As summer rolls around again, it’s road trip season. Every vacation needs a playlist and all the better if eight-time Grammy winner Anderson .Paak curates it.

For World Music Day 2024, Lexus and Amazon Music teamed with Anderson .Paak to create “Destination .Paak – The Lexus GX Remix.” Promoting the GX Luxury SUV, the launch intends to inspire the outdoor adventures such a vehicle might enable. The campaign features outdoor shows, behind-the-scenes footage, and an all-new music video, among other assets.

For this collaboration, .Paak has released an all-new remix and music video for his 2016 single, “Celebrate.” Hopping on the road with a handful of instruments at his side, .Paak and the song are revitalized by the inspiration that being in nature can bring.

Alongside this release is a slew of behind-the-scenes videos charting .Paak’s road trip across California’s wilderness in a 2024 Lexus GX. The campaign encourages Lexus drivers to get in touch with nature in their way, with .Paak providing a handy playlist via Amazon Music.

Out and about

“Destination .Paak” is a project rife with “firsts,” including the first-ever music video created by Amazon Ads. It is also the first Brand Innovation Lab x Amazon music collaboration, the first auto brand to partner with an artist to develop a custom playlist and the first ever automotive customer Alexa Theme. Highlights from .Paak’s voyage and other assets can be viewed via destinationPaak.com through August 31.

“After fifteen years in the music game, I’m trying to stay inspired and impress my kids,” .Paak said in a statement. “I find that getting out in nature can be both humbling and reinvigorating. That’s why this World Music Day, whether it’s a public park performance or an organized outdoor concert, I’m inviting my fans to join me in getting outside to celebrate music.”

“The Lexus GX is meant for all of life’s adventures, both on and off-road,” added Cynthia Tenhouse, vice president of Lexus Marketing. “Like Anderson .Paak, we hope more people are inspired to find their outdoor adventures.”

MediaVillage.org and ADWEEK, in partnership with the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), co-hosted Julie Thompson’s Thursday Night VIP Dinner Club at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity earlier this month.

The event, held at La Paillote de Gaston Gastounette, honored the 2024 Cannes Lions Outdoor Jury. Check out photos from the event below.

One year after Goodby Silverstein & Partners laid off executive creative directors David Suarez and Danny Gonzalez during a company restructuring, the pair has won the Liberty Mutual Insurance account away from GS&P for its new agency, Bandits & Friends.

Liberty Mutual confirmed to ADWEEK that Bandits would be the lead partner to its internal creative shop, Copper Giants. The shift comes as Liberty Mutual has cut its media spend over the past three years. According to COMvergence data, the brand spent $750 million on measured media in 2021, $650 million in 2022 and $425 million in 2023.

“We are excited to embark on a new collaborative creative model in which an external agency works in concert with our internal agency, Copper Giants, to create new and exciting work that will help drive our business forward,” a brand spokesperson told ADWEEK.

CMO Jenna Lebel has served as the brand’s top marketer for nearly five years, and the prior relationship with Gonzalez and Suarez played a role in the shift. The brand spokesperson told ADWEEK that the agency is “intimately familiar with our brand” as Gonzalez and Suarez developed the “LiMu Emu and Doug” campaign. “They will be responsible for the extension of that campaign and new creative exploration,” the spokesperson said.

Liberty Mutual is one of a growing number of brands aligning outside creative partners with internal creative shops. For instance, DoorDash—which has Gut, The Martin Agency and Wieden+Kennedy on the roster—leans on its internal shop, Superette, as its “creative AOR.” PepsiCo has a number of external partners, but most work alongside its internal shop, Sips and Bites.

It’s the latest win for Bandits & Friends, which Gonzalez and Suarez, alongside president Courtney Berry, launched 10 months ago. The agency has already added The Athletic, Show-Me Organics cannabis, The Weather Company, National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and Angi, which was formerly known as Angie’s List.

“As a fully independent small agency, we’re proud to welcome Liberty Mutual as our latest friend within a year of launching,” Berry told ADWEEK. “Their priorities are attention-stealing work and a great relationship with their partners, which fully aligns with our ethos.”

The agency has grown from the three co-founders to roughly 15 people, with recent hires coming from Droga5 (including group creative directors Nicholas Bauman and Rob McQueen), Mojo Supermarket, Arnold, MAL, Zulu Alpha Kilo and more. It also recently opened an office in New York’s Flatiron District.

