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Marketing Brew

Ryan Barwick

marketingbrew.com

A gif showing a computer with "news" on it

Audiences say advertisers shouldn’t avoid hard news, like war or Covid

46% said “all high-quality journalism should be appropriate for ads,” according to a recent survey.

Why some in the ad-tech industry are turning to this web crawler to help untangle digital advertising

“So much of ad tech is not written, not defined,” Mike O’Sullivan, Sincera’s co-founder, told us.

a computer featuring two hands touching, each with wires behind them

How Google is trying to help advertisers and publishers link data

PAIR is just one way it’s working to replace the third-party cookie.

How Google is trying to help advertisers and publishers link their data

Your ad here signs next to pipes shaped like a dollar bill sign with programmatic, publishers, and fees text written on them

Ad Tech

Morning Brew Creative Studio

Life presents millions of little choices each day: what to grab at the grocery store, how to tackle that growing to-do list, which movie to unwind with after work. But when life's big moments arrive—like graduating college, buying that first home, or welcoming a tiny new family member—these everyday decisions suddenly carry new weight.

These milestone moments completely transform the way people shop. Instead of reaching for that familiar laundry detergent, new parents find themselves diving deep into research about baby-safe options. Rather than grabbing the usual cleaning supplies, first-time homeowners seek out products worthy of their dream space. It's more than just daily routines getting a makeover—it's an entire shift in how people connect with and choose their brands.

The numbers back this up: Amazon Ads partnered with market research firm Alter Agents on 

 research, which reports that 68% of consumers say life events directly influence their spending habits, and 6 in 10 people saying they dedicate more time to product research during these transitions. These aren't just temporary changes either. The brand relationships formed during these pivotal moments often last long after the initial milestone, creating unique opportunities for brands to build lasting loyalty by meeting consumers' evolving needs.

From the minute a family knows a baby is on the way, it's go time. There are cribs to buy, diapers to stock up on, baby care products to research, and so much more. Amazon Ads 

 research also reports that nearly half of consumers say they're more likely to compare brands during big life events, and expectant parents are no exception.

Why? Their priorities shift dramatically. Compared to other life events, expectant families are 53% more likely to prioritize physical health, 48% more likely to prioritize family time, and 23% more likely to take on more responsibility. This mindset shift, combined with being 28% more likely to increase their spending, leaves consumers reevaluating their brand choices.

Amazon Ads can help brands reach more than 80% of baby product shoppers in the U.S. during this crucial consideration phase.

 But connecting with expectant parents isn’t just about being there during shopping moments — it’s also about reaching this audience as their media consumption increases and their patterns evolve:

This shift in media habits creates opportunities throughout the consumer journey—from building awareness during evening TV streaming to driving conversion when parents-to-be are actively researching products. While expectant parents show these distinct patterns in media consumption and purchasing behavior, changes in habits are common across many major life milestones.

Life milestones often overlap and intersect. Many consumers navigate multiple transitions simultaneously—welcoming a new baby while moving into a larger home, for instance. For brands, these moments of change represent prime opportunities to reach new customers who are actively reevaluating their product choices.

Homebuyers show a clear desire for expert guidance, being 20% more likely to seek professional opinions during their purchase journey. They’re also more engaged with media, showing a 21% increase in streaming TV consumption and a 17% increase in both music and livestreaming.

This is a great opportunity for brands to drive awareness during these transitions. Success means partnering with industry experts while leveraging expert reviews, Q&A forums, and professional endorsements. To effectively connect with these consumers, brands need to deliver the right message at the right time across today’s diverse media channels. Amazon Ads connects with 86% of household shoppers,

 enabling brands to orchestrate tailored campaigns that resonate at specific moving milestones—precisely when consumers are establishing the product preferences that will define their household for years to come.

To help brands better serve consumers during these milestones, Amazon Ads can help brands reach specific audiences through its demand-side platform (DSP) for consumers experiencing major life events—whether they're expecting a child, buying a first home, or starting a new job. These audience segments are powered by Amazon's trillions of unique shopping, browsing, and streaming signals, enabling advertisers to create meaningful connections with consumers at the right moments.

