Classroom cell phone bans are spreading fast, reshaping how teens use social media and when advertisers can reach them. The trend is shrinking opportunities to engage young audiences.

Social networks still command attention, but time spent growth is slowing. As video reaches its limits and scrutiny intensifies on multiple fronts, platforms are chasing new ways to keep users engaged.

TikTok’s influence across Western Europe keeps expanding, but its biggest opportunities vary by market. This report explores where user growth, advertising, and social commerce are accelerating.

Media consumption is climbing again after years of slower growth, thanks partly to genAI. New forecasts reveal how AI, streaming video, live sports, and converged TV are reshaping how US adults spend their time—and driving more screen time in the process.

Meta’s spotlights AI at Cannes: The company is leveraging its scale to advance automated ads, but marketers still need strong creative and clear guardrails.

Canada’s social media audience is spreading across a wider mix of networks. Generational differences are reshaping where brands find reach, relevance, and momentum.

Cyclical political ad spending is surging again, and midterms are no longer much of a step down from presidential cycles. Broadcast TV still dominates campaigns, but CTV is reshaping political advertising faster than any other channel.

Influencers and content creators in China and India have a larger impact on the shopper journey than those in Western markets. But their influence varies across Asia-Pacific markets, with Japan and Australia aligning more closely with Western norms.

This is the latest installment of our “UK Ad Spending Benchmarks” series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.​

X rebuilds its ad core: A ground-up AI overhaul aims to fix targeting and ROI as revenues lag far behind pre-Musk levels.

Real-time payments are growing quickly, but adoption lags due to cost, risk, and entrenched behaviors. Providers must focus on high-friction use cases and cash-flow benefits as competition from alternative rails intensifies.

FTC restrains holdcos: Publicis, WPP, and Dentsu must end uniform brand safety rules as regulators probe political bias in ad buying.

An FTC review of Publicis, WPP, and Dentsu spotlights political risk in ad placements and brand safety policies.

Social platforms want a bigger role in search ad budgets, but user habits lag behind. As search expands beyond traditional engines, these platforms must turn occasional behavior into intent-driven activity to grab ad dollars.

AI is reshaping brand safety by amplifying risks around placement, accuracy, and authenticity while offering new tools to control them. As automation scales, marketers face a growing tradeoff between performance gains and trust.

LinkedIn tops B2B campaign results, posting 121% ROAS—outpacing Google and Meta and capturing 41% of paid social budgets.