Following the account loss, GS&P co-founder Jeff Goodby told ADWEEK in a statement, “We love insurance and are proud to have moved Liberty Mutual to record awareness, while seeing the jingle become one of the most recognized in advertising.” The agency told ADWEEK that it needed just three years to take LiMu and Doug to 84% awareness.

“Together, we helped the brand infiltrate pop culture,” Goodby added. “Watching your work imitated on SNL, featured in The New York Times crossword puzzle and asked as a Jeopardy question, while driving the business, is what we all aspire to do at GS&P. We look forward to doing it again in the category.”

CANNES, France—French telco Orange’s ad challenging gender bias in soccer and Sydney Opera House’s jubilant ode to creativity each won a Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.

Film Lions is one of the few categories at Cannes allowed to award two Grand Prix. This year’s top winners represented a cultural moment in women’s sports marketing and a pure celebration of human creativity. 

Orange’s film, created by agency Marcel Paris, already won the Entertainment for Sport Grand Prix earlier this week. Launched three weeks before the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup, the ad began as a typical highlights reel of men’s soccer, before stripping away the visual effects to reveal it was the women’s game all along.

Its aim was to showcase the elite level of women’s sport and challenge the biases of those who believe it is not as good as the men’s. After it aired, 92% of the ad’s viewers said it changed their mind about women’s soccer. 

“Sometimes the idea wins out over everything. It’s not a perfect film, the craft isn’t perfect. But it’s so good and it makes you feel so much,” said Film Lions jury president Tor Myhren, vice-president of marketing communications at Apple. “To see it is to love it, so this was a very easy decision.”

The Film Lions jury also gave a Grand Prix to Sydney Opera House’s “Play It Safe” by The Monkeys (part of Accenture Song) and directed by lauded commercial director Kim Gehrig. Myhren emphasized the craft of this film, which celebrated the Sydney Opera House’s 50^th anniversary and starred actor and comedian Tim Minchin, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and many other dancers, artists and performers.

“It’s a celebration of the creative spirit and showed it in a way that’s never been shown. It’s a celebration of brave ideas and taking gigantic risks in the face of criticism, controversy and cultural norms,” Myhren said. “Ultimately, it’s a celebration of our industry as well.”

Orange’s “WoMen’s Football” ad, which went viral for highlighting gender bias in soccer, has won the Entertainment for Sport Grand Prix at Cannes Lions, marking a cultural moment in the rise of women’s sports and the caliber of marketing behind it. 

The film from the French telecommunications company and agency Marcel Paris was expected to win big at Cannes after it scored a coveted black Pencil at the D&AD Awards in May. Their recognition also comes as sports brands and events, particularly those focused on women’s sports, have a larger presence at this year’s festival, including Stagwell’s Sport Beach and the inaugural Women’s Sports House from agency Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment and Axios. 

Beyond Cannes, Orange’s win is notable because it “highlights the excitement and future of women’s sports marketing and underscores the power of positivity and creativity in changing perceptions and celebrating athletic excellence,” said Louise Johnson, CEO of Fuse and jury president of the Entertainment Lions for Sport. 

The campaign is part of a wider trend of women’s sports finally receiving more recognition, wider audiences and bigger marketing efforts, with many of the latter “moving away from just a parity story to creative storytelling,” Johnson added. 

ADWEEK spoke to the creators of the groundbreaking ad, Marcel’s joint CEOs and CCOs Youri Guerassimov and Gaëtan du Peloux, about how they pulled it off and why it matters.

Correcting bias

Orange, a longtime sponsor of the French Football Federation, tasked Marcel with bringing attention to the women’s national team and “making people interested in this event, knowing there is a lot of bias,” Peloux said. 

The brand launched its ad three weeks before the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup. At that time, none of the major French TV channels were planning to broadcast the tournament–underscoring the need to correct such biases.  

“There was this perception that nobody’s watching,” said Peloux.

Marcel set out to prove the elite level of the women’s game with a clever visual trick. 

The team edited together highlights from women’s games, then trawled through footage from men’s games to find matching shots. Using VFX, they interlaid the men’s movements onto the women’s bodies, correcting the figures frame by frame. 

In the resulting ad, viewers at first thought they were watching a highlights video of the men’s game. The second part is a rug pull, as the VFX effects disappear to reveal it’s the women who are playing with such skill on the field. 

“The idea was to show the world what women’s football is, not saying one is better. We were just showing them the truth, but with an experience and a trick,” Peloux said. “It was more of a social experiment because you’re watching [the video] with your own bias.”