Brands can reach these audiences across Amazon's extensive media network—from Amazon.com to IMDb, Prime Video, and Twitch, plus devices like Alexa—and beyond thanks to Amazon's third-party supply.

In today's dynamic environment, success means reaching consumers 

at the right moment with the right message

. Through Amazon Ads, brands can build relationships that drive long-term value by being there when it matters most.


1. Amazon Ads with Alter Agents. Life Events: reaching consumers during moments that matter. Fielded March 2024-June 2024. U.S. data. Among A18-74 who experienced/plan to experience a life event in the last/next 12 months. N=10,015.

Amazon Ads Branded Article 2 Q3 2025

How life-changing events affect consumer shopping habits

As shoppers navigate life’s biggest moments, CPG brands can engage with them in new ways.

How life events change the way we shop: What CPG brands need to know 

Jasmine Sheena

Brands talk a lot about evolving marketing to keep up with the speed of culture, but how are they updating their measurement capabilities?

For Lindsay Vogelman, NBCUniversal’s SVP of strategic partnerships and partner marketing, platform distribution and partnerships, measuring impact and navigating growth is central to her work helping to boost streamer Peacock along with partner brands. Ahead of Vogelman’s participation in a panel at the 

 on September 10, she shared more about her approach and how there’s still room for improvement in the measurement world.

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

What trends have you noticed in recent years in regards to the fragmentation of content, especially in the streaming landscape, or changing consumer behavior that may be affecting measurement?

Viewers are no longer just watching—they’re engaging, dual-screening, shopping, and sharing in real time. The act of viewing has become layered, with audiences moving between screens, platforms, and conversations. The value of content is no longer only measured by who tunes in, but also by the actions their tune-in sparks. The real challenge is capturing this broader definition of engagement across an increasingly fragmented landscape.

How is NBCUniversal leaning into these trends?

 We’re evolving our approach to meet audiences where they are. 

 on Peacock is a great example of a cultural moment that drives appointment viewing and invites fans to actively participate. Our Megan Thee Stallion partnership was seamlessly integrated with a viral in-show appearance that sparked online conversation, making the show shoppable and drastically extending the life of the episode.

Our success metrics have also shifted accordingly. We’re focused on both qualitative and quantitative measurements, including daily usage, share of time on platform, and community and fan engagement.

For us, it’s about building daily habits, giving fans more of what they’re already doing, and finding ways to participate in those activities on our platform.

What core KPIs are you using to measure impact? Any new KPIs you’ve focused more on in recent years?

 We’ve expanded our KPI framework to reflect both business outcomes and audience behavior. Some of our key focus areas include incremental acquisition, churn reduction, daily active users, and time spent, as well as community impact by building fandoms around our IP through a qualitative lens. Revenue performance remains at the core of how we evaluate success.

What further evolution would you like to see in the measurement landscape?

 We’re seeing major strides in measuring paid media, especially when it comes to incrementality, but we still see room for improvement around how all our marketing works together to drive performance and are increasingly focused on the relationship between paid and earned media across our partner ecosystems.

How NBCU’s Lindsay Vogelman focuses on marketing metrics that matter

“The real challenge is capturing this broader definition of engagement across an increasingly fragmented landscape,” Vogelman, who will be speaking at the Marketing Brew Summit, told us.

A cartoon image of Kristina Monllos created by Morning Brew

Kristina Monllos

, this time with a new ad for Netflix’s 

Users of the audio app who encounter the ad can play rounds of golf to reveal Easter eggs from the Happy Gilmore universe, hear clips from the film, and access a personalized “happy” playlist.

The ad is the first time it has created a custom audio gaming experience for an advertiser. That said, it’s not a new ad unit or offering—Spotify has been creating custom experiences for advertisers since 2021. Spotify has previously created experiences for a collaboration between Coca-Cola and Oreo as well as for Amex.

The ad unit is dubbed “the stage,” Kay Hsu, global head of the creative lab at Spotify, said. “It’s an in-app branded experience. It’s usually really interactive. It’s custom-made for each brand, so each experience is very different.”

