The elective medical industry is cashing in on plastic pollution fears, but the evidence of harm from microplastics is still deeply uncertain.
The Independent bets big on individual talent-led verticals with the launch of Independent Studio
The Independent is doubling down on talent-led media production as part of a plan to create valuable intellectual property for sponsorship and capitalize on the booming creator economy.
The U.K.-based digital news publisher has signed YouTube creator Alan Clery as creative director to kick off the launch of Independent Studio, a unit that will produce a new crop of individual talent-led videos, newsletters and podcasts. Clery has established himself as a respected voice in football media and will now produce his own videos for his YouTube football channel ACFC, which launched last week and has gained more than 30,000 subscribers. Now Clery will have the studio’s production, promotional and development resources to grow his following further.
Clery’s signing with The Independent is part of a longer-term strategy to create trusted verticals led by individual talent — both in-house editors who have built loyal followings on The Independent’s own sites, which include BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post in the U.K., and external creators who have built large audiences on other platforms. The Independent had just under 28 million monthly visitors across its sites in February, according to Comscore.
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Stagwell Appoints John Kahan as First Chief AI Officer
Stagwell has appointed John Kahan, former Microsoft and IBM executive, as its first Chief AI Officer.
After The Mill’s Shutdown, 30 Ex-Staffers Join Thinkingbox’s The Heist
More than two dozen former employees of The Mill, the production studio that shut down in February, have joined creative company Thinkingbox to expand its post-production division The Heist.
Is the Collapse of SEO About to Cause CPM Inflation?
AI and LLMs are popular precisely because they get people answers and information faster than clicking around.
Consumer Sentiment Plummets Heading Into Trump’s Tariff ‘Liberation Day’
There has been a deceleration in overall spending during the past two months compared to the same period last year.
Mark Read’s Pay Hit, DEI Silence, and Other Key Takeaways from WPP’s Annual Report
Four things you may have missed from the 2024 edition.
Why big advertisers are buying Brave’s search ads — despite its small size
Being small and less data-dependent aren’t always selling points for attracting search advertisers. But in the case of one privacy-focused browser, both are core selling points.
Since introducing search ads in 2024, Brave has courted big brand budgets, pitching itself as the place to squeeze out incremental gains beyond Google’s well-trodden turf.
Part of its differentiation lies in how it matches ads to queries without using behavioral or personal data. Rather than relying on traditional keyword targeting — and the endless back-and-forth of asking marketers “what keywords do you want?” Using embeddings, Brave offers contextual ads with a system mapping queries and ads into the same semantic space, allowing it to match users with relevant results based on meaning and intent, not just exact phrasing.
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WFA sees 54% of multinational brands boosting influencer spending — with more relying on agencies to find creators
With influencer marketing budgets steadily rising, more multinational brands are partnering with influencer agencies as the industry becomes more complex.
The World Federation of Advertisers released a report today showing that some 54% of multinational brand marketers plan to boost influencer marketing spend in 2025, with 61% agreeing that influencer marketing will become more important in the future. However, due to ongoing challenges navigating the space, like issues with disclosures and transparency on creator campaigns, more brands are employing the help of agencies that play a role in influencer marketing.
“Budgets will reflect this as will the increased usage of partners with expertise in influencer marketing,” said Will Gilroy, director of communications and strategy at WFA. “But this opportunity is a double-edged sword unless we get it right through responsible practices.”
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Future of TV Briefing: The programmatic state of play for this year’s TV and streaming upfront market
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how the programmatic guaranteed versus private marketplace debate is shaping up as programmatic becomes an upfront fixture.
- Get with the programmatic
- Amazon’s studio chief exits, Disney’s DE&I dilemma and more
Get with the programmatic
Programmatic has firmly become part of the upfront. “There was a huge swing last year,” said one agency executive, referring to TV network and streaming services being more willing to allow advertisers’ programmatic spend to count toward their upfront commitments.
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