Daily News Roundup

Marketing zippers is harder than you think; What should the new SEO be called? And TV-era consumer brands are all-in on influencers.

Social media companies are cutting the junk from their diet; Trump is trying to reshape American media; and selling ads is always the last resort.

Sing along, now: “Everything is an ad network!” Plus, Publicis is doing A-OK and Substack is changing its tune on advertising.

The Trade Desk makes the S&P 500, triggering a stock price rebound; Estée Lauder is the latest big legacy brand to embrace influencers; and CMOs are trying to measure their return on AI, but it’s tricky.

Nextdoor isn’t ruling out AI data licensing, but it has concerns; NBCU touts sports and streaming as drivers of its record Upfronts; and Scholastic follows kids and parents to YouTube.

Amazon’s DSP enjoys many advantages; More on the Cloudflare controversy; the European Commission moves forward with its age verification laws.

Can Google AI overview and other search chatbots cancel each other out?; say goodbye to both Demand Media and Linda Yaccarino.

Amazon locked in two more publishers for its AI shopping engine; AI companies are working on web browsers now; and platforms have a hard time telling AI from reality.

AI Overviews are even dinging Google Search ads’ traffic; WPP downgrades its earnings forecast; and Google’s AI competitors launch their own web browsers.

AI Overviews makes dodgy product recommendations because it scrapes marketing copy; discrepancies in TV ratings hamper upfronts negotiations; and why mar tech companies are building software fortresses.

Google challenges Cloudflare’s anti-scraping tech; are dupes plagiarism?; and web traffic is careening off a cliff.

Microsoft is deprioritizing ad tech; Google wants to get back into publishers’ good graces; and Meta has been quietly developing proactive chatbots.

How Amazon uses the threat of knockoffs to win brand business; YouTube introduces new creator video metrics; and Substack is the latest platform to pivot to video.

Have agency holdcos put too many eggs in the AI basket?; Temu has come back to us now at the turn of the tariff tide; and Cloudflare wants to help sites from getting scraped.

Where would the New York Times be without its recipes?; Cannes Lions deals with controversy; and Netflix wants to get ultra-personal with its ads.

Capitol One, coffee mogul?; Instagram and TikTok are coming for YouTube TV’s throne; Nike is reversing its DTC course.

Scammers have figured out about Reddit and Google Search’s licensing deal; Is affiliate marketing still a thing?; and AI companies consider creator micropayments.

Despite publicly hyping AI, advertisers remain privately skeptical; AI aims to replace agencies, but tech complexity makes them more valuable partners; and Americans aren’t paying for news.

What’s behind the drop in CTV CPMS; the UK CMA sets its antitrust sights on Google Search; and gen AI job cuts decimate another marketing department.

The FTC puts some odd stipulations on Omnicom-IPG; influencer marketing is the new normal; Google is cutting its smart TV group.

Expect more ad agency holdco consolidation in the next year; people are starting to talk like ChatGPT; inside the weirdness of matching political funds.

The Amazon DSP vs. The Trade Desk rumor mill; How SharkNinja has stayed sharp; Why nothing beats organic.

Content aggregators are winning while actual journalism suffers; users say they hate Meta bringing ads to WhatsApp, but Meta’s research says otherwise.

YouTube finds new ways to crack down in ad-blockers; the Better Business Bureau takes swipes at AI marketing; and Gen Z only trusts digital-native brands.

CEOs fear their marketing has lost the plot; WhatsApp introduces ads; Meta’s making its users feel unsafe.

Going For The Cinematic Effect; Do The Youngs Shop Google?; X Marks The Spot

Meta changes up its strategy for tackling improper AI advertising; ICE is proving bad for business; and agencies are worried about their jobs.

AI-generated mystery pages are appearing on brand sites; Amazon Prime Video doubles its ad load; and bipartisan efforts to protect kids online get a new partisan focus under the Trump admin.

AGI is Meta’s latest pipe dream; the Nerds Gummy Clusters blueprint for ROAS; and how the gen AI vibe shift could pave the way for “vibe targeting.”

Mark Read is exiting WPP at the end of the year; the CEO of DeepMind is important, we swear; Google’s major SEO swings have changed the game.