Robert Williams

CANNES – The advertising industry is in the early stages of working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from marketing activities. This process includes an analysis of supply chains and classifying activities into three areas: Scope 1 covers direct emissions from a company’s own or controlled sources, such as fuel burning, waste processing or equipment leaks. […]

CANNES – Measuring people’s attention to advertising in the past few years has become a bigger part of helping marketers to shape their campaign strategies. “When we think about attention, it came from our original desire to show an improvement in the way we harness our clients’ dollars to do better outcomes,” Chrissie Hanson, chief […]

CANNES – A growing number of retailers are now selling digital .advertising, offering brands a way to reach consumers at all stages of the purchase funnel from awareness down to a final purchase. Retailers such as discount chain Walmart also offer the ability to reach target audiences based on their purchase histories. “There is no […]

The media marketplace is more fragmented than ever before as consumers divide their time among a bigger variety of connected devices and content platforms, which include social media and streaming services. This complexity challenges marketers to better understand how people pay attention to advertising. “What we have been searching for is really a way to […]

CANNES – Addressable advertising promises to help brands with their audience targeting, and it can be more effective when ad creative is optimized for more specific groups of consumers. “Before creating the TV creative itself, think about the characterization within it,” Nicola Lewis, global chief executive officer of Finecast, said in this interview with Jonathan […]

CANNES – The ad-tech industry in the past couple of years has started to become more aware of how its energy usage contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. As founder of The Alpine Project, ad-tech veteran Brian Murphy seeks to help companies take steps to reduce their carbon footprints without sacrificing their business goals. “Ad-tech in […]

CANNES – Effective leadership involves an understanding of people’s strengths as they work together on teams. Sarah Kramer, chief executive of Publicis’s Spark Foundry, said leaders also recognize when they need the help of people with unique skills. “Diversity and skill sets, hiring people that are smarter than you, that have specialist skills that are […]

CANNES – The ability to get things done is a key trait for people in leadership roles, though that competence accumulates over time. “I noticed that in my twenties as a leader, I needed certain traits. Now that I’m in a different part of my career, it’s funny how listening becomes a really critical trait,” […]

CANNES – Retail media advertising typically refers to digital media channels, but it does have ties to in-store promotions and shopper marketing. That’s especially the case in parts of Europe, where retail media networks are in an early stage of development. “We love shopping in Europe, we love going into the stores. There are stores […]

CANNES – The major shift in people’s television viewing habits has led to a need for audience measurement that covers a variety of platforms – everything from traditional linear television to video streaming on connected devices. Media companies in the past year have gained greater confidence that they can sell advertising with the help of […]

CANNES – The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year was notable for introducing sustainability criteria in every advertising award category for the first time. The new requirements come as the media and marketing industries become more aware that their marketing activities result in greenhouse-gas emissions. “For many years, we’ve been focused on climate […]

CANNES – Media company Paramount is part of a partnership that advertising agency Havas announced with data-collaboration platform LiveRamp on data clean rooms. The goal is give marketers a way to improve audience targeting by matching their customer data with other datasets while also protecting people’s privacy. “At Paramount, we think a couple of core […]

Marketers can make advertising campaigns more effective with reliable information about how they reached a target audience. Consumer identifiers that don’t reveal personal details about people or invade their privacy are an important resource in these efforts. Identity “streamlines the way that we transact in the marketing ecosystem,” Julie Clark, senior vice president of media […]

CANNES – The popularity of ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by generative artificial intelligence that’s adept at creating a variety of text-based content, has helped to ignite interest in the technology among media and marketing executives. That group includes attendees of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The term “AI” is among the five key […]

CANNES – The significant changes in how people spend time with media and advertising have led marketers and media companies to find measurement solutions that accurately reflect consumer behavior. Rivals to Nielsen, which has dominated television ratings for decades, are gaining acceptance in helping to set the value of ad transactions, or what are known […]

CANNES – Uber Technologies in the past year has diversified into advertising sales, building on its relationships with consumers who have used its apps to hail a car-ride or to order food for delivery. The data the company gathers about people’s destinations and their buying habits are a key resource in helping to provide brands […]

CANNES – The fragmentation of the media marketplace has challenged marketers to find more ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising, including a metric for people’s attention to brand messaging. Advertising agency Havas teamed with measurement partner Adelaide to develop the Meaningful Attention Unit (MAU) as a key metric. “We’re going to change how we […]

CANNES – The advertising industry’s carbon footprint was a major topic at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, with plenty of discussion about how marketing professionals can include sustainability issues in their decision making. “Our agencies are getting more and more interest in not only what they’re doing for their organization, but what […]

CANNES – The ad-tech industry relies on computers whose power partly comes from burning fossil fuels. Natural gas and coal are used to generate 60% of the electricity in the United States, while 20% comes from renewable sources such as wind and hydroelectric, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Demand-side platform Adlook is looking […]

CANNES – Responsible media investment seeks to support a diverse range of publishers, broadcasters, streaming platforms and creators of content. The effort also reflects the growth of multiethnic audiences, especially younger consumers with growing spending power. Publicis Groupe several years ago created the Once and For All Coalition to advance diversity and inclusion goals. “We […]