In recent months, a growing number of premium publishers have unveiled ambitious, expensive brand marketing campaigns, splashing bespoke creative across digital, social, and physical channels to draw consumer attention to their companies.

More intriguingly, the vast majority of these publishers have never run such campaigns before. 

In January, Hearst Corp. announced its first agency of record partnership in company history, selecting PMG to ideate and lead a series of brand marketing campaigns for titles across its portfolio. The project began in May with brand campaigns for The Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle, but it has since expanded to several of its other editorial brands and will continue into next year.

In September, the Condé Nast title Wired unveiled its first national brand marketing campaign as part of a larger effort to promote its politics issue. That same month, The Guardian debuted its ambitious new work, The Whole Picture, across subways, billboards, and digital channels.  And MarketWatch, a News Corp. brand, recently also ran the first brand marketing campaign in its 28-year history.

This week alone, two more publishers unveiled brand marketing campaigns, both noteworthy in their novelty. 

On Monday, NBC News launched the first brand marketing campaign in modern history, deploying creative across digital and physical channels to underscore the trustworthiness of its brand. Historically, NBC has marketed its individual franchises, but this effort marked the first time it had pushed for awareness as an organization, according to a spokesperson for the company.

And on Thursday, Reuters plans to debut just the second brand marketing campaign in its 174-year history, ADWEEK can exclusively report. Its first such effort came four years ago, in 2021.

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Taken together, the explosion of brand marketing campaigns marks a significant moment in the industry. 

For one, news publishers rarely engage in these kinds of efforts, largely because they are expensive and publishers generate plenty of awareness through their reporting. In recent years, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg have run a handful of brand campaigns each, but outside of that, they are few and far between.

But more critically, the widespread nature of this trend, combined with the uncanny coordination of its timing, suggests that these publishers have grasped a similar truth or been motivated by a shared concern. 

So why have so many publishers opted to do something they have largely never done, and why have they chosen now to do it? 

A response to dwindling discovery

The most obvious reason publishers are amping up their brand marketing efforts is because the ways in which consumers are engaging with the news has changed.

Referral traffic from social platforms has been in decline, and disruption posed by artificial intelligence to search engines has only compounded the issue. With fewer consumers now passively encountering news content, publishers need to increase their proactive efforts to reach them, according to Mark Silver, the senior director of strategy at media agency Code and Theory.

In particular, younger generations that have come of age after these shifts in traffic patterns are more likely to be unfamiliar with these publishers in the first place. Publishers can no longer rely on simply producing content and assuming it will find its way in front of these audiences. 

MarketWatch, for instance, targeted Gen Z specifically with its marketing, employing a brat green font and cheeky copy to entice young audiences interested in financial literacy.

“The way that consumers make decisions is increasingly around brands,” Silver said. “We have to think of consumers as consumers of information—you can’t just expect them to know what you’re about. You have to tell them.”

Raising brand prominence amid AI disruption

AI figures into this equation in more ways than one.

In addition to disrupting search traffic, answer engines rely on publisher data to power their responses. This reality has led to the emergence of a marketplace dynamic, as AI firms look to strike deals with publishers to license their content.

Already, AI companies have struck deals with around a dozen premium publishers, including The New York Times, Condé Nast, Vox Media, Axel Springer, and more. But these are one-off arrangements, and no consistent framework has been established as to how smaller publishers will be compensated when their data is used to answer user queries.

These campaigns can be seen as an effort by publishers to raise their consumer awareness and perception at a critical juncture in their negotiations with AI firms, according to Upwave chief executive officer Chris Kelly. The volume, quality, and awareness of a brand could help inform the market rate for its data.

One of publishers’ main arguments in these discussions, that an answer engine without their data would be inferior to one with it, hinges on consumer demand for that brand. By making, say, Reuters a more top-of-mind source of news, an answer engine without Reuters content would be less enticing to a user.

Increasing favorability at a critical moment

AI is not the only external force roiling the news media industry.

In recent months, President Trump has levied broadsides at a broad swath of publishers, taking legal action against The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, and NBC News. 

These assaults come at a particularly vulnerable moment for the news industry, as trust in the media continues to plummet and the industry as a whole struggles to find commercial sustainability.

Many of these brand campaigns, particularly the ones from NBC News and Reuters, are meant specifically to engender trust in audiences. More broadly, they all aim to raise audience affinity for the brands, according to Kelly. 

In any contest between the president and the media, the court of public perception is a critical battleground. A successful effort to win over audiences could prove to be valuable insurance in future disputes.

Investing in subscriber acquisition

On a more prosaic level, every publisher that launched one of these brand campaigns has a consumer subscription business.

