#advertising

#advertising

When Pepsi released its 2017 ad featuring Kendall Jenner handing a can of soda to a police officer during a protest, the backlash was immediate and brutal. The ad was meant to convey unity and peace, but it came off as tone-deaf since it seemed to trivialize serious social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, according to .The fact that Kendall Jenner, one of the Kardashians, starred in the ad simply added fuel to the fire.

The broadcaster reported revenues of $773 million and booked a $1 million net loss in the three months that included Kimmel's September suspension, according to Variety, a sudden reversal from the $94 million profit Sinclair posted in the same quarter of 2024. Advertising was the engine of the decline, down 26% to $321 million year-over-year. Political spending largely evaporated with just $6 million this past quarter compared to $138 million a year ago which was, of course, an election year.

Whether DDB truly disappears or just gets renamed into something like Omnicom Global Buzzword Collective, the outcome feels the same. The brand as we knew it (the one that made "lemon so sweet" it became a metaphor for excellence) may be reaching the pantheon of famous names that once defined an industry - until we find some of Bernbach's DNA captured in a mosquito, at least.

OpenAI is reportedly developing a generative music tool. While no release date has been announced, it would allow users to create music for videos or vocal tracks based on text and audio prompts, according to a report in The Information. For founders, marketers, and ad pros, this could mean creating demos for a catchy jingle or moody soundtrack to reflect the voice and tone of their brand in minutes. Think the next "I'm lovin' it" or "Nationwide is on your side."

He doesn't work for an ad agency (he's a motion graphic designer), nor did he have any kind of experience producing ads. What he did have was access to a collection of AI models that could produce text, voiceovers, images and video - all of the key ingredients he'd need in order to cook up a parody of a TV commercial. There wasn't any kind of pay involved with the project; he just wanted to experiment and possibly make his friends laugh.

There are many things that are iconic about Ikea, and the price tag is one of them,

On Wednesday, Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported its first-ever $100 billion quarter. Revenue rose 16 percent to $102.3 billion. Net income jumped 33 percent to $34.98 billion. Those are not the numbers of a company whose main business is being disrupted. It's more like the numbers of a company that's quietly figuring out how to change with the behavior of its users.

By early November, anyone in the U.S. who owns a Family Hub fridge with a 21.5″ or 32″ screen will start seeing the ads, even if they bought the appliance well before the news was announced. Commenters on Reddit and Tiktok are reacting with outraged shock to the concept of their kitchens becoming the next venue for the performance of late-stage capitalism, and for good reason.

Consolidated Revenue -- $102.3 billion, up 16% year over year or 15% in constant currency. Net Income -- $35 billion, a 33% increase, with earnings per share up 35% to $2.87. Operating Income -- $31.2 billion, up 9%; operating margin reached 30.5%, or 33.9% excluding the European Commission fine. Free Cash Flow -- $24.5 billion free cash flow; $73.6 billion for the trailing twelve months, benefiting from recent tax changes on R&D expensing and increased operating cash flow.

Amazon recorded the biggest uplift, rising from 26.5% on September 1 to 33.7% on September 25 - a gain of 7.2 percentage points. The surge followed the company's UK Upfront event, which promoted new advertising formats across Prime Video and its growing retail media network. The e-commerce giant also announced a landmark partnership with Netflix on September 10, allowing advertisers to buy inventory from Netflix's ad-supported tier directly through Amazon's demand-side platform (DSP).

Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) has had a lot to celebrate in 2025, including upcoming final season of popular show Stranger Things and movies Frankenstein and Wake Up Dead Man; the success of international content from Korea, Latin America, and elsewhere; and the introduction of live and interactive content. All this has helped buoy the stock despite economic uncertainty. Shares hit an all-time high of $1,341.15 this summer but have retreated 18.8% since.

"EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter will be pressured by at least as much as it was in the third quarter, given last year's political advertising strength and the same macro pressures we saw in the third quarter."

Snapchat's parent company revealed it was set to change the focus of its London office, saying that the UK's strong creative industries make for a "great place to build a global business'. In a marked departure from a well-worn path employed by rivals like Facebook and Twitter, which have set up shop in other EU countries, Snap Inc announced that all UK ad revenue and sales from countries which had no local salesforce would be billed through a newly-created British entity.

Trump announced on his Truth Social network on Thursday that he had terminated all negotiations with Canada over what he called the fake advertising campaign that he said misrepresented fellow Republican President Reagan. list of 4 itemsend of list Less than 24 hours later, Ontario's Premier Doug Ford said he was suspending the advertisement after talking to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the spiralling row with Washington.

Women are just underserved in being targeted as gamers, generally, from an advertising lens,

We've come a long way in building our advertising business in less than three years. In that time, we've gone from zero members on our ads plan to achieving sufficient scale in all 12 of our ads markets (and we'll continue to grow from here), building out our ad sales and operations teams, and enhancing our capabilities for advertisers including launching our own first party ad tech stack (Netflix Ads Suite).

So many thoughts ... For obvious reasons, I've been reflecting a lot lately on my old constitutional law coursework. As long as the Supreme Court holds that money is speech-and the Supreme Court retains enough legitimacy to be taken seriously-I foresee major free speech issues around restricting advertising. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the court's legitimacy will have a shorter shelf life than its view on the "marketplace of ideas," given how aggressively it's shedding any pretense of respect for precedent.

Tim Higgins: Today on Bold Names, Liz Reid. She oversees Google Search and is something of a Google lifer. Having been there more than 20 years, she has seen some of the biggest moments for this company.