Disney’s ad sales chief has never been so animated about the company’s upfront offerings.

To kick off Disney’s May 14 upfront week event from the North Javits Center, Rita Ferro, the company’s head of global advertising, became the latest member of the Griffin family.

The event’s video intro, which puts Ferro in the world of Family Guy, was produced by the team behind the show, with creator and star Seth MacFarlane voicing Peter and Brian, while Richard Appel, one of the executive producers, recorded and directed Ferro.

In the clip, which wasn’t immediately available online, Brian calls Peter into the TV show’s iconic living room, with Peter apologizing for being late. He was in the bathroom “streaming.”

“Hey, what do you expect?” Peter adds. “It’s Family Guy.”

Ferro then joins the pair to discuss a “more acceptable kind of streaming content,” with the ad sales chief introducing Disney’s global streaming offerings.

“I’m talking iconic characters, beloved franchises, culture-piercing originals, blockbuster films, live sports,” Ferro says, adding, “Disney has it all, including your favorite adult animation shows like Family Guy.”

“I think you mean The Simpsons,” Peter retorts.

“It’s Bob’s Burgers, but who’s counting?” Ferro says.

Peter notes that Disney has “complete market dominance” but adds, “And yet you still choose to have your headquarters at Burbank.”

“Office space is cheaper there. And that allows us to pass those savings right along to our brand partners—hold for applause,” Ferro says, as all the characters freeze and wait for the real-life audience to clap.

Ferro then notes she has to make it to the Javits Center, and Peter introduces her, allowing the ad sales chief to walk onstage in the same outfit she wears in the clip.

In addition to creating a full circle moment with Ferro’s Family Guy outfit making it to the stage, the video intro also promotes Disney’s adult animated content from Hulu, which recently was fully integrated into Disney+ for bundle subscribers.

Talking with ADWEEK ahead of the presentation, Ferro noted that Disney+’s Hulu merger would be one of the priorities at the upfront pitch, with the product delivering even better results than at launch.

“They’re spending more time with the content and watching more hours of content,” Ferro said. “That will allow us to have more robust opportunities from an advertiser and a brand perspective.”

We’ll note that all that engagement was already happening before Ferro joined Family Guy. Now, all bets are off.

Today, Amazon hosted its first upfront week event. Now, it’s time to assess the Fallout.

Traditionally, the tech and retail media giant held events for advertisers in NewFronts the first week of May. However, with the advent of the company’s Prime Video ad tier, Amazon jumped into upfront week in February, looking to showcase its extended media and streaming offerings, including Prime Video, Prime Video Sports, Twitch, Amazon Music and Freevee, as it competes for traditional TV dollars.

Inside the venue

One of the storylines heading into upfront week was how publishers may pull back on budgets to protect the all-important bottom line. There was no indication of that at Amazon’s upfront week introduction.

The company welcomed attendees into an initial cocktail reception full of breakfast hor devours, a coffee and drinks bar including things like a “Middle Earth Mimosa” for The Rings of Power and a “Bloody Dalton” in honor of Road House.

Beyond the concessions bar, the company decked out a reception room with several activations that nodded to its shows and ad formats.

Activations included a full-sized car promoting Nascar coming to Prime Video in 2025, a Twitch station to showcase how ads would appear on the platform, a Fallout photo station where attendees could take pics next to giant cockroaches, a Road House bar, a space where money rained down to showcase its Mr. Beast partnership and more.

Meanwhile, the presentation space had stadium-like seating for hundreds of attendees, making room for the droves of people lining several blocks waiting to get in.

Once inside, each seat had an Amazon-themed beach tote full of towels for The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon Fire Sticks, a Thursday Night Football BrüMate tumbler and a Wondery-themed speaker, among other things.

Unboxing the content

Amazon kicked off the show with Alicia Keys doing a surprise performance of “No One” and “New York” before the company jumped into a slew of announcements for new and renewed shows coming to Prime Video.

As opposed to the star-starved presentations last year amid Hollywood strikes, the event featured more than a dozen actors and celebrities joining in person, as the company highlighted its 200 million average monthly ad-supported reach through Prime Video—115 million of which are in the U.S., according to Mike Hopkins, svp of Prime Video and Amazon Studios.

Prime Video has acquired the rights to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Tomb Raider, vp head of Amazon and MGM Studios Jennifer Salke announced from the stage. Jake Gyllenhaal also joined Salke to announce a sequel to Road House, followed by an appearance by Alan Ritchson, star of the hit series Reacher. Ritchson announced a new holiday film, Man With the Bag, that he’ll be starring in alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Aldis Hodge, star of the yet-to-be-released Amazon Original Series Cross, based on James Patterson’s novels, also joined Salke to announce that the show has already been renewed for a second season.

Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell then took the stage to introduce a new romcom, You Are Cordially Invited. Next, actors Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham joined Salke to announce a yet unnamed “action drama comedy with the international scope of Jack Ryan and the hearts and humor of Thelma and Louise,” Spencer explained.

More TV content followed the movie stars.

Jenny Han, author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty, stepped onstage alongside the cast of the latter young adult title, which star Lola Tung announced has recently wrapped filming of season three. That season will be “supersized” with 11 episodes, Han said, coming 2025.

Patton Oswalt, host of The 1% Club, also joined Salke to demonstrate a sample question for the new game show.

Delivering more sports

Jay Marine, vp and global head of sports for Prime Video, kicked off a sports-focused segment of the show featuring Charissa Thompson, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Tony Gonzales, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Roger Federer. Documentaries on Federer and Earnhardt Sr. will hit the streamer next year.

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will hit the streamer on August 29, Prime Video announced with a teaser trailer. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine and dropped in February, will also get a second season. The Boys, which will debut its fourth season on June 13, has been renewed for a fifth. A new unscripted series, Buy It Now, will be hosted by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s JB Smooth.

Amazon also announced Glitch, a new brand integration tool on Twitch.

“With our clean room and other leading ad tech, we can help all advertisers connect awareness and brand objectives directly to sales outcomes and category growth, full-funnel advertising at scale for everyone,” Alan Moss, vp of global ad sales, Amazon, said to close out the nearly 90-minute presentation.

As Moss was giving advertisers his final benediction, one last stunt interrupted the show. Salke returned to the stage with Bruiser, the Chihuahua from Legally Blonde, followed by a pink-clad Witherspoon to announce a new prequel series, Elle.

“Before she became the most famous Gemini vegetarian to graduate from Harvard Law School, she was just a regular ’90s high school girl,” Witherspoon said.

Moss finally concluded with a nod to the 2001 film’s soundtrack: “Thank you all for making this a perfect day.”

OpenAI announced its new flagship model GPT-4o (letter “o’” for “Omni”), boasting enhanced conversational abilities. This upgrade provides all ChatGPT users with faster, real-time voice and video interaction capabilities.

The new chatbot, featuring multimodal capabilities spanning visual, audio and text interactions, allows people to use a phone’s camera to allow the AI assistant to read written text as well as detect a person’s emotions, including the ability to interrupt the AI assistant. Additionally, users can interrupt the AI assistant during interactions.

“The special thing about GPT-4o is that it brings GPT-4 level intelligence to everyone, including our free users,” OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati said during a livestream presentation.

During the livestream, one user asked ChatGPT for a real-time tutorial on how to take deep breaths, with the AI model picking up on the user’s emotional state such as breathing too fast. In another demo, ChatGPT narrated a story in various emotive styles, including dramatic to robotic tones, and even singing. In a third demo, the user asked ChatGPT to look at a math equation and assist the person in solving it, instead of the AI chatbot providing an answer.

“This is the end of prompting and beginning of conversing with AI models,” Elav Horwitz, evp of global head of applied innovation at McCann Worldgroup, told ADWEEK.

OpenAI’s improved capabilities announcement comes a day before Google’s I/O developer conference, shooting down reports about OpenAI’s search product launch to rival Google and Perplexity. For marketers, OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT enables a seamless integration of gen AI within creative processes such as brainstorming and generating ad copy.

“This technology has the potential to transform the chatbots used by brands on their apps and websites, making AI interactions much more human-like, and mimicking personal shoppers or customer support representatives,” said William Chen, director of product management, AI and emerging tech at Agora. “By using the real-time engagement capability to understand and respond through multiple modalities … AI models like GPT-4o can offer personalized and empathetic on-the-spot customer service or entertainment at scale for marketers.”

However, this might deter certain brands that are already hesitant about adopting AI, said Cory Treffiletti, AI startup Rembrand’s chief marketing officer.

“People can get the AI to say what they want,” said Treffiletti. “And brands want more control over their interaction with consumers.”

OpenAI’s new chatbot also operates seamlessly across languages, exemplified by its ability to translate between English and Italian.

The GPT-4o capabilities will be available in the coming weeks, with its text and image capabilities starting to roll out today in ChatGPT, per OpenAI’s blog post. The company also announced the release of a desktop version of ChatGPT, launching first for Mac users, with access available to paid users starting today.

A striking fact lays bare inequities in corporate leadership: There are more men named “Dick” on public company boards in the U.S. than women or diverse groups. 

