← The Digiday Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript84 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:10]
B
Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Digiday Podcast, a show for people who are likely ready to close their laptops for holiday break, but likely won't. I'm Kimiko McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday.
- [00:21]
A
And I'm Tim Peterson, executive editor, video and audio, Digiday Media. And by the time this episode's out, I have closed my laptop. Same I closed my laptop, I have thrown it out the window. I. I have go anti technology for the rest of this year.
- [00:39]
B
100%. This year has been a hell of a year. Something that we say every year. So I think having it come to a close where I can close the year and that godforsaken laptop is going to be a really, really good feeling.
- [00:53]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, so this week we have our annual Year in Review recap episode. We brought on Digiday managing editor Sarah Jeudy and Digiday executive editor of News, Seb Joseph, to help you and I make sense of what the hell all happened this year and what does all of this mean for 2026. And I feel like Seb was the one who made the point of like this was kind of just a year of loose ends.
- [01:22]
B
Yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it. Also shouts to Seb, I feel like he's been our silver lining throughout all of these. So with you and I in our tinfoil hats, for all of these conversations about Omnicom, wpp, mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, AI, through all of it, you and I have had our tin foil foil hats. But luckily we've had him and Sarah to kind of talk, give us a good silver through line there.
- [01:49]
A
Yeah, we needed it because there was so much that we cover in this. We cover, obviously, Netflix, Warner Brothers. The day we recorded this episode was the day that Disney announced its deal with OpenAI. Omnicom closed the acquisition of IPG, there was God, what else all happened this year or didn't happen because the TikTok US spinoff didn't happen. The death of the third party cookie.
- [02:17]
B
I was just about to say, did not happen. And that all of some of those things feel like they were a light year ago, which really speaks to what the hell 2025 was.
- [02:29]
A
And there's also. So we're recording this on Friday, December 12th, because this is my last working day of the year. So anything that happened post Friday, December 12, we did not cover in this episode, but we cover so much in this episode that I don't know that we would have had time for it.
- [02:46]
B
Yeah, correct. Correct. It was pretty jam packed. So I think we've done a really good job. Best we can do, given everything 2025 handed us. And here I'll say this, with all of the loose ends that happened in 2025, there will be no shortage of coverage for 2026.
- [03:05]
A
Yeah. So thank you to all the listeners who have tuned in this year. We really appreciate you taking out some time each week to spend with us. And Kamika, thank you for being an incredible co host and I've really enjoyed doing the show with you. So have a very, very happy holidays.
- [03:22]
B
You too.
- [03:23]
C
Thank you.
- [03:35]
A
Seb and Sarah, thanks for joining Kimiko and I in what feels like the longest year. To recap what feels like the longest year of my life.
- [03:43]
D
In a good way.
- [03:46]
B
No, derogatory.
- [03:47]
A
No, not in a good way. Kamika. We've covered so much on this show this year, and obviously Digiday has covered so much in its coverage on the site, all the articles and everything else. And as we were prepared for this episode, I really struggled to feel like I had a solid grasp on all the big things that happened this year. As I was going through, I was certain there were going to be things that I forgot, mainly because right now all I can think about is Netflix, Warner Brothers, Discovery in Paramount, and what's going on there. But I caught myself realizing, oh, yeah, third party cookie that happened this year didn't happen this year, as it were. Kamika, what was your. What's your vibe on 2025 as we, like, send it off?
- [04:43]
B
Oh, that's a good question. 2025 has. I feel like I say this every year. It's like, oh, the year left me with whiplash, but this time it, like, it really did. My neck hurts. You know what I mean? I think this is the year. It is more of, like, a slow trickle for me where AI really grounded itself and upended a ton of things with, like, I think we started the year with, like, AI Mode being introduced. And like, now we're talking about, like, ads in Gemini. So there's like, little pebbles that are into the water. Like, that has been kind of the biggest shockwave for me this year. Turns out AI is not a flash in the pan, so there's that.
- [05:20]
A
Sarah and Seb, you both oversee our newsroom. Sarah, you see every single story that comes through that we publish on the site. Do you even have a good sense of what were the stories that kind of stand out or the coverage focuses that stand out from the year?
