The recent IAB NewFronts, TV Upfronts, and Cannes Lions are three of the advertising industry’s marquee 2025 events and collectively delivered lessons for news media leaders: The “post-traffic era” points to the need for AI technology investment, authentic partnerships grounded in shared value, and measurable outcomes. 

While platforms showcased AI-powered automation and creators commanded billion-dollar valuations, successful news publishers demonstrated how to leverage editorial authority for sustainable advertising growth.

Please read on for what I thought were the most interesting and relevant takeaways, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you were in attendance. E-mail me anytime at gabriel.dorosz@inma.org

Gabriel

NewFronts 2025: the digital media showcase

News publishers demonstrated their strategic portfolio positioning at IAB NewsFronts in New York in May: 

• The New York Times exemplified strategic evolution in its first NewFront appearance in six years. Rather than leading with journalism, the Times highlighted cultural influence and major moment marketing — Met Gala, Oscars, Super Bowl, back-to-school shopping. Key innovations included BrandMatch expansion (AI-powered content matching now spanning The Athletic, Cooking, Wirecutter, and Games) and sponsored access (brands unlocking paywalled content for non-subscribers.)
• The Washington Post emphasised format innovation, with Global Chief Advertising Officer Johanna Mayer-Jones highlighting the publisher’s standout TikTok strategy as an example of how news organisations can adapt to new platforms while maintaining their brand authority.
• The Guardian US participated in the “Spotlight on: News @ NewFronts” session, exploring the value of investing in quality journalism and demonstrating how trusted news environments can provide unique advertising value.
• Yahoo leveraged its 30th anniversary to showcase three key differentiators: its DSP capabilities, creator partnerships, and sports content — particularly relevant given the major year ahead in sports with the World Cup and Olympics, plus the surging momentum in women’s sports

In addition, platform giants set new baseline expectations.

• Google’s demonstration of AI-powered media planning in Display and Video 360 proved compelling for advertisers, generating CTV buying strategies in seconds while surfacing live sports and upfront opportunities automatically. 

• Yahoo and Snap followed with automated bidding systems promising superior ROAS without human intervention. This points to an implication that advertisers will increasingly expect instant, data-driven capabilities as standard offering.

• Meta’s expansion into Threads advertising and enhanced creator collaboration tools signaled the creator economy’s continued integration into mainstream advertising. With creators earning US$15 billion from U.S. social media in 2025 alone, their “speed, flexibility, and value” advantages over traditional production have become undeniably clear.

TV Upfronts 2025: the streaming revolution is a sea change for all publishers

The May TV Upfronts, also in New York, revealed a fundamental power shift favouring streaming platforms over traditional networks. 

Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube dominated with data-driven, immersive presentations showcasing sophisticated ad tech development. Traditional networks, by contrast, relied on celebrity cameos and legacy IP — a strategy media buyers described as “flat” and outdated.

Perhaps the most significant revelation came from the stark contrast between streaming giants and legacy networks. Streaming platforms outshined traditional media by turning their platforms and IP into immersive experiences while showcasing ad tech developments that provide advertisers with better tools to drive performance.

Meanwhile, traditional networks struggled to evolve with today’s consumer expectations. As media buyers noted, their presentations “felt flat, heavy on celebrity cameos, light on viewer engagement tools.”

As one buyer observed: “The real difference: Streamers focused on data-driven, immersive, and second-screen engagement while traditional players leaned on the same playbook of star power, live content, and legacy IP.”

Sophisticated data capabilities, performance measurement, and innovative ad tech integration are increasingly becoming baseline requirements for serious media partnerships.

An emphasis on shoppable content and real-time data reflects commerce media’s expansion beyond retail — banks, airlines, and hotels now leverage first-party data for media businesses. And 53% of marketers prioritise outcomes in media negotiations, though performance metrics don’t yet guarantee deal structures.

Cannes Lions 2025: AI maturation and measurement revolution 

Cannes Lions 2025 drew over 15,000 delegates to the French Riviera, reflecting the festival’s status as one of the world’s most important spaces for brands, agencies, celebrities, and creators seeking to tap into the US$1 trillion global advertising market.

While I did not attend, reports say this edition felt notably more celebratory than recent post-pandemic festivals, yet uncertainty around AI’s transformative impact loomed large, particularly for news publishers competing with Big Tech platforms.

