Advertising in Five

Jon Cook to exit VML after three decades. WPP says its global CEO of VML will hand over to Eric Campbell in March 2027, putting its largest creative network under new leadership. (Mumbrella, Mediaweek, More About Advertising)

Google and DOJ file ad tech remedy proposals. The rival filings set the outer bounds of what the court could order, from conduct rules to divesting Google's exchange, the first concrete read for agencies and publishers. (AdExchanger)

Midterm political spending projected at $11.6 billion. Digiday reports a record political ad outlay this cycle, competing with brand advertisers for the same local and connected-TV inventory through November. (Digiday)

TikTok plans to sell ad inventory off-platform. Digiday reports TikTok wants a larger share of media budgets by selling inventory beyond its own app, which would set it against Google's and Meta's off-platform networks. (Digiday, Marketing Dive, Adweek)

Also moving today:

Digiday Media Agency Report 2026: How agencies adapt to a media landscape shaped by AI and creators (Digiday, Digiday)

‘We’re all going to live with uncertainty forever’: Advertising Week New York opens amid industry rebuild (Digiday)

Dentsu and incumbent Wavemaker among finalists in Pernod Ricard India's media agency review for its over Rs 800 crore account (storyboard18.com)

Future of Marketing Briefing: Agency fees in creator deals are the next transparency headache for marketers (Digiday)

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The Trade Desk Can't Serve Safari Ads On iOS 27. AdExchanger reports The Trade Desk is unable to deliver ads to Safari on Apple's iOS 27, leaving buyers with delivery gaps on updated devices. (AdExchanger)

Advertising Week Reweights Agenda Toward Creators. Marketing Dive reports Advertising Week is leaning into creator topics and a reported $100 million bid in creator deals to stand out in a crowded events calendar. (Marketing Dive)

Paramount Skydance And Warner Bros. Discovery Name Merger Closing Date. The two companies announced an anticipated closing date for their merger, which would consolidate CBS, Paramount+, HBO Max, CNN and the Warner cable networks under one seller. (Paramount Skydance)

Agencies Argue Against Owning Agentic AI Tools Or Client Data. AdExchanger reports agencies building custom agentic AI tools for brand clients say they should own neither the tools nor the underlying data, reframing years of tech-stack competition. (AdExchanger)

Also moving today:

Mark Penn: 'We're it in terms of a fourth alternative' (The Media Leader - News analysis, opinion and insight for media and advertising professionals)

Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré on principal media buying, Uncommon's freedom and his role in new biz (Campaign India)

CMOs must rethink entry-level talent as AI alters marketing needs: Gartner (Marketing Dive)

Cava hires Dr. Squatch marketer as CMO to build on growth (Marketing Dive)

Sindhuja Rai to leave WPP Media (Campaign India)

Amazon wants to own the long game in ad measurement (Digiday, Digiday)

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Salesforce to acquire AI research platform Listen Labs. Salesforce signed a definitive agreement for the San Francisco customer-research platform in a deal reported at about $2 billion, putting a price on qualitative insight as an input to AI agents. (Tech Times, Research Live, Market Screener)

BBDO New York CEO and chief creative officer to depart. Adweek reports Emma Armstrong and Michael Aimette are leaving BBDO New York, the first senior network exits clients can tie to the Omnicom-IPG combination. (Adweek)

Omnicom shifts more global ad production to India. Mint reports Omnicom Production is scaling content work in India as AI lowers production costs, a staffing and margin choice rivals will be asked about. (mint)

WPP Australia and NZ revenue down $60m on account losses. Filings with Australia's corporate regulator put a figure on creative account churn at WPP's local agencies, per Mumbrella. (Mumbrella)

Also moving today:

WPP Media appoints Laura Ryan as Chief Media Officer (storyboard18.com, Indian Television Dot Com, More About Advertising)

Horizon's Bob Lord Takes Aim at Holdcos' FTE Pricing Models: 'It's the Old System' (Adweek)

The Rundown: Average CMO tenure has shrunk by over a third in 16 years (Digiday)

Dentsu is making a big Hollywood bet with 'Angry Birds 3' -- and beyond (Business Insider)

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Court unseals behavioral remedies in Google ad tech case. The court's remedies leave Google's ad stack intact, so buyers and publishers plan around the same pipes, with trade press reporting publishers see narrower relief than they sought. (AdExchanger, Digiday, Digiday)

Investing.com: digital spend rose as agency growth flattened. A sector outlook puts 2025 digital ad spend up roughly 8.7% while holding-company revenue growth neared zero, splitting Publicis, WPP and Omnicom, IPG into different responses. (Investing.com)

