Advertising & PR
Where the money goes, who moves it, and what happens when a brand’s story gets away from it.
Advertising and PR follows the spend and the reputation it buys. Ad budgets and media buying, agency news, programmatic, and crisis and reputation are the beats, and the Funny lane keeps the campaigns that earned a laugh. Three stories each weekday at 11, summarised in our own words with a link to the publisher who broke them. We choose for the reader who plans, buys or defends: the head of media watching a platform change its rules, the agency lead deciding which team owns a new channel, the communications director reading someone else’s crisis for the lesson. Under the day’s lead the editor’s note explains the choice and names the thing to watch. Sponsors and advertisers on The First Click are disclosed on every story they touch and have no say in this page.
Every story we have kept in Advertising & PR, newest first. Headlines link to the publisher; the tags below narrow the list.
Amazon wants to own the long game in ad measurement
Amazon reviewed over two million June ad campaigns and estimates that about one-fifth of the value brands generate appears only after the usual seven-to-thirty-day attribution cutoff, using the result to promote year-long measurement.
Editor's noteAmazon's estimate of 20% of sales value appearing after the usual attribution cutoff is a demonstration of the limitations of short-term ad measurement, not a revelation of Amazon's hidden value. Watch the impact on ad spend when Amazon's year-long measurement becomes the industry standard, and whether brands are willing to pay for the privilege of counting delayed sales.
At its flagship unBoxed conference, Amazon Ads collapses buying silos as AI takes a bigger role in media decisions
Amazon Ads used its September 29 San Francisco conference to introduce Full-Funnel Campaigns, spanning sponsored listings, display advertising, video, and streaming television in one buy, and rebranded its unified platform as Amazon Ads Agent. Analysts urge caution given government auction allegations.
Media Buying Briefing: Stagwell’s chief AI officer explains why Palantir differentiates its data platform from competitors
Stagwell's chief AI officer John Kahan detailed how the holding company's Palantir-built data platform differs from rivals by staying platform-agnostic and using differential privacy to protect consumer information while preserving data utility for advertisers.
Agentic Ad Buying Gains Ground: IAB Europe Report Finds Over Half of Industry Expect Operational Scale Within a Year
IAB Europe finds 86% of digital advertising organisations now deploy AI, with nearly 60% raising investment and 78% building formal governance around it.
Retail Media in Europe: €32.7 billion by 2030, built on the strongest intent in digital
IAB Europe projects European retail media spend doubling to 32.7 billion euros by 2030, with AI-powered ads rising from 6% of the mix to nearly a quarter.
The case for and against retail media networks as brand-building channels
A trade analysis weighs whether retail media networks can build brands beyond conversion advertising, citing first-party purchase data and closed-loop measurement against high testing costs and shopper-team budgets focused on performance.
Why WPP isn’t the biggest casualty in the PepsiCo-Coca-Cola-Publicis shuffle
Publicis won PepsiCo's global media account while exiting the Coca-Cola pitch, which WPP then secured; analysts say the shakeup exposes deeper turnaround risks at WPP.
Channel 4 Sales to become exclusive partner for Paramount in UK
From 2027, Channel 4 Sales becomes exclusive UK advertising partner for Paramount's Channel 5 portfolio and pay-TV channels, taking over a 300 million pound contract previously held by Sky.
Editor's noteContract moves rarely lead a section, but this one redraws where a large share of British television money is sold. A broadcaster now sells a rival's inventory alongside its own, taking the business off Sky, and every media buyer's negotiating position for 2027 changes with it.
ChatGPT Ads are a tactical bet, not a platform strategy
OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads face plateaued user growth and heavy overlap with Google's audience; the company forecasts 100 billion dollars from ads by 2030 versus 180 billion from B2B products.
Why Qatar's F&B brands are outgrowing generalist PR agencies
Rachel Morris launched Morris Communications, Qatar's first PR agency dedicated to food, beverage and hospitality brands, arguing generalist agencies move too slowly for the sector.
Editor's noteSpecialist agencies appear when a sector's volume justifies one, so the launch is a market signal as much as a business story. The claim underneath it, that generalists move too slowly for food and hospitality, is a pitch, but it is a testable one.
Bring more of the leader into leadership storytelling
Brunswick's Jenny Westfall says leaders should choose storytelling formats matching their personality, citing a personal video series that outperformed other internal communication channels.
Future of TV Briefing: How strong are the fundamentals of the creator economy, really?
Digiday's Future of TV briefing examines signs the creator economy is cooling, citing data that half of marketers mispriced influencer fees and many now believe they overpaid.
Late Night Cravings Spark Wild Encounters for DoorDash Canada
DoorDash Canada and agency Hard Work Club released two surreal late-night films directed by Nick Ball, dramatizing delivery drivers' odd nocturnal encounters for the Nighttime's a Trip campaign.
Silverpush Partners with Happydemics to Measure Contextual Advertising Against Brand Performance
Contextual advertising firm Silverpush partnered with Happydemics to independently validate brand-lift outcomes, reporting early campaign results showing brand-image gains of 120% versus a 44% benchmark.
CARAVAN Signs with Little Bird
Charlotte-based production company CARAVAN, known for Nike and Meta campaigns, joined Becca Falborn's Little Bird roster for East Coast representation, expanding the two-year-old agency's production network.
