Global advertising technology leader The Trade Desk has announced Deal Desk, a new pillar of its Kokai platform that enables advertisers to manage their strategic one-to-one deals and upfront commitments with publishers. Deal Desk gives both advertisers and publishers transparency and insight into the performance, quality, and pacing of their deals, and showcases premium internet alternatives when deals underperform. Deal Desk leverages advanced AI to help advertisers and publishers understand deal performance, so they can address campaign optimization. Deal Desk will be available for beta testing in Q3 2025.
Blis, a provider of advertising solutions, has announced the launch of Blis AI, a new AI-powered planning tool that turns a brief into qualified audiences ready for omnichannel activation – without relying on identifiers. The product is designed to streamline the most manual, time-consuming part of campaign planning. Using natural language inputs, Blis AI translates a simple campaign brief into up to three ready-to-activate audience recommendations, each based on a dynamically assembled range of audience inputs and backed by transparent rationale. Built into Blis’ existing Audience Explorer platform, the tool draws on the company’s robust location, lifestyle, purchase, and behavioural data to surface audience combinations that are often overlooked in traditional workflows. The release of Blis AI marks the company’s most significant product launch since its acquisition by T-Mobile Advertising Solutions (T-Ads), the advertising division of T-Mobile that now also includes Vistar Media, the leading programmatic out-of-home platform.
New YouGov research shows the majority (95%) of Gen Z wouldn’t describe themselves as ‘impulsive’ when it comes to shopping, with ‘budget conscious’ (25%) and ‘thoughtful and considered’ (20%) coming out top – contradicting the view that they are a generation of shoppers driving fast fashion and frictionless consumption. The research commissioned by Snapchat UK and Portas Agency, explored the shopping habits of 2,000 Gen Z, to help spark change amongst UK retailers facing declining growth. It found Gen Z go through a period of discovery that blends real and online retail experiences – however, when they’re ready, three quarters (76%) want to buy ‘exactly what they want, when they want, as soon as possible’ – a digitally-native generation who’ve grown up with a world ‘on-demand’.
Intuit Inc., the global financial technology platform behind Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, has announced a new suite of tools and integrations designed to help marketers and small- and mid-sized businesses better understand and leverage their customer data. Built on the Intuit platform, these tools leverage AI to segment data and surface actionable insights for the user with higher-quality zero-party data, enhancing the insights they can glean and act on. By automating these tasks, the Intuit platform is powering done-for-you experiences that are saving businesses time and giving them more insights to better run and grow their business.
Spotify is expanding Gen AI Ads to the UK, following the successful launch in the U.S. and Canada. With Gen AI Ads, UK advertisers can now leverage generative AI in Spotify Ads Manager to create scripts and voiceovers at no additional cost, making it easier than ever to create high-quality audio ads at scale. And with Gen AI Ads, advertisers can test as many different creatives as they want, to learn what’s most effective on Spotify. Since launching Gen AI Ads earlier this year, nearly 1,500 advertisers have leveraged the tool to quickly create and launch more than 7K effective and scalable audio ads tailor-made for the Spotify platform.
Nearly half (44%) of subscription brands are offering — or planning to offer — their services as part of a retail bundle like Amazon Prime or Walmart+ this year. That’s according to new research from subscription technology company Bango. The new ‘Gravity Shift’ report, which includes insights from over 200 leaders and executives at top subscription brands, reveals the growth of bundling as a key strategy for acquiring new customers, with many setting their sights on retailers as a way to reach new audiences. Already, 90% of subscription leaders are using or planning to ‘bundle’ their apps and services with others to boost customer acquisition in 2025. Additionally, 82% are planning to increase their spend on these ‘indirect’ channels, with a third expecting to boost spending ‘significantly’.
A new study provides insight into the most effective ways for brands to enhance connected TV (CTV) ad creatives to ensure they deliver on objectives. Commissioned by omnichannel advertising platform Azerion UK and undertaken by creative data provider DAIVID, the research, ‘The Evolution of TV Advertising: Delivering Effective CTV Executions’, is the first to measure outcomes of this nature. The results were showcased at Azerion’s CTV Breakfast Briefing, held to enable CTV industry peers to discuss the current requirements and challenges in the CTV market.
Vistar Media, the leading global provider of technology solutions for out-of-home (OOH) media, today announced the expansion of Vistar Academy to the EMEA region. This milestone brings free, high-quality training and certification programs to marketers, media owners and advertising professionals across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Vistar Academy is an interactive, online learning platform designed to educate and empower all levels of the advertising community. Since its U.S. debut in August 2023, Vistar Academy has drawn nearly 5,000 users and issued over 2,600 certifications—underscoring the strong and growing demand for DOOH education. Vistar Academy is available now and free to access at academy.vistarmedia.com.
A landmark study, ‘The Attention Dividend’, reveals premium large format Digital Out of Home (DOOH) attracts five times more attention than online digital formats. Released by Ocean Outdoor, a premium DOOH media owner, in partnership with Lumen Research, the media attention measurement leader, the findings strongly support new conversations around media strategy.
Kantar, the marketing data and analytics company, will offer qualitative research at quantitative scale, with the launch of Kantar Live in 45 markets. Developed by Kantar’s expert team in China, Kantar Live offers brands access to real-time moderated sessions that combine quantitative polling, qualitative depth, AI-powered analysis and Kantar expertise. Kantar Live complements Kantar’s LINK+ early creative development offer, supporting clients who want to explore and optimise early-stage creative concepts through a real-time, qualitative lens. It is also compatible with Kantar’s ConceptEvaluate and ConceptEvaluate AI innovation tools, helping shape early ideas into concepts and optimising high-potential concepts before further development.
Creative executives Marisa Clifford and Davud Karbassioun have unveiled Magna, a new kind of studio built to lead in a dynamic, platform-agnostic era. Magna emerges from the collision of culture, commerce, and craft, producing standout work across film, documentary, branded and music storytelling backed by a scalable and forward-facing studio infrastructure. The fully scaled studio, which has been quietly operational for over a year, has already delivered global campaigns for brands including Apple, Nike, Beats and Spotify, produced and co-financed its first scripted feature Straight Circle, and announced the production of the much-anticipated official Oasis reunion tour documentary.
Taboola has unveiled DeeperDive, an industry-first Gen AI answer engine designed to live directly on publisher websites and leverage their own content. DeeperDive connects readers with diverse, specialized stories from trusted sources about topics they care about, directly within publisher sites. Some of the largest publishers in the world have joined Taboola as design partners for DeeperDive, including Gannett I USA TODAY Network, and The Independent. DeeperDive not only prompts questions that may be of interest, it delivers a direct response, much like popular Gen AI engines, but it goes a step further. This technology surfaces additional context and stories from the same publisher site, offering users a richer, more valuable view — not just a single, oversimplified answer.
