CES 2026

LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence provides speed and efficiency but lacks taste and aesthetic judgment, making human oversight essential to prevent automation that eliminates human input entirely. “What we’re missing is this notion of taste and judgment,” Paul Woolmington, CEO of Canvas Worldwide, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at CES. “Taste is very aesthetic and […]

PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. – Retail media standards are no longer a side conversation for the most patient people in the room. They are front and center, especially as more brand dollars flow into the channel. Speaking at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, Austin Leonard, vice president and general manager of the DG Media Network at […]

LAS VEGAS – If you have ever wished broadcast radio could behave a little more like digital, Lisa Coffey says the wish is being granted, with a beta label and a confident smile. Speaking with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at CES, the chief business officer of IHeartMedia said the long running mission is finally turning […]

LAS VEGAS — Media planning for 2026 must acknowledge advertising’s evolution from broadcast-focused 30-second spots and “eyeballs” by instead relying on precision targeting to meet the demands of the “agentic and algorithmic era.” “We’re in a new era of advertising — the third era,” Will Swayne, global practice president for Media and Integrated Solutions at […]

LAS VEGAS – If technology used to be about pipes, dashboards and apologies for latency, Carrie Drinkwater wants it to be about culture. Speaking with David Kaplan at CES 2026, the chief investment officer of Dentsu-owned Carat, said the agency’s biggest technology investment isn’t another black box, but a clearer read on cultural momentum. “The […]

LAS VEGAS — In order for a retail media network advertiser to accurately find consumers at the right moment, sometimes you have to travel back in time. About five years in the past, to be exact. “We can  look back at the consumer level for five years of their engagement and purchase with that product […]

LAS VEGAS – If the news landscape feels like an all-you-can eat buffet with cable podcasts, newsletters, influencers and social feeds stacked high, this is not your imagination. Guy Griggs, senior vice president of ad sales and client partnerships at CNN, says the industry has splintered in spectacular fashion and he has the receipts from […]

LAS VEGAS – At CES 2026, Walt Disney Co. showcased a growing push to modernize advertising workflows by combining advanced technology with its storytelling heritage. Alex Combs, vice president of product management, advertising platforms at the media and entertainment giant, said the company is focused on building products that deliver speed, ease and value for […]

LAS VEGAS – VideoElephant positions itself as a connective layer across the video ecosystem, linking media owners, publishers and advertisers through a vast content library and distribution network. Brian Cullinane, chief commercial officer of VideoElephant, said the company manages roughly 5 million short-form video assets, adding thousands more each day, alongside hundreds of thousands of […]

LAS VEGAS — The race to monetize shopper data has turned retail media into the advertising industry’s fastest-growing sector, projected to surpass combined spending on connected TV and traditional television by 2027. But perhaps it is also exacerbating a tangled web of walled gardens, leaving buyers navigating a landscape defined as much by its complexity […]

LAS VEGAS — Buyers can now verify connected TV purchases at the show level, seeing specific line items, CPMs, impressions, and total media spend rather than trusting that budgets allocated toward major television events actually reached intended inventory. “Before a couple of days ago, it was impossible for a buyer to know exactly what they […]

LAS VEGAS — Amazon’s nearly total reach — 90% of U.S. customers across authenticated devices — means that advertisers can tell personalized stories that follow consumers throughout their day, from users’ Fire TV’s in their living room to bedtime Alexa smart speaker podcasts. “If you think about it as an advertiser, [there are] so many […]

LAS VEGAS – Adam Singolda sees consumer behavior shifting faster than most media companies expected. Large language models such as ChatGPT are becoming a daily interface for information, he said, but the experience remains uneven across platforms. Some LLMs are ad free, others are ad-supported, while the open web sits largely outside those walled gardens. […]

LAS VEGAS — Pharmaceutical advertising has been the backbone of TV ad strategies since the inception of the medium. But maintaining that central role requires embracing new delivery platforms including YouTube and connected TV as consumer viewing behavior shifts. “It’s about staying the backbone [of TV],” Kurt Robinson, evp, business development at Swoop, told Beet.TV […]

LAS VEGAS — Consumers increasingly feel brands don’t care about them as companies reduce brand investment under pressure to prove immediate value, creating disconnection that surfaces in research showing most people believe advertisers pursue transactions rather than relationships. “Something like 71% of consumers have said, ‘I think they’re only after me for my dollars.’ Meanwhile, […]

LAS VEGAS — Principal-based media buying can best be seen as a not just an update of traditional “media barter” arrangements, but as a way to solve the problems associated with that old form of agency/publisher deals. As Incon International’s Reid Steinberg notes, principal-based buys can help advertisers unlock additional budgetary spending. On top of […]

LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence models trained on low-quality data risk generating meaningless insights that then degrade further as models train on their own flawed outputs, creating a destructive cycle that obscures actual campaign performance. “One thing that I fear, especially with all the excitement around AI, is that the quality of the training data […]

LAS VEGAS — The traditional marketing planning cycle is dead. That’s the stark message for advertisers trying to succeed on discovery-driven platforms. For brands accustomed to lengthy campaign development timelines, the platforms where consumers now spend their time operate on an entirely different clock. “The speed at which you have to drive innovation and decision […]

LAS VEGAS –Sir Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital, has a blunt assessment of advertising’s future. Speaking with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at CES 2026, Sorrell said agentic AI “fundamentally challenges the model.” Strategic and creative under attack Sorrell argued that agentic systems threaten the traditional agency stack. “Strategic and creative is under attack,” […]

LAS VEGAS – At CES 2026, Comcast’s NBCUniversal rolled out an idea that sounds futuristic but solves an old headache: buying live sports ads without losing your sanity. Ryan McConville, chief product officer and EVP of ad products at NBCUniversal, said the company is testing agentic AI to automate live sports buying across streaming and […]