024, and is projected to reach 47% within the next 18 months. Marketers anticipate a 41% increase in pDOOH spend,...