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CMO TLDR: Your Weekly Marketing Brief

Weekly Digest - June 20, 2025

Author

Peter Brendan
June 20, 2025

CMO TLDR: Big Tech's Dominance, WhatsApp's New Play, and the AI Creative Race

Big Tech Leans on Advertising to Unlock New Revenue Streams

Meta introduces advertising to WhatsApp in push for new revenues

Meta is reversing its longtime "no ads" policy by introducing paid advertising to WhatsApp's Status section, breaking from a company mantra established before Facebook's $19 billion acquisition in 2014. The ads will appear in the Updates tab, which attracts 1.5 billion daily users, keeping them separate from personal chat conversations as the company monetizes one of its few remaining ad-free platforms among its 3 billion monthly active users. WhatsApp will also launch paid Channel subscriptions and use basic user data, such as location and device language, for ad targeting, while maintaining end-to-end encryption for messages and calls.

Gaming Ad Spend Set to Surge as $80 Console Games Drive Studios Toward Ad-Supported Models

Rising video game prices, with major console makers charging $80 for new releases, are creating opportunities for advertisers to reach hard-to-target audiences, such as ad-blocker users and cord-cutters, through in-game advertising. Game studios are increasingly considering ad-supported models to help offset costs for consumers, while major console players Sony and Microsoft move toward app-store advertising formats that agencies can easily adapt from mobile campaigns. The trend is particularly appealing for sports marketing budgets, as brands see licensed video games like EA Sports FC and Madden NFL as natural extensions of their real-world stadium sponsorships at lower costs.

E-Commerce Titans Double Down on Creator and Commerce Integration

Amazon Advertisers Can Now Measure How Livestreamed Broadcasts Drive Sales

Amazon is giving advertisers access to livestream shopping data through its Amazon Marketing Cloud platform, allowing brands to track impressions, views, and clicks from creator-led broadcasts and build retargeting audiences based on viewer engagement. The move comes as Amazon pushes deeper into creator-driven commerce, with early testing by GE Appliances showing that shoppers who watched livestreams had 2.5 times higher purchase rates and nearly 10 times higher branded search rates compared to those who only saw standard ads. The livestream measurement tools are currently in limited beta for U.S. advertisers, with Amazon planning an open beta rollout this summer as it expands data capabilities across its advertising ecosystem.

TikTok Extends Gen AI Tools to WPP Open, Adobe Express

TikTok unveiled new generative AI tools, including image-to-video and text-to-video capabilities that will be integrated into Adobe Express and WPP Open, allowing marketers to automate creative production and generate five-second branded video clips from still images or text prompts. The launch comes as TikTok faces another potential U.S. ban deadline on June 19, with the platform expanding its Symphony suite of AI-powered creative products beyond its platform to third-party marketing tools. The tools also include enhanced digital avatars that can hold products and model clothing, with all AI-generated content labeled and subject to multiple safety reviews.

Television broadcaster Nexstar Media adopted Salesforce's Agentforce agentic AI platform to automate administrative tasks like data compilation and presentation creation while using pattern recognition to identify contextual advertising opportunities that humans might miss, though the company emphasizes AI will augment rather than replace human salespeople.

Roku and Amazon announced a partnership that will allow advertisers to reach roughly 80 million connected TV households through Amazon's demand-side platform by combining their authenticated user data, with early tests showing three times improvement in return on ad spend and 42% more unique reach at the same media budget.

Free streaming platform Tubi announced it surpassed 100 million monthly active users and one billion hours of viewing time in May, reaching 2.2% of total U.S. TV viewing minutes as it targets Gen Z and millennial audiences with creator-led content and new advertising formats.

LinkedIn launched its connected TV advertising platform across the U.S. and Canada, allowing B2B marketers to target decision makers by job title and company through partnerships with Paramount, Samsung Ads, and Roku, with early clients like Salesforce and ServiceNow reporting significantly higher on-target impressions compared to traditional linear TV campaigns.

The Guardian unified its programmatic advertising teams across the U.S., U.K., and Australia to streamline global ad buying and capitalize on private marketplace deals, as the publisher with 63 million monthly users seeks to simplify access for advertisers while defending against AI-driven buying tools that risk marginalizing premium publishers.

Disney added Amazon's demand-side platform to its Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX), making Amazon the third DSP alongside Google and The Trade Desk to access Disney's streaming inventory across Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu starting in Q3 2025.

Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are expected to capture nearly 55% of global advertising spend outside China this year with $524.4 billion in combined ad revenue, according to Warc's latest forecast, as retail media surpasses linear TV for the first time while tariff pressures and economic uncertainty slow growth in other sectors.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

  • Walled Gardens Are Building Ad Operating Systems: Big Tech isn't just expanding inventory; they're creating full-stack advertising platforms. Amazon's DSP now reaches Disney+ and 80M Roku households, while Meta finally monetizes WhatsApp's 1.5B users. Independent ad tech players face an existential threat as these ecosystems offer everything from targeting to creative in one integrated offering.

  • AI Creative Tools Will Commoditize Production: TikTok's text-to-video AI and Meta's full automation push signal that creative execution is becoming table stakes. Agencies need to shift focus from production capabilities to strategic positioning and brand insight; the differentiation will be in what to say, not how to make it.

  • Premium Publishers Must Curate or Die: With Big Tech capturing 55% of global ad spend, publishers like The Guardian are consolidating operations around private marketplaces and curated deals. The winning move is positioning editorial quality and brand safety as the antidote to automated, context-blind buying at scale.