Streamers are the new home for live sports, offering fans and advertisers big advantages linear TV couldn't. Live sports advertising was already on fire thanks to CTV streaming the NFL and NBA, but Women's March Madness 2024 has been a slam dunk for media buyers. The buzz around Iowa's star Caitlin Clark culminated in an NCAA Final game that drew 18.87 million viewers, the most watched basketball game — college or pro, men’s or women’s — since the 2019 NCAA men’s championship game. That's an enormous audience of highly passionate and engaged consumers. As women's sports viewership grows, the ad dollars flow -- brands like Home Depot, Ritz, and Aflac sold out all of Disney's ad inventory for March Madness two weeks in advance. We all know live sports are popular with consumers, but what about the backend? Does this channel provide advertisers with the results necessary to justify the cost? Why advertise in live sports? Audience Reach and Engagement: Live sports still reign supreme as the most-watched TV broadcasts. Brands have long understood that the sports fan is engaged and deeply loyal - so having access to them via CTV can be a goldmine for marketing teams. CTV Enables Mix of Ad Creative Formats: Live sports streaming on OTT platforms enables advertisers to reach entirely new audiences of dedicated sports fans with creative, personalized ad messaging. Precise Audience Targeting: The ad inventory can be bought programmatically, which allows media buyers to target precise audiences at the most efficient cost. Emotional Connection: Brands can tap into the deep emotional connection viewers feel for their teams by telling impactful stories. Take this Cetaphil Super Bowl ad, for example! Tug at the heartstrings, and you won't be forgotten. Omnichannel Opportunities: Sports isn't just on TV -- the players amass huge followings on social media, tell their stories in the press, sign endorsement deals, and inspire sports betting (another exploding advertising channel!) -- which means plenty of opportunities for retargeting and reinforcement. TV is an excellent brand awareness lifter, but people need to know how and where to buy your product or service in order to drive a sale. How brands can win at live sports advertising: A. Plan It can be challenging to plan, measure, and analyze the effectiveness of ad spend on sports events throughout a season because viewership is subject to peaks and valleys. Fortunately, some programmatic advertising platforms like The Trade Desk have developed pacing tools to help media buyers optimize their ad spend in real time. Partnering with the right media planning and buying agency can be the difference between wasting precious ad dollars and sending them straight to your goals. B. Diversify Since TV ad spots during big games can be expensive (and thus risky), it's important not to put all your eggs in that basket. Make sure you're building a strong brand identity first, then complement your CTV spend with other strategies like DOOH, social media, omnichannel retail, or audio spots. Besides, TV is an excellent brand awareness lifter, but people need to know how and where to buy your product or service in order to drive a sale. Shoppable CTV elements like QR codes or text codes can get viewers engaged right from their couch. Or you could include a clear call to action in your ad creative directing viewers to your website or store. C. Think Local Costly national TV spots aren't the only option for sports advertising. Local affiliate stations sell ad inventory, too, and they might be a more cost-efficient option if you have target audience segments in specific geographic locations. D. Measure To measure campaign effectiveness, be sure you're using the right metrics. For CTV advertising, KPIs like average viewership and unique viewers are most relevant. Cross-reference these with other channels like social media growth and merch sales. E. Grow eMarketer predicts that viewership of digital live sports content in the US will reach 90.7 million by 2025! That's an enormous growth opportunity brands can bet on. This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here.

AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude will soon collapse the customer journey into a single conversation, and brands need a full-funnel media strategy to own them. On a hot, Arizona day in March 2026, Exverus VP of Performance Marketing Hillary Kupferberg took the stage to tell a roomful of marketers and media buyers: You're behind. She was talking about the dawn of AI shopping, or agentic commerce, a process in which consumers turn to AI chatbots like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity for product recommendations, and an AI shopping agent fills their basket. It's the future