I wandered over to AdExchanger—yes, I know, I should’ve worn gloves—and there it was: another essay from the Church of the Obvious, proclaiming with great wisdom that if you want to use AI, you should actually… understand marketing.

Genius.

Bravo.

Nobel Prize in Stating the Obvious.

The next revelation will probably be “to run a marathon, consider moving your legs.”

This is the problem with our corner of the universe: we confuse buzzwords for insight and LinkedIn posts for strategy.

Everyone wants to be a “visionary,” but most of this so-called thought leadership reads like a drunk chatbot cribbing lines from a marketing textbook it barely skimmed.

Half the time it’s dressed up common sense, the other half it’s corporate Mad Libs—“AI + personalization + growth hack = disruption.”

What it almost never is? Useful.

Meanwhile, while these geniuses are congratulating themselves for discovering gravity, the actual industry is busy tripping over itself: Roku declaring streaming dominance like it’s Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Innocean finally realizing maybe an agency should have a president, Spin Magazine trying to convince us being broke is chic, and adtech literally tearing itself apart over transaction IDs (yes, really). Publicis is secretly cashing its rivals’ checks, Roblox is selling ads to your kids with a smile, and Google—shock of shocks—found a new way to turn your “free” TV into an ad slot.

But sure, let’s keep pretending that the big takeaway is “know your product.” Thought leadership has become the junk food of this industry—cheap, addictive, and guaranteed to leave you bloated.

Roku says it’s beating broadcast TV. According to Nielsen, the platform claimed 21.4% of TV viewing in July, while traditional broadcast limped along at 18.4%. That’s three months running where Roku’s won the screen war—not just with their sticks, but with any TV running their OS. Cue Charlie Collier, now doing cartwheels in a press release calling Roku the “lead-in” to streaming. Sure, Charlie. And I’m the lead-in to curing ad fatigue.

What’s really happening: Roku controls the hardware, the OS, and a hefty cut of ad inventory (15–30%). If you think that makes them a benevolent content concierge, think again—they’re just another gatekeeper with better branding and worse margins. Roku’s not just beating broadcast. It’s quietly turning the TV into a rent-seeking machine.

Innocean USA just got its first-ever president. Yes, first. Ever. Enter Leslie Barrett, who spent 26 years at Goodby and now inherits a client list full of K-pop, golf gear, and questionable fast food mascots. She’s overseeing everything—growth, ops, innovation, all of it. Which means she’ll probably be revamping that El Pollo Loco site one day and dodging client “TikTok ideas” the next.

Let’s be honest: Innocean has mostly coasted as Hyundai’s creative sidecar, with some spicy side dishes like Manscaped and Wienerschnitzel. Barrett’s challenge? Turning it into a shop with a POV, not just a holding pen for auto campaigns and K-drama budgets. If anyone can give this agency a spine, it’s someone who survived Goodby for two decades.

Spin was almost sold—until Airtab’s money ghosted. The events-tech buyer’s wire transfer didn’t go through, the deal fell apart, and now Spin’s parent company is out here declaring they’re “thriving.” Right. Because nothing says financial health like “We weren’t for sale, but we totally would’ve been if Airtab had remembered how banks work.”

Next Management CEO Jimmy Hutcheson claims Spin has 17x’d revenue (from what, a lemonade stand?) and is now a “solid business” with music merch at Urban Outfitters and a film desk riding the coattails of Yellowstone. Oh, and they just hired a guy from Maxim. Because nothing screams journalistic credibility like ‘00s lad mag alumni. At least Bob Guccione Jr. is back, promising “real journalism”—whatever that means when your biggest scoop is a new t-shirt.

Adtech is eating itself alive again—this time over transaction IDs. DSPs want deduplicated bid streams to make smarter buys. SSPs and publishers? They’re crying “privacy” while really worrying about losing the auction circus that drives up their CPMs. The trigger? Prebid changed its transaction ID setup, and the IAB Tech Lab lost its damn mind, calling it a “material violation” of OpenRTB.

Meanwhile, Brian O’Kelley’s LinkedIn is now the de facto regulator, explaining the mess better than anyone paid to fix it. Everyone’s terrified of revealing supply paths, underbidding, or god forbid—giving Trade Desk more leverage. Which they’re already taking, by the way. Spoiler alert: this ends with Amazon eating the whole ecosystem and Google getting dragged in front of Congress—again—with a PowerPoint titled “Oops.”

You think you’re buying premium inventory. What you’re really doing? Feeding budget and data to Publicis, thanks to its Epsilon-owned SSP rerouting auctions like a VPN on bath salts. At least four holding companies, plus indie agencies and brand teams, got caught buying through Epsilon without knowing it.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just “oops, wrong bid.” This is handing your enemy your media plan and asking them to hold your wallet. Publicis is now the only major SSP owned by an ad agency, and the rest of the industry just realized it’s been sliding cash and consumer data across the table like a drunken poker player. In any other market, this would be a scandal. In adtech? It’s Tuesday.

Roblox made $1.08 billion last quarter and wants to make even more—off advertisers. The platform’s new love affair is rewarded video ads, served in partnership with Google, and getting 80%+ completion rates because duh—kids love free stuff. It’s non-intrusive, measurable, and just the beginning of Roblox’s plan to monetize its Gen Z empire without killing the vibe.

