David Kaplan

CANNES, France — Search used to surface the top results through infinity. Agentic commerce surfaces one. And most retailers have not yet built the product content infrastructure needed to be that winner.

CANNES, France — This summer, artificial intelligence generated more content than humans for the first time — a milestone that most media companies view as a threat but that 1440's CEO sees as a significant business opportunity.

CANNES, France — The battle for the connected TV home screen is on. Recent research by Roku and Omnicom is showing why, as advertisers look to satisfy the twin goals of performance and branding.

AMENIA, NY — FreeWheel is aiming to sit at the center of CTV's absorption of three of the moment's main drivers of marketing and media growth. But that goal is not without challenges. Still, the streaming video ad platform feels it's been preparing for this triumvirate for years.

CANNES, France — National advertising reach and neighborhood-level relevance have long been treated as competing priorities. Nextdoor's pitch to brands is that the tradeoff is a false one.

CANNES, France — When a viewer pauses a TV show they're streaming, they're still in the room. They're still looking at the screen, still mentally engaged. That moment, it turns out, is far more valuable to advertisers than the traditional commercial break viewers routinely use to check their phones or go to the fridge.

AMENIA, NY — Three hundred retail media networks sounds a lot like abundance. But while a rising tide tends to lift boats, the proliferation of RMNs has overwhelmed many brands. That can result in spreading budgets too thin to make impact anywhere while generating hidden data expenses that rarely surface in a media plan.

AMENIA, NY — The advertising industry built itself on the assumption of near-universal consumer addressability. That assumption is yet to be realized. And most of the ecosystem is still catching up to what that means.

CANNES, France — Digital commerce has a problem that predates artificial intelligence and anything this agentic moment might finally solve: Most consumers abandon their shopping carts after making a product selection. It's not because they don't want to buy. Rather, it's because the friction between selection and purchase defeats them.

CANNES, France — Connected TV advertising has long been associated with brand awareness. But Vizio's ad partners are seeing something different on its home screen. For the Walmart-owned smart TV maker and ad platform provider, marketers it works with are increasingly approaching the premium real estate traditionally reserved for branding as a direct response environment.