OpenAI extends ChatGPT Ads to seven more Asia-Pacific markets. Ads begin rolling out in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan, adding inventory regional buyers have not yet had to plan for. (openai.com)

Opinion: closed reviews could let planning charge for itself. The Media Leader argues that if closed reviews replace open pitches, media planning work now given away free could be priced as a separate line. (The Media Leader - News analysis, opinion and insight for media and advertising professionals)

Also moving today:

HubSpot Launches New Breeze Assistant, Self-Updating Smart CRM, And Marketing Studio In Major AI Platform Expansion (Pulse 2.0, SiliconANGLE, TechTarget)

YouTube and Meta reverse ad restrictions on Elon Musk documentary (Indian Television Dot Com, The Times of India)

Subway skewers modern dining landscape with Will Arnett-led creative (Marketing Dive)

Omnicom and Snapchat study finds humour shapes Gen Z brand choices (Indian Television Dot Com, storyboard18.com)

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WPP in line for Coca-Cola international media account. Campaign India reports WPP is set to win Coca-Cola's international media, data and technology business, the largest media account in play this quarter, and still unannounced. (Campaign India)

WPP finance chief Jennifer Wilson departs for Diageo. More About Advertising reports WPP CFO Jennifer Wilson is leaving after three years to join Diageo, removing an ally of CEO Cindy Rose during the group's restructuring. (More About Advertising)

Platforms decline paid ads for Musk documentary, report says. The Hollywood Reporter says YouTube, TikTok and Meta's platforms have rejected paid placements for Alex Gibney's Elon Musk documentary, raising questions about how ad policy is applied to public-figure films. (The Hollywood Reporter, Breitbart, Al Bawaba)

Isle of Any takes four top honours at D&AD 2026. More About Advertising reports the one-year-old New York independent won two Black Pencils and two Agency of the Year titles, a showing that puts a founder-led shop atop holdco creative departments. (More About Advertising)

Also moving today:

Dave & Buster’s Hires New Agencies to Get More People Into Its Locations (Adweek, CNHI News)

The Trade Desk, Worried Stock Slide Could ‘Substantially Harm’ Retention, Moves to Reprice Employee Options (Adweek)

Meta, ByteDance, Google capture 44% of APAC's net ad spend in 2026: MPA (storyboard18.com)

Marketers bemoan the culture of ‘good enough’ as standards fall amid the AI bubble (Digiday)

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WPP Wins Nestlé Greater China Content Assignment. MediaPost reports WPP took the assignment after a multi-agency pitch, built around an AI-powered "spoke-and-hub" setup that folds five disciplines into one team. (MediaPost)

WPP Opens 34,000 Sq Ft East London Production Hub. Trade reports say WPP's Devon's Point site is built to scale creator-led and AI-assisted marketing, with the company citing its own research on earned influence as the rationale. (pressportal.co.za, Bizcommunity.com, Campaign Brief Asia)

Agency AI Bills Mix Subscriptions And Token Usage. Digiday reports agencies now face AI cost structures combining flat fees with metered per-token usage, reopening questions about scoping and who pays. (Digiday)

Omnicom Media Reports $3.3 Billion In First-Half Billings. The Omnicom division says it booked $3.3 billion in new billings for the first half of 2026, citing COMvergence data, a self-reported figure drawn from an independent tally. (Yahoo! Finance)

Also moving today:

Talent firm 24 Seven consolidates the new business efforts of its three concentric agencies (Digiday)

Target’s new campaign puts design legacy at center of marketing (Marketing Dive)

What The New York Times looks for in AI licensing partnerships (Digiday)

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Publicis Media Leads First-Half New Business, COMvergence Says. Agency research firm COMvergence puts Publicis Media first with $3.24 billion in global net new-business billings for the first half of 2026, the mid-year scoreboard agencies and clients read for account movement. (MediaPost)

Analyst Says Advertisers Are Buying Publicis-Owned Supply. Writing in The Media Leader, Nick Manning reports advertisers encountering Publicis-owned inventory inside their own buys, raising the question of how a marketer audits supply its agency both sells and recommends. (The Media Leader - News analysis, opinion and insight for media and advertising professionals)

Adweek: AI Adoption Outpaces Integration on Creative Teams. Adweek reports that near-universal AI tool use among marketers has not translated into true workflow integration, putting training and process, not software purchases, next in line for creative-department budgets. (Adweek)

Geico's New CMO Extends Gecko Beyond TV Commercials. Variety reports Geico's animated mascot has moved into podcasts and entertainment under a new chief marketing officer, testing branded-character IP as owned media for a heavy television advertiser. (Variety)

Also moving today:

Officeworks set to move media account from Initiative to PHD (Mumbrella)

FP7 McCann, MullenLowe to merge after Omnicom acquisition (Arab News)

Power Digital Acquires pirawna and uptickk, Accelerating End-to-End Commerce Strategy (Yahoo! Finance)

Dentsu India launches Dentsu Performance Studio in Bengaluru (Indian Television Dot Com, storyboard18.com, afaqs!)