A cultural moment

The ad took off in a way that the creators never expected. It went viral globally–becoming the most viral French ad ever–and sparked a conversation about the barriers and misperceptions that many female athletes still face. 

More broadly, it “also opened wider discussions about women’s inequalities” in other sectors, Guerassimov observed.

Orange’s campaign was timely as momentum continues to grow behind women’s sports. According to Deloitte, women’s sports will generate revenue of nearly $1.3 billion in 2024, up almost 300% since 2021. 

The reaction to the ad demonstrated how the tide is finally turning after a long history of inequality. 92% of the ad’s viewers said it changed their mind about women’s soccer, per the brand’s data, “proving that exceptional football can transcend gender,” Johnson said.

Back in France, two channels–France Télévisions and M6–eventually agreed to broadcast the Women’s World Cup matches. In the U.K., the final game between England and Spain was 2023’s most-watched women’s sports event on TV.  

Of course, Orange is not solely responsible for this movement, but it “played a small part,” Peloux said.

“We haven’t changed the world, but for sure we have changed something,” he said. 

Ahead of Cannes Lions, Magna delivered its latest global advertising forecast, and the new report gives a snapshot of the current ad market.

According to Magna, advertising revenues will reach $927 billion this year, growing by +10%. The company said it is raising its 2024 growth forecast following a stronger-than-expected ad market in the first quarter and an improvement in the economic outlook.

The U.S. ad market will grow by 10.7%, reaching $374 billion, according to the company, and traditional media owner ad sales will grow by +4.4% to reach $111 billion. Meanwhile, digital pure players, including media owners for search, commerce, social and audio formats, will have ad revenue grow +13.5% to $263 billion.

Here’s what to know about the changing ad market in 2024:

Ad-supported streaming isn’t slowing down

According to the report, traditional TV streamers, such as Disney+ and Max, and pure streaming companies, such as Netflix and Amazon, will generate at least $18 billion this year, including growth of +16%.

The growth comes amid the global expansion of ad tiers. For instance, Amazon introduced its ad tier to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. in the first half of 2024. And with the ad tier serving as the default for subscribers, Magna reports many viewers will remain with ads.

Meanwhile, buyers already told ADWEEK that this year’s upfront conversations would mostly focus on streaming—in addition to sports.

Traditional media growth is driven by cyclical events

Traditional media ad sales, including TV, radio, publishing and out-of-home, will grow to $272 billion in 2024, according to Magna. That’s a +3% jump when compared to 2023. A record number of cyclical events, including the Paris Olympics and the U.S. presidential election, are driving growth.

In the U.S., Magna expects the 2024 election campaigns to generate $9 billion of incremental advertising revenues, an increase of +10% vs 2020.

Companies are also seeing a +11% growth in non-linear ad sales, including the aforementioned ad-supported streaming. Non-linear ad sales now account for one-quarter of total traditional media ad revenues.

Digital pure players are dominating

Magna reports DPP will reach $655 billion this year, growing +13% over 2023. When all is said and done, DPP will account for 71% of all ad sales. Growth factors include the rise of ecommerce, retail media networks providing consumer data to the programmatic ecosystem, growing digital in emerging markets and better monetization of short vertical video.

Keyword Search also remains the largest ad format, reaching $330 billion.

The digital growth bodes well for Google, Meta and Amazon, a.k.a. the big three, which already captured around 60% of total ad revenues outside of China in 2023.

Related video

Auto and CPGs are outperforming

According to Magna, auto, food and drinks will be among the fastest-growing categories for 2024. Though the company noted that car sales are slowing down in 2024, growing only 2% in the U.S. from Jan. through May, a push towards EVs and major sports events will bring “above-average” marketing and ad activity.

Meanwhile, food and beverages were among the many victims of higher inflation in the last two years. However, that’s returning to normal levels.

According to Mayo Clinic, the average American adult walks somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 steps a day. That’s a figure that would make veteran media executive Lou Paskalis little short of Superman.

“My record is 28,000 steps in one day, according to my Apple watch,” said Paskalis, chief strategy officer of Ad Fontes Media.

What could possibly prompt a corporate chief to hoof it that hard? It’s time to lace up for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Paskalis was a guest on the inaugural episode of the Cannes Dispatch, hosted by ADWEEK chief executive officer Will Lee and chief experience officer Jenny Rooney. The three-part podcast series captures the buzz and distills the intelligence from this storied event on the French Riviera.