- [05:37]
D
It's kind of funny you asked that because I feel like I think I was on mid year and even that was sort of a challenge to talk about what had happened so far halfway through the year and taking a look at the stories now and where coverage went, I feel like we kept saying like, oh, we just have to get to summer because then it'll get slower. And then, oh, we just have to get to fall and it'll get slower. And now I say, you know, perhaps over the holiday break it'll get slower. And that makes me scared because what's going to happen over the holidays now I'll knock on wood for all of us. But all of this to say no. Every day has been sort of just its own wild ride. And I found a lot of pleasure and excitement in having such a busy year, even though it has been truly a lot of everything all over the place. What's it been like for you, Seb? I know the coverage has just been everywhere.
- [06:26]
C
Yeah, look, I think this year will definitely be one of those years that when we look back on it'll feel more consequential than it does kind of being in the midst of it. There have been so many different shifts that have kind of happened this year from the two antitrust cases that kind of Google was kind of swept up in the US to kind of OpenAI's evolving sort of business and some of the changes from that that didn't actually come to bear like it's had business which looks like it will sort of happen at some point sort of next year to even the sort of omnicom sort of acquisition for IPG as well. Like I feel like all of those things and many more earlier point around sort of the future owner of of kind of Warner Bros. Discovery. I feel like we'll look back on this year is kind of when almost like we started to see how those deck chairs were were sort of going to be be reordered or at least the kind of starting process of that. And so I feel like next year will definitely be a, a kind of watershed year sort of in many respects from you know, you know, looking at kind of how Google starts to really pull the trigger on what the next phase of its kind of business sort of looks like to seeing almost a bit of a correction in this of AI platform space and then also on the sort of holocaust sort of thing, a real, a real litmus test for the future prospects of that business model right as the new Omnicomai position really starts to metastasized in this market.
- [08:15]
A
Yeah, I completely agree with you. As I've been thinking about 2025, I've been thinking of it as a setup year. But then I caught myself because I think when we recorded this episode last year, talking about 2024, I think I described it as a setup year. And maybe that's just how time works. And I'm being very basic in thinking of it this way, but. So I was writing my Future of TV briefing, the 202025 in review edition that'll be coming out publishing the day after this episode. And I opened that with a line of like, 2025 feels unfinished for the future of TV. That's absolutely true. Because Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, that's the big story at the moment. It's the big story of the year for the future of tv, for the TV and streaming industry. And obviously we have no idea what's going to happen there. We don't know if even Netflix is going to be the one who ends up with Warner Brothers studio and streaming service.
- [09:18]
C
Yeah, it's almost like the year of loose ends, right? That really does seem like kind of how. Almost like the Empire Strikes Back. If we're sort of going all sort of Star wars on it. Like we're sort of ending on the mother of all cliffhangers for every sort of big industry sort of shift at the moment.
- [09:35]
A
And the emperor reveals himself this year as well.
- [09:40]
D
No spoilers. No spoilers.
- [09:45]
A
But yeah, because, I mean, so we have Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, obviously huge. Paramount, Skydance. Paramount finally got sold. Skydance picked it up. Now the new Paramount is trying to pick up Warner Bros. Discovery. We also had the launches finally of a standalone ESPN streaming service. And Fox rolled out its standalone streaming service, which isn't just sports, but is largely sports. I signed up for it so I could watch college football and Sunday football. And then Amazon got the NBA deal and NBCUniversal got the NBA deal specifically to have games on Peacock. They're also on the broadcast channel. But when I think about these developments in the future of TV this year, it feels like this was the handoff year for streaming to take the baton from traditional tv. Both still have their hands on it. Even in the upfront. More money got committed to traditional TV than to streaming. But overall, advertisers are spending more money on streaming and even the upfront. That gap is closing. I think it was when we had our CTV Advertising Strategies event in July when Danny Benowitz from IPG was on stage and talked about the expectation that more upfront commitments this year. We're going to be nearer to 50, 50 between the traditional TV money and the streaming money. So how I think of the future of TV this year is that handoff year between traditional linear and streaming.
- [11:19]
B
I also think that the idea of the streaming wars this year has finally, absolutely been put to rest. I think the top players have absolutely revealed themselves and only gotten stronger by kind of like consolidating on one hand. So when you think about like Paramount and Skydance, and then on the other hand, like, if there wasn't consolidation, there was acquisition. So I think at this point, I mean, I don't know, I would give Netflix probably the strongest player here in, in that sense, given that they've got that bid for Warner Brothers. Tim, you have a co point. Go.
