Just four months after launching its first AI-centric product, Genjo (short for generative journey), CourtAvenue is quietly rolling out Catapult, a generative AI copy generation tool, and Uplift, which enables AI-powered content development, Digiday has learned.

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At one half-day event hosted by organization AI Trailblazers, marketers from major brands took the stage to talk about their own AI strategies. And while AI’s long-term impact on advertising is still unclear, some are increasingly bullish on potential change. 

At Mondelez, maturation of AI could impact between 10% and 20% of non-working media spend — adding up to between $30 million and $40 million — according to Jonathan Halvorson, global svp of consumer experiences at the confectionary giant. The money saved will be reinvested to build proprietary infrastructure, train AI models and keep data current, said Halvorson, who added the company has invested $100 million in AI.

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Over the last few months, it’s been widely chronicled that generative AI already requires massive amounts of energy to run, leading the International Energy Agency to recently project that global data center electricity demand will more than double by 2026, including in the U.S. 

This realization directly counters the efforts media agencies have made in recent years to reduce carbon emissions for themselves, their clients and even the media companies whose ad time and space they buy. 

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Media agencies are increasing their use of digital out of home channels in new ways as different data engagement and emerging technologies become a part of their arsenal, making the space increasingly attractive to maturing and legacy brands alike to think beyond traditional billboards.

With experimentation in digital and immersive displays to live feeds, agencies and clients are able to integrate live consumer data, heat mapping or location tracking and measurement in order to focus on other elements of performance – rather than just using OOH for brand awareness.

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In the case of integrated agency CG Life, the impetus is keeping stride with the faster pace of social media and communications with consumers as the health and life sciences space has grown in recent years. David Ormesher, CEO of CG Life, said this growth is sparked by a current “renaissance in life science innovation” — making health care communications and personalization for consumers an integral part of a health agency’s digital strategy.

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The audience planner product allows agencies to find and target audiences and create plans by chatting on the platform — in the style of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots. The AI tool leverages the user’s first- and third-party data to identify their audiences using their targeted criteria. With the ongoing move to deprecate cookies, platforms like FullThrottle.AI are hoping agencies will use their alternatives to get value out of their data.

FullThrottle.AI, which focuses on generating first-party household data for agencies and brands without using cookies, expects the audience tool will help simplify the media planning process by cutting down on time used to reach household-level audiences. When users input their queries and business goals into the platform, it should generate a draft audience plan based on the content and FullThrottle.AI partners, which include cable provider Spectrum and audio firm iHeartMedia.

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National CineMedia and Screenvision lost their access into Nielsen’s data feeds shortly after the pandemic started when the ratings firm dropped all out-of-home data input from its principal ratings feed with little notice, according to both ad firms. It was a setback at an already tough time for both, when movie theaters had closed and their businesses were operating on life support.

Now the two have partnered with cloud-based mobile and location tech firm The People Platform to integrate their joint cinema audience data into Nielsen’s Respondent Level Data (RLD) feed for the first time.

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“Gen Z has a deep connection to impactful advocacy, and the associated content seems to make waves with other demographics on the platform as well,” said Nickey Rautenberg, director of content performance at influencer agency HireInfluence.

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The latest iteration of that reality came out earlier in May when the ANA published the report, “The Acceleration of Principal Media (What Marketers Need to Know),” which tackled the growing practice among agencies of investing in media at non-disclosed prices to then resell to their clients, presumably at a markup to the agency.

The use of principal media is on the rise, notably by the agency holding companies, which are looking for profit wherever they can find it. As Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester puts it, “That’s what’s driving the growth among those agencies that are demonstrating it.”

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In light of the discovery, ad tech execs accused Colossus of tricking advertisers into buying audiences they weren’t trying to target. The claim was that the sell-side platform was changing the user ID attached to an ad impression to make it more appealing to advertisers. Thus, the SSP could charge a higher CPM.

A few terms were thrown around in the report — as well as by digital ad execs debating the impropriety — to describe the alleged misbehavior, including “cookie stuffing,” “ID mis-matching,” “ID spoofing” and “ID stuffing.”

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The digital media agency network in early May launched Gradiant, an agency offshoot that focuses on brand visibility across the entire marketing funnel, and G-Comm, a retail media accelerator aimed at addressing the challenges in the retail landscape.

The two new units add to the agency’s umbrella of existing brands CvE, a marketing advisory firm, Tuff, a performance marketing agency, and Goodway, its managed service media and analytics business.

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One of the most common ways workers can find support and camaraderie is through a union. But what if your role doesn’t allow you to be a part of a union?

That’s the case for middle managers. 

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Alongside an array of other ad-related updates, Google is testing new ways to serve ads above, below and inside automatically generated summaries of query results distilled from different sources. AI Overview ads — which use advertisers’ existing search, shopping and Performance Max campaigns — debuted Tuesday during Google Marketing Live.

At a press event in New York, Google execs declined to disclose how many advertisers and users are part of tests for AI Overview ads. However, the search giant gave one example of showing ads for Downy and Bounce from retailers like Instacart and Walmart when users ask how to remove clothing wrinkles. Another new search format lets users upload images and various criteria to find products based on their shopping needs.

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The Swell Audience Network aims to integrate data insights and help brands work with all different types talent, from celebrities to influencers, and manage their audiences programmatically. Increasingly, agencies and influencer agencies alike are building tools and partnerships in order to match brands and influencers — often using artificial intelligence and data-focused applications as a means to sort accurately through an expanding sea of options.

From the agency perspective, adding measurement injects a vital element to justifying their clients’ investments, including showing metrics like awareness or conversions, said Sarah Bachman, head of Blue Hour Studios, a Horizon affiliate formed in 2019.

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There are the inventory quality issues raised by the recent controversies surrounding made-for-advertising sites, Forbes and Colossus. There’s the brewing measurement mess as third-party cookies eventually go away. And of course, there’s AI, which actually may be among programmatic marketers’ greatest potential allies in dealing with some of the other challenges — though AI poses its own predicaments.

At the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit last week in Palm Springs, California, agency executives participated in closed-door town hall discussions, in which they were granted anonymity for their candor. And they were quite candid about the challenges they are having to confront. Here’s a sample of what was said.

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