Cannes Lions is now in its 70^th year, though it bears little resemblance to what it looked like even 25 years ago. In 1999, Paskalis recalled, the festival was just what its name implied: a flashy conclave for ad executives to show off their work.

Ad magnate Michael Kassan (whose abrupt departure from MediaLink in March put him on ADWEEK’S June cover) remembers a moment he realized Cannes was changing.

“One of the world’s largest marketers turned to me and said, ‘Michael, do we need to pay attention to this social media thing?’” said Kassan, also a featured podcast guest.

The revolution of Web 2.0 rewrote the advertising playbook and the Cannes Lions program along with it. Today, the programming and networking opportunities offer as much for a chief data officer as a chief marketing officer.

Yet just as Cannes has drawn a larger cross-section of professionals, the reputation persists of a champagne-splashed clique of powerful white men. Shelley Zalis, founder of the advocacy group The Female Quotient, recalls it well.

Zalis’ memory of her first time at Cannes was plodding back to her hotel by herself. “I wasn’t invited to any of the parties,” the podcast guest said. “I remember feeling like: How am I ever going to feel included here?”

It’s a painful memory—yet ultimately a fruitful one.

Today, the Female Quotient’s stages the Equality Lounge, a networking event where name tags are not permitted—instantly dispensing with job-title elitism.

Lee and Rooney asked guests to share some survival tips for these five vital, kinetic and stressful days in the sun. Here’s a sampling:

• Set aside time to walk the Palais floor and “see some of the creative ideas for inspiration,” Paskalis said. An idea that worked in Brazil can probably be adapted for New York.

• Ritzy setting aside, treat Cannes as serious work. “If you come home from Cannes with a suntan and a sore liver,” Kassan said, “you’ve done the wrong thing.”

• Every night before you go to sleep, “write down three things you learned that day that surprised you,” Paskalis said. You’ll return home with 15 insights to share with your colleagues.

• Use the Mediterranean vibe to think expansively and inclusively: “When you’re in the open air and you have a little rosé,” Zalis said, keep “an open mind and be willing to see the possibilities.”

• Bring some old-fashioned business cards—yes, the paper kind. “It’s the quickest way to make a connection,” Paskalis said. “You don’t have to sit there and try to bump phones.”

• Cannes means being on your feet and in the heat all day and all night. Wear comfortable shoes and, Kassan suggested, pack “lots of linen.”

Stream the new episode below, or listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora or iHeartRadio.

ADWEEK recently reported that Netflix will have five sponsorship packages for advertisers in its two upcoming NFL Christmas Day games. Now, it’s time to break down the Xs and Os of the deals, according to detailed information from the streamer’s pitch deck.

As part of its ad opportunities with the games, the company’s five sponsorship packages include sponsors for pre-game, post-game, halftime and two in-game opportunities.

According to buyers familiar with negotiations, Netflix sponsorships consist of a minimum of eight 30-second ad units, with each package coming in at more than $5 million. However, the various packages allocate units differently across the pre-game show, during the two games and in the two post-game shows, according to a detailed chart of information from Netflix’s NFL advertising pitch deck, seen by ADWEEK.

For instance, the pre-game sponsorship package includes two units in the pre-game show, three units in the first game and three units in the second game. Meanwhile, the post-game sponsorship package includes three units in the first game, three in the second game, one in the first post-game show and one in the second post-game show.

Netflix did not immediately return a request for comment. See details of the sponsorship packages below:

As ADWEEK previously reported, the sponsorships are initially available to the NFL’s “Big 8,” a group of eight protected sponsors, including AB InBev, Verizon, Visa, Gatorade, Pepsi, Lowe’s, Microsoft and a yet-to-be-decided audio partner.

The NFL’s Big 8 advertisers have until June 26 to confirm if they want to move forward with any of the sponsorship deals, according to buyers familiar with negotiations. Then, on June 27, other official NFL partners get the sponsorship opportunities before the offerings go out to the market.

For any brand to have an opportunity to buy an NFL unit for the games, advertisers have to purchase them as part of their TV upfront deals, according to buyers. Additionally, any prospective buyers must have a minimum of $500,000 in spending with Netflix outside of the NFL.

Regarding audience estimates for its first NFL games, the streamer is using previous Christmas Day games as benchmarks, including CBS’s 2023 matchup between the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs and Fox’s matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles vs. New York Giants.