“So Many Dicks,” the wryly named campaign from e.l.f. Beauty, uncovers this unsettling truth to underscore the need for more diversity in seats of power. Starting Monday and running through June 10, the beauty brand’s out-of-home ads will appear throughout New York’s Financial District, home to major financial institutions and numerous other companies grappling with this very issue. 

“So many dicks, so few of everyone else,” the tagline reads, employing the brand’s signature cheeky tone of voice.  

With agency Oberland, e.l.f. conducted research on the race and gender makeup of corporate boards in the U.S., across 36,957 existing board members and 4,429 publicly traded companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The findings include: 

• There were 566 men named Richard, Rick or Dick serving on those boards. 
• Hispanic women numbered 283, only one-half the number of “Dicks.”
• There were 806 Black women and 774 Asian women on boards. 

These ads are part of e.l.f.’s “Change the Board Game” initiative, which aims to help double the rate of women and diverse members added to corporate boards by 2027. 

Earlier this month, tennis legend Billie Jean King starred in the launch ad, in which she serves tennis balls at a board meeting. Each ball contains illuminating facts, such as that women make up only 27% of U.S. corporate boards and that the average corporate board is 88% white.  

The beauty brand also partnered with the National Association of Corporate Directors as a sponsor of its NACD Accelerate program, which creates a pathway to board service for diverse and female candidates.

“We will always strive to represent the diverse communities we serve,” said e.l.f. chief marketing officer Kory Marchisotto. “Our hope is that we can help spark a movement toward normalizing diversity. By changing the board game, we can show the next generation embarking on their careers what’s e.l.f.ing possible while encouraging positive business results for all.” 

With this campaign, e.l.f. makes the point that greater diversity in boardrooms can fuel business growth. The brand is one of four U.S. public traded companies out of 4,200 with a board that is two-thirds women and one-third diverse, and it has reported 20 consecutive quarters of net sales growth. 

“One of the most important things a diverse board does is bring in multiple viewpoints to make better decisions,” e.l.f. Beauty chairman and CEO Tarang Amin said in a statement. “A diverse board also helps us stay culturally relevant among multiple affinities … [and] helps us lead innovation and brand demand in the industry.”

Live from New York… it’s Sunday night?

Saturday Night Live is celebrating the big 5-0 in 2025, and NBC is marking the occasion with a weekend-long celebration culminating in a three-hour special that’s airing on February 16 from 8-11 p.m. ET. Flip ahead in the calendar, and you’ll see that’s a Sunday, not a Saturday.

But don’t worry: Lorne Michaels’ late-night institution isn’t getting a 50th-anniversary rebrand. Consider this a repeat of a programming strategy that worked so well the last time SNL celebrated a major anniversary—the Saturday Night Live 40^th Anniversary Special, which aired on February 15, 2015.

“We just decided that 10 years later, we’ll do the 50^th anniversary on that same Sunday,” Jeff Bader, NBCUniversal Entertainment’s president of program planning strategy, tells ADWEEK during a conversation previewing the network’s 2024-25 fall and midseason schedule. “It also affords us the opportunity to have four hours of primetime versus the three hours we’d have on a Saturday. It’s still Saturday Night Live no matter what.”

Even if the special airs on a Sunday, expect it to be a ratings monster filled with cameos from five decades’ worth of Not Ready for Primetime Players. There’s also an expectation that we may finally hear who will be taking over for Michaels should he decide to exit Studio 8H after the show’s 50^th season. But Bader tamps down on any succession speculation ahead of the special. “It’s just the celebration of the 50 years of SNL on NBC and there’s nothing to say about Lorne or any of those plans.”  

But before February—and TV upfront week—comes NBC’s fall lineup, which features three new series alongside returning hits like Night Court and Dick Wolf’s various installments in the Chicago and Law & Order franchises. According to Steve Kern, NBC Entertainment’s senior vice president of program planning and scheduling, “stability” is the narrative of the 2024-2025 season.  

“We have returning shows on every night of the week, including football on Saturday and Sunday,” Kern notes. “And we’re using our stable schedule to launch new shows, while also fortifying shows coming back for their second seasons. That’s how it’s been for many years for NBC: We try to use our hit shows to launch new shows.”

Not for nothing, but the upcoming trio of new fall shows feature on-camera and behind-the-scenes talent who have a successful history with the network, starting with the Zachary Quinto-led medical drama, Brilliant Minds. Quinto scored his breakout role nearly two decades ago as the brain-eating villain Sylar on NBC’s comic book-inspired series, Heroes. He’s still fascinated by gray matter on Brilliant Minds, which casts him as Oliver Wolf, a dedicated neurosurgeon modeled after real-life physician, Oliver Sacks.

“It’s a great character, and a unique way of doing a procedural,” Bader says of the series, which was originally titled Wolf.

