Amazon, Boobs, and Gen AI: The 10 ADWEEK Stories Readers Loved Most

It was a wild year for the ad industry, with disruption coming from everywhere: the culture wars, politics, and gen AI. Those themes surfaced a lot in the top 10 stories that were most popular with ADWEEK readers in 2024.

Here they are:

10. Comcast, Disney, and IBM Are Among Advertisers Returning to X After Ad Freeze

A few years into a love-hate-entente-hate-type relationship with X, a handful of advertisers started to trickle back, ADWEEK’s Trishla Ostwal reported in November. 

With X owner Elon Musk’s heavy influence within the incoming Trump administration, the stage is set for even more brands to come flooding back.

9. Amazon’s Multi-Billion Dollar Media Account Goes to OMG and WPP

Amazon’s big media account was the top prize of the year, and ADWEEK’s Bill Bradley and Kyle O’Brien broke the news that it was awarded to Omnicom’s OMG in the Americas, and WPP in APAC and EMEA. 

IPG’s bespoke Amazon agency, Rufus, had previously owned the account. IPG, however, would continue to be Amazon’s global media partner for Amazon Web Services, Amazon Business, and Amazon Ads. Of course, if everything goes as planned, IPG will also be folded into Omnicom.

8. Molly Baz and Formula Maker Bobbie Bring Breastfeeding to Times Square

In May, cookbook author Molly Baz appeared on a Times Square billboard for breastfeeding brand Swehl, holding two cookies over a rhinestone bikini covering her breasts. That image was too titillating for billboard owner Clear Channel, who flagged the ad for review. So Swehl’s media partner, Brex, replaced the ad with a more anodyne image — and leaned hard into the controversy. 

Cut to October, when baby formula maker Bobbie launched a 45-foot-long billboard featuring Baz breastfeeding her baby. It was a first: never before had a Times Square ad featured a breastfeeding mother, ADWEEK’s T.L. Stanley reported. Bobbie worked with Outfront Media to execute the billboard, swiftly getting approval for the imagery, and nipping a potential takedown notice in the bud.

7. Google Is Paying Publishers to Test an Unreleased Gen AI Platform

This was truly the year gen AI companies started paying publishers to be guinea pigs. Google also got into the mix, as ADWEEK’s Mark Stenberg reported in February. 

Google started paying pubs “a monthly stipend amounting to a five-figure sum annually, as well as the means to produce content relevant to their readership at no cost.” 

It’s a tricky dilemma for publishers, because on the one hand, money. On the other hand, at what cost will this ultimately come? 

Meanwhile, for those building and hoping to profit off of their large language models, the race was on in 2024 to gobble up as much data as possible.

6. Solo Stove and Snoop Dogg: A Once Lauded Partnership Now Up in Smoke

By contrast, Solo Stove’s high-profile partnership with Snoop Dogg did not end in a whimper. It ended with an ousted CEO. 

At least, that was the popular narrative. Especially after interim CFO Andrea Tarbox said that the campaign drove brand awareness, but not sales. 

But the connection between awareness and sales, especially for a product as expensive as a Solo Stove, isn’t always a straight line. ADWEEK contributor Sam Joseph, from Kyra, ripped apart the conventional wisdom on whether the Solo Stove-Snoop collab was truly a failure.

5. Oracle Is Shutting Down Its Ad Business

This was big. Over the last decade, Oracle invested billions in its ad business, snapping up startups at huge multiples, and making a big splash touting its capabilities and pitting its marketing cloud against the likes of Salesforce and Adobe. 

And then, during an earnings call in June, CEO Safra Catz calmly mentioned that Oracle had exited the ad business, Catherine Perloff reported. What began with a succession of bangs ended in a whimper.

4. CES 2024 and Eureka Park Unveiled Tomorrow’s Neatest Trends in Consumer Tech

CES is the entire world’s New Year wake-up call. It’s an annual cluster of ballyhooed products, most of which won’t catch on (curved TVs, 3D TVs, etc.), but it’s still fun to see what caught peoples’ attention in the first week of the year. In many ways, it dictates what’s to come.

Last year, it was about “personalized care, smart home convenience, business efficiency, and sustainable solutions,” Warm Robots founder Goldie Chan wrote.

Stay tuned for another post-CES 2025 rundown on the coolest consumer tech.

3. Leaked Deck Reveals How OpenAI Is Pitching Publisher Partnerships

Since OpenAI kicked off the gen AI firestorm two(!) years ago, it has continued to be a dark horse, with a future both bright and also uncertain. It’s weathered an executive mutiny and exodus, a reportedly fracturing partnership with Microsoft, said it was weighing an ad model per the FT, and hired its first-ever CMO. It’s also been paying publishers like Meredith millions to license content.

OpenAI news are like breadcrumbs to starving birds, and that was no exception when ADWEEK posted a pitchdeck revealing the intricacies of its publisher payment model.

2. Amazon to Sunset Freevee, Streamlining Its Ad and Product Efforts

Consolidation has been a hallmark of TV and media, and even Amazon — an upstart compared to broadcast giants like Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount — has had to make some adjustments. ADWEEK’s Mark Stenberg reported earlier this year that the Freevee, which had been the ecommerce giant’s established AVOD service before ads emerged on Prime Video, would soon shut down. 

The exact date at the time was unclear, but in November, Amazon followed through and confirmed that Freevee would be no more, adding it would move its programming into Prime’s Watch for Free tab.

1. Regulators Find a New Way to Ban Calvin Klein’s FKA Twigs Ad

In January, the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority banned a Calvin Klein billboard featuring musician FKA Twigs barely wearing a shirt, with the nanny-statish claim that the ad sexually objectified her. FKA Twigs herself protested, noting Jeremy Allen White’s beefcake poses in his famous Calvin Klein billboards.

Not to be deterred, the ASA came back in March with a refurbished reason to uphold the ban: it claimed the ad was simply too sexy, reported ADWEEK’s brand editor Rebecca Stewart.

This alternative explanation was a throwback to old-fashioned prudism that further underscored how women are often held to much different standards than men — and how language designed to seem protective of women often hides an ulterior motive. 

Check out more of 2024s controversial billboards here.