Creator-led movies like "Obsession" helped the summer box office break all-time records, and brands are racing to capitalize on their creator partnerships and refine creator media for a wider audience. Experts warn that brands still have lessons to learn. "Stop being afraid of the risk-taking aspect," filmmaker and creator Gray Fagan said at Advertising Week New York, recounting how HBO Max handed control of its social media brands to college interns, including himself, and saw massive success. "They gave us control. They took that risk, and a bunch of brands followed after because we were one of the first on there."
Marketing leaders at Advertising Week New York 2026 took on a shift in advertising at a panel titled "The Other Side of the Screen: Brand-Building through Premium Content." Audiences are moving from linear TV to ad-supported streaming, and the move leaves brands with a central challenge: turning temporary campaign impressions into a lasting cultural presence. Moderated by Chris Fuller Director, financial and consumer services at Amazon Ads, the session featured strategic insights from Jodie Hayes, vice president of integrated investments at Havas Media, and Lauren Anderson, director of the US brand innovation lab at Amazon Ads.
Campaigns should plan alternatives like converged TV and the open web to maintain voter reach.
More scale could aid reach, but audience overlap and a modest CTV ad share limit the upside.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how not to over-engineer your marketing with too much data, what retail media brings to social and creator marketing (and vice versa), and where retail media data can genuinely make marketing better—and where we may be asking too much of it. Tune in for a conversation featuring Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Sarah Marzano, and Vice President of Commerce & Retail Media at the IAB, Collin Colburn.
Some 41% of US ad buyers expect to increase spending on in-person and experiential marketing this year, according to IAB data cited by EMARKETER. As those budgets grow, however, so does the pressure for experiences to accomplish more than drawing a crowd.
Higher monthly expenses are making even affluent consumers scrutinize big-ticket purchases.
Companies put more support behind ad tactics and product platforms that show sales and share-gain promise.
Strong demand for human service is prompting McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King to put employees back at the center of the experience.
Issuers can tap younger shoppers’ appetite for fun with seasonal cash back and flexible rewards.
This is unsurprising as healthcare costs remain a top concern—but national coverage doesn’t guarantee low costs and easy access.
AI enablement roles rose 21% as banks focus less on technical foundations and more on business results.
Frequent errors and lagging trust send consumers elsewhere to verify details, weakening last-touch attribution for marketers.
Agentic buying can help planners navigate streaming inventory, while human oversight protects major media commitments.
Self-service AI can handle more campaign work, making strategy and human creativity key differentiators.
Our roundup of the buzziest conversations happening at one of the ad industry's most important events.
Outcome-specific frameworks can help advertisers compare performance and justify larger investments.
Target and Chase are betting that the future of marketing won’t be purely digital. Instead, physical experiences, from retail stores and bank branches to exclusive events, can become engines for digital content, creator amplification, and consumer connection.
AI-powered search is reshaping how consumers discover products, and it's creating urgent monetization challenges for publishers, browsers, and commerce platforms. Consumers spend an average of at least 23 minutes a day in AI chat platforms, and that time will more than double by 2028, according to industry experts. "Consumers on average spend at least 23 minutes within AI chat today, and that will more than double by 2028," said John Nitti, global chief business officer at adMarketplace, during a panel at Advertising Week New York this week. "Advertising expenditure is actually a two-year lag. So the consumer has always been ahead of marketing."
42% of US retail leaders rank social commerce, like TikTok Shop and Instagram Shopping, among their top two holiday order drivers, edging out the 41% who say the same of their own ecommerce site or app, according to an August report from Narvar and eTail Insights.