“That was a temporary title,” Bader explains. “It’s always better if the title tells you what the show is.”

NBC also has another medical show coming this fall, albeit in a very different key. St. Denis Medical is the network’s latest collaboration with Justin Spitzer, who previously created Superstore and American Auto for the network.

“It’s a special show, and very on-brand for NBC,” Bader says of the comedic take on a seen-better-days Oregon hospital staffed by seasoned laugh-generating staff like Wendi McLendon-Covey, Allison Tolman and David Alan Grier. “It’s smart, it’s funny and it has heart. We’re excited about it.”

Last, but not least, is Happy’s Place, the first starring sitcom role for country legend—and fan favorite Voice coach—Reba McEntire since 2012’s short-lived Malibu Country. Written by that show’s creator, Kevin Abbott, Happy’s Place finds McEntire inheriting the titular bar from her late father and working alongside the half-sister she just met. “Reba is a big presence for us on The Voice, so this is a great opportunity to launch another show with her,” Bader says.  

It’s worth noting that rumors about McEntire’s future on The Voice have been swirling around the reality staple since its 25^th season launched in February. “We’re announcing who the fall coaches will be on Monday,” Bader says when asked if Happy’s Place will impact the singer’s Voice commitments. “Stay tuned.”

Recent reports have indicated that Hollywood is still feeling the impact of last year’s historic double strike by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, not to mention the looming threat of another strike as the various unions that make up IATSE navigate ongoing negotiations with the AMPTP. Both Bader and Kern indicate that NBC is in a good place no matter what the next few months have in store on the labor front.

“Many of our fall shows are already in production now because we learned to be prepared,” Bader says. “So they’re a good three or four months ahead of where they would’ve been otherwise, and we will be prepared for whatever happens if there’s another strike.”

Kern also says last year’s strikes weren’t the reason why NBC’s 10-episode event series, The Americas, wound up being bumped from Spring 2024 to 2025. “When you see it, you’ll understand why it was not strike-related,” he explains of the Tom Hanks-produced and narrated nature documentary, which is set for a two-hour premiere on February 23. “It took five years to shoot, edit and produce and they wanted to have the time to make it right. It’s great and epic and beautiful.”

One show that may still crash the 2024-25 lineup is Suits: LA, a revival of the USA series that unexpectedly re-entered the pop culture zeitgeist when it streamed on Netflix last summer. Creator Aaron Korsh is overseeing the spinoff, which is set to star Stephen Amell and Lex Scott Davis.

“It’s a pilot,” Bader cautions, adding that the network will see it in June and make a call then about whether it’ll be fast-tracked or held until 2025-26. “It’s a new show to a lot of people and it’s doing very well on streaming, so we’re very excited about seeing this new incarnation.”

NBC FALL 2024-25 SCHEDULE

(New programs in ALL CAPS; times are ET)

MONDAY
8 p.m. — The Voice 
10 p.m. — BRILLIANT MINDS    

TUESDAY
8 p.m. — ST. DENIS MEDICAL 
8:30 p.m. — Night Court 
9 p.m. — The Voice  
10 p.m. — The Irrational  

WEDNESDAY 
8 p.m. — Chicago Med 
9 p.m. — Chicago Fire
10 p.m. — Chicago P.D.

THURSDAY
8 p.m. — Law & Order
9 p.m. — Law & Order: SVU
10 p.m. — Found

FRIDAY 
8 p.m. — HAPPY’S PLACE
8:30 p.m. — Lopez vs. Lopez
9 p.m. — Dateline NBC

SATURDAY
7 p.m. — Big Ten Pregame / Notre Dame Pregame (also live on Peacock) 
7:30 p.m. — Big Ten Saturday Night / Notre Dame Football (also live on Peacock) 

SUNDAY 
7 p.m. — Football Night in America (also live on Peacock)  
8:20 p.m. — NBC Sunday Night Football (also live on Peacock) 

The last upfront season resulted in long negotiations with significant rollbacks outside of sports, and buyers wouldn’t be surprised by a little déjà vu this time around.

The days of skyrocketing linear CPMs (cost per thousand viewers reached) amid declining ratings, fall schedules dictating dollars and early market movers are likely long gone. In this new TV landscape, consumers and spending are moving to streaming, sports are becoming increasingly coveted and deals are becoming more complex than ever.

With TV upfront week looming, ADWEEK spoke with several prominent media buyers and insiders to better understand it all, learning the storylines to look out for in this year’s upfront negotiations.

CPMs staying soft

Deals vary across the board, but outside of sports, last year’s CPMs generally saw rollbacks of around 5%, and buyers expect more of the same for the 2024-2025 market.

