Media

Brandcast 2026: YouTube doubles down on the creator economy and AI-powered ad formats

The platform unveiled several AI improvements and offerings, including multimodal video creation and Demand Gen.

Mindshare India’s ‘UltraTech Se Poocho’ campaign for UltraTech Cement

WPP Media India agencies dominate at Festival of Media APAC Awards 2026 with 4 Grand Prix wins

Mindshare India won a Grand Prix for both ‘Agency of the Year’, while the broader Mindshare network earned the ‘Agency Network of the Year’ title.

Disney courts emerging brands: Ad sales momentum grows ahead of 2026 upfronts

The entertainment giant is leveraging its self-service platform and biddable sports media to attract independent agencies and brands.

Jindal Stainless appoints Madison Media as its media AOR

The appointment comes as the brand looks to expand its presence in the B2C segment.

Neeraj Thakur takes charge of Outlook India as editor, following Chinki Sinha’s exit

Prachi Khanna is elevated to chief content officer across Outlook India and Outlook Business, while Deepsekhar Chaudhary becomes Outlook Business' managing editor.

Reed Hastings, co-founder, Netflix

Netflix to double ads business, introduce vertical video and lose chairman

The streaming platform has been busy, teasing new ad offerings and introducing a big mobile app update.

The Trade Desk

Stagwell backs The Trade Desk's addition of AI agents to media planning and buying

Network’s backing follows recent pushback from other holdcos.

Three networks pitching for global Adidas account

WPP’s EssenceMediacom is the incumbent on the account.

Google moving AI Max out of Beta

Google to retire Dynamic Search Ads in favour of AI Max

Users of several legacy search tools will be automatically upgraded to AI Max by the end of September.

Omnicom lands IBM's global media account

WPP Media, the incumbent, did not defend the account.

Volkswagen appoints global social media agency

New agency won car brand's business after a multi-stage pitch.

Wipro Consumer Care consolidates media mandate with Wavemaker

The mandate brings all media responsibilities under a single, integrated model, enabling more consistent and cohesive planning and execution.

Haymarket Media unveils HayloARC, a health-focused DSP

HayloARC utilizes first-party HCP data derived from more than 30 medical publications owned by Haymarket Media.

Burda exits Southeast Asia media play with BurdaLuxury sale

The Germany-headquartered company has sold BurdaLuxury to Jaipur Capital as it sharpens its focus on core European markets.

Havas Media Network India bags integrated media mandate for Aakash Educational Services Limited

The mandate will be jointly handled by PivotRoots, the integrated digital agency and Arena Media, both part of Havas Media Network India.

LLM ads raise concerns

AI search is set to become the next walled garden. Marketers are thinking through how this shakes out when it comes to measurement and brand safety risks.

Kiran Mani exits JioStar to lead OpenAI APAC

He is expected to relocate to Singapore, reporting to chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon.

The Trade Desk says Omnicom audits ‘have not identified any issues’

The DSP pushes back on Omnicom’s audit as routine oversight, even as its shares tumble around 7% in intra-day trading.

Ad:tech 2026: Why marketing is at the edge of change

One truth that emerged at the two-day conference is that the marketing's future will be shaped by a powerful interplay between AI-led efficiency and human-led intuition.

In an age of direct buying, what exactly is a DSP still for?

The spat between Publicis and The Trade Desk is an overdue reckoning with misaligned expectations between auditors, agencies and adtech platforms, as direct buying becomes cheaper and easier.

What creatives get wrong about Connected TV

If your creative doesn't respect the living room context, you aren't just underperforming, you are wasting premium inventory.

A TL;DR of The Trade Desk fallout with Dentsu, WPP and Publicis

In the past month, the media buying platform has experienced significant friction with three of the ‘Big 5’ advertising holding companies.

Omnicom Media promotes Ellen Griffin to global brand president

Griffin succeeds George Manas, who has been promoted to chief growth and solutions officer of Omnicom.

