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CMO TLDR: Your Weekly Marketing Brief

Weekly Digest - July 18, 2025

Author

Peter Brendan
July 18, 2025

CMO TLDR: TTD, Agency Earnings, AI

Sellers & Publishers 500+ to S&P 500

Trade Desk Joins S&P 500 as Ansys Exits Following Acquisition

The Trade Desk will replace Ansys in the S&P 500 index effective Friday after Synopsys received approval to close its $35 billion acquisition of the software maker. The digital advertising platform's inclusion in the benchmark index reflects continued institutional interest in programmatic advertising companies, despite economic headwinds and increased competition from tech giants such as Google and Amazon. With a $40 billion market cap, Trade Desk joins the index just a little over a week after monitoring software company Datadog took Juniper Networks’s spot.

Agency Earnings

Omnicom Posts 3% Growth Despite IPG Deal Costs

Omnicom delivered 3% organic revenue growth in the second quarter, despite incurring $66 million in acquisition costs related to its pending merger with Interpublic Group, which has cleared U.S. antitrust review and is moving closer to completion later this year. The advertising giant's operating margin fell to 10.9% from 13.2% a year earlier due to deal expenses and $89 million in repositioning costs, though CEO John Wren expressed optimism about growth opportunities from the transformational IPG acquisition. Revenue reached $4 billion with strong performance in media and advertising services offsetting declines in public relations and healthcare marketing divisions.

Publicis Beats Expectations with Record New Business Wins

Publicis Groupe reported stronger than expected second quarter results with 5.9% organic growth, driven by a record streak of new business wins that prompted the French advertising giant to raise its full-year guidance to close to 5% growth. The company maintained its industry-leading operating margin at 17.4% while making significant investments in AI capabilities and talent, as CEO Arthur Sadoun credited the firm's ability to deliver immediate business solutions in an uncertain global environment. With over a dozen major client wins in the first half of 2025, Publicis continues to gain market share against competitors despite challenging macroeconomic conditions affecting the broader advertising industry.

Artificial Intelligence

AI Takes Over Video Ad Creation as Advertisers Demand Real Results

Nearly 90% of advertisers will use generative AI to create video ads, according to IAB's latest report, with small and mid-sized brands leading the charge as production costs plummet and quality barriers disappear. The shift comes as buyers increasingly focus on measurable business outcomes like sales and store visits rather than traditional brand metrics, putting pressure on streaming platforms to prove their worth. Connected TV inventory is becoming more programmatic, with buyers expecting nearly half to be biddable by next year, though they still want human support despite the automation.

Ad tech company TripleLift cut a double-digit percentage of its workforce Friday, marking the third round of layoffs in five years as new CEO Dave Helmreich continues restructuring the supply-side platform amid pressure from private equity owner Vista Equity Partners.

PubMatic unveiled an AI-powered marketplace that lets advertisers buy premium live sports inventory in real time across connected TV platforms like Roku and DirecTV, targeting peak engagement moments during games to maximize viewer attention.

A Raptive study of 3,000 U.S. adults found that content perceived as AI-generated cuts reader trust by nearly 50% and reduces purchase consideration for adjacent ads by 14%, creating what researchers call "AI stink" that damages both editorial credibility and advertising effectiveness.

Health publisher Healthline agreed to pay a record $1.55 million CCPA fine for sharing sensitive health data through article titles with third parties without proper consent, marking the first major privacy enforcement against a digital publisher and signaling stricter regulatory scrutiny of data practices across the media industry.

The IAB Tech Lab unveiled a new framework to help publishers monetize AI bot scraping through access controls, content tiering, and a pay-per-query model that would compensate media companies each time their content is used to generate AI responses rather than just when it's initially scraped.

Streaming services are capturing about 50% of 2025 upfront advertising dollars as budgets shift from linear TV, with industry executives estimating $12 billion in streaming ad spend this year growing to $14 billion in 2026, according to IPG Mediabrands' global chief negotiations officer.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

  • AI can supercharge video ad production—but it’s no magic trick. While brands rush in for speed and savings, consumers’ trust drops by half when they suspect an ad is AI-generated. Like Inception, the trick is blending human and machine to keep the illusion and authenticity intact.

  • Privacy isn’t a future concern; it’s here, and it’s pricey. Even article titles can trigger massive fines. Legal teams are scrambling to lock things down but business teams need to ensure they aren’t killing revenue. The trick is staying compliant without going dark.