“I see no reason why it’s not a similar marketplace to last year,” one buyer said, speaking anonymously. “It’s still early, but if the marketplace were to move tomorrow, in some areas it might be even softer.”

Streaming platforms, which entered the market with sky-high CPMs, are set to come crashing down to Earth, according to buyers, with more inventory flooding the industry thanks to recent ad tier launches and more money moving out of the upfront amid macroeconomic conditions and buyers wanting more flexibility and programmatic ad buys.

“Clients have had a volatile business climate for a number of years post-Covid,” a second buyer said. “There’s a very judicious thought around what dollars are going into the upfront and what are not.”

A large portion of the new supply keeping CPMs lower comes from Amazon’s Prime Video ad tier, which rolled out in January with an audience of more than 100 million. Media buyers are also looking to the streamer as a preferred partner to work with.

“If I’m the other streamers, or if I’m even the traditional guys around primetime, I’m looking over my shoulder at Amazon right now,” a third buyer said.

Meanwhile, streamers that are already lower on CPMs are well-positioned to capitalize. For instance, in Fox’s earnings call on Wednesday, Lachlan Murdoch, chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, said he was “confident” that Fox AVOD Tubi would hold its CPMs, which are “already very efficient.”

The game plan is around sports

Heading into the 2024-2025 upfront, buyers told ADWEEK they are largely focused on streaming inventory, data-driven linear and—most importantly—sports.

“It’s not linear versus streaming anymore,” the first buyer said. “It’s sports, which kind of transcends linear and streaming. It’s above everything.”

Live sports had a record year in 2023, coming in as 96 of the top 100 most-watch programs in the U.S., with the NFL tackling the majority of the spots. Sports also took most of the top 200 programs, with college sports, NBA and even Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football making strong appearances.

“Sports is continuing, and even more so this year, where we’re going to see the only strong demand,” a fourth buyer said. “And not even sports, probably football being the strongest one, maybe NBA.”

Though news in an election year is on the table for categories such as entertainment and pharma, the divided political landscape and a focus on brand safety also have marketers looking to sports as a go-to for reaching large general audiences, according to buyers.

Showcasing the importance of sports, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and Fox are also launching their digital MVPD sports collaboration in the fall, giving each of the companies incremental reach on distribution.

The rise in women’s sports

Coming off of a record-breaking NCAA women’s basketball tournament, women’s sports is also one of the newer focuses this year, with several publishers recently telling ADWEEK they’ve noticed increased client interest.

Disney ad sales president Rita Ferro told ADWEEK that brands are “really getting involved” with women’s sports. Meanwhile, Paramount ad sales boss John Halley said there’s “no question” about clients’ increased women’s sports interest.

It’s really sports, which kind of transcends linear and streaming. It’s above everything.

—a media buyer on the importance of sports in the upfront

“Women’s sports are generating the economic value for advertising, which is the engine of money for sports,” Kevin Krim, president and CEO of EDO, said. “The ecosystem has now caught up. All this moves over time, but we’re not far from a moment where, in a sport like basketball, you’re gonna start to get relatively comparable compensation.”

Buyers noted they wouldn’t be surprised to see an increase in women’s sports spending this year, with spend shifting from linear entertainment properties. Further boosting those opportunities, GroupM previously announced a women’s sports marketplace launching at the upfront, and Sports Innovation Lab’s Women’s Sports Club at the NewFronts also had the goal of connecting buyers with organizations representing women’s sports.

“There are some clients who are like, ‘What’s this going to do to pricing?’ Look, pricing in sports is going up anyway,” the third buyer said, noting women’s sports will likely see increases. “You’re gonna pay more for NBA, more for NFL, more for college football, so there will be a negotiation.”

The battle for streaming

Regarding this year’s upfront, “sports is a battleground, and streaming is a battleground,” the second buyer said.

With an increase in ad supply and upfront budgets shrinking, publishers will have to impress buyers with everything they’re bringing to the table, including their content, data offerings and even whether programming will likely be seen on a big or small screen.

For all publishers trying to secure TV ad budgets, it boils down to a pricing and flexibility discussion, according to buyers.

“They all have streaming offerings, and they all have data,” a fifth buyer said. “They have to change and adapt to what clients want.”

The buzzword this year is modality. Buyers want to buy in any way they want, having the flexibility to move spend across channels or programmatically. And though traditional publishers still have scale, they don’t necessarily have the elasticity that buyers are looking for.

“The biggest struggle with the upfront is that traditional media sellers are still not able to work in a modern world,” a sixth buyer said. “They still count on four quarters of forecasts and have these stringent rules around what they’re willing to do from a flexibility standpoint, whereas digital entrants and streaming native companies already understand that the world has changed and have very quick cancellation.”