Ray-Ban owner consolidates global media duties into Publicis Groupe

WPP Media and Publicis Groupe managed the majority of media duties before the consolidation, Campaign understands.

India holds third spot in WARC Media 100

Mindshare Mumbai’s ‘Beauty Test Stops With Me’ for Dove tops global campaign rankings, signalling India’s rising influence in media-led creativity.

Heineken holds review to “streamline” global creative and media

Campaign understands the media and production review is being run together, and creative is being run separately.

Women have only 29% talk time in movie trailers

The latest edition of the O Womaniya! report shows marginal improvements in front of and behind the camera, while highlighting the road ahead.

WPP Media agencies shift to pitching together

Agency brands EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker are appearing less frequently on pitch lists.

Nvidia and Invideo partner on AI filmmaking pipeline

The two will develop an AI-driven filmmaking workflow designed to support long-form cinematic production and creator ecosystems.

The Advertising Club introduces refreshed brand identity

The association updates its brand identity with Landor, positioning itself as a guiding platform for the marketing industry.

How marketers can stop their brand and budget being buried in AI slop

With forecasts suggesting up to 90% of web content could be AI-generated by 2026, media and fraud experts explain why verification tech alone won’t shield advertisers from the rise of convincing synthetic content.

Google, IAS bust AI ad fraud scheme infecting 25 million devices globally

Built on nearly 500 AI-made sites and 115 Android apps, the ad fraud scheme built a fake web to drain advertiser dollars, IAS said.

India’s shopping journey is moving to WhatsApp: Study

According to a new Meta-RAI whitepaper, 72% of product discovery now happens on the messaging app.

WPP launches new Elevate28 strategy with four core divisions

Agency group will lead with media division in three-year plan after 5.4% revenue slump.

Omnicom and IPG jointly cut headcount by 8200 in 2025

Combined staff numbers fell 6.4% as Omnicom took over IPG.

The Estée Lauder Companies consolidates £500m media account

The cosmetics company has previously worked with Brainlabs in the UK and Ireland, Monks in North America, and Stagwell’s Assembly across Europe and India.

Is commerce, not creativity, now the main engine of ad growth?

WPP Media’s This Year, Next Year report shows ad spends shifting from content-led to commerce and intelligence.

Beyond the boundary board

When brands are investing crores into premium tournaments, visibility cannot remain an assumption. It must become measurable.

Print ad space up 21% since 2021: TAM AdEx

Auto sector leads with 16% share in 2025

Collective and Galleri5 introduce cinema-native AI production system

Launched at the India AI Impact Summit, the platform positions integrated AI infrastructure as the next lever for film production scale.

Perplexity pulls the plug on ads, citing trust concerns for AI

Executives told the Financial Times that ads risk making users 'suspicious of everything'.

JioHotstar partners with OpenAI, launches ChatGPT-branded conversational streaming

Using OpenAI APIs, the voice and text interface will allow users to explore its streaming library through natural language conversations in multiple languages.

Former Spotify India editorial head Aoneha Tagore launches Collabor8

The agency will focus on long-term artist brand building over release-led cycles.

OpenAI kicks off test phase for ChatGPT ads

Omnicom Media confirms more than 30 participating clients amid lingering questions about how the pilot will work.

Balaji Telefilms unveils Hoonur talent management vertical under digital division

New vertical integrates talent management with content and brand partnerships, strengthening Balaji Telefilms’ digital entertainment and marketing ecosystem.

Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post to lay off more than 300 journalists

About 30% of the newsroom will be impacted, with deep cuts to Asia and Middle East coverage.

Publicis partners Decentriq for confidential data to support AI

Tie-up is intended to create better measurement and audience integration, without compromising privacy.

Google criticised after blocking measurement comparing YouTube and TV

YouTube owner sent a 'cease and desist' letter to Barb and Kantar Media.