Editor's noteRepresentation moves are trade news, and this one leads because of what it says about where production work is being won. A shop with Nike and Meta credits choosing a two-year-old agency for East Coast coverage is a bet on relationships over scale.
3 steps for building a stakeholder map
Providence Health communications chief Alan Shoebridge outlined a three-step framework for building stakeholder maps, covering identification, one-on-one assessment and regular updates during annual planning.
The Telegraph’s next podcast play: video, events and paid memberships
The Telegraph, now owned by Axel Springer, is expanding podcasts into video, live events and planned paid memberships after audience grew 161% and homepage video views more than tripled.
Following Meta’s $17 Billion Settlement, Media Buyers Say: Don’t Touch That Dial
Media buyers expect Meta’s landmark teen-safety settlement to reshape digital advertising and platform practices, as new restrictions on teen engagement, notifications, and usage set precedents likely to influence social-media companies, regulators, and marketers.
USA Today Co. is reformatting content to attract more AI licensing deals
USA Today Co. is restructuring web content into machine-readable formats to win AI licensing deals and visibility in answer engines, while continuing to block most unlicensed AI crawlers by default.
Dentsu expands and consolidates its commerce and retail media offering under new leadership
Dentsu reorganized its commerce and retail media unit under new brand-side hires, consolidating shopper marketing and media into one offering as US commerce media spend grew 25% year over year.
Australian OOH Industry Reports 6.5% Revenue Growth as Digital Share Expands
Australia’s out-of-home advertising sector reported first-half revenue of A$744.1 million, up 6.5% year over year. Digital formats generated 77.1% of income, highlighting continued growth driven by technology, measurement improvements, and expanding industry participation.
Editor's noteA category still counting on digital's takeover to carry growth reads differently once digital already accounts for three of every four dollars spent. Once that expansion is the baseline rather than the story, the real question becomes what keeps the category growing when the easy conversion is already finished.
Programmatic Gets An Agentic Brain
Butler/Till and PubMatic ran a fully autonomous, Claude-driven CTV campaign that cut supply-chain costs 80% and lifted impressions 40%, as agentic AI begins replacing manual DSP workflows in programmatic buying.
Editor's noteAutonomous media buying has been promised for years and demonstrated rarely. This is a run with numbers attached: an eighty percent cut in supply-chain cost and forty percent more impressions, which makes it evidence rather than a vendor claim, whatever one thinks of the sample size.
WPP files to seal Foster complaint, arguing allegations ‘immaterial’ to case
WPP asked a New York court to seal parts of Richard Foster's amended $100m whistleblower complaint, arguing details of a Sony rebate probe are confidential and immaterial, ahead of a planned motion to dismiss.
Westin Hotels and Resorts Reclaims Sleep as Power in 'Own Your Mornings'
Westin Hotels and BBH Singapore launched “Own Your Mornings,” repositioning sleep as a source of power rather than passive rest, spanning film, OOH, and print across Asia Pacific markets including Japan and India.
How India’s Iconic Transparent Soap Bar Is Proving It Has ‘Nothing to Hide’
TBWA\Lintas built a campaign for Pears soap around its 200-year-old transparent bar, filming the factory process to position the brand's literal transparency as proof of quality and ingredient honesty.
Gummy Brands Fight It Out for Their Place on the Shelf
Gummy supplement brands are intensifying shelf competition as the category, projected to reach $40 billion by 2031, shifts marketing toward skincare-style rituals and daily habit-building rather than basic health claims.
By the numbers: Wall Street’s tough assessment of ad tech
Wall Street has negatively assessed publicly traded ad tech companies despite digital advertising market growth. AppLovin and Trade Desk experienced significant stock declines following Q2 earnings reports.
Walmart’s Wall: Will The Vibe Deal Make It Meta, Or Another AOL?
Walmart's acquisition of Vibe positions the retailer as a potential walled-garden advertising platform, raising questions about whether it will achieve Meta-like success or face AOL-like obsolescence in the digital marketplace.
Editor's noteThe Meta-or-AOL framing is the right question, and nobody in retail media is asking it out loud. Walmart has the first-party data and the shelf; what it lacks is the daily habit that makes a walled garden worth walling. This ran because that gap is the whole bet. Watch the ad-load numbers, not the deal terms.
Hinge is getting into audiobooks now
Dating app Hinge released its first audiobook featuring authors writing about real couples who met on the platform. The audiobook expands the company's No Ordinary Love marketing campaign centered on authentic relationship narratives.
Editor's noteA dating app publishing an audiobook sounds like a stunt until you notice what it does: it turns testimonials into a format people give hours to. That is why it ran in Advertising & PR rather than as a curiosity. The measure to watch is whether the campaign line survives outside the audiobook.
Netflix, get that man out of your billboard
Netflix's live-action billboard advertisement for The Last House has sparked public attention and discussion about the emerging trend of interactive, real-world promotional campaigns from streaming platforms.
Editor's noteA man living on a billboard is a stunt, and stunts usually earn a mention rather than a lead. This one led because streamers are moving promotion into physical space at exactly the moment digital attention is costing more. Watch how many of these get measured properly rather than counted in press coverage.
Lollapalooza 2026 Photo Tour: 10 Experiences from Chicago’s Grant Park
Lollapalooza 2026 attracted nearly 400,000 fans to Chicago's Grant Park despite rain and flooding. More than 45 partner brands created festival activations including Bacardí, Chase, Coca-Cola, Listerine, Motorola, Neutrogena, and others.
