Media habits keep evolving as digital gains ground faster than traditional declines. Video is absorbing more attention, screens are doing more of the work, and the central battle is for a share of limited consumer time.

The problem: Young adults don’t see value in life insurance beyond its death benefits, as we explore in “US Life Insurance Trends 2025.” That narrow view also means they overlook the value of estate planning—a space where life insurers have a strong presence, per Insurance News Net. Our take: Many life insurers offer estate planning services. But even when they don’t, insurers that encourage current and prospective clients to make estate plans can demonstrate their commitment to their customers’ financial well-being and strengthen the relationship.

The news: Meta announced numerous updates to its messaging ad options, with a heavy focus on WhatsApp. Meta is expanding Ads Manager to include WhatsApp campaigns, centralizing multi-campaign management across its platforms. The feature allows businesses to upload subscriber lists to use Advantage+ to optimize ad budgets or manually choose messages for additional placements. Our take: The ongoing potential for divestiture could have significant implications for advertisers that rely on Meta’s ecosystem—but the new features will still make WhatsApp a more appealing option for those that haven’t considered it as a key ad channel.

US consumers will spend 8.6 hours daily with digital media in 2025. How they divide that time across devices is evolving as video content drives strong growth in connected TV usage.

It's been a year since the messaging app Discord launched its own reward-based ad format called "Quests" for PC and game console users, and they're ready to celebrate its success.

Government missteps turned into a viral ad for privacy, giving Signal a rare shot at user loyalty in a market crowded by data-hungry giants.

Social media success was once defined by public stamps of approval, but now brands are recognizing that in-feed engagement is both an inaccurate and incomplete approach to measuring impact. Reaching consumers within their DMs has emerged as a growing strategy for many marketers.

This week, beauty buyers take action on texts, influencers have indirect influence, and podcast fandoms benefit brands.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how GenAI is changing the customer shopping journey the most, the impact of AI agents, and how to maintain brand messaging in a more conversational universe. Tune in to the episode with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, our Analyst Jacob Bourne, Vice President Suzy Davidkhanian, and Global Digital Commerce Senior Director, Strategy & Execution, Todd Hassenfelt. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

We examine rebranding best practices that bring customers along on the journey.

A lot happens in a week, so every Friday we're going to analyze all the new data and provide you with some of the key takeaways. Welcome to the Friday 5.

This will leave a gap that its competitors can now fill, but they’ll first need to win over its customers.

What will the reaction to Sponsored Snaps be? The new ad type’s first partner is “Wicked,” but users may not like the aggressive format.

How time spent with media, device ownership, and media adoption stacks up in Western Europe.

Our forecast for time spent with media has held relatively steady throughout 2024, but several important milestones are on the horizon.

The average US adult will spend more than 8 hours per day on digital media this year, with about half of that time spent on mobile devices and more than a quarter on CTV.​

On today's tiny "Shark Tank"-style podcast episode, our contestants pitch their most interesting predictions for the rest of 2024 including how AI messaging will change, when Venu Sports will actually launch, and more. Tune in to the discussion with analyst Ross Benes and director of Briefings Jeremy Goldman.

iOS 18 to feature RCS, at long last: Apple's update will boosts cross-platform messaging—and benefit marketers with richer customer interactions.