To create the game, Spotify worked with Netflix on a brief inspired by the character of Happy, and “leaned on a lot of nostalgia, obviously, to develop the design treatment,” Hsu said.

While there has been more interest in gamified ads from marketers like Disney, Amazon, and Discord, as Marketing Brew previously reported, that trend wasn’t the starting point for Spotify. That 

 is about a game made it a natural fit to gamify the ad, Hsu said. The experience was created by Spotify’s in-house team and produced by MiK Studio.

Should advertisers want their own game, that’s something Spotify is game for—Hsu said the platform is up for still more when it comes to immersive ads. “People think of Spotify as just an audio platform, but it isn’t,” she said. “It’s really immersive.”

A mock up of the game Spotify created for Netflix.

Spotify created its first audio gaming ad for Netflix’s ‘Happy Gilmore 2’

It’s the latest edition to the ad gamification trend.

If you’re on the internet these days, you’d be hard-pressed to 

The term, which refers to low-quality AI-generated content that is beginning to 

 on social media platforms like Instagram and video platforms like YouTube, are often bizarre and are sometimes even funny. But for some brands concerned about brand safety and suitability, having ads run against such content might be no laughing matter.

On YouTube though, ads for brands are sometimes appearing next to such AI-slop content. A look at several YouTube pages that post AI slop revealed some major brands’ advertisements showing up against those pages’ content, which ranges from simply strange to AI-generated misinformation.

One channel, called Pan-African Dreams, has shared misinformation and recently 

 for posting a lengthy deepfake video that falsely depicts Pope Leo XIV delivering a speech praising Ibrahim Traoré, the military leader of Burkina Faso, prompting a 

 from the Vatican. In mid-May, the video had 

Marketing Brew observed brands including HBO Max, Amazon Hub Delivery, theater ticket seller TodayTix, and the tourism site Visit Florida appearing against content on the channel.

Another AI slop channel, Banana Adventure, posts bizarre videos mostly centered on Minions, the characters from the Despicable Me

franchise, as well as other characters like the Joker. Marketing Brew observed ads for Amazon Hub Delivery, Android, and Tia Health next to that channel’s content.

And on a third AI slop channel with the name Mikey, which seems to post mostly what appear to be AI-generated cartoon stills with AI-generated voice-overs, including images of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Marketing Brew saw ads for Adobe and Samsung Home Appliances.

In an email, Google spokesperson Nate Funkhouser told Marketing Brew that YouTube does not currently offer advertisers the ability to opt out of appearing next to AI-generated content. “We offer controls for advertisers to decide where their ads run based on the content of a video, not how it was produced,” Funkhouser said in the statement.

Emails requesting comment sent to Android, HBO Max, Samsung, TodayTix, and Visit Florida went unreturned. Representatives for Adobe, Amazon Hub Delivery, and Tia Health did not provide comment.

After viewing the ads on Banana Adventure and Pan-African Dreams and requesting comment from YouTube, both channels were removed from the platform. The Mikey channel, meanwhile, was not found to violate YouTube’s policies, according to Google.

For some brands, monitoring exactly where their ads are showing up on YouTube has already seemed like a game of Whac-A-Mole. In recent years, major brands’ advertisements have been spotted running against 

, even, at times, those that were using brand-safety tools.

In the case of AI slop on YouTube, though, some of those existing challenges for brand safety and suitability stand to be multiplied. Brands should be mindful about appearing next to AI-generated content, said Anirudh Dhebar, a marketing professor at Babson College, as advertising next to AI slop could contain reputational risk for brands. 

And while a brand may not necessarily take issue with being associated with AI-generated content in itself, issues could arise if that AI-generated slop overlaps with other potentially damaging content. Both Disney and Universal are 

 the generative AI company Midjourney, alleging that users can easily create images based on protected intellectual property, representing a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”

Tyler Folkman, GM at TubeBuddy, which offers a suite of tools for YouTubers, said that he doesn’t expect many AI slop channels to flourish for too long on YouTube due to likely low levels of engagement on their videos, but he acknowledged that it can be difficult to get problematic AI slop videos taken down from YouTube due to the platform’s vast size.

