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.
MMA and BCG’s 2026 CMO Inquiry on AI’s Real Disruption
A survey of about 60 CMOs by MMA and BCG, run May to July 2026, found AI vision scoring near 6 of 10, with governance, talent and workflows near 5. Agentic AI is projected to grow from 7 percent to 27 percent of marketing work, and 75 percent of CMOs say creative agencies cannot yet scale it.
Future of TV Briefing: Inside The Wall Street Journal’s new shows strategy
Wall Street Journal created a new multimedia leadership role and reorganized its audio division to expand content across video and social platforms.
Editor's noteA newsroom reorganising around audio and video rather than text is a bet that attention now lives in feeds, not homepages. Watch whether the multimedia lead reports into editorial or into growth, because that reporting line decides which goal wins when the two disagree.
IAB Europe Appoints Sonia Carreno as next Chief Executive Officer
IAB Europe named Sonia Carreno, longtime IAB Canada president, as incoming chief executive, succeeding Townsend Feehan after her twelve-year tenure leading the European digital advertising trade association.
What a Ticket to the MIXX Awards Europe Ceremony Actually Buys
IAB Europe previews its Mixx Awards Europe ceremony in Amsterdam, detailing what a ticket includes: campaign showcases, networking access, live category winners across 24 disciplines, and cross-market creative comparisons.
Content & Connections - Meet the IAB Europe Team at DMEXCO 2026
IAB Europe will host sessions and a networking reception at DMEXCO 2026 in Cologne, covering retail media, digital advertising investment trends and a new report on AI adoption.
Saatchi & Saatchi Wins Australian Retirement Trust Pitch
An Australian pension fund has moved its account to a new agency, which will now be asked to evolve the brand platform built by the incumbent it has just replaced.
Editor's noteAccount moves matter less than what happens to the idea left behind, and this one comes with an inherited brand platform the new agency has been asked to grow rather than replace. That is the harder of the two briefs, and it is usually the one that decides whether a win lasts.
What Machinima and Gaming Subcultures Tell Us About The Feral Evolution of Creative Instinct
A studio creative argues the industry looks for talent in far too few places, after a visual effects house referenced a montage he had cut as a teenager inside a gaming subculture.
Design on Display at Australian House & Garden's 2026 Top 50 Rooms Awards
An awards night at the Sydney Opera House recognised fifty rooms and the interior design and architecture practices behind them, from a magazine's annual survey of the field.
Shift 20, Bus Stop Films Formalise Partnership with 'The Full Frame'
Two organisations have formalised a partnership giving Australian brands one route to hire deaf, disabled and neurodivergent cast and crew, rather than each advertiser working it out alone.
Jim Ingram and Brad Collett Pick AUNZ's August Work of the Month
Two creative leaders picked their favourite Australian and New Zealand work of the month, drawing from three agencies, in a monthly selection run with the region's creative awards body.
Publicis Groupe NZ Promotes Jayde Hill to GM, People and Culture
A holding company has promoted from within to fill its New Zealand people and culture role, which its regional talent chief presented as evidence the internal bench is deep enough.
Nielsen’s The Ref, But Its CEO Says Buying DV Is About Playing Offense
Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao stated the company plans an acquisition to shift strategy toward offense after traditionally serving as industry referee and measurement provider.
Ad Tech’s Last Neutral Party Just Picked A Side
Publicis Groupe's $2.167 billion acquisition of LiveRamp raises concerns about the company's neutral position in the industry as a connector between competing agencies, brands and platforms for data and identity management.
Editor's noteIdentity infrastructure only works if everyone trusts it, which is why ownership matters more here than price. A holding company now owns the layer its competitors route data through, and the question for every rival agency is not whether Publicis would abuse that, but that they must now ask.
