TV advert shopping for is more and more pushed by advert tech, as proven by exercise throughout the 2025 upfront negotiations, the place programmatic, CTV, and data-fueled pitches took heart stage. This theme continued final week on the media business’s flagship convention, Cannes Lions Pageant of Creativity, with a slew of bulletins on the glitzy affair underlining this shift within the sands.
Final week, Disney Promoting introduced a brand new partnership with Amazon Advertisements, including Amazon’s demand-side platform to its Actual-Time Advert Alternate, or DRAX, almost a yr after its launch with rival DSPs. This makes Amazon solely the third DSP — after Google and The Commerce Desk — to entry premium stock throughout Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu.
The collaboration allows advertisers to mix Disney’s viewers focusing on instruments with Amazon’s commerce, searching, and streaming insights through AWS clear rooms and Disney Compass. This integration helps curated marketing campaign packages powered by Disney’s contextual instruments like Magic Phrases and the forthcoming Disney Choose.
The transfer displays Disney’s technique to reinforce its addressability and knowledge interoperability, aligning with its broader ambition to supply advertisers with extra actionable, outcome-driven options throughout its expansive streaming portfolio. It additionally builds on its DRAX partnerships with the business’s two largest DSPs, The Commerce Desk and Google’s DV 360.
Omnicom Media Group utilized the convention to announce a partnership with The Commerce Desk and Disney, enabling programmatic advert shopping for throughout reside sports activities occasions. The collaboration makes use of Disney’s “Magic Phrases” and customized algorithms to focus on high-attention moments in real-time, enhancing advert personalization, addressability, and effectiveness for shoppers throughout reside streaming environments.
In the meantime, Roku used the identical convention to disclose that it has partnered with Amazon Advertisements to make the e-commerce large’s DSP the unique programmatic gateway to Roku’s CTV stock utilizing a shared, authenticated ID. This integration spans an estimated 80 million U.S. CTV households, enabling deterministic focusing on and marketing campaign administration throughout Roku and Hearth TV platforms.
The transfer marks a strategic deepening of Roku’s identity-based advert capabilities, aligning with its push for performance-driven, interoperable options. Whereas Roku stock stays out there through rival DSPs and direct offers, this unique integration for identity-based entry displays Roku’s broader effort to reinforce addressability, attribution, and purchaser management in a privacy-compliant means. It additionally ties Roku’s media technique extra tightly to retail media alternatives, as advertisers acquire improved insights into shopper purchases pushed by streaming adverts.
Netflix additionally used the flagship convention to disclose that it has now added Yahoo’s DSP as its fourth international programmatic associate, becoming a member of The Commerce Desk, Google Show & Video 360, and Microsoft — albeit the latter social gathering intends to shutter its DSP inside months.
The Yahoo integration, launching later this yr throughout all 12 of Netflix’s ad-supported markets, will allow advertisers to purchase stock programmatically and leverage superior focusing on instruments. Firstly, it’s a tie-up that’s prone to have bankers updating their gross sales decks as Yahoo-owner Apollo World entertains provides from potential suitors for the present fourth-largest DSP available on the market.
Earlier this yr, Netflix expanded interest-based focusing on and first-party knowledge capabilities, furthering entry and increasing the advert focusing on potentialities for manufacturers searching for to achieve its extremely engaged streaming viewers.
Such bulletins echo the headline bulletins at this yr’s upfronts, the place networks emphasised viewers graphs, identification decision, and signal-based metrics over conventional show-based promoting.
Right here, platforms like Netflix and Amazon additionally made a lot of how they’ll provide cancellation phrases and self-serve entry akin to digital platforms, making TV extra agile and performance-driven. A Digiday+ survey revealed that solely 36% of entrepreneurs plan to put money into conventional upfronts this yr, whereas over half are rising their funding in streaming.