- [11:53]
A
I agree with you. But I think what we've also seen this year is that the streaming wars have an even bigger player that everyone has. Like everyone in the streaming wars has kind of been trying to ignore but can't ignore anymore. And that's YouTube.
- [12:07]
B
I was going to ask you about that.
- [12:09]
A
Yes, YouTube. Most watch time of any streaming service, Most watch time on TV screens of any company. It overtook Disney this year where people are spending more time watching YouTube on TV screens than ABC, Disney, Hulu, even ESPN. All of that combined YouTube wins. And then we saw the distribution standoffs that YouTube TV was having with some major TV network owners.
- [12:35]
B
Yeah.
- [12:35]
A
And then obviously there's everything on the creator front and also the like, creators now doing deals with a Netflix, doing deals with a Tubi, but that's still based on their YouTube popularity. So I agree with you, like, a phase of the streaming wars has been settled, but now we're kind of going into a new phase of the streaming wars in a way where it's kind of the like, YouTube era of it. I don't have like a good analogy to like some sort of war movie where like you have like, oh, I thought we knew who, who were the combatants, but now, like, the aliens have a. Maybe that's what it is. Yeah, you had countries who were fighting and now the aliens have arrived. Because I think, Seb, when we were talking about Netflix and Warner's on the show recently, we were kind of talking about this idea of how much of Netflix's motivation to acquire Warner Brothers studio and streaming business, less about the traditional streaming and TV competition, and how much of it is about keeping pace with YouTube or trying to head off YouTube in some respect.
- [13:48]
C
Well, yeah, 100%. I think sort of Ted Sarandez answered that question for us. Earlier this week, like when he sort of pointed to YouTube as a reason why, you know, why his kind of bid for, you know, the Warner Bros. Tv, HBO and streaming business should be allowed through. He sort of highlighted the kind of watch the viewing hours right. That Netflix has and would have if it acquired those businesses. I think it would be 9% to YouTube's 13%. So it's already sort of been kind of pulled into that debate and it will be interesting to see, you know, kind of how that shakes out next year because, you know, it feels like everyone's kind of woken up to that kind of threat now. And it's a more clear and present danger to all of those kind of companies. And YouTube is known now, right? Like Krystal's kind of. One of our platform reporter is actively sort of working on a story about how YouTube is being more aggressive about loosening those sort of purse strings in order to sort of pull in more of that money over to kind of YouTube, both in kind of Q4, but laying the sort of groundwork for that to be a bigger play sort of next year as well.
- [14:56]
A
Okay, so Netflix, Warners, that's like the big thing that is coloring the future of TV as we look back at 2025 on the TV and streaming side of things. Similarly, when it comes to agencies, it feels like Omnicom IP and everyone else is the story of this year and similarly is kind of unfinished. It just closed a month before the end of the year. But it does feel like there have been some, well, I don't know, like Kimiko, Seb, Jordi. I think you all probably have a better read on this stuff than. I don't think you all have a better read the stuff that I do. What repercussions did Omnicom IPG have on the agency landscape this year even before that deal closed?
- [15:47]
C
Where to start? I think it definitely in some ways really brought into sharp focus the kind of fundamental flaws inherent in the kind of Holco model. Right. The idea that it was never really about kind of clients needs. It was more about essentially kind of financial engineering, like the whole kind of arbitrage sort of model. And I think you see that in the sort of share prices for all of those holocaust. They haven't really sort of adapted right. In response to the. The Omnicoms of ipg. If anything, they feel relatively stable unless you're wpp. So I think in. In many ways, like it's. It's a deal that just really reinforce why that model won't last for Too much, kind of longer. And why we're going to have to start to see the whole code really be more progressive about what that future business model looks like. Because the only way to grow otherwise will be through these types of deals. Right. And I think you already see some of that sort of playing out with regards to kind of how Havas and Horizon are starting to sort of get closer.
- [17:11]
A
Yeah. What is that? I had a hard time making sense of what that dynamic is between those.
