Ad Age Insider

Agentic shopping 101: a holiday playbook for marketers, with Brandon Doerrer

Agentic shopping is already shaping holiday 2026, even though most consumers aren't ready to let an AI agent use their credit card. Brandon Doerrer, media reporter at Ad

Weekly Report: How non-pet brands are chasing pet parent spending

Hertz, Subaru and Liquid Death are building pet-focused campaigns and products to tap into surging pet spending, but marketers warn against forcing the fit. Plus, Chemist

Company culture, AI overhype and the workforce gap | Catch Up

In the AI era, company culture is the real differentiator. Ad Age's Senior Editor Adrianne Pascarelli breaks down the workforce gap nobody's solved, the AI overhype she's

Weekly Report: Rich Silverstein leaves Goodby Silverstein & Partners

Rich Silverstein is stepping down as co-chairman of Goodby Silverstein & Partners after 43 years, with an AI hotline trained on his voice now fielding creative pitches in

What mid-size marketer budget strategy teaches every brand, with Adrianne Pasquarelli

Marketing budgets are tight across the board, but mid-size brands—companies roughly between $50 million and $1 billion in revenue—have been finding ways to make theirs wo

Is spec work overrated or underrated, with X&O co-founders | Agencies on Record

X&O co-founders Brett Banker and Eric Segal play a game of overrated or underrated, dishing on the holding company vs. independents debate, spec work, content creators an

Weekly Report: A plushie data center satirizes AI's environmental toll

Creative studio Basura's satirical "Adopt a Data Center" campaign imagines AI data centers as rescue animals. Plus, Applebee's names BBDO Chicago its new creative agency

How splitting vision from execution powers the sprint model, with X&O | Agencies on Record

Develop the strategic idea, then step back—the client can take it in-house, hand it to another agency or bring X&O back to build it themselves. That's the split that co-f

How to bring creators to the brand strategy table | Catch Up

Creators aren't just making content anymore—they're getting pulled into the actual strategy conversation. Ad Age social and influencer marketing reporter Gillian Follett

Weekly Report: US Open creator backlash exposes brands' event strategy gaps

Viral videos of influencers disrupting US Open matches exposed how many brands still lack clear systems for briefing talent, picking the right creators or vetting whether

Creators are now brand strategists, not just talent, with Gillian Follett

Gillian Follett, social marketing and influencer reporter at Ad Age, breaks down how brand-creator partnerships have evolved in 2026, from creators taking on strategic ro

Weekly Report: Planters hires Mr. Peanut a fixer without a pitch, and why character-driven branding is back

Planters named Martin, the agency behind the Geico Gecko, its creative agency of record without running a formal review, betting on character-driven branding to sharpen M

Will the AI marketing bubble burst? | Catch Up

Catch the full conversation: https://adage.substack.com/p/ai-is-all-over-earnings-calls-ai Ad Age's senior tech editor Garett Sloane joins Parker to answer the question

Weekly Report: YouTube raises the bar for creator payouts

YouTube is doubling the watch time and engagement thresholds creators need to qualify for its Partner Program starting February 2027, a shift that matters less than it so

AI is all over earnings calls. AI ROI isn't, with Garett Sloane

Ad Age senior tech editor Garett Sloane unpacks why AI dominates earnings calls at companies from Meta and Google to Colgate-Palmolive, Amazon and Booking Holdings even i

Weekly Report: PepsiCo's AI agency review signals a shift from experiments to infrastructure

This week: PepsiCo is running a global agency review focused on building out AI marketing capabilities, with Omnicom, Accenture, Deloitte, and Publicis Sapient all vying

Weekly Report: Dollar Tree shifts to emotional branding as it eyes $1 billion in untapped sales

Dollar Tree named independent agency Tombras its first-ever creative agency of record ahead of a September brand campaign—what it reveals about the shift from performance

The consumer trends marketers can't ignore this fall, with Erika Wheless

Erika Wheless, consumer culture and brand behavior reporter at Ad Age, breaks down the consumer trends shaping the back half of 2026, and how they connect to the brands g

Weekly Report: McDonald's admits its promotional calendar backfired

This week on Ad Age Insider's Weekly Report: McDonald's opens up about how an overloaded promotional calendar, stacking a K-pop Demon Hunters tie-in, value messaging, bev

Weekly Report: Creators are betting on equity over paid partnerships

This week on Ad Age Insider's Weekly Report: creators like Alix Earle are increasingly chasing equity stakes instead of traditional brand deals, and what it reveals about