At its annual Brand Building Summit, Meta announced shared new product updates tied to what’s happening in the culture, including:
– Reels trending ads is expanding, enabling more advertisers and agencies to place their brand alongside the most trending and culturally relevant Reels content. Early tests show Reels trending ads can boost unaided awareness by +20%.
– Threads advertisers now have more flexibility with how their ads appear, with more ad formats. And brands without a Threads profile can now use their Instagram account for Threads ads or use an existing Facebook or Instagram post to create ads on Threads in Ads Manager.
– Brand advertisers can now use value rules awareness and engagement objectives, guiding Meta’s AI-powered ads system toward audiences most relevant to their brand.

SSP Index Exchange and Chalice AI have struck a strategic partnership with dentsu’s Media Practice. The two companies will form a core part of dentsu’s NextGen initiative, a company-wide transformation designed to evolve its core capabilities through data, modularity, and AI. Index will power dentsu’s NextGen algorithmic trading model, leveraging real-time audience signals available from the sell side. A set of platform-independent AI bidding agents, powered by Chalice, will offer clients transparent, customized AI models. “This partnership is a foundational step in building a next-generation programmatic capability that aligns with our broader NextGen transformation,” said Nicholas Halas, Head of Product, Global Amplifi, dentsu EMEA. “Chalice’s advanced decisioning technology and Index’s scaled infrastructure give us the ability to create a more intelligent, transparent, and value-driven media supply chain for our clients.”

Perion Network announced the launch of SODA (Supply Optimization & Demand Amplification), an AI-powered suite of solutions for publishers, featuring an AI algorithm for Supply Path Optimization designed to maximize efficiency and monetization across every ad impression. “In a market saturated with inefficiencies and growing concern over unrealized ad revenues, SODA is a breakthrough,” said Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion. “It’s not just a supply-side solution; it’s a redefinition of how supply and demand should interact.”

Marketing data platform Adverity has launched Adverity Intelligence, a dedicated AI-powered analytics layer. The arrival of Adverity Intelligence signals its expansion into analytics capabilities aimed at enabling teams to move from information to action with greater speed and confidence.

Firmly.ai, focused on agentic commerce, and affiliate marketing company CJ are teaming to equip CJ’s network of publishers and merchants with access to seamless shopping experiences for consumers. “Affiliate marketing is no longer just about the click – it’s becoming the backbone of a new era in commerce media,” said Santi Pierini, CEO of CJ. “Our partnership with firmly.ai helps to accelerate CJ’s transformation from a leading affiliate network into a true commerce media network, enabling publishers and advertisers to monetize and transact wherever their audiences are.”

The Television Academy will award SMPTE, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and Video Services Forum (VSF) an Emmy® for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering, Science & Technology for the development of SMPTE ST 2110. “Standards are in the DNA of SMPTE, going right back to our founding in 1916, but still as relevant today in helping the industry bring content and amazing experiences to the world,” said SMPTE President, Richard Welsh. “This Emmy recognizes the huge effort and innovation that happens, often in the background or out of public view, but is so essential to bringing all forms of media to audiences.” The honor will be bestowed during the 77th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy® Awards ceremony on October 14.

WPP has partnered with the MACH Alliance, a not-for-profit industry body advancing composable enterprise architecture to help organizations adopt transformative technologies. The goal is to help businesses understand how to effectively integrate AI tools and technologies into their marketing and commerce experiences. “In today’s market, technological agility is the core driver of competitive advantage, particularly to keep up with the demands of consumers in the age of AI,” said Stephan Pretorius, Chief Technology Officer at WPP. “The expansion of our partnership with the MACH Alliance is a direct investment in our clients’ and teams’ success, giving them the modern foundation they need to unlock the full potential of AI and the power to not just adapt to the future, but to build it.”

Knox Media Hub and All3Media International are offering a new solution that standardizes metadata across media libraries with configurable schemas and text replacement templates. Users can format and export metadata with pre-made templates for multiple platforms and meet specific delivery requirements in batches and fully integrated into automated workflows. “When generating editorial metadata for platforms such as Xumo, Tubi and Roku we were having to revert to manually pulling data from our various systems and copying into platform partner Excel templates; the time and resource has been a real bottleneck to doing more business with platforms,” said Claire Feeney, Director of Technical Operations, All3Media International. “Now Knox Media Hub is fully integrated with our other critical business systems the new metadata module enables us to pull up to 95% of series and episodic editorial metadata together and export to pre-defined “house-style” templates saving countless human-hours.”

Technology and sports content company Minute Media has acquired VideoVerse’s Magnifi, an AI-driven SaaS technology platform enabling content owners and rights holders to automatically detect key moments, create highlights in real time, and distribute short-form video content efficiently. Minute Media plans to deploy a fully integrated creation, distribution, and monetization solution.

Amazon Ads and Netflix are partnering to provide advertisers using Amazon DSP with direct access to Netflix’s premium ad inventory beginning next quarter. “Our goal is to remove the guesswork for advertisers by making it simple to manage all of their TV planning and buying with Amazon Ads,” said Paul Kotas, SVP, Amazon Ads. As for Netflix, the partnership “perfectly aligns with our commitment of bringing advertisers even greater flexibility in their buys to achieve their marketing goals,” said Amy Reinhard, President of Advertising. “By integrating Amazon DSP and enabling even more advanced capabilities together over time, we’re making it easier than ever to connect with Netflix’s global engaged audience.” In June, Amazon announced a deal with Disney that integrated Disney’s Real-Time Ad Exchange and Amazon’s demand-side platform.

Just in time for the holidays, Google announced it has added generative AI capabilities to Asset Studio that enable advertisers develop, review and share high-performing creative. “You will be able to control the look and feel of your creatives with style references, and visualize your ads across all channels with shareable previews before they go live,” said Mindy Lin, Product Manager, Google Ads, in a blog post. Google is also upgrading image generation across campaign types with an advanced model, Imagen 4.

Experian and PurpleLab are collaborating on privacy-safe healthcare curation that gives pharmaceutical brands and platforms the ability to:
– Activate de-identified healthcare audiences across CTV, mobile, social, and display
– Scale hard-to-reach niche populations using Experian’s identity graph
– Access turnkey curated deals via Audigent that combine premium supply + premium data
– Measure outcomes with closed-loop reporting on prescription lift, provider engagement, and patient adherence