Or why the ad industry keeps erasing the people who know what they're doing.

This column begins with a conversation I had with Horizon Media's Bill Koenigsberg one month ago -- about a week before news broke that WPP was rebranding GroupM as "WPP Media."

From climate change and economic instability to digital overload and rising distrust in institutions, today's audiences aren't just distracted-they're emotionally saturated. Yet many marketers continue to rely on outdated assumptions: that reach equals resonance, or that a high click-through rate means a message connected. It doesn't.

"We see AI as a transformational tool helping us unlock speed, scale, and smarter decision-making across our organization and in-house agency... What used to take weeks of traditional research and tens of thousands of dollars can now be done in hours, and in many cases, with no external spend. We grew the incremental value of our innovation pipeline by three times."

B2B advertisers remain hesitant to use CTV because of three common misconceptions: that it's too expensive, it's too broad to effectively reach niche audiences, and it isn't measurable.

For all the talk of futures, macro forces, trends and market dynamics, demographics matter most. There are many external factors shaping market conditions, but they are all conditional on demographics. Everything derives from household needs which are themselves rooted in the demographics of household structure.

Remarkably, 8% of ANA members don't even know the difference between principal-based and barter media-buying, demonstrating why advertisers need to be better educated.

After a six-month test of a new flight departure/arrival triggers on digital airport screens, out-of-home giant JCDecaux says the new real-time programmatic ad buys are ready to take off.

As we head into upfront season, there's a reason you're hearing the term "performance media" now more than ever. Data - and the collection of it - has never been more robust.

Thirty years after media sales teams began testing computerized yield optimization, an AI-powered one has emerged. It's called Aida and it's going to charge you higher rates.