Stay sports activities nonetheless anchor demand, however patrons more and more demand transparency, dynamic optimization, and real-time measurement. This displays the success of such platforms’ key pitch, i.e., the convergence of premium content material with the accountability and suppleness of digital advert tech capabilities. Amazon is putting this messaging — connecting content material and commerce — on the forefront of its pitch, each on the upfronts and since then.
Business observers will word how the affirmation of the Ventura TV OS by The Commerce Desk final yr was an indicator of this (inevitable) pattern. Eagle-eyed observers can even have famous how The Commerce Desk introduced an integration with Anoki final week to make Ventura extra interesting to TV producers.
Talking at a convention earlier this yr, The Commerce Desk CEO Jeff Inexperienced described the corporate’s rationale for providing the software program to conventional TV producers.
“Nearly all of them are taking a look at it saying, ‘I don’t know a lot about promoting… this place feels very difficult and really convoluted’… as soon as once more, this performs to [The] Commerce Desk strengths,” he stated at a current convention.
What we’ve heard
“It’s very simple to spin out AdX, it’s a lot easier than GAM [Google Ad Manager] as a result of publishers use a number of exchanges already.” — Marketecture CEO Ari Paparo discusses a number of the findings in his upcoming e-book, Yield: How Google Purchased, Constructed and Bullied Its Strategy to Promoting Dominance, which discusses lots of the findings unearthed eventually yr’s advert tech antitrust trial.
- $25.9 billion: Forecasted AI search advert spend in 2029
- 8.7%: Predicted year-on-year progress of U.S. advert spending in 2028
- $55.9 billion: The bear case state of affairs, i.e., tariff-dependent, for retail media advert spend in 2025
- $1,287 billion: The bear case state of affairs, i.e., tariff-dependent, for U.S. e-commerce spend in 2025
What we’ve lined:
The Shorts play: YouTube steps up creator monetization
YouTube is increasing inside instruments and teaming with third-party platforms like Agentio and StreamElements to spice up monetization for Shorts creators. Whereas BrandConnect stays in beta for choose influencers, these partnerships goal to simplify branded content material offers and unlock new income, particularly for smaller creators. YouTube’s aim is to scale creator-brand collaborations throughout Shorts and past.
The Guardian bets on unified programmatic advert promoting as curation positive aspects floor
The Guardian introduced it has unified its programmatic advert operations throughout the U.S., U.Ok., and Australia to streamline international shopping for and simplify entry to its stock. The transfer goals to supply advertisers centralized scale and consistency with out inside restructuring.
What we’re studying
Viant swipes at The Commerce Desk with a billboard in Cannes
Viant made a daring splash at Cannes Lions Pageant of Creativity with advertising and marketing activations mocking The Commerce Desk, within the guise of billboards emblazoned upon the Majestic Resort, which faces the convention venues Palais du Pageant, and geared toward rival The Commerce Desk. Adweek studies that one reads, “Nonetheless buying and selling on a desk?” A second, stacked beside it, solutions: “Viant AI. The way forward for digital promoting.”
Apple executives have held inside talks about shopping for AI startup Perplexity
Bloomberg cites unnamed sources with direct information of the developments, claiming its head of company improvement, Adrian Perica, and providers chief, Eddy Cue, in addition to a coterie of its AI decision-makers, are conscious of the corporate’s potential curiosity in bidding for synthetic intelligence startup Perplexity AI.
Meta held talks to purchase Pondering Machines, Perplexity, and Secure Superintelligence
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has been actively exploring AI acquisitions, together with early talks with Mira Murati’s Pondering Machines Lab, Ilya Sutskever’s Secure Superintelligence, and Perplexity, in response to The Verge. Whereas none superior to formal provides, the outreach underscores Meta’s aggressive push to revive its AI technique amid rising competitors and the rise of latest AI-native platforms.
Criteo and Dentsu announce international commerce media partnership
Criteo introduced an expanded international partnership with Dentsu, marking the primary full adoption of its Commerce Media Platform by a serious holding firm. The collaboration goals to reinforce commerce and efficiency campaigns utilizing AI-driven instruments and measurement.
