Tim Cross

CTV was once again a big talking point at this year’s Cannes Lions festival. And with ad budgets growing, there was plenty of chatter about the need for convergence between traditional linear broadcaster advertising and CTV.

Pier Silvio Berlusconi, CEO and chairman of MFE-MediaForEurope

It’s just a couple of days until DMEXCO 2026 kicks off in Cologne, and VideoWeek is proud to be partnering with the event once more.

You’ll often hear it said, in discussions about AI’s impact on marketers’ day-to-day work lives, that by handling repetitive and menial tasks, AI frees up more time for strategic thinking. Indeed, a new report from advertiser trade group the WFA and marketing advisory Mediasense found that strategic thinking skills — such as setting direction, prioritising investments, and making commercial trade-offs — are becoming even more crucial as AI’s role in advertising workflows grows. Marketers surveyed by the WFA and Mediasense ranked strategic judgement as the second most important future capability, behind AI fluency.

When the major agency groups talk up their AI investments, they’ll emphasise the new possibilities around personalisation and creativity at scale which the technology opens up. But at the moment, a new survey from IAB Europe suggests that pure operational efficiency remains the most common metric through which businesses across the industry are judging their AI investments.

We’re excited to announce that the CTV Advertising Guide Europe 2027 is now available to download. You can get your free copy here.

There’s a lot of discussion at the moment around measuring short-term outcomes from TV advertising. But there has always been pressure on TV to deliver in the short-term as well as the long-term says Frank Vogel, CEO of Ad Alliance. If marketers weren’t confident in TV’s ability to drive short-term outcomes, it wouldn’t be booked.

Sophie Neary, Managing Director, Retail & Consumer Goods, Google

In this week’s Week in Review: Axel Springer reportedly discussed investing in a US-style European TikTok spinoff, M6 launches a new self-serve platform for SMEs, and Omnicom reports its Q3 earnings.

In this week’s Week in Charts, Paramount/WBD top US TV ad time table, TF1’s Netflix partnership delivers viewership boost, and Publicis outsizes Omnicom.