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The ad world is running in circles, flailing like a cat that just realized it’s been staring at its own tail for an hour.
The week's highlights? A funeral for third-party cookies, a regulatory cage match brewing in Washington, and yet another round of Omnicom flexing its merger muscles like it’s auditioning for the next Fast & Furious sequel.

Buckle up—oh wait, scratch that—you hate “buckle up.”
So instead, grab your overpriced oat-milk latte and let’s dive into the madness.

Seriously, the eulogy is over. Move on.

The digital ad industry is still mourning third-party cookies like a hoarder who just found out their 10-year Costco membership expired. Meanwhile, Google is finally doing what it swore it would do five years ago: torching third-party cookies in Chrome.

For the past decade, advertisers have been using cookies like a nosy neighbor with binoculars, tracking every move a user makes. But now? That party is over. Apple’s been blocking cookies for years, regulators are breathing down the industry’s neck, and users are increasingly behaving like that one uncle who refuses to browse the internet without incognito mode.

The industry’s response? Full-on, blind panic.

💀 “But how will we target users?”
💀 “How will we track conversions?”
💀 “How will we justify our six-figure programmatic budgets to the CMO?”

The answer, dear marketers, is Alternative IDs—the Frankenstein’s monster of ad tech. These are essentially third-party cookies in witness protection: rebranded, repackaged, and pretending they’ve turned over a new leaf.

With AdQuick, you can now easily plan, deploy and measure campaigns just as easily as digital ads, making them a no-brainer to add to your team’s toolbox.

You can learn more at www.AdQuick.com

Here’s the deal:

Think of these as TSA PreCheck for advertisers—users voluntarily provide their emails, phone numbers, or logins, and advertisers follow them around the internet legally.

✔️ More accurate than your mom’s intuition—these IDs know it’s you.
✔️ Privacy-compliant (for now)—because users “agreed” (aka clicked without reading).
✔️ Great for cross-device tracking—log in once, and the ID follows you like an overenthusiastic puppy.

🚫 Problem? Scale.
Most people don’t log into every site, so deterministic IDs work great… until they don’t.

Who’s using them? Unified ID 2.0, LiveRamp’s RampID, Criteo’s First-Party Data Network.

If deterministic IDs are VIP club access, then probabilistic IDs are the guy at the door trying to guess who you are based on vibes alone.

These track users without logins by piecing together digital breadcrumbs—IP addresses, devices, and screen resolutions—creating an educated guess of who you are.

✔️ Massive scale—works across many users.
✔️ Cross-device tracking magic—your phone, tablet, and laptop all get connected into one creepy little profile.

🚫 Problem? Accuracy and legality.
It’s like one of those conspiracy boards covered in red string—sometimes they get it right, sometimes they think your grandma is a 23-year-old sneakerhead.
Also, Apple and Google hate fingerprinting so much they’d rather set their servers on fire than allow it.

So, are Alternative IDs the savior of advertising?
Not quite. They’re more like the duct-taped workaround the industry is clinging to while pretending nothing is wrong.

Omnicom is still in its “BUY EVERYTHING” phase

💸 The plan? Spend $750 million in cost savings (read: layoffs).
📈 The goal? Create a Godzilla-sized ad giant that dominates data-driven media.
🤖 The buzzword? AI.

CEO John Wren is basically promising that AI and first-party data from IPG’s Acxiom will transform Omnicom into an ad-tech juggernaut.
Translation: More automation, fewer humans, and a lot of investors clinking champagne glasses.

🚨 Who gets axed?
Wren swears it’s only “back-office” employees (legal, HR, accounting) who should be worried.
But let’s be real—if your job involves spreadsheets and meetings that could have been emails, you might want to start updating that LinkedIn profile.

The regulatory process is underway, with March 18 as the big shareholder vote. Expect more Wall Street happy dances and a few more agencies crying into their expense reports.

Spoiler: It’s everywhere and nowhere.

Remember when Twitter (RIP, now X) was the Super Bowl second screen? Yeah, that’s over.

The fragmentation of social media means brands are now stretching their Big Game budgets across:

Brands are playing platform roulette, hoping they don’t end up with a dud.
And X? Still trying to convince advertisers that Elon hasn’t torched what’s left of its credibility.

Yes, that RFK Jr.—Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services Secretary—wants to ban pharmaceutical ads from TV.