According to IAB’s 2024 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report, digital video spend will pass linear for the first time this year, with the market becoming 52% digital vs. 48% linear. However, buyers aren’t counting linear out quite yet. After all, the majority of the viewing of Paramount’s recent record-breaking Super Bowl came on linear.

“Despite all the talk about streaming, linear still has a higher percentage of usage when you think about the big screen,” the sixth buyer said.

Will measurement measure up?

Media buyers told ADWEEK that alternative currencies and measurement have led to a series of false starts over the last few years, with companies promising certain capabilities and not living up to those promises.

When it comes to announcements from measurement companies and agencies, one buyer put it succinctly: “99.9% of it turned out to be bullshit.”

However, Nielsen has officially announced that it’s ready to roll out its panel plus big data measurement in the fall. And though some still have trepidation, buyers and publishers noted this year will likely see a mix of panel-only as well as a combination of panel data and big data for currency.

But in a world where companies are increasingly using AI for targeting and measurement while buyers are looking to reach specific audiences, measurement is far from its final form.

“As long as we’re still buying linear, there’s no way to transact—at least that I can see—confidently on linear measurement against a technology solution,” the third buyer said. “But I think increasingly we’ll migrate away from a currency more towards a measurement framework, third party verifications and confidence that comes along with that.”

Is Fierceness a creative agency in Sparta, New Jersey or a horse running in this year’s Kentucky Derby? It’s this year’s favorite in the world’s most famous horse race.

What about High Wide & Handsome, Carte Blanche and Good Apple? If you said horses for any of those, you’d be wrong—they’re all ad agencies.

Seven years in, ADWEEK has never repeated an agency name. That’s right, ADWEEK has tracked down more than 120 ad agencies that could be confused with race horses.

New York-based Publicis shop BBH invited us into its hallowed halls to grill its employees for this year’s edition of our annual video quiz show, Kentucky Derby Horse or Ad Agency?

The game is simple. We give contestants 12 names, and they have to guess whether they think it’s an ad agency or a derby horse. If they get eight right, they’ve won the ADWEEK Sports Minute.

Without further ado, here’s the hardest edition of Kentucky Derby Horse or Ad Agency that we’ve ever done.

Kentucky Derby Horse or Ad Agency? Through the years

Meta believes short-form videos are the future.

At its NewFronts presentation on Thursday, the tech giant revealed a slew of AI-powered tools for ad buyers, helping brands connect with creators to reach wider audiences.

Powered by machine learning, Meta now recommends creators to brands on its searchable Instagram Creator Marketplace.

Brands can search for creators by filtering creator and audience attributes, send campaign briefs to creators of their choice and make themselves discoverable across many creators, gaining time efficiency and reducing the cost of Partnership ads.

Meta also introduced video catalogs featuring multi-destination product ads on Reels, enabling users to swipe through multiple products in a single video. Additionally, advertisers can use Reminder Ads on Reels by adding external links to new products or sales, prompting viewers to convert their interest into a purchase.

Meta’s Reels product stands to benefit as rival TikTok’s future grows uncertain in U.S. And the company already has a strong hold on the market, as 3.5 billion Reels are reshared across Meta every day, according to Alvin Bowles, vp, global business group, Meta.

Brands like McDonald’s—which reached 200 million people through its Meta platforms in 2023—have tapped into Reels to create fan experiences, such as the Grimace Shake campaign in December last year and the WcDonald anime campaign earlier this year.

“We introduced a sub-genre of anime via Reels to dive deep to excite fans each week,” said Jennifer Healan, vp, U.S. marketing, brand, content and culture, McDonald’s.

Simultaneously, BMW was able to reach a wider audience via its partnership with creator Phil Cohen, who boasts nearly a million followers on Instagram. This collaboration promoted BMW’s X5 and X6 launches as well as the Mini launch, effectively driving traffic to its website and further down the sales funnel.

Meta also announced that its generative AI Image Expansion capabilities, which adjust creative assets to fit different aspect ratios, extend to its Advantage+ tool for optimizing more natural images across Reels on Facebook and Instagram. Revenue from its Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ACS) more than doubled since last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s first-quarter-2024 earnings call.

The platform is also testing a new tool using AI to predict which organic branded content will perform best if used in paid campaigns as a Partnership ad.

The city-based podcast and newsletter media company City Cast is on pace to generate $3 million in revenue and expand into its twelfth and thirteenth markets this year, according to founder David Plotz.

The company is not profitable, and the revenues are relatively small for an 80-person outlet. But the figures also reflect substantial growth in a short timeframe: Following a March 2021 launch, the company began monetizing in 2022, generating $100,000. Last year, it brought in $700,000.

