CMO TLDR: Amazon’s Squeeze, Omnicom’s Bets, BI’s Adtech Trends
Amazon Squeezes Rivals
Amazon Pitches Itself as TV's New Measurement Standard
Amazon is positioning its connected TV platform as the essential proof layer for television advertising, marketing its authenticated household reach and closed-loop attribution as the new currency for defensible ad spend, even as advertisers complain about incomplete tooling and limited cross-publisher visibility. The company is leveraging partnerships with Netflix, Disney, and Roku to offer programmatic access to 90% of U.S. households through its demand-side platform, with competitive CPMs ranging from $15 to $45 that undercut premium rivals like Hulu. Amazon's pitch emphasizes AI-powered creative tools and expanding live sports inventory, including the NBA and Winter Olympics, as the platform benefits from a broader industry shift where finance and performance teams now control TV budgets instead of traditional brand managers.
Omnicom’s Bets
Omnicom Deploys Walmart Data to Target Influencers
Omnicom Media unveiled a partnership linking Walmart customer purchase data with Meta's Instagram influencers, allowing brands to identify creators based on what their followers actually buy rather than just follower counts. The agency holding company, fresh off its $13 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group, is betting on data-driven creator selection as influencers increasingly drive spontaneous purchases, with 42% of consumers reporting impulse buys influenced by social media personalities. Global CEO Florian Adamski defended the company's strategy of maintaining six separate media agency brands while dismissing competitor rumors about unprofitable client purges, saying the merged entity expects robust growth across all regions in 2026.
Business Insider’s 2026 Ad Tech Trends
Adtech Braces for Disruption
Business Insider outlines the five key trends reshaping adtech in 2026, as companies rush to establish their AI credentials while chatbots threaten web traffic and programmatic ad revenue. Meanwhile, video advertising on streaming TV is emerging as the critical growth area. The Trade Desk faces pressure to make bold moves after a challenging 2025, while the industry awaits the judge's remedies in Google's antitrust case, which could reshape competitive dynamics. Meanwhile, adtech players are betting on AI agents that may one day advertise to other AI agents rather than humans, fundamentally changing how digital advertising works.
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Advertising executives warn that new state youth privacy laws requiring age verification, stricter rules on AI-generated content metadata, and enforcement of existing regulations around location data will catch unprepared marketers off guard in 2026, particularly those relying on opaque data supply chains or targeting teen audiences without proper safeguards.
WPP Media created a dedicated sports practice led by Martin Blich to help advertisers utilize data analytics and sponsorship tracking, as demand for live sports inventory increases and events like the Super Bowl sell out months earlier than usual.
NBCUniversal sold out its ad inventory for the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics a month early, setting a record for winter games revenue with more than 100 new advertisers and 85% of brand partners buying digital spots on Peacock.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince emerged as an unlikely ally for publishers after discovering that Google now scrapes 18 pages for every visitor it sends back, while OpenAI takes 1,500 pages per referral, prompting him to build tools that help media companies block unauthorized AI crawlers and negotiate better licensing deals.
WPP Media hired Angela Steele from rival Publicis Groupe as its new US chief client officer, bringing in a veteran with experience at General Motors and Microsoft as the agency works to recover from major account losses, including Coca-Cola and Mars.
Reddit launched Max Campaigns, an AI-powered ad tool unveiled at CES that automates targeting and creative optimization while promising more transparency than rival platforms from Google and Meta as it chases performance advertising dollars.
Key Article Takeaways - TLDR
2026 will be a year of old playbooks being dusted off, Amazon will utilize Google’s playbook of integration, large agencies will continue to lean on partnerships for headlines, and we’ll see what playbook The Trade Desk leverages, as using AppNexus’ playbook from 10+ years ago did not work with investors in 2025.
Our one-off prediction in 2026 is that Google will figure out a way to show they are publishers’ partners and OpenAI is the enemy (and how to stop them).