- [17:16]
C
Two, you and everyone else. Right. It really feels like a way for them to sort of almost do a bit of a kind of tap dance before with each other, before fully sort of coming to sort of gather, you know, the idea that they're dating. Yeah, exactly. The idea that Havas needs kind of Horizon in order to sort of open up the kind of us I kind of get. But do they need a deal to sort of make that work? Probably kind of not. So who knows, Maybe in a year's time we sort of see those two companies come together in a more formalized way, especially given the kind of businesses do complement each other in many ways. But you know, I think within all of that, one of the more interesting aspects of the Omnicom RPG deal is I feel like they have both talked a good game at sort of this push towards more outcome based remuneration and the idea that that will go hand in hand with more automation powering the sort of the agency kind of model. But again, is that something that clients are genuinely going to be prepared to pay for at a time when increasingly ad prices are being squeezed? And I think John Ren sort of hinted at that in one of his earnings calls. It's something they're prepared to do. But he had some reservations as to kind of how tapped in clients were to that type of model. And we hear that time and again from some of the pitch consultants as well.
- [18:53]
A
And it seems like it's this evolution of the agency model towards more tech platform providers in many ways, which I'm sure has a lot to do with this agentic AI era that we're all being dragged into. But it also seems like Omnicom IPG is emblematic of that. Kameko WPP getting a new CEO as well as rolling out its open platform and then the open pro platform also seem representative of this.
- [19:24]
B
That absolutely points at it. Sam Bradley, our senior marketing reporter and I also have covered off on this topic. Mostly Sam shouts to him, but it's not just like the holding companies, but you've also got tech platforms like Google and Meta that are offering these white glove service white label services if you will which really puts agency hold calls not necessarily on the defense but having to kind of play the game where to keep up those ad dollars and with the changes of the relationship between client and hold cos you know they're kind of on the defense here. So to put something out there to scoop up more small to medium sized business dollars and dollars in general which are already being squeezed against tech platforms, you know they were kind of back into a place where they had to do that. And I think, you know I'm the com probably saw that from the writing on the wall here. Offering some of these services to become less of an agency and more of a strategic partner is how I've mostly heard it described this year. And talking to people, Sarah, you've seen a lot of our coverage about there. Are there any kind of themes that you've noticed sticking out from the changing relationship between agencies and clients?
- [20:32]
D
Well I think us talking about this year of loose ends, there's no looser end in terms of how agencies are going to charge for AI use going into next year. I think to Seb's point the large agency whole model is broken in a lot of ways but it's really being pressure tested in terms of how it's incorporating in AI and then how it's turning around and both charging and to your guys point licensing out that tech for future use. It's all sort of complicated and messy. But I think while this year might be the year we really sort of put AI and I say we meaning the industry at large not to assume any sort of responsibility in personal AI use but we are the guiding force. No, no no no. I say we meaning ad industry at large. If this is the year we have used AI and have some case examples to sort of pick apart next year will be the year that not to say we pay the consequences but maybe and we really take a look at what is AI worth to our processes. How much are brands willing to pay for it? And Kimiko to your recent cover especially how much are they just going to bring in house versus go to agencies anyway? You know I think the the economics of AI are really going to play out next year.
- [21:55]
A
And how does like brands use of AI change marketing like so we're recording this on Thursday December 11th morning OpenAI and Disney announced a big deal to allow Disney's IP to be used in OpenAI's output especially with things like Sora. So I'm going to be able to make whatever videos I want, I assume. I'm sure there's going to be guardrails but like featuring Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader and all the ratatouille, what have you. And if I and whoever else is making those videos and distributing those videos, does Disney then need to do as much marketing or the same kind of marketing that is as it has historically done and Disney doing this deal with OpenAI to what extent does this okay other brands to do these kinds of deals?
- [22:52]
D
I guess my question because Kimiko you've reported that brands really are not concerned.
- [22:56]
B
About real big shrugs.
- [22:58]
D
Yeah. Which is curious. Which I don't know why we're more worried about it than they are but. Okay, but so I guess my question to you, I mean are we just in a more casual like viewing environment? You know we have more long form series that shows behind the scenes in a way that has transformed. We have quote unquote news influencers regurgitating the news in a way that you don't see like your formal talking heads given like I think that readers responses to quote unquote formal content has, has changed especially in the last five years. So I wonder if this is like the 5.0 or 4.0 version of that and brands are just responding to readers casual relationship to content.