Some of these offerings differ from one another in meaningful ways. The Guardian, for instance, solicits donations but does not paywall its content. Reuters only launched its digital subscription product last October, and NBC News is expected to launch its consumer subscription offering this quarter.

Taken together, all of these publishers have a means of turning consumer support directly into recurring revenue, which means that top-of-funnel efforts are ultimately key to their bottom line.

All good marketers know that investing in brand equity is integral to, and upstream of, paid acquisition efforts. David Carey, senior vice president of public affairs and communications at Hearst, referred to the company’s brand marketing efforts as “preparing the ground” for its subscription business. 

These kinds of efforts can seem like expensive luxuries, as the return on investment is harder to track. But time and again they are proven to be essential, according to Kelly, the Upwave CEO.

“These companies all have ad sales teams that offer brand lift measurement services to their advertisers, so they should have the mental frameworks and vendors lined up to track whatever upper-funnel KPIs they have set,” Kelly said. “Ultimately, if a consumer has a chance to read a version of the same story from four different outlets, that is the news media version of the shelf that a consumer is grabbing a product from.”

The intangible made tangible

The benefits of brand marketing campaigns are often difficult to point to specifically, which is why they are rarer than performance campaigns.

But in some instances, the value of that brand equity makes itself very apparent. Consider the recent story of Hearst Corp. acquiring The Dallas Morning News, which I have covered in depth.

In that situation, The Dallas Morning News accepted a lower bid from Hearst Corp. over a higher offer from private equity firm Alden Global Capital specifically because its ownership trusted Hearst to be a better steward of its brand and its journalism. That is about as clear of an example as you get of how brand reputation can yield tangible, strategic benefits.

Relatedly, it should come as no surprise that all of the publishers running these brand marketing campaigns have the benefit of patient, long-term ownership. The Roberts, Murdochs, and Thomsons control the voting shares in News Corp., NBC parent Comcast, and Reuters, respectively. The others are privately held and controlled by family ownership or trusts, as is the case with The Guardian.

These kinds of ownership models enable publishers to invest in their brands for the long term, with the understanding that these efforts will produce dividends over a multiyear timeline. And while not every publisher can afford to finance these kinds of campaigns, these initiatives underscore their importance and will hopefully inspire similar efforts.

“Maybe a smaller brand will see this and find a version of this that they can do,” Carey said. “Consumers have great awareness of news brands, but sometimes they can use reminders of why that is.”

The numbers

$50.1 billion: Meta’s ad revenue, up 26% YoY. Overall revenue was $51.24 billion, up 26% YoY

+14%: YoY increase in ad impressions delivered across Meta’s Family of Apps.

10%: Increase in average price per ad. 

$15.9 billion: a one time, non cash income tax charge on deferred tax assets as a result of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act

$1.05: Earnings per share, significantly lower than the average analyst estimate of $6.72. (Attributed to the $15.9 billion one-time tax charge)

3 billion: Instagram hit a major milestone with monthly active users 

Watercooler talk

Meta’s accelerating AI investment is now the dominant financial storyline. The company is pouring more than expected into data centers, compute, and cloud capacity, prompting investor concern over whether the return on AI will meaningfully scale beyond ads—and on what timeline.

That increase in AI costs, coupled with a one-time hit to the tune of $15.93 billion tied to tax changes following the implementation of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law by President Trump in July, sent shares down as much as 10% in extended trading Wednesday.

The social media giant has been on a massive spending spree, investing billions to hire talent and expand the data centers needed to support its growing AI ambitions. Meta now employs more 78,400 people, up 8% YoY, with employee compensation growth accelerating, particularly for technical hires in AI.

Meta CFO Susan Li said Meta’s total expenses in 2026 will grow at a “significantly faster percentage rate in 2026 than 2025,” driven primarily by infrastructure costs, including incremental cloud expenses. She added in a call with analysts that ad revenue will help fund those investments. 

The annual run rate of revenue running through Meta’s end-to-end automated solutions has reached $60 billion, according to Li. Meanwhile, its AI recommendation systems on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are delivering more relevant content, boosting time spent on Facebook by 5% in Q3 and on Threads by 10%, per CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Reels now has an annualized revenue run rate of over $50 billion, he added. 

Still, Meta signaled that AI infrastructure needs outpace internal forecasts. Li said the company now expects to “invest aggressively” in compute next year—building new data centers while also paying third-party cloud providers—which will push capital spending and overall expenses higher in 2026.

Key quotes

When an investor pressed Meta on whether it’s over-investing in AI infrastructure, Meta insisted the company remains “underbuilt” on AI infrastructure despite swelling capex.