As of March 2024, YouTube has put in place some restrictions on uploading AI-generated content that requires creators to disclose if AI tools were used to create a video. More broadly, YouTube has policies 

, and other types of content on the platform.

Dhebar told Marketing Brew that the proliferation of AI slop in its various forms can present additional challenges for advertisers.

“If I'm an advertiser, I need to be very mindful, and I’m in a precarious point,” he explained. “On one hand, I want the biggest bang for my dollar, that's in the short term; [in] the longer term, there might be significant reputational risk. How do I balance those two?”

AI slop is proliferating on YouTube—and major brands are advertising against it 

Brands like HBO Max, Amazon Hub Delivery, and Samsung Home Appliances had their ads appear next to low-quality AI-generated videos.

Netflix is once again beefing up its ad-tech partnerships.

At Cannes Lions, the streamer announced an integration with Yahoo DSP. Through the partnership, advertisers will be able to buy Netflix inventory through Yahoo DSP in the 12 countries where Netflix operates an ad-supported tier.

It’s the latest integration in a long line of programmatic partnerships that Netflix has struck for its ad-supported tier, which it said last month had 94 million monthly active users. The streamer has preexisting programmatic partnerships with The Trade Desk, Google’s DV360, and Microsoft.

Since Netflix first rolled out its ads tier in 2022, the platform has been steadily building out its capabilities to make the platform more attractive to advertisers. Last year, the platform rolled out an in-house ad-tech stack in Canada, and the tech became available in the US in April; as of this month, it’s rolled out wherever Netflix operates an ads tier.

 in May, Netflix touted enhanced ad-targeting capabilities, including the ability to target over 100 different interests across nearly 20 categories, and a way for advertisers to match first-party data against Netflix’s ads audience to help target viewers.

“I know you all heard us use the ‘crawl, walk, run’ analogy a million times,” Netflix’s president of advertising, Amy Reinhard, said onstage at the presentation. “So instead, I’ll borrow a page from 

 and say that we’re pulling out a pit lane lane and we’re getting up to speed.”

 Streamers across the board have been increasingly focused on 

. This week, Amazon Ads and Roku debuted a partnership that allows advertisers to buy Roku inventory through Amazon DSP. (Amazon announced a 

Old TV set with red screen and buffering circle

Netflix teams up with Yahoo DSP as it builds out ads tier

The deal, announced at Cannes Lions, is the latest in a long line of programmatic partnerships.

Did you know that Spotify has a head of dance and electronic development? Her name is Ronny Ho, and her team decides what electronic music makes it to Spotify’s in-house curated playlists.

At Spotify’s second annual Sparks event in New York last week, Ho and other execs talked about how they find topical music to populate Spotify’s biggest playlists. The audio streaming giant also announced editorial Watchfeeds, a new collection of written and video content and user interactions that will appear on top of playlists to explain and personalize the editorial team’s choices—and ideally, help drive engagement on the Spotify platform.

The event was one of several advertising-related events held by the streaming service this year as it continues to look for opportunities for platform monetization, particularly as it 

 into video. Fresh off its first full year of profitability, Spotify, which last reported 268 million users, is leaning into advertising, with a focus on adtech and generative AI that it detailed last month at its first-ever version of an upfront, Spotify Advance; at Google’s NewFront presentation last week, the platform also got a shout-out.

The goal of all of it, according to Ann Piper, head of North America ad sales for Spotify, is to get advertisers to see audio ads as a crucial part of their marketing mixes.

“Audio from a time spent [perspective] is outpacing the money that goes there in terms of the ad dollars,” she told Marketing Brew.

The Sparks event, Piper told us, was meant to complement Spotify Advance, which was designed to showcase what Spotify is doing to advance measurement, buying, and creation across its platform. Sparks, which was held in both the US and the UK, instead showcased region-specific insights.

