Celebrities reigned once again in many commercials for the Big Game, including Glen Powell doing his own version of Goldilocks in a spot for Ram Trucks. Two executives at the agency that created the ad, GSD&M’s Kate Rush Sheehy and Chelsea York Vargas, joined The Current Report to share the inside story of the strategy behind the ad.

We’re days away from the Big Game, and with that, watch parties full of snacks. Grocery prices are going up, as everything from bird flu to bad weather are hiking up prices at the highest pace in more than a year. The cost of groceries increased nearly 2% in December compared to the year before, according to the Labor Department. A way to help stem those costs? Discounts and cash-back offers, which is where a company like Ibotta comes in. Over 50 million people use Ibotta to save money in exchange for their purchase data. For marketers, Ibotta unlocks real-time transaction data to connect measurement and campaign performance. The company’s founder and CEO, Bryan Leach, joins The Current Report to discuss the CPG environment and share how marketers can unlock results with big data ahead of the game.

Two years after Tubi's ad during football's Big Game stole the attention of millions, the FAST platform is streaming the game itself. It's an incredible turn of events and another landmark moment in the evolution of live sports streaming. Of course, the game will still be broadcast on Fox, but for the first time ever, the Big Game will be shown for free on a FAST platform. Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano joins The Current Report to share its strategy for marketing the news.

The TikTok party didn’t stop in the U.S. as President Trump signed an executive order to keep it active for 75 days. With the clock ticking, marketers are strategizing their next move in case the social media platform does go dark. Michelle Castillo joins The Current Report to discuss the entire industry's realization that even if a platform seems to be the holy grail of marketing, it’s not worth putting all your budget and efforts behind one thing.

It’s always fun to look back at a big moment and reflect on it with some time and space, as possibilities turn into reality. That’s exactly what VML CEO Jon Cook has done nearly a year and a half after WPP merged VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson into VML. Of course those combined agencies were mergers of their own, with Y&R having roots over 100 years old after launching in 1923. Large agencies mergers have been all around the news lately so The Current's Chris Brooklier spoke with Jon at CES about his reaction to these mergers, plus how AI is being refined and innovating past the 30 second ad on streaming platforms.

Still fresh off the news of Omnicom and IPG merging, all the agencies that work within the holding companies are plugging along. IPG’s Initiative is one of those agencies. It counts Amazon, Nike, Unilever and Nintendo among the brands it serves. Initiative U.S. CEO Stacy DeRiso joined The Current Report at CES to talk about retail media networks' emergence at the conference, maximizing clients' dollars and the agency's approach to awareness and performance called fame and flow.

Ad tech dominated the CES experience again, with ease as a key tenet of conversations across the week. Making the advertising experience easy for brands and agencies is a top priority for Spotify in 2025. The digital audio giant has opened up programmatic capabilities for advertisers of all sizes by testing its own ad exchange. Still, according to WARC, In 2024, audio will account for 24.5% of ad-supported media consumption in the US but just 8.4% of ad spend. Spotify's VP and global head of advertising, Lee Brown, joins The Current Report to break down why that is.

It’s the final episode of The Current Report for the year, so we’re recapping the biggest stories and topics of 2024 – from streaming to potential fallout with both of Google’s antitrust cases, the state of news advertising and the landmark year for podcasting. To help us get a handle on this dramatic year in ad tech who better than Lou Paskalis. Lou has decades of experience in the advertising industry as an executive for American Express, Bank of America and the trade body MMA Global.

The news of Omnicom and IPG merging lit up the advertising world last week. The holding companies had a combined revenue of more than $25 billion in 2023, and merging could make the new-faced Omnicom the largest holding company in the world. Madison and Wall CEO Brian Wieser joins The Current Report to break down the implications, from the increased scale to how AI plays into the deal.

Walmart finalized its $2.3 billion acquisition of VIZIO. And for for Walmart, this deal is clearly about more than selling TVs. Walmart can match its shopping transaction data with Vizio’s data on who’s watching what to make things like ad targeting much more precise. And that’s a big deal for the retailer, as almost a third of its operating income in the last quarter, about 2 billion dollars, came through advertising. This sets up Walmart’s business of the future. Joel Cox, co-founder and EVP of innovation and strategy at media agency Strategus, breaks down this fusing of retail media and streaming on this week's episode of The Current Report. Cox says this deal is bigger than might initially meet the eye because non-endemic advertisers can connect to Walmart and Vizio's data to leverage their strategies.

The landmark adtech trial of the century has now officially come and gone. Google and the Department of Justice wrapped up their cases with closing arguments last week. Next up – a decision in the case from the Judge presiding in the case, Judge Leonie Brinkema. Judge Brinkema said she expects to have a decision by the end of the year, but that could get pushed out to the start of next year. To get a better sense of what the closing arguments were like in person I’m bringing on Jason Kint, who has followed the case closely throughout. Kint is the CEO of Digital Content Next, a trade group for digital content providers.

