Advertising
Digital has upended traditional advertising. What’s shaking out after the digital shakeup? Read our insights to find out.
Insights
Blog
The Cost Of AI Productivity Is Less Creativity
AI is now standard across marketing agencies — but its impact remains constrained. Forrester’s “The State Of AI Inside US Marketing Agencies, 2026” finds that CMOs must shift their AI ambitions toward creativity, differentiation, and growth to unlock real value.
Blog
Google Dethrones OpenAI As Agencies’ Preferred AI Partner
New Forrester and 4As research shows that agencies are prioritizing ecosystems that connect data, creative, media, and commerce at scale, with Google emerging as the leading partner. As marketing moves from isolated tools to integrated operating systems, the ability to orchestrate end-to-end workflows is becoming the new competitive edge.
Blog
Google Goes All-In: An AI-Operated System, Not AI-Assisted Products
Will Consumers And Marketers Follow? Three years ago, Google was on the defensive. ChatGPT reset expectations for search experiences and Microsoft gained early momentum with its investments in OpenAI. Today, the answer engine race continues, but Google is back in pole position. Even with new market diversification thanks to OpenAI and Anthropic, Google remains the […]
Blog
Ad Creative Is A Technology Problem And Opportunity
The market for creative advertising technologies should have boomed by now. Despite waves of innovation, it has struggled to translate technological promise into business outcomes. Its potential remains highly significant but constrained by cultural disconnects between creative and media subject matter experts (SMEs) and intransigent bottlenecks in creative and media processes. The market appeared poised […]
Blog
From Walled Gardens To Working Media: The Rise Of Commerce Media
In less than a decade, retail media evolved from a monetization tactic piloted by margin-seeking mass retailers into one of advertising’s fastest-growing channels. By nearly every surface-level metric, retail media works. Marketers shifted billions of co-op funds into it, lured by the promise of closed-loop measurement and higher return on relationships with merchants. But beneath […]
Blog
Publicis Acquires LiveRamp To Advance New Agentic AI Push
Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire data collaboration and identity resolution firm LiveRamp for $2.55 billion in a move aimed to expand the agency holding company’s artificial intelligence offering. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026, following the customary regulatory and shareholder approvals. Publicis will operate LiveRamp as an independent company […]
Blog
GenAI Is Rebuilding Search, And Google is Still Winning (Q1 2026 Search Revenue Up 19% YoY)
Every tech cycle needs a good funeral: a villain to bury and a hero to crown. In genAI’s version of the story, kill advertising (again) and Google (search) is dead. The plot is tidy: GenAI replaces searching, ads become obsolete, and the web finally escapes the “attention tax.” It’s a satisfying story. Clean. Moral. Wrong. […]
Blog
What The History Of Ad Agencies Tells Us About CMO Power: Order-Takers To Strategic Partners — And Back Again
A Love Story Older Than Television The tension between CMOs and advertising agencies didn’t start with AI, procurement, or any media disruption. And history makes one thing clear: Agencies only gain power when CMOs don’t — or can’t — fully exercise theirs. It’s embedded in the very origin of the advertising agency itself. To understand […]
Blog
Bye Bye Birdie: The Rise And Fall Of Allbirds
Powered by purpose and buoyed by splashy marketing, it seemed destined for greatness. But economics and profitability always have the final word.
Blog
Omnichannel Ad Platforms: The Future Beyond DSPs
The market for omnichannel demand-side platforms (DSPs) has reached its limit. Pioneers like The Trade Desk and its erstwhile rivals — including the likes of MediaMath, Rocket Fuel, TubeMogul, Turn, and Xandr — grew by accelerating cross-channel media planning, buying, and optimization. Now, DSPs’ core capabilities are very mature and highly automatable. Vendors focused primarily […]
Blog
CMOs’ “AI Creative Leap”: From Making Ads To Designing Meaning
As AI absorbs execution at scale, creativity returns to its highest value. The brands that win will automate production while doubling down on insight, narrative, and the judgment that protects meaning.
Blog
Marketing Chaos Is Our Calling: Why CMOs, Agencies, And Martech Have Forrester On Their Side
Forrester uniquely covers the entire marketing ecosystem and its underlying business. 2026 heralds a monumental shift in marketing and advertising, surpassing the decades-long “digital” transformation. AI will upend commercial models, reshape brand expectations from partners, and demand new measures of efficient growth. CMOs face the herculean task of rewiring the marketing function. Martech leaders must […]
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It’s “Grow-Time” For Omnicom Group And Its Customers
Omnicom enters its first earnings cycle after the IPG acquisition with scale, momentum, and unresolved operational challenges. CMOs should ignore Wall Street’s fixation on quarterly performance and instead evaluate how Omnicom plans to convert its expanded capabilities into customer growth. Despite its new size, the company still faces the same structural barriers constraining the broader […]
Blog
What Consumers Actually Think About Ads In ChatGPT
Anthropic is betting that ads in ChatGPT specifically will ignite a change in consumer behavior. Consumers, for their part, think differently.
Blog
From AI To Tight Ends: Super Bowl LX’s Growth Winners
Another Super Bowl in the books, and we’re left asking ourselves questions like, “Who had a better night — artificial intelligence or the Backstreet Boys’ agent?” While the industry makeup of Super Bowl ads shifted, some things never change — like the use of spokes-animals and celebrity-fueled ’90s nostalgia, plus the need for advertisers to […]
Blog
Brand Safety Essentials: Protection Meets Performance
Explore Forrester’s latest research on brand safety and suitability for 2026. Learn how marketers can balance risk, relevance, and ROI with strategic frameworks and insights from 2025 trends.
Blog
The Truth About Principal Media
Love it or hate it, principal media is a necessity for agencies, advertisers, and publishers grappling with revenue and budget uncertainty.
Blog
The Tale Of Turmoil Ends: US TikTok Set To Divest In 2026
Timed perfectly with the first US-based TikTok Awards, TikTok signed an agreement to divest US TikTok. This deal, reportedly valued at around $14 billion, will divest US TikTok to a joint venture of primarily American investors. Learn the details and what questions brands should be asking.
Blog
Podcasts Go From Niche Audio Format To Media Powerhouse
Podcasts are having a moment (that will last). Once considered a subset of streaming audio, podcasts have evolved well beyond that. This content now spans audio, social media, and — very importantly — video. Netflix just announced a deal with iHeartMedia to bring 14 video podcasts to Netflix in 2026. Netflix also made a deal […]
Blog
A Big Bang Reshapes Agencies Into Algorithms Of Record
Fierce competition, shrinking margins, and technological change has contracted the agency landscape all while agencies' remits vastly expand. All the while, a new concept is taking shape.
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