- [23:43]
B
I also wonder if this is a situation where we at industry at large doesn't learn that the stove is hot until after it's been touched. Right. And I almost wonder all too if this is like if it can't beat them join them type situation. Because on the other hand, on the other side of this there are still lawsuits actively happening and being played out in court against Mid Journey, in a handful of others, you know, for not licensing content before using it for training and things like that. So I don't, I, I don't know how much of it is shrugging off versus you know, how much can we do?
- [24:20]
A
Kamika, you know who, who's learning how hot the stove is?
- [24:24]
B
Who?
- [24:24]
A
Publishers. Yeah, publishers. Google zero has come Publishers Search referral traffic is down. Seb, we heard a ton about this when you and I were at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Europe in. God, was that late October? It was late October.
- [24:44]
C
Yeah. It's been the kind of big through line this year, hasn't it? The kind of year of the kind of zero click in many respects given how much data there was behind it consistently it felt like there was one period where not a week seemed to go by and there wasn't some publisher statistics or sort of, you know, big kind of data dump that kind of showed just how terminal declines were in some part of the, in some parts of the kind of open web. The interesting thing for me within all of that though is that it felt like publishers are still trying to extrapolate what that means from a commercial aspect. So whilst the declines are there, you know, in this traffic, how much of a hit is that translating to on the ad kind of side? And I wonder if next year we'll start to see publishers really get their heads around that side of things. Because from talking to, you know, kind of Jess and Sarah on our publishing team, that is the thing now that. On our media team. So that's the thing that's keeping a lot of those commercial execs up at night. It's the kind of actual putting a real kind of fix on the kind of hole it's blown in their ads.
- [26:05]
B
Business.
- [26:07]
A
Which I guess is helpful when then you have new entrants opening up their wallets for these content licensing deals with publishers. Because this year is the year we saw Amazon, Microsoft and most recently Meta start these AI content licensing programs. Amazon notably with the New York Times, which has sued OpenAI for copyright violations. We still haven't had a resolution in that lawsuit. And then Microsoft and Meta with a good number of publishers, I feel like People Inc. Is always part of these deals. Sarah, what have you made of kind of the options for publishers? To Seb's point of we haven't yet got our hands around what are the commercial impacts of on publishers, but there are starting to be more opportunities at least for some publishers to be making money from the AI companies for a time.
- [27:01]
D
Right? Yeah, I have a hard time not being grumpy and sort of critical about all of this. It still feels, and this is probably my background in media reporting showing, but it still feels like we are five years too late to this conversation. That being said, this is another loose end conversation and another one that has not one particular thesis going into this year or coming out of this year. Every publisher has their own sort of secret sauce and secret relationship to each of these companies, which I think is interesting. But I also think it's how media companies sort of back themselves up into a wall to begin with because they're unwilling to be candid and talk more about how these deals are coming together and talk through actual use cases and numbers. Everything kind of happens in a black box. And until publishers I think are willing to be a little bit more honest and come together en masse, kind of like we saw in the Google trial, that was the first time we heard a lot of those numbers talking about how Google had impacted their businesses. So anyway.
- [28:09]
A
And it was 10 years too late.
- [28:11]
D
Right, right, exactly. If not 20 at this point. Point, you know, so like, I don't know.
- [28:15]
A
Yeah.
- [28:16]
C
Anyway, the prisoner's dilemma that is the publishing industry.
- [28:21]
A
Yeah. I mean, speaking of black boxes, there's, you know, also this question of how can publishers get traffic from these AI platforms? How can they get, you know, their links distributed 20, 25. God, hate it. This is the year that gave us two new acronyms, AEO and geo. Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization. No one seems to be able to agree on, like, can we just pick one and go with that? Why do we need to. Why can't we just expand the definition of SEO? It doesn't seem like anyone has like a real read on how to organically show up in ChatGPT or Gemini or any of the other platforms is either you do some sort of commercial deal, some sort of content licensing deal, or you say you're doing answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization. But then if anyone asks you, what does that mean? I haven't come across anyone who I felt like has given me a solid answer on it.