The Department of Justice is proposing big remedies in the Google antitrust search case, after a landmark ruling in August found Google held a monopoly over search. These remedies could reshape the future of the internet. The headline: the Justice Department wants Google to sell its Chrome browser and share data. Plus it’s leaving the door open for Android to be sold as well. Search advertising accounted for over $49 billion in revenue last quarter in Alphabet’s latest earnings report, 75% of its total ad sales. The DOJ says it aims to level the playing field to correct the search monopoly Google maintains. Google calls the DOJ’s proposal, “unprecedented government overreach.” Ultimately Judge Amit Mehta will rule on the official remedies, which he’s expected to do next summer. There is a lot to talk about with this search case and how it ties into the other Google antitrust trial focused on adtech, where closing arguments begin today. Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at ad watchdog Check My Ads has been following both cases and joins the show to break down her top takeaways and what the future could hold.

The holiday season is fast approaching and Americans are ready to spend. Adults in the US plan to spend an average of $2,100 dollars, up 7% from last year, according to Bank of America’s holiday shopping survey. And six figure earners, those who make between $100,000 and $199,000 a year and say they’re gonna spend more, is up 17% from last year. Here’s a number you might not recognize – small businesses make up 99% of all businesses in the U.S., consistently accounting for around 40% of America’s GDP. How should small businesses be approaching the holiday season marketing wise? Choozle CEO Adam Woods joins The Current Podcast to share how brands and agencies can leverage retail data and omnichannel to power their shopping strategies.

Donald Trump was once again elected as the President of the United States last week, becoming the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to win back the presidency after losing a re-election bid. One tech company is 3 for 3 in successfully predicting who would become the president in the last 3 elections. That company, Resonate, relies on consumer data and intelligence to deliver data-driven insights. So, what’s the secret to its success? Resonate uses AI modeling to analyze 15,000 data points across 250 million profiles. Those data points could include anything from what news sources people read to what streaming services they subscribe to or whether they’re in the market for a car. To dive more into how Resonate made the call, the company’s CEO Bryan Gernert, chief data scientist Daniel Scantlebury and CMO Ericka McCoy joined The Current Report.

On the eve of election day in the U.S, the number of news outlets reporting on the races is continuing to dissipate. A recent report from Northwestern University found 127 newspapers across America closed down in 2023, leaving nearly 55 million Americans with limited or no access to local news. This continues the expanding trend of news deserts we’ve seen over the years, as now more than half of counties in the U.S. have one or zero local news outlets. Still, the report finds there is some room for optimism. 81 standalone digital local news sites opened in 2023, increasing the total number of those sites to 740. A persistent challenge for news publishers has been capturing advertisers dollars. Multiple recent studies are hoping to turn that tide, showing it’s safe and valuable to advertise alongside news coverage. The latest success story comes up north in Canada, where Dentsu found some big time results for the effectiveness of local news. The holding company's VP of performance and platforms, Fil Lourenco, shared those results with me during our conversation.

More and more, brands are under pressure to figure out if they should attach to cultural or social issues, or stay out of those issues all together. Some of that pressure comes from consumers themselves. A recent survey from sustainability consultant BSR and Morning Consult found that U.S. consumers are four times more likely to say companies need to do more to promote social justice. There are examples of brands successfully leaning into so called 'corporate social responsibility', but also examples that resulted in backlash, like Bud Light’s campaign from last year. Ben Grossman, CEO of the ad agency Doner, says it all comes down to a brand being in sync with the culture in an authentic way. With many of Doner biggest campaigns being mission driven…he’s got a lot of credibility. On this week’s episode, Grossman explained why it’s all about a brand connecting with a story and not just a message.

More non-traditional advertising companies have entered the ad game recently with their own media networks, from Uber to United Airlines leveraging their deep amounts of consumer data. Now PayPal is the latest entrant, led by the architect of Uber’s ad business Mark Grether. With over a trillion dollars of digital transactions running through PayPal every year, 400 million active accounts, and 35 million merchants on the platform, Grether believes this 360° view differentiates PayPal from the rest of the retail media network market. Grether joined The Current Report to talk about why the moment is right for PayPal Ads to launch and lessons he’s bringing over from Uber.

Upfront deals are now being activated now that the fall season is underway – the traditional moment when TV networks launch their prime shows. But as we’ve seen in recent years, streaming platforms and companies have become an emerging force in the upfronts market. One of the main players in the streaming market is Roku, which has seen big growth in revenue recently. The company’s overall revenue was up 14% year over year, according to its latest earnings report. On this episode of The Current Report, Jay Askinasi, Roku's SVP, Head of Global Media Revenue and Growth, breaks down how how much importance the upfronts have now. Plus he dives into Roku's success airing MLB games, the DirecTV and DISH merger and consolidation in the streaming and traditional TV market.

The Current is on the ground at Advertising Week in New York, speaking to top-level marketers about the industry's biggest topics, from the future of streaming to retail media networks and potential impending fallout from the Google antitrust adtech trial. On this episode of The Current Report, UM Worldwide's chief product officer Andy Littlewood breaks down why he thinks AI is advancing past being simply a buzzword, moving into an age of intelligence, how the definition of being a large agency has changed today and what keeps him up at night.

Now that the Google antitrust trial focused around digital advertising has ended, the next move will be the Department of Justice and Google coming back to the courtroom November 25 for closing arguments. Marketecture's Ari Paparo, who has covered the entire trial, dives into what he thought of Google's defense, what the ruling might be and what the next steps could be for the digital advertising industry.