AI transforms from novelty to infrastructure

Cannes 2025 marked AI’s transition from experimental tool to essential infrastructure:

• 85% of marketers now leverage AI writing tools or content creation tools to enhance their marketing, with Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration enabling thousands of personalised ad variations daily.
• Sainsbury’s Nectar360 Pollen platform uses generative AI to optimise campaign creative in real-time, build hyper-relevant audiences, and streamline media planning while improving advertiser satisfaction.
• Amazon’s Ad Relevance technology (announced in 2024) achieved 34% lower CPMs while improving campaign performance by 8.8%, proving cookieless solutions deliver both privacy compliance and superior economics.
• Meta’s 11 new AI advertising features, including dynamic image-to-video tools, democratise advanced creative capabilities for publishers of all sizes.

Privacy-preserving data collaboration

Data clean rooms continue to emerge as a viable first-party data monetisation strategy, even with operational challenges. 

Publishers using Snowflake’s Media Data Cloud and AWS Clean Rooms maintain data control while enabling advertiser targeting, in some cases achieving 20%-40% higher CPMs for authenticated users. DirectTV’s Amy Leifer captured the sentiment: “With privacy regulations changing, it becomes critical to partner with advertisers in a really safe and trusted privacy-compliant way.”

Attention metrics validate premium environments

Attention measurement’s increasing adoption is a reason to be optimistic for its impact on quality news publishers.

Amid announcements and an on-site presence by Lumen, Adelaide, Amplified Intelligence, and others, industry leaders declared viewability “archaic” as Adelaide announced its “AU Ecosystem” with quality publishers including Schibsted and the Financial Times, while Lumen Research showed display advertising in quality contexts receives 51% more attention than elsewhere on the Web. 

Brand safety tensions show signs of evolution

The need to evolve brand safety remains an urgent conversation in the industry.

DoubleVerify announced its News Accelerator Publisher Council with major publishers including The Atlantic, CNN, The Guardian, and The New York Times participating. Let’s hope this represents continued industry reckoning with keyword blocking’s economic impact.

In addition, Stagwell’s Future of News research — a comprehensive study of 7,126 U.S. adults — provided valuable evidence supporting advertising to news media audiences: 

“News Junkies” (30.2% of population) view brands significantly more positively across all metrics, with 66% average purchase intent versus 50% for the general population. “Exclusive News Junkies” (13.8% of U.S. adults) defined as those who follow the news “very closely” but do not closely follow sports or entertainment — an audience theoretically only meaningfully reachable through news advertising — demonstrate higher brand lift across all metrics, validating news content as a premium advertising environment.

Stagwell CEO Mark Penn fiercely defended the value news brings advertisers in a panel titled “Future of News: Why News Junkies Are the Real MVPs.” Penn pointed out that news readers — often highly educated and affluent — are ideal consumers for categories like finance and technology. 

Tracy-Ann Lim, chief media officer at JPMorgan Chase, added a powerful buyer’s perspective: “News isn’t a charitable choice. It’s a business decision — and one that drives real results. If your brand claims to value trust, then investing in news is the ultimate test of that.”

Major announcements about publisher targeting innovation 

Two significant publisher announcements made during Cannes demonstrate how news organisations are leveraging first-party data and commerce media to create competitive targeting advantages: 

• Hearst’s AURA-Amazon DSP Integration debuts

Hearst Magazines announced a significant expansion of their AURA targeting capabilities through a new partnership with Amazon Ads. The offering, which debuted at the festival, combines content engagement data from Hearst’s 30+ U.S. brands with shopping insights from Amazon Ads, enabled by Amazon Publisher Cloud.

AURA’s AI-powered targeting now leverages Amazon’s shopper signals to enhance programmatic campaign performance beyond Hearst’s own inventory. 

Some key points:

• Enhanced scale by combining Hearst’s contextual and behavioural signals with Amazon’s vast commerce data.

• Privacy-compliant targeting that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies.

• Exclusive availability through Amazon DSP within its Inventory Hub.

• Integration of hundreds of millions of purchase actions from Hearst visitors with Amazon’s shopping insights.

“As we see increased programmatic interest in our inventory — especially from DSPs like Amazon — it’s the right time to bring the power of AURA targeting and meet buyers where they’re already transacting,” explained Lisa Ryan Howard, global chief revenue officer at Hearst Magazines.

This partnership represents a significant evolution in publisher-platform collaboration, demonstrating how premium publishers can leverage their first-party data assets within major programmatic platforms while maintaining data control and privacy compliance.

• Axel Springer’s Criteo commerce media partnership

Axel Springer announced an expanded partnership with adtech company Criteo to enhance their commerce media capabilities. The collaboration, announced on June 17, focuses specifically on activating purchase intent data through Criteo’s supply-side platform (SSP) with Media Impact (Axel Springer’s advertising arm) serving as curator.