City Cast plans to reach profitability by 2027, Plotz said. It owes its generous run rate to the deep pockets of its ownership group, Graham Holdings, which used to own The Washington Post and now owns the publisher Slate.

“First, we built the content ecosystem, and now we are building out the monetization ecosystem,” Plotz said. “We feel good. We are making daily podcasts and newsletters that do for their cities what we had hoped they would.”

Its expansion efforts come amid a broader recalibration in the podcasting ecosystem, which has been prompted by the economic downturn of the last two years. The company has been relatively insulated from these headwinds thanks to its nascency, patient backing and focus on local advertising, according to Bryan Barletta, the founder of the podcasting trade publication Sounds Profitable.

The publisher is also one of several innovative attempts—along with Axios Local—hoping to capitalize on the decline in local news and radio. By creating a sustainable, nationwide network of news outlets, City Cast hopes to bring its model to upward of 50 cities when fully realized.

Early traction and expansion

Through its daily podcast and attendant newsletter, City Cast offers a curated collection of daily news and cultural happenings in the 11 cities it serves. The podcast focuses on a single topic, while the newsletter offers a broader mix of original and aggregated reporting.

In a recent edition of City Cast Portland, for example, the podcast explored the anti-crime strategy of district attorney candidate Nathan Vasquez, while the newsletter offered a section touching on the same issue, as well as a collection of things to do, unofficial slogans for the city and a round-up of trending news stories.

So far, City Cast has expanded into metropolitan hubs including Chicago, Portland, Madison and Washington, D.C. This June, it will launch operations in Austin and Nashville.

Across its network, City Cast has 190,000 monthly listeners and 350,000 subscribers to its free newsletters, according to Plotz. Denver is its largest audio market, with 30,000 listeners, while D.C. and Chicago tie for its largest readership base, with around 45,000 subscribers apiece.

Each city has four or five staff—an executive producer, audio producer, host, newsletter writer and salesperson. City Cast also has a back office of around 20, which covers functions like marketing and sales support. 

To heighten its local feel, the podcast and newsletter are each created by a recurring host, who is often from the city they cover.

By developing these longstanding, intimate relationships with their audience, City Cast is hoping to tap into the same dynamic that made terrestrial radio a source of consistent listenership, according to Ariel Shapiro, formerly the lead writer at podcast newsletter Hot Pod.

“City Cast is taking its references from local radio, which is not a bad thing,” Shapiro said. “I think that’s smart. What makes a podcast succeed? People get attached to their hosts.”

Local advertising insulates City Cast

The publisher’s growth takes place during otherwise turbulent podcasting times, according to Barletta. Major figures in the space, like Spotify and SiriusXM, have laid off thousands of staff, while higher interest rates have dried up the free-flowing capital that once subsidized the booming industry.

City Cast’s focus on local advertisers, however, has helped insulate it from many of these economic headwinds.

“City Cast is able to offer to local advertisers a level of direct access and unique value proposition to spenders who don’t feel as well taken care of in other mediums,” Barletta said.

The publisher generates revenue mainly through advertising, although about 10% of its business comes from its membership model.

The membership tier provides listeners perks, such as an ad-free experience and exclusive content, but City Cast plans to make the offerings more robust. For now, Plotz said, they are essentially a means for listeners to support the company.

Of its advertising business, the majority of revenue comes from host-read ads and sponsored interviews. Only around 10% of its ad business comes from programmatic sources, according to Plotz.

The newsletter also adds another touchpoint for advertising, which Plotz referred to as an action medium that accompanies the emotional medium of audio.

The company has primarily focused on working with local businesses, such as grocery stores, festivals and museums. Many of its ad buys include inventory in the newsletter as well.

It recently signed a six-figure deal with the Western brand Tecovas, which will serve as the launch sponsor of the Austin and Nashville locations. The multichannel sponsorship will include several months of advertising, as well as in-store activations that feature local musicians and cultural marchers.

This focus on local insulates City Cast from the kind of competition for ad dollars that animates the open web, where a handful of platforms dominate spending, according to Barletta.

“All of advertising operates in cycles,” Barletta said, “but I hope and expect that City Cast’s difficulties will not be the same as the rest of the industry because they built a model around audio anchored in local.”

After President Joe Biden signed a bill that could ban TikTok in the U.S., its Chinese owner ByteDance is considering selling the popular platform.

But a TikTok suitor would need more than both regulatory approval and the stomach to operate a social media company. It would also need the technical chops to rebuild its powerful content recommendation algorithm, which ByteDance plans to strip from the platform when it sells it.

