The clock is officially ticking for TikTok. What once seemed far-fetched now feels more real than ever. After a long, contentious battle–with TikTok arguing that a ban would be unconstitutional and violate free speech rights, and lawmakers citing concerns over data privacy and foreign influence–the app recently lost its legal efforts in the D.C. Circuit…
As social fragmentation continues, marketers rewrite the social playbook
If anything is clear for 2025, it’s that the cracks in an already fragmented social media landscape are only getting deeper. This year, marketers might be willing to slowly walk away.
“The social media landscape of 2025 will be a difficult place for brands to navigate, harder to monitor, and therefore less appealing to sink resources into,” Stephen Faulkner, director of research and analytics at global creative collective Forsman & Bodenfors New York, said in an emailed statement to Digiday.
Still yet in 2025, social ad spend is expected to continue to climb, reaching more than $82 billion, significantly up from the $75 billion forecasted for 2024, according to Statista. As expected, Facebook is likely to take the lion’s share of that spend, more than 80%, per Statista, leaving competitors like TikTok and Pinterest, and newcomers like Bluesky and Lemon8, facing off for remaining ad dollars. So even if there are more dollars, that spend will likely be more dispersed than ever.
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The state of AI: Where WPP, R/GA, IPG and other marketers stand in 2025
Generative AI was a big part of marketing discussions throughout 2024, as brands and agencies became eager to invest in AI tools to do everything from creating internal workflow efficiencies to producing consumer-facing ads. These discussions will continue into 2025, and a lot of the industry hype around the technology revolves around the potential for it to make marketers’ jobs easier, faster and more efficient. But some industry experts say there’s a risk of over-relying on automated ad creation.
Another factor in the AI picture that will carry into the new year is the prospect of AI-generated or altered content being labeled as such. Marketers are hesitant to see “made with AI” labels slapped across their creative campaigns, as such a label doesn’t differentiate between content completely generated by AI or content in which AI tools were simply used to help during the creation process — despite the fact that those are two different things.
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Future of TV Briefing: The top trends and developments that will shape the future of TV in 2025
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at some of the top trends and developments to keep an eye on in 2025.
- The year-in-preview
- Honey’s boo boo
- Netflix’s newest sports deal, Google’s tracking change, Hollywood’s hard times and more
The year-in-preview
If 2024 felt less monumental than recent years when it comes to the TV, streaming and digital video industry, that may be because its ultimate legacy will be to serve as preamble to what may be an especially significant year.
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CES Briefing: Ad industry peeks at the ‘agentic’ era & confronts low-quality ad experiences
This edition of the daily CES Briefing looks at how the agentic era of AI looms over CES and then recaps a session that highlights the underlying issue of everything becoming an ad network.
The artificial intelligence age is passing into the so-called “agentic” era, in which large language models power tools that can take actions on people’s behalf, like booking a full trip itinerary. So of course this temporal shift would show up at the Consumer Electronics Show taking place in Las Vegas this week.
As with the agentic era overall, its presence at CES has still been pretty nascent as of Monday, technically the day before CES officially kicks off.
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Yahoo places curation at the center of its CES pitch
Yahoo has entered ad tech’s curation fray, focusing on supply-side intelligence tie-ups amid a host of partnership announcements as part of its Consumer Electronic Show activity.
It’s a positioning it hopes will differentiate it from rival demand-side platforms, such as The Trade Desk, claiming its approach can help simplify the growing complexity of the programmatic ecosystem.
In particular, Yahoo claims it will help sophisticated advertisers manage transparency challenges and supply path optimization with CTV — an intuitive key topic of conversation at CES — while granting them more control.
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Omnicom Media Group expands its TikTok relationship to include search keyword access
TikTok may be facing a potential existential crisis here in the U.S., as a Jan. 19 deadline approaches which could possibly see it shut down or sold to another company.
But that’s not stopping Omnicom Media Group from expanding its partnership with the popular social video platform, as the holding company focuses on a series of search-related moves during CES this week.
Does Omnicom Media Group know something about TikTok’s future that the rest of the world seemingly doesn’t? If so, it’s not saying, as OMG executives declined to comment on TikTok’s impending status, except for chief product officer Megan Pagliuca acknowledging the agency network is “closely monitoring the situation. The way we’re working with them is business as usual. The consumers are still there.”
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With a ban on the horizon, TikTok creators are changing their approach to brand partnership contracts
As a potential U.S. TikTok ban grows near, creators are adjusting their approach to partnership contracts to avoid being left holding the bag if — or when — the platform goes down.
Although the United States’ impending TikTok ban is not slated to take effect until Jan. 19, it’s already threatening some creators’ brand partnership business. As the deadline approaches, TikTok has become an increasingly risky prospect for advertisers, some of which have said they have slowed their spending on TikTok content accordingly.
“We have refused to sign any new clients on TikTok at all — and that’s been a little concerning, from a business perspective,” said Nicole Rechtszaid, the head of creator partnerships and social strategy for the creative agency Ghost Agency, who told Digiday that her company’s pre-existing TikTok campaigns will continue to run until they are unable to deliver on them. “We’re trying to figure out where else brands can still participate, and it’s been very uncertain terrain for us. As we’ve been navigating it, we do not want to encourage any brands to start that activation there.”
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Focus On Data: Albertsons Media, TransUnion, DoorDash, Ibotta Expand Partnerships At CES
A string of ad platforms expanded their retail media ad partnerships this week at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The partnerships all focus on data.
Lyn Plantinga Named SVP of Scripps Local Media Operations
E.W. Scripps has promoted Lyn Plantinga to the role of senior vice president of local media, effective immediately. Plantinga will lead local media operations, overseeing Scripps’ team of regional vice presidents, all while serving as general manager for WTVF, Nashville’s CBS-affiliated local television station owned by Scripps. She has served as regional vice president and…