- [29:28]
B
No. No one knows what it means, but it's provocative. Right. In all of the conversations that I've had, like when I. When you peel back the layers of it, you're right, Tim, I don't. I don't think anybody. And you know what, maybe this looks different for publishers than it is for brands. But as I'm talking to marketers, you peel back the layers and you talk to the people that are actually doing the work, the SEO specialists and things like that. There's a frustration mounting that'll maybe come to a head tomorrow of AEO and geo. Great acronyms, but a lot of it replicates SEO in the. In the sky is falling, you know, pattern that the ad industry has of, well, we've got to upend and rip up our playbook and start something new. I think when the dust starts to settle in the new year, you might see a lot of those SEO strategies just be fed into what are now being called AEO and geo.
- [30:18]
C
I think it really starts to mean something when Google makes that shift. Right at the moment. It's clearly trying to thread the needle between managing the gradual decline of arguably the most successful business ever in its in. It's certainly with whatever comes next, you know, with what is cooking with sort of Gemini and AI overview. So I think once we start to see that shift play out and what the future state of its kind of browser looks like, then all of this stuff starts to become real, right? And mean and have actual genuine kind of commercial stakes to it where people can start actually layering strategies that don't amount to just sort of buzzwords on a, on a pitch that until then I think we're just, you know, everyone. It's an industry built on hypotheticals, right? And it will be until I think Google's calling the shots. And I think as we can start to see from some of the noises it's making with marketers, that will be at some point next year.
- [31:25]
A
Have you all started noticing that when you click on overviews now and you click to dive deeper or whatever the language is. I think just this week is when I first noticed it. It's taking me into AI mode now, at least on mobile. So to Seb's point, it just feels like AI mode is the future of this. I mean, even again this morning because we happened to record this year in review on a day where there's just been so much news to unpack. But Google is bringing Gemini to Chrome in iOS and I could see it being where if I click on that search bar in the chrome app on iOS, it's taken me into AI mode, in which case then Chrome becomes ChatGPT and that you don't need a standalone.
- [32:13]
C
Gemini 2026 will be the year the Internet goes chat. Like, you know, come back and talk to it next year. But I'll sort of, I'll, I'll lane claim to that now because, you know, you can't. I don't think Google can really afford to waste another year now sitting on these things. Too much money on the table.
- [32:31]
A
How soon is there then the pivot to AI video? There's always a pivot to video. And this year we've seen AI video really step up. Google with VO3 adding sound and dialogue to a generated video. Kalshi ran an AI generated ad powered by Veo in the NBA Finals this year. Coca Cola doubled down on its AI generated video ad for the holidays. And OpenAI rolled out Sora Meta rolled out Vibes to AI only video feeds.
- [33:10]
B
Deep breath before we get into the uncanny valley, right? I think the question that, that, that I have is like, how much of this is to woo advertisers, right? For kind of like, because again, there's been conversations about using AI to really curb how much creative work is done with on keyboards. And how much of this. And then I think Disney and the OpenAI deal kind of really speaks to this of like putting those hands in, putting that work in the hands of AI. But on the other hand, like how much of it is trying to get people, users right, comfortable with the concept of having AI in your feeds. Because AI slop is also something that's entered our zeitgeist here too.
- [33:50]
A
Yeah. And so, I mean, obviously we'll still need to see what to what extent people are using these things. It felt like the Sora and Vibes vibes kind of faded a bit. But now with this OpenAI Disney deal, maybe people start using Sora again. People are still using TikTok at the end of the year because lo and behold, TikTok did not get banned in the US. It hasn't even technically gotten sold yet. There is the supposed framework of a deal between the US and China to create a TikTok US version, but that hasn't actually happened yet. And it's unclear when it's happening or what China needs to still do. China still needs to approve this, right? I'm not missing that. I was like Googling a ton yesterday. Actual Google, not AI mode.
- [34:40]
C
Yeah, that's where we are with it like that. I think there is a deal sort of that's kind of been put out there on the table. But for bowl accounts, the Chinese administration is not kind of greenlit it yet, rubber stamped it yet, and there's no real ETA on when. I was doing the same thing earlier and I haven't been able to kind of see a sort of timeline on when we can expect a decision.
- [35:05]
A
It feels like gaslighting. There's like a Mandela effect to the TikTok US.
- [35:12]
D
Is TikTok becoming the way of the third party cookie where we just talk it to death and then, you know, into oblivion?
- [35:20]
C
Yeah, yeah. Just.
- [35:21]
A
Yeah. And then nothing ends up happening. Because the third party cookie survived this year. Privacy inbox did not. But the third party cookie lives on.