Both of those previous Christmas games averaged around 29 million viewers; however, Netflix is estimating an audience of 23.2 million, according to buyers, marking down the past viewership by 20% to account for any potential audience declines in its first year hosting NFL games.

It’s the middle of the night, and a woman is struggling to get her baby to sleep. At a low moment, she walks into her kitchen and finds a group of other mothers who are also awake and ready to offer encouragement. 

“You’re doing great. Trust me,” one mom says.

“Mine literally only sleeps to techno,” another chimes in.

Cue the comforting tune of “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers, as the next scene reveals an empty kitchen and the actual source of the women’s words: a group chat called Midnight Mums’ Club. 

The slice of life captured in the new ad from Three, one of the U.K.’s largest mobile network operators, might be familiar to many mothers who lean on their group chats in stressful or confusing moments. But it’s not just moms who will relate to the campaign, which celebrates the power of belonging to personal networks, especially those facilitated by smartphones. 

This is the fourth iteration of Three’s “Life Needs a Big Network” platform, created by London-based agency Wonderhood Studios. Debuting on Friday during the UEFA Euro 2024 championship’s opening game between Germany and Scotland, it is the brand’s biggest marketing push since the campaign’s launch in 2021.

A second ad follows a young man named Dev who is waiting for a job interview. To calm his nerves, he retreats to a stall where he encounters his entire family, who pump him up before his big moment. 

This spot represents the all-too-common family group chat, a virtual space that can be “slightly chaotic and hilarious, multi-generational, sometimes with different political opinions—but ultimately there’s a lot of love,” said Aidan McClure, co-founder and chief creative officer of Wonderhood.

Along with these TV ads, the integrated campaign will run across cinema, radio, out-of-home and digital, with in-store activations and social media content spotlighting local community groups.

Positive connectivity

Three’s message focusing on “the positive impact of connected human networks,” per McClure, is timely amid growing public disquiet around the dangers of spending too much time online.

Some countries, including the U.K. and France, are considering legislation that would curb social media or smartphone use for children, with multiple studies pointing to the mental health impact of viewing harmful content online. 

Brands are also catching onto this trend. Riding the wave of ‘90s nostalgia for the childhoods of millennials, Nokia recently revived its classic flip phone. And in April, Heineken partnered with Nokia manufacturer Human Mobile Devices (HMD) to release The Boring Phone, which can only send and receive calls and text messages and isn’t connected to the internet. 

For a mobile network like Three, this movement presents an interesting conundrum. The brand has to “shift a bit with the way the world is going,” said McClure. “It’s all about personal networks, not broadcasting to the entire world on social media.”

Changing the brand’s image

Three’s campaign also comes during a proposed merger between the company and rival Vodafone. The deal would create the U.K.’s largest mobile phone operator, but the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating it over concerns that consumers could face higher prices and reduced quality of service. 

Three chief executive Robert Finnegan argued last month that the merger with Vodafone was “vital” to create a “best-in-class network” for the country. 

On the marketing front, it is “business as usual” for Three as it continues to build on the “Life Needs a Big Network” platform, McClure said. 

Over the past three years, Three’s campaign has aimed to change its image as a youthful, London-centric brand and broaden its appeal to a wider audience. 

“People felt that it was not a proper network and was very value-driven,” McClure explained.

Earlier ads in the campaign focused on the “life” part of the tagline, depicting everyday, sometimes silly moments of connection, such as two grandmothers laughing at a filter on their phones. 

Now the emphasis is on the word “network,” which opens up creative possibilities to tell human stories and infuse the brand with more emotional resonance, McClure said. 

Since its 2021 launch, the campaign has contributed to Three’s highest levels of consideration among consumers since 2016, per the brand’s data.

“We have evolved our brand platform, ‘Life Needs a Big Network,’ to focus on the human networks that our customers value so dearly, and the sense of connection they bring to their lives,” Aislinn O’Connor, director of marketing at Three UK and Ireland, said in a statement. “Central to this is our network supporting your network in day-to-day life and the moments that really matter.”

Ad sales veteran David Lawenda, who served as chief digital advertising officer at Paramount, is leaving after a collective 21 years at the company. In a memo to staff today, Paramount ad sales chief John Halley noted that Lawenda will stay on through September in a transitional role.