“Almost every week, people come to us from outside the company asking us to stand up an API service or provide compute. We haven’t done that yet, but if we ended up overbuilding, that could be an option,” Zuckerberg said. “The very worst case would be that we’ve essentially prebuilt for a couple of years. There would be some loss in depreciation, but we’d grow into that capacity over time.”

ADWEEK has opened the 2026 AI Power List for entries.

As an evolution from last year’s AI Trailblazers Power 100, ADWEEK’s AI Power List will honor the executives across marketing and advertising leading the way in the industry’s AI adoption.

From the data and engineering talent coding algorithms to the creative and strategic professionals using AI in innovative ways, this list will continue to honor the individuals who are building the industry’s future AI infrastructure and transforming how we work.

All entries will be reviewed by an external jury of industry executives, with a final approval from ADWEEK’s editorial team. 

Please use the form below to complete your entry. The final deadline to submit is December 23, 2025.

If you have any questions or would like to request a deadline extension, please contact awards@adweek.com. 

Entry Fees

• Early Bird Deadline (until 11/14/25): $175
• Regular Deadline (starting 11/15/25): $225
• Final Deadline (starting 12/15/25): $295

Adtech titan The Trade Desk will swap its longtime chief revenue officer Jed Dederick for Anders Mortensen on Nov. 4, the company announced Tuesday. 

Mortensen, an adtech veteran and newcomer to the company, most recently served as a managing director and vice president at Google, where he helmed U.S. lead generation efforts. In his new role at The Trade Desk, he’ll report directly to CEO Jeff Green, focusing on “ensuring [the company’s] global commercial strategy harnesses the full power of Kokai, Koa AI and industry innovations such as Unified ID 2.0 and OpenPath,” Mortensen said in a statement. 

“I’m excited to join Jeff and the team to accelerate this new era of growth, particularly within high-ROI channels like Connected TV and Retail Media,” he added.

In a statement, Green expressed optimism that Mortensen will provide the company with new tools for scaling its go-to-market efforts. He said: “By combining TTD’s unparalleled vision for the open internet with Anders’ passion and discipline for growing businesses, I’m extremely confident in our ability to scale our business and the open internet to heights never seen before.”

Dederick had been at The Trade Desk for more than 13 years, holding the CRO title since January of last year. He will aid Mortensen in his transition into the role through the end of 2025, the company said. 

“I look forward to cheering [Mortensen] and the company on in the years ahead,” Dederick said. 

Green expressed gratitude for Mortensen’s many years at the company, saying: “Jed joined The Trade Desk when we were less than 20 people with zero revenue, and he has been instrumental to much of the company’s go-to-market success as we have grown to become the world’s largest independent demand-side platform serving the world’s largest agencies and brands. We are incredibly thankful for his many contributions to our growth, our culture and his unique ability to build and grow relationships with leading marketers around the world. I know he’ll continue to be one of our biggest supporters.”

The company, which did not offer additional comment, will report its Q3 earnings Nov. 6. The Trade Desk has said it is targeting a quarterly revenue of $717 million, which would represent 14% year-over-year growth. Last quarter, the company reported $694 million in revenue, beating Wall Street estimates, but missed on earnings per share.

After three decades leading Haworth Marketing + Media, longtime chair and owner Gary Tobey is stepping down from the agency he transformed into one of retail marketing’s most influential independents.

Haworth CEO Andrea Luhtanen, who has spent nearly 30 years with the company, will succeed Tobey and add chairman to her title.

Based in Minneapolis, Haworth was founded in 1970 and became known for its decades-long relationship with Target. WPP’s GroupM acquired a 49% stake in Haworth in 2014, and the retailer moved its media account to the holding company shortly after.

Luhtanen joined the company in the mid-1990s, holding roles including vp of marketing services, evp and general manager, and president before becoming CEO in 2023. She helped lead Haworth’s transition to an employee-owned structure and later its partnership with WPP.

Tobey, who bought Haworth in the mid-1990s from founder Mary Haworth, evolved the business from a regional media shop into a full-service marketing partner. As he steps away from day-to-day leadership, he plans to focus on consulting and board advisory work across the retail, consumer, entertainment and philanthropic sectors.

“The whole industry has changed a lot,” Tobey told ADWEEK. “It’s just time for me to do consulting and do board work.”

From Media Buyer to Brand Builder

Under Tobey’s leadership, Haworth helped shape the modern image of big-box retail through work for clients including Target, Walmart, Beats Electronics, Ben & Jerry’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Tobey also led the company’s transition into an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) roughly 16 years ago to give staff a financial stake in the agency’s success.