- [35:34]
B
That's nice. We went from the third party cookie purgatory to TikTok purgatory. But if there's any luck, maybe next year we'll be let out. Let out.
- [35:44]
A
Yeah.
- [35:45]
C
Don't hold your breath, guys.
- [35:49]
A
I'm happy at least to not have to worry about privacy sandbox anymore. Unclear what the third party cookie surviving means for any of us. Also unclear what's going to happen in this Google Ad tech antitrust case because we had the remedies in the Google search antitrust case. And as Ronan Shields reported Google kind of ended up winning that case even though it technically lost the case. But when it came to the remedies, they were pretty light. We haven't yet gotten a remedy on the Google Ad tech antitrust case, which Google did lose. Seb, is it possible that these remedies come out by the end of this year? Is this going to be a 2026 story?
- [36:34]
C
Definitely a 2026 story. But anyone sort of still kind of pining for the prospect of it being kind of broken up? The short version is it won't happen, I don't think anyway, just judging by some of the noises that Judge Brincamer made during the sort of, the last sort of phase, the kind of closing sort of phase of the trial. I think at this moment in time it seems as if that it's. But it's too big to be sort of broken up. I don't think from what she was sort of saying, the market moves too fast. Right. And so no one can really predict what it's going to be like in three to five years. And a divestiture is going to take at least that amount of time to unwind, meaning that any remedy could be obsolete by that time if it's sort of implemented. And you know, you factor in the fact that Google's likely to appeal anything that kind of structurally get sort of kind of ruled, I think it's, it's clear at this point there'll be some form of sort of behavioral sort of remedy kind of foisted onto sort of Google above anything sort of else.
- [37:52]
A
It's funny, coming into 2025, I would have maybe put actual money on. The two big stories in ad tech in 2025 are going to be the third party cookie and Google's ad tech antitrust case. I don't know that those were the two biggest. I don't think either of those was the biggest story in ad tech in 2025. I feel like Amazon, DSP and the trade Desk, at least when it comes to thinking about digitized coverage. It feels like that was the big story of this year in large part because a lot of the Google stuff has yet to happen. As we were just talking about.
- [38:36]
C
Yeah. And just quickly. And we can kind of jump on your nice segue there. But I think the third party cookie point, it felt like it was almost kind of from the outset. It's not even from the first time it kind of did the U turn that it just wasn't going to happen because there was so much haziness to it all. Like such a lack of kind of detail in terms of how this big complicated thing was actually going to sort of pan out. Loose deadlines and unfinished frameworks. After about a year, the cynicism was sort of really set in. Right. And the only kind of belief that we had was because Google had been so public about this kind of plan that it couldn't possibly sort of roll back. And ultimately it kind of did. It just gaslit the industry, force companies to spend what, millions into sort of developing sort of tech and pivoting sort of, you know, product roadmaps and ultimately to say, actually, you know what? We're not doing it.
- [39:44]
A
Psych.
- [39:45]
C
Sorry. But coming back to the ad tech sort of point about the biggest story. Yes, I think it's been on the DSP front.
- [39:55]
B
Right.
- [39:55]
C
But funny enough, even though there are three big ones, Google was a bit of a kind of silent sort of player this year. In it, it really revolved around Amazon's kind of push to challenge the trade desk as the main bidder for the open web. Not just its own kind of inventory, but. But also kind of everything outside of that wall garden as well.
- [40:23]
A
Yeah, because Amazon, with its dsp, added access to Netflix's inventory, for example, as well as Roku's inventory, if I'm not mistaken. Meanwhile, like, the trade desk didn't lose access to inventory, but it lost the exclusivity of its relationship with Walmart on retail media. So, yeah, I mean, those like everything else, I feel like this is a story that's unfinished. There's a lot of loose threads there that we're going to have to stay on top of in 2026, but is also a good thing for us to then tackle the potential consequences in what will be our upcoming episode with Seb and Sarah to open up January on our 2026 preview. So, sub Sarah, thanks for joining us to recap this unfinished, unsatisfying year.
- [41:23]
D
Yes, thanks guys.
- [41:25]
C
Thanks, guys.
- [41:33]
B
Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of the Digiday Podcast. Thank you to everyone for listening. And please don't forget to share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. You can even rate us and leave us a comment on Apple Podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Digiday Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.