Lawenda is one of several long-term ad execs to leave Paramount recently, including Jo Ann Ross, former chairman of Paramount Advertising, who exited in April ahead of the TV upfront, and former CBS Sports ad sales boss John Bogusz, who announced his retirement in March.

The moves come at a tumultuous time for Paramount, as the company has been in the news amid recent M&A rumors, including a deal with Skydance Media that reportedly fell apart. The company’s former CEO, Bob Bakish, also exited in late April.

Lawenda joined the company (then Viacom) in 1994, with Halley’s memo noting that the executive spearheaded “lucrative launches in both broadcast and cable during his first tour, including standing up the UPN broadcast network and launching Spike TV as its first head of sales.”

Later, after more than five years of serving as president of sales and marketing for Univision, Lawenda joined CBS in 2017 as head of digital sales and strategy for entertainment, news and sports, as well as CNET Media Group. Lawenda was also “instrumental” in repositioning CBS All Access as Paramount+, Halley wrote.

“Beyond his business accomplishments, David is perhaps best known for prioritizing and championing people and culture in equal measure,” Halley wrote in the memo. “An authentic, empathetic and inspiring leader, he has steadily invested in coaching for his teams to help them reach their full potential and has mentored and encouraged so many within our ranks.”

More news to come

In a recent shareholder meeting, Paramount’s Office of the CEO, which includes CBS CEO George Cheeks, Paramount Media Networks CEO Chris McCarthy and Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins, presented a shared vision for the company that could include $500 million in cost savings.

Halley’s memo didn’t address any immediate cuts or cost savings; however, the ad sales chief wrote, “We will be sharing more on refinements in the reporting structure in due time.”

“Suffice to say, through our ongoing investment in streaming advertising capabilities, we will continue to innovate on behalf of our clients and grow our multi-billion-dollar digital ad business under this exceptional team,” Halley wrote.

Despite the shakeups behind the scenes, buyers recently told ADWEEK that they enjoyed Paramount’s more intimate upfront events. In May, Halley told ADWEEK that potential mergers were more of a “background topic” in upfront talks, which were business as usual.

“We do have an amazing story to tell,” Halley told ADWEEK. “And that’s what our partners and clients want to hear from us.”

See Halley’s full memo below:

Team,

After 21 collective years at Paramount over two tenures, David Lawenda has decided to leave his role as Chief Digital Advertising Officer. He will stay on through the end of September in a transitionary role to help facilitate the future state of our market-leading digital sales organization.

A consummate change agent, David has driven growth and transformation for Paramount through roles spanning every side of the proverbial sales desk – from broadcast to cable to digital and beyond, and his contributions to Paramount will have a lasting impact for many years to come.

David joined Viacom in 1994, spearheading lucrative launches in both broadcast and cable during his first tour, including standing up the UPN broadcast network and launching Spike TV as its first Head of Sales. After a decade shepherding change as President of Sales and Marketing for Univision and driving billions in growth managing the U.S. business for Facebook and Instagram, David joined CBS in 2017 to head Digital Sales & Strategy for Entertainment, News and Sports as well as the CNET Media Group, streamlining the CBSi offering for clients. 

Post-merger, David was instrumental in repositioning CBS All Access as Paramount+ for our advertising partners and creating and introducing EyeQ, offering clients a single point of entry to our scaled streaming portfolio. Under his stewardship, Paramount’s streaming business has consistently exceeded revenue goals, significantly outperforming the market and growing to a must-buy global advertising platform that reaches 100M+ unique full-episode viewers monthly.

Beyond his business accomplishments, David is perhaps best known for prioritizing and championing people and culture in equal measure. An authentic, empathetic, and inspiring leader, he has steadily invested in coaching for his teams to help them reach their full potential and has mentored and encouraged so many within our ranks. David has also been a driving force in the creation of our Paramount Jewish Culture and Community Interest Group. 

Today, Paramount streaming represents almost 50% of our total annual advertising revenue, excluding live sports. It is the linchpin to our go-to-market offering. As the digital team has matured broadly, I have full confidence in our leadership, who continue to outpace the industry in creativity, strategy and execution. We will be sharing more on refinements in the reporting structure in due time. Suffice to say, through our ongoing investment in streaming advertising capabilities, we will continue to innovate on behalf of our clients and grow our multi-billion-dollar digital ad business under this exceptional team. 

On a personal note, I will miss David’s strength, optimism, and steady hand, which have helped me greatly throughout our organizational journey together. Please join me in thanking him and wishing him all the best in his future endeavors.

John