This would lower the value of its U.S. business from $100 billion to $40 billion, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

“The value of TikTok would dramatically change without the algorithms and makes the ultimate divestiture of TikTok a very complex endeavor with many potential financial bidders waiting anxiously for this process to kick off,” Ives told ADWEEK.

ADWEEK spoke with investors, bankers, analysts and consultants who identified potential companies to buy TikTok—and those who may choose to remain on the sidelines.

Antitrust scrutiny likely would keep Meta and Google on the sidelines, said Sanja Partalo, co-founder and general partner at S4S Ventures.

“They also have the most to gain if TikTok shut down in the U.S or is acquired by an entity that has little experience scaling a social media platform and fumbles the execution. Sitting on the sidelines may be the strategic choice.”  

Verizon and AT&T

The telcos Verizon and AT&T could be the frontrunners to buy TikTok, should ByteDance choose to sell its U.S operations, according to Andrew Buckman, vice president of marketing and investor relations at Azerion.

TikTok’s massive user base, particularly its 45% of Gen Z demographic, presents a compelling opportunity for these wireless giants, who typically grapple with reaching and engaging with this audience.

“This generation doesn’t watch cable TV, listen to radio, or read newspaper, and gets its information from TikTok,” said Buckman.

Acquiring TikTok would give these companies an advantage with access to massive user data and expanding its customer base, he said.

Still, TikTok without its algorithm is not an easy lift, and telcos might not have the expertise to rebuild it, Buckman said.

Microsoft

Microsoft nearly acquired TikTok in 2020, and it could re-enter the playing field, said Partalo.

Acquiring TikTok could provide Microsoft with a significant foothold in the social media space, complementing its existing portfolio of products and services and expanding its consumer-facing offerings, said Javier Rodriguez Horta, global marketing strategy practice lead at marketing consulting firm CvE.

“They have an advertising business, a gaming business, both having synergies with TikTok’s business model and user base,” Partalo added.

The tech giant is also riding the wave of a massive win, having successfully acquired Activision Blizzard last year, and Rodriguez Horta does not believe regulatory interference is a major threat to Microsoft right now.

“If [antitrust] was a real roadblock, Microsoft’s legal team would have not wasted time in 2020,” Rodriguez Horta said.

Others suggest that Microsoft’s focus on AI ventures, including its substantial investment of $13 billion in OpenAI, makes acquiring TikTok less of a priority.

“TikTok doesn’t play into its playbook,” said Marc Goldberg, CEO of the consulting firm Stages Collective.

Oracle

Oracle is a logical contender, because it is the primary cloud vendor for TikTok’s U.S. business.

In September 2020, Oracle and Walmart also secured tentative U.S. approval for a joint 20% acquisition of a new business named TikTok Global, the companies said in a joint statement. However, the Trump-sanctioned deal fell through after the change in presidential administration in early 2021.

“In our view, given past interest and strategically, [it] would make a logical fit,” said Ives.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s son David Ellison, who is reportedly among the contenders to acquire Paramount Global, might also make a play.

“If that falls through, he has the backing to buy TikTok,” said a banker who is leading a deal that involves TikTok, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Amazon

Amazon has the firepower to get the deal done, and it doesn’t own a social network of its own. This means it won’t trigger monopoly or antitrust issues, said Darren Lopes, co-founder of 10PM Curfew, social-first publisher that owns and operates more than 60 lifestyle channels.

An acquisition might also be advantageous to Amazon, as TikTok recently launched a competitive online marketplace Shop.

“Amazon already has the server infrastructure to support all the TikTok videos and incentive to stop their ecommerce growth and roll it up into their own initiatives,” said Lopes. “Moreover, TikTok has been a massive driver with their Amazon Finds videos, but now with TikTok Shop, it has driven away revenue and traffic from Amazon.”

Meanwhile, Amazon’s history of creating sophisticated recommendation algorithm that has fueled its revenue positions the company well to potentially rebuild TikTok’s algorithm. With its financial prowess—generating nearly $575 billion in revenue last year—Amazon has the capacity to execute such a venture, said Stages Collective’s Goldberg.

Private investors

Backed by private equity and consortiums, former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin is expected to “put together a group” that bids for TikTok, Mnuchin told CNBC in March.

Meanwhile, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), led by Philip Anschutz of the Anschutz family and boasting a net worth of $15.3 billion, according to Forbes, also owns assets like Ticketmaster. According to the banker sources, AEG has the financial capability to pursue the acquisition of TikTok.

Still, the essence of TikTok lies in its core content recommendation algorithm and its uncanny ability to keep its users glued to their screens.

“Without that, any potential buyer is looking at [an] asset that has a massively scaled user base, and large and fast-growing share of advertising spend today. But tomorrow, may not have either,” said Partalo.