Adweek NY, the annual industry confab that gathers more than 15,000 attendees in mid-town Manhattan, was the center of the global advertising world last week. Portada editors participated, and here are six critical topics you need to know about.
1. Verizon’s Soccer Bet
At Adweek NY we got a feel of how brands are expanding their sports marketing playbook to include soccer. During a panel on the opportunities soccer offers to brands, Nick Kelly, Vice President of Partnerships at Verizon, an experienced brand marketer with a strong knowledge of soccer in the U.S., noted that awareness and purchase consideration for Verizon services are lower for Hispanics than for the average American consumer. With the recently announced Fifa 2026-2027 World Cup sponsorship, “we are telling Mexican Americans, Colombian Americans, Argentinean Americans, etc, that we support them,” Kelly stated. “We are interested in replicating our model around football with the NFL, with soccer, particularly when it comes to engaging the Hispanic population,” he noted. Verizon has an extensive partnership with the NFL, including sponsorship of 5 teams, NFL Sunday tickets on YouTube and YouTube TV, and exclusive private wireless solutions to each of the 30 NFL stadiums.
“We are interested in replicating our model around football and the NFL, with soccer, particularly when it comes to engaging the Hispanic population”.
2. Adweek NY: Retail Media Galore
According to the latest count, there are no fewer than 224 retail media networks active in the U.S. Retail and commerce media companies played an essential part as sponsors of Adweek, with retail media properties as diverse as Uber Advertising, United Airlines, CVS Media Exchange, Chase Media Solutions and Instacart promoting their wares. Some companies brand themselves as retail media and others as commerce media. While retail media relies on first-party data gathered via a specific retailer’s website, commerce media augments first-party insights with inputs from other publishers and brand sites. Most players have elements of both retail and commerce media.
United Airlines positioned its in-flight screens with 100% targetability as an essential differentiator. The airline touted a deal with Univision through which Univision provides in-flight entertainment and promotes VIX subscriptions. Instacart is integrating shopping carts into the New York Times app, so users who read New York Times cookie recipes can buy the ingredients in one click. CVS Media Exchange explained that one of its advantages lies in providing localized content driven by consumer Zip Code data. Rich Muhlstock, Head of Offers & eCommerce and President of Chase Media Solutions, noted that his unit could personalize content delivery based on data from 82 million consumers and 6.5 million small businesses. “In the past year, we have driven 8 billion in sales attributable to consumer offers,” Muhlstock said.
All retail media executives agreed that standardizing ad and purchase units is vital for improving campaign measurability and the sector’s overall credibility.
Joel Quadracci, Chairman, President, and CEO of Quad, a company that handles approximately 10% of all mail that goes through USPS, noted that “brick and mortar activations are still not part of retail media networks.” Quadracci mentioned that Quad is working on a pilot with medium-sized retailers to integrate in-store activations in digital retail media buys.
“Brick and mortar activation are still not part of retail media networks.”
3. Disruption and Opportunities
Jay Leveton, President at Stagwell, noted that there has been a lot of dislocation in the marketing and media sector over the last year. He noted opportunities abound with a global market potential of 200 billion advertising agency fee-based revenues. Stagwell intends to expand into different regions outside the U.S., including Latin America. Leveton sees a lot of potential for disruption in the provision of marketing research services by moving them to a more dynamic and company-wide use. At a panel on private equity Reed Rayman, Partner, Apollo, Rich McDermott, Managing Director, Rosenblatt and Brian Schmidt,Principal at Court Square Capital Partners, focused on three areas where AI can substantially help in marketing and advertising. They include cost optimization for technology, creative and intellectual property rights Optimization. As practical examples, they cited video generation capabilities for small and midsized companies and how Amazon automatically turns product descriptions into demo videos.
4. Adweek NY: The Investor’s View
The participants in the above-referenced private equity panel noted that high interest rates over the last two years negatively impacted the investment and deal environment, as investors typically expect a 20% plus return on equity. In the future, lower rates should make deals more accessible to finance in 2025. A positive factor is that many marketing and media companies have substantial cash flows to pile debt on through deals (e.g., Leveraged Buyouts). They also see a high potential for consolidation (mergers). Among the most exciting areas to invest in, they cited:
- Retail Media
- Connected TV (CTV)
- AI
5. Political Advertising as Innovation Lab
Stagwell’s Leveton, whose agency is a substantial player in the political advertising market related to the 2024 elections, mentioned that political advertising volume likely approached US $1 billion in August and will lie between US $ 1 and 2 billion in September. By November, the total political advertising spending will be between US $ 12 and US $ 14 billion. Stagwell highlighted that political advertising can be an innovation Innovation lab for what happens in the corporate world down the road. Leveton mentioned that the ID Graph was first used in advocacy/political marketing and later crossed to corporate advertising.
6. A Diverse Mass Market
Perhaps the best definition of what it means to market in a multicultural America was provided by Liz Blacker, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development
at Sabio, who said that the U.S. is a “diverse mass market”, adding that multiculturalism is not only a part of what they do, it’s who they are as a diverse media company. Blacker was interviewed in a session on “The Power of Streaming TV.”