📺 That’s a $3.4 BILLION ad market.
💸 If this happens, networks will need new sugar daddies FAST.

If you thought pharma ads were annoying, imagine what replaces them:

If networks can’t milk Big Pharma for billions, ad rates could drop like a bad IPO.

The Super Bowl remains the Olympics of advertising, the Met Gala of brand flexing, the one night a year when America voluntarily watches ads and pretends it’s high art. It’s a bizarre ritual—an entire nation collectively pausing between wings and beer runs to weigh in on which 30-second corporate spectacle made them feel something, or at least made them stop scrolling TikTok for a hot second.

But this year? The advertising world has taken a sharp left turn. AI is storming the field, Hollywood has gone MIA, and brands are lighting $8 million on fire for the privilege of momentary consumer attention.

You know AI has officially entered the mainstream when it starts hijacking Super Bowl airtime. Remember when crypto was the flashy new toy and every other ad featured a celebrity smugly whispering “fortune favors the brave”? Yeah, well, this year, AI is taking that spotlight—minus the inevitable lawsuits.

Fox Sports EVP of Ad Sales, Mark Evans, has already warned us: The AI takeover is coming, like a freight train with no brakes and an MBA. Massive tech companies and AI startups alike are scrambling to cash in on the hype, hoping to convince you that artificial intelligence is either the savior of humanity or, at the very least, something slightly less dystopian than Skynet.

🚨 Will OpenAI shell out $8 million to tell America ChatGPT can do your job better than you?
🚨 Will Google throw another AI-powered Hail Mary to prove Bard isn't just that weird cousin nobody invites to Thanksgiving?
🚨 Will some obscure AI startup you've never heard of waste millions on an ad only to be forgotten before halftime?

Odds are, yes to all of the above. AI is having its Super Bowl moment, whether we like it or not.

If you’re wondering where all the big-budget movie trailers are, you’re not alone. Normally, the Super Bowl is where Hollywood rolls out its shiniest blockbusters, slapping us in the face with explosions, capes, and an unnecessarily dramatic Christopher Nolan score.

Not this year.

Evans confirmed that movie studios and streamers are noticeably absent in 2025, which is about as subtle a warning sign as a flashing “Danger” light. Whether it’s the aftermath of the Writers’ Strike, Hollywood’s ongoing financial crisis, or just the cold realization that no one actually wants to pay $25 to see a lukewarm Marvel sequel anymore, Tinseltown is sitting this one out.

🚫 No overhyped sequels getting teased.
🚫 No star-studded trailers that reveal the entire plot.
🚫 No studios dropping $8 million only to release their movie on streaming three weeks later.

Frankly, it’s weird. But considering the entertainment industry’s post-COVID identity crisis, maybe it’s not surprising.

Let’s talk numbers. If you thought last year’s $7 million price tag for a 30-second spot was highway robbery, congrats—you’re officially old.

This year? Some brands are paying closer to $8 million. That’s more than the GDP of some small nations. It’s more than the entire budget of an indie film. It’s double what a Super Bowl ad cost just a decade ago.

🚀 Some brands are paying $4.5 million just for a pre-game ad.
🚀 Post-game ads are still a casual $4 million.
🚀 Fox sold out their inventory in November, proving that even in economic uncertainty, corporations will happily torch their marketing budgets for the illusion of cultural relevance.

And what are we getting for all this cash? Beverages. Snacks. Tech. Financial services. You know, the usual. Oh, and pharmaceutical ads are creeping in more than ever—maybe they’re trying to get ahead of RFK Jr. before he tries to cancel them altogether.

Meanwhile, automakers are sitting this one out. No Honda, no Toyota, no Kia. Apparently, car brands have decided that instead of spending $8 million on a Super Bowl ad, they’d rather not go bankrupt.

🔥 AI will dominate the conversation. Expect brands to tell you AI is the future, the present, and possibly your next therapist.
🔥 Beverage and snack brands will own the night. It’s a good year to be a chip.
🔥 Pharma ads are creeping in. Get ready for another round of “possible side effects include spontaneous combustion.”
🔥 Movie trailers are taking a backseat. If Hollywood doesn’t show up, will anyone actually care?
🔥 Automakers are skipping the party. Apparently, selling EVs is more expensive than an $8 million ad spot.
🔥 Social media is the real battlefield. The ad doesn’t matter if it doesn’t get memed, dunked on, or turned into a reaction gif.