“I thought it’d be a great way to have the employees be owners of the company and be able to make some money when they leave,” Tobey said, adding giving equity led the team to “really care about the company’s performance.”

Tobey’s influence is strong on modern retail branding—most notably Target’s transformation in the 2000s from discount chain to design-driven cultural brand. Haworth’s work helped shape Target’s reputation for creative partnerships and entertainment tie-ins, including Tony Bennett: An American Classic, the 2006 NBC special celebrating Bennett’s 80th birthday.

Produced in collaboration with director Rob Marshall and featuring Barbra Streisand, Christina Aguilera and Michael Bublé, the project won seven Emmys and became emblematic of Target’s cultural marketing era.

Target and Haworth ended their relationship in 2016, when the retailer moved its media account to WPP Media (at the time GroupM). Last week, Target announced plans to cut approximately 1,800 corporate roles—about 8 % of its workforce—as part of a major restructuring effort to address persistent sales headwinds.

A Legacy of Purpose and Partnership

Despite career success, Tobey said his work with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is his proudest achievement. His involvement dates back more than 20 years, when he helped secure Target’s $100 million commitment to build family apartments on the hospital’s campus.

“We got Michael Graves to do the statue out in front, and I got Scott Hamilton and Tiger Woods and a bunch of other celebrities who really embraced it all,” he said. “It’s something I’m really proud of.”

As he moves into consulting, Tobey said his philosophy remains rooted in the fundamentals of brand experience. “We never ran an ad until we had the guest experience together,” he said. “It starts with every aspect of the company, not just marketing the brand.”

Looking back, he hopes to be remembered for the partnerships and brands he helped build.

“At the end of the day, it’s about returning to real relationships: understanding what a client stands for, building brands with purpose, and coming up with ideas that make a difference,” he said.

Heavyweight food and beverage brands have been trading blows for decades. But there’s a new contender stealing market share without nearly as much air time: Private label brands.

Their rise in recent years is a testament to the perceived power of value alongside the increased cost of everyday brands. And now, they’re (finally) becoming more culturally relevant by leaning into branding. 

Private-label brands might deserve more than just the challenger nod, as category leaders are taking stock—and action.

In June, Mondelēz International filed a lawsuit against Aldi, claiming the discount retailer’s lookalike private-label branding “dilutes the distinctive quality of Mondelēz’s unique product packaging.” 

Of particular note are Oreo, Wheat Thins, and Nutter Butter—three of the snack giant’s flagship brands that have been blatantly infringed by Aldi’s Original, Thin Wheats, and Peanut Butter Créme store brands. The similarities are striking, from typeface to color palette. 

Some would call this lazy, unoriginal, copycat branding. But I see it differently. These store brands aren’t just mimicking. They’re capitalizing—and they’re doing it with the industry’s permission. Category leaders have become complacent, too willing to hide behind the codes they’ve spent years solidifying. 

So yes, private labels are copying. And I love it. 

From Code to Crutch

For over a century, Oreo has crafted a distinct identity (it needed to, given that it was a copycat brand itself). It created the colorways, structures, visual assets and cues that define what “good” looks like on the shelf for its category. 

But that success has come at a price: Oreo has created a cookie-cutter template for aspiring biscuit brands to follow. And despite the lawsuit, Oreo’s ability to retaliate is limited. It doesn’t own bubble typography, and the product positioning on the packaging isn’t exclusive. 

For up-and-coming private labels that lack the legacy, recognition, and equity of established ones, these ingredients are ripe for repurposing. It doesn’t matter that Aldi’s “Original” cookies didn’t come up with the visuals or the language. All that matters, in the eyes of the consumer, is that it’s “familiar enough.”

Although Mondelēz’s outrage is understandable, especially as the sector gets more competitive, there are more constructive ways to solve for this than through a legal sparring match. 

For Oreo, it’s a lesson in agility and a reminder of the value of experimentation. Becoming wedded to established category leader branding is a fast-track to stagnation. Brands that refuse to be flexible will find it harder to flex their assets when the time is right. 

How to Evolve Your Equity

This isn’t to say that equity should be discarded. From Oreo’s trademark blue to Coca-Cola’s contour bottle, these are powerful assets that put the consumer at ease. Their value lies in their familiarity. 

But established brands flush with equity have more room to work. Each product has more than one ingredient to play with. Tweaking a logo, refreshing a layout, or introducing a seasonal pun for a product name—these reinterpretations don’t compromise the brand’s identity. They demonstrate a capacity to evolve. 

The food and beverage landscape has become systematized and over-codified. With new challengers constantly emerging, category leaders must acknowledge that there’s no room for timidness. Success hinges on embracing tension and being brave enough to stretch equities in order to elevate them. 