Then there’s the IP licensing marketplace, which lets indie devs throw “Squid Game” into their games without 15 legal calls. It’s democratizing franchise access while padding Roblox’s retention stats and possibly its bottom line. But for now, ads and licensing are still rounding errors. If this pivot doesn’t scale, Roblox is just another VC-funded daycare with a good UI.

Google just cracked open a new ad revenue stream—again. This time it’s through the “Live” tab on Google TV and Android TV devices, where more than 100 free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels live. Users are clocking 75 minutes a day watching this stuff. Translation? Google smells blood—or at least mid-roll opportunity—and now wants advertisers to dive in via its own ad stack, not Xumo’s.

Let’s be real: this was inevitable. Google doesn’t just want your search, your email, your docs—it wants your downtime. And it’s finally figured out how to jam display and programmatic ads into what used to be considered “free TV.” Expect this to be a Trojan Horse for deeper YouTube integration and another reason your smart TV is just a billboard with a remote.

HTF Market Intelligence has dropped its latest “Global AdTech Market” study, a 143-page exercise in rosy projections and buzzword bingo. The big headline? The market is expected to balloon from $122.6B in 2025 to $385.4B by 2032, thanks to AI, programmatic-everything, and that persistent myth that someone, somewhere knows how to target without tracking.

All the usual suspects are here: Google, Meta, Amazon, Trade Desk, Criteo, PubMatic, Magnite, and about a dozen other firms trying to own the pipe, the data, or both. Growth will apparently be driven by search, video, display, and social ads—you know, the exact things we’ve been monetizing since 2010. North America dominates, but Asia Pacific is catching up fast, because broadband and TikTok don’t sleep.

Everyone loves to tell me I’m wrong about programmatic. “It’s efficient!” they say. “It’s bulletproof!” they say.

Efficient? Bulletproof? Please. That’s like saying crypto was a stable retirement plan. The latest scandal proves what I’ve been shouting into the void for years: programmatic isn’t the future, it’s a Rube Goldberg machine of bullshit designed to hide who’s stealing from whom.

Turns out entire holding companies — WPP, IPG, Dentsu, the kids’ table at Havas — were accidentally routing their clients’ dollars, their data, and their dignity straight into the arms of Publicis. And not just any arm: the Epsilon SSP, which Publicis owns. That’s right — these geniuses were literally paying a competitor to hold their wallets while whispering their deepest secrets into their ear.

Over the past 18 months, agencies thought they were buying premium inventory through their favorite “safe” SSPs. Instead, Epsilon quietly slipped into the middle like a sleazy middleman at a poker game. Suddenly, every bid strategy, audience segment, and spend detail was gift-wrapped and dropped on Publicis’ desk.

That’s not efficiency. That’s corporate espionage with an invoice.

Imagine you’re Coca-Cola, and you accidentally send your secret formula, market strategy, and cash reserves to Pepsi. That’s what WPP & friends did — except worse, because they didn’t notice for over a year.

Once the smoke cleared, WPP, IPG, and Dentsu scrambled to block Epsilon SSP like it was a phishing email from a Nigerian prince. WPP even went nuclear, accusing Publicis of shoving MFA sludge into the ecosystem while pretending it was fine wine.

And let’s be clear: when WPP is throwing stones about transparency, you know we’ve hit peak comedy. That’s like Uber complaining about surge pricing.

Here’s why it matters:

This isn’t an “oopsie.” This is a conflict of interest so grotesque it should be studied in business schools alongside Enron and Theranos.

How did Epsilon pull it off? By playing the role of invisible middleman. Buyers thought they were going through Magnite or PubMatic, but behind the curtain, Epsilon was quietly siphoning transactions through its pipes.

Standard programmatic reports don’t show every reseller. Surprise! That’s by design. So agencies stared at their dashboards thinking everything looked normal, while Publicis was basically hacking their diary, bank account, and browser history.

Only after forensic audits did the agencies realize, “Oh, wait… we’ve been naked in front of the competition this whole time.”

If regulators actually wake up from their decades-long nap, this could get messy.

The worst-case scenario for Publicis is losing Epsilon. The worst-case scenario for everyone else is another round of painfully boring “transparency frameworks” that solve nothing.

This whole mess proves what we already knew but didn’t want to admit: programmatic is not efficient. It’s not smart. It’s not inevitable. It’s a giant mousetrap that occasionally catches the cheese but mostly just slams shut on the advertiser’s fingers.

So no, programmatic isn’t efficient. It’s not bulletproof. It’s a dumpster fire with Wi-Fi. And the fact that nobody saw this coming proves the entire industry is more interested in PowerPoint decks than protecting clients.

If you can’t tell whether your media plan is going to your client’s campaign or your competitor’s war chest, you’re not buying ads — you’re paying for your own funeral and letting your rival write the eulogy.

Because honesty — I do some serious deep dives with some of the toughest, baddest folks in the industry every single week. You think you know what’s going on? You don’t know what’s behind Door #2 until we kick it open.

If you’ve read how Publicis ate the whole restaurant or how Netflix turned nostalgia into an adtech money printer, you know the drill: no fluff, no PR spin, just the stuff the trades are too scared (or too cozy) to print.

Next up: WPP: The Giant That Keeps Tripping Over Its Own Feet. Yeah… you’ll want to see this one.

Stay bold. Stay curious. Know more than you did yesterday.