At Advance, Spotify debuted several new ad products, including Spotify Ad Exchange (SAX), a product that Piper said was centered on interoperability; the ad exchange is compatible with major demand-side platforms like The Trade Desk, Google DV360, Magnite, and LiveRamp. By the time Spotify announced SAX, over 

Piper said that auto and QSR industries are two major sectors that have embraced the ad exchange. Auto brands have used SAX ads to promote products in local designated market areas, she said, while QSR companies have used SAX ads to develop calls to action and use it, generally, for lower-funnel advertising purposes.

Advance also saw the debut of generative AI audio ads on Spotify, which allow advertisers to generate voice-overs and scripts using generative AI tools. As of last month, four in 10 advertisers were leveraging the self-serve capability, the company previously disclosed. While it’s still early days, Spotify is aiming to “hone in” on the data to show advertisers how a campaign is performing against others in their category, Piper said.

At Sparks, the streaming service touted marketing research it partnered with information services company Neustar on, which found that Spotify ads drive a 20% lift in foot traffic for retail clients and drive 14% more return per dollar spent than any other channel for CPG clients. Measuring the impact of audio ads may help get advertisers to take audio ads more seriously, Piper told Marketing Brew.

“Digital audio isn’t always showing up in [media mix modeling], right?” she said. “They’ve had to really work, and especially podcast [ads,] because it’s been newer.”

Inside Spotify’s evolving ads strategy

Ad exec Ann Piper shared how advertisers are adopting Spotify Ad Exchange and generative AI audio ads.

What do we want? More live ad capabilities! When do we want it? Now!

Live ads and buy-side interoperability were top of mind for streamers at The Trade Desk’s Fwd25 event in New York on Thursday. Execs from NBCU, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Disney were among those who showed up to discuss their offerings for advertisers this year.

 Last summer’s Paris Olympics proved to be “the best testing ground on what we’re going to do for the future” for NBCU’s live programmatic ad capabilities, Alison Levin, NBCU’s president of advertising and partnerships, said onstage. Ahead of the Olympics, NBCU inked a partnership with The Trade Desk to make Peacock ad inventory available on the platform. It seemed to be a success: “90% of the advertisers who programmatically activated with The Trade Desk with the Olympics [had] never activated for the Olympics before that,” she said.

Programmatic has also helped NBCU understand performance more quickly at a more granular level, she said, rather than waiting for advertisers’ sales data to measure campaign success. For example, programmatic data revealed that about 95% of the consumers reached by two Olympics advertisers were “unreachable on other AVOD and streaming platforms,” she said.

WBD’s US ad sales co-president Ryan Gould was high on the promise of live ad offerings in sports.

“The promise of large-scale live sports events in connected-TV environments makes everyone here super excited to be able to send addressable messages to sports fans,” he said. “I don’t think we’re there yet as an industry, but I think that’s definitely a way to drive more performance in streaming.”

 Another priority marketers cited at Fwd25 is the need for increased buy-side infrastructure support and 

 with advertisers’ ad tech. Disney Advertising’s addressable sales SVP Jamie Power cited BridgeID, a solution it debuted in June, which aligns signals from advertisers with Disney’s ad tech to match data.

Over at WBD, CNN is kicking off a partnership with The Trade Desk’s OpenPath tool, Gould said. OpenPath connects advertisers directly to publishers and Gould said the aim is to offer increased transparency for advertisers.

“From a B2B perspective, transparency means premium in advertising. It’s amazing how much CTV has grown in the past five years,” he said. “I personally believe that CTV transactions are commoditized. For someone that works for a company that invests billions of dollars in content, five years ago I was scared to give the signals to buyers. In order to decommoditize our content in this ecosystem, we have to provide the buy side [with] insights.”

John Halley, president of Paramount Advertising, which is investing in commerce media and data partnerships around optimization, echoed similar sentiments.

“Flexing into buy-side infrastructure is a way to immediately solve the challenges of fragmentation, particularly in a world that increasingly prioritizes transparency, flexibility, and cross-channel measurement,” he told the audience. “There is no one-size-fits-all here.”

NBCU president of advertising and partnerships Alison Levin onstage at The Trade Desk Fwd25 