Push + Pull = Progress

I’m all for copying, as it means you’re doing something right. But now is not the time to rest on what was. It’s time to drive toward what’s next.

This isn’t about standing out for the sake of it. It’s about recalibrating for the new status quo. How far can you push your assets before they become unrecognizable—and does that even matter? Could a small tweak deliver value on a global scale? To answer these questions, brands must first know what to protect and what to play with. 

Private label brands aren’t fringe players anymore; they’re providing a much-needed nudge to category leaders. Instead of suing these burgeoning competitors out of existence, legacy brands should take their emergence as a challenge to evolve, disrupt, and innovate. 

Amid news of a potential sale and a corporate split on the horizon, Warner Bros. Discovery is announcing the new structure for its 2026 upfront event.

WBD’s corporate split is planned for mid-2026, with Warner Bros. comprising the streaming and studios divisions and Discovery Global having the global networks. So with that new corporate structure in mind, Discovery Global will host its inaugural upfront event at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, May 13, 2026.

The morning event will showcase “Discovery Global’s vision,” according to the company, and highlight key leadership while presenting the company as a one-stop shop for advertising. Despite the new corporate structure, Discovery Global will also continue to present Warner Bros. ad inventory “in the 2026/27 upfront and beyond,” according to the company.

The relationship between Discovery Global and Warner Bros. will work similarly to that of Comcast and its cable spinoff, Versant, with Comcast continuing to sell Versant ad inventory. Although there are two separate companies, they will represent a single portfolio.

“At Discovery Global, we will seek to inspire and empower audiences through bold storytelling and engaging stories,” said Gunnar Wiedenfels, CFO, Warner Bros. Discovery and announced CEO, Discovery Global. “We are committed to deepening connections between people and the world around them—while delivering innovative, data-driven solutions that help brands engage meaningfully with our passionate global audience. By uniting creativity with intelligence, we aim to build lasting partnerships and deliver measurable results.”

The overall presentation will highlight brands from both Discovery Global and Warner Bros. across entertainment, news, and sports. Brands showcased include Adult Swim, Bleacher Report, CNN, Discovery, Food Network, HBO, HGTV, Investigation Discovery (ID), Magnolia, OWN, TBS, TLC, and TNT Sports, as well as HBO Max, Discovery+, Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, and DC Studios.

In separate statements, Ryan Gould, president of U.S. ad sales, go to market, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Bobby Voltaggio, president of U.S. ad sales, platform monetization, Warner Bros. Discovery, noted the changing corporate relationship but reiterated the strength of the cohesive offering.

“Through cutting-edge innovation in ad tech, data, and product development, we’re not just shaping the future—we’re inviting our partners to build it with us,” Voltaggio said.

The upfront news comes a week after WBD announced it was fielding interest from “multiple parties” for a potential sale; however, in the meantime, the company is continuing to move forward with its previously planned split.

Since 1985, ADWEEK Agency of the Year has honored agencies that set the benchmark for excellence in the advertising and marketing industry, demonstrating creative bravery and strategic excellence while maintaining a solid business foundation—and cultivating a place where people want to work.

The ADWEEK team is proud to announce this year’s shortlist, honoring the most creative, innovative, and impactful agencies of 2025.

The final winners of the 40th annual Agency of the Year awards will be revealed in the December issue of ADWEEK—in print and online—on 12/9.

Agency of the Year 2025 Shortlist

Agency Network

• Acceleration Community of Companies (ACC)
• FCB
• GUT
• McCann
• MSQ Partners

Breakthrough

• ATTN:
• Courage
• Sounds Fun
• Special US
• SuperBloom House

Global

• JOAN Creative
• McCann
• VML
• Wieden+Kennedy

International

• LOLA MullenLowe
• Rethink
• Serviceplan
• VCCP

Midsize

• BBH USA
• Colle McVoy
• Crispin
• Known
• New Engen

Multicultural

• alma
• DDB Latina Puerto Rico
• IW Group
• the community

Independent

• Known
• Giant Spoon
• Mischief @ No Fixed Address
• Rethink
• Special US

Innovation

• Code and Theory
• Digitas
• FIG
• Silverside
• Zulu Alpha Kilo

Small

• Brains
• DNA&STONE
• Loop
• MIRIMAR
• PREACHER

Social Media / Influencer

• ATTN:
• Billion Dollar Boy
• Loop
• VaynerMedia
• Whalar Group

U.S.

• 72andSunny
• Goodby Silverstein & Partners
• MIRIMAR
• Mischief @ No Fixed Address
• Special US