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Publicis Media leads H1 2026 new-business billings. COMvergence puts Publicis Media first on net new-business billings at $3.24 billion for the first half of 2026, the benchmark agencies and marketers use to read account momentum. (MediaPost, The Media Leader - News analysis, opinion and insight for media and advertising professionals, Market Screener)

Digiday: WPP favored to hold Coca-Cola global media. Digiday reports WPP is positioned to retain Coca-Cola's global media account while Omnicom and Dentsu compete for the North American assignment. (Digiday, Digiday)

FP7 McCann and MullenLowe MENA merge into McCann MENA. Mounir Harfouche is named CEO of the combined McCann MENA, the first named regional structure to emerge from Omnicom's acquisition of Interpublic. (Campaign Brief Asia)

Unsealed OpenAI filings allege paywall circumvention, Digiday reports. Publishers' counsel say newly unsealed material in the OpenAI, New York Times case could narrow the fair-use defense AI companies have relied on in licensing talks. (Digiday)

Also moving today:

Foster Files Motion Opposing WPP's Summary Dismissal Request (MediaPost)

India media agency pitches worth $838 million in H1 2026; Wavemaker, Publicis Media lead rankings (storyboard18.com)

Accenture Song signals US media ambitions with exec appointment (Marketing Dive)

Pinterest unveils new suite of ad tools, including Visual Search Ads, in its pitch to brands (Digiday)

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OpenAI adds conversational sponsored agents to ChatGPT ads. OpenAI says brands can now hand ChatGPT users to their own AI agent inside the chat, creating an ad format buyers must weigh against search and social. (TechRepublic)

Digiday reports Publicis winning accounts without competitive pitches. Digiday examines a run of Publicis account wins landing outside formal reviews, raising questions about what competitive pitches cost clients and agencies. (Digiday)

Converse apologizes for ads critics said evoked lynching imagery. Converse has apologized after social media users said two ads recalled Klan symbolism, putting creative pre-release review back in focus for brand teams. (Adweek)

LIONS adds regional platforms in North America, APAC and MENA. The Cannes Lions operator says it is extending into connected regional platforms, a change agencies will weigh for awards budgets and calendars. (Conference & Meetings World | Global MICE Industry News from CMW)

Also moving today:

In Graphic Detail: Inside the scramble to measure a brand's AI visibility (Digiday)

HBO MAX’s Reddit Account Was Compromised And Used For Ad Fraud (AdExchanger)

Creator content preferred in AI recommendations: Here’s what the numbers say (Marketing Dive)

Wpromote x Giant Spoon Hires Former Publicis SVP Kendra Mazey as Managing Director (Adweek)

ADWEEK’s Brandweek Moves to Texas in 2027 (Adweek)

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Dentsu expands Netflix media mandate across 22 EMEA markets. Dentsu says it is now Netflix's sole holding-company media partner in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, consolidating a growing ad-tier account under one network. (Brand Spur)

Report alleges agencies still earn heavily from fossil-fuel clients. A new report names Omnicom and WPP networks among agencies allegedly taking hundreds of millions of pounds from fossil-fuel clients, figures the groups have not confirmed. (decisionmarketing.co.uk, MediaPost, Yahoo)

Coca-Cola CMO sets out criteria for next agency appointment. Manolo Arroyo told Brandweek creator and retail-media capabilities will weigh heavily, a signal of what a pending review will test. (Adweek)

Digiday: WPP not the biggest loser in Coke-Pepsi shuffle. An analysis argues the PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Publicis realignment leaves other networks and independents more exposed than WPP. (Digiday, Digiday)

Also moving today:

The Court Just Unsealed Judge Brinkema’s Remedies Decision In The Google Ad Tech Antitrust Case. Here’s Your TL;DR (AdExchanger)

Meta streamlines creator, brand tie-ups with new marketing hub (Marketing Dive)

Target hires ex-Hilton CMO as chief marketing and guest experience officer (Marketing Dive)

Saudi Arabia Announces Riyadh Lions Festival And New Regional Platform (UrduPoint)

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