For the first time, Axel Springer is bringing data from price comparison platform Idealo programmatically to market. The partnership combines:

• User signals from Bild, Welt, and Business Insider Deutschland.

• Product and pricing data from Idealo (including product searches, price sensitivities, and purchase intent).

• Criteo’s commerce audiences based on transaction data from thousands of global retailers.

This represents the first connection of intent data from the Axel Springer ecosystem with concrete e-commerce signals. The resulting “framework” can be activated programmatically through curated Deal IDs across both Springer’s own inventory and Criteo’s extended network.

Benedict Gründig, senior director/commerce grid activation at Criteo, noted: “The preparation of their intent and Idealo data by Axel Springer is an important milestone for the market. The partnership demonstrates the potential of curated publisher data for commerce-driven media strategies.”

Creator economy integration

The rebranding of “Social & Influencer Lions” to “Social & Creator Lions” reflected fundamental strategy shifts in Cannes.

Vaseline’s “Verified” campaign achieved a 43% sales increase by transforming creator content into science-backed advertising — a model news publishers could adapt by partnering with subject-matter expert creators who extend journalistic authority into new advertising formats.

Platform relationships also evolved significantly. TikTok’s shift from “trend chasing” to “real-time trend building” and Meta’s investment of US$14-US$15 billion in Scale AI demonstrate platforms’ commitment to creator-centric models. 

News publishers can leverage these investments by developing creator partnership frameworks that maintain editorial standards while embracing platform-native storytelling. The winning formula combines journalistic credibility with creator authenticity to build engaged communities rather than passive audiences.

Strategic synthesis: critical lessons for news media advertising from all 3 events

1. AI-powered automation is becoming non-negotiable: Platforms are setting new speed and sophistication benchmarks that news publishers may eventually need to match by investing in AI-powered data activation tools that compete with platform sophistication. 

While 86% of publishers cite first-party data as their most significant asset, most struggle with activation, and AI is a path to democratising sophisticated targeting capabilities. Adobe’s solutions and similar platforms enable smaller publishers to generate personalised campaigns at scale.

2. The value of portfolio diversification beyond news: Economic uncertainty and brand safety concerns often limit traditional news advertising revenue, whereas examples like The New York Times’ cultural moments strategy and portfolio approach (Games, Cooking, Sports) can help create diversification opportunities without compromising editorial integrity.

3. Creator partnerships require strategic framework: With the creator economy projected to surpass US$525 billion by 2030, news publishers can explore different ways to leverage journalistic credibility through authentic creator partnerships. 

Consider developing creator collaboration frameworks that maintain editorial standards while embracing platform-native storytelling and focus on subject-matter expert creators who extend your authority.

4. Performance measurement excellence as a market differentiator: Cross-platform measurement remains the top concern for 44% of ad buyers, while many advertisers still view news through outdated brand safety assumptions rather than performance metrics. 

The convergence of attention metrics and audience research on the value of news environments provides an opportunity to better demonstrate the value of news media advertising. Publishers should explore how attention measurement and other sophisticated measurement tools can help sales pitches transform from “support journalism” messaging to “superior advertising performance” positioning.

In conclusion

NewFronts, Upfronts, and Cannes 2025 collectively showcase where the advertising industry is heading with AI-powered automation, creator collaboration, shoppable experiences, and performance-based measurement as key themes. 

Critical capabilities for modern advertising teams include AI integration skills, data collaboration expertise, creator partnership management, and community building. Traditional sales-focused structures must evolve into cross-functional teams combining technology, creative, and strategic capabilities. 

The most actionable insight involves partnership models. Data clean room consortiums like Snowflake’s Media Data Cloud enable smaller publishers to access enterprise-grade capabilities through collaboration. Similarly, creator partnerships provide content scale without proportional cost increases. The winning organisational model combines internal capability development with strategic external partnerships, creating resilient structures that adapt to rapid market changes.

Successful news organisations are strategically leveraging their full brand ecosystems while maintaining editorial excellence, maximising the value of cultural authority and audience relationships. Publishers that adapt these innovations while preserving their core mission have opportunities to thrive in the post-traffic era.

About this newsletter

Today’s newsletter is written by Gabriel Dorosz, based in Booklyn, New York, United States, and lead for the INMA Advertising Initiative. You can read his full bio here.

Reach him at gabriel.dorosz@inma.org, connect on LinkedIn, or join the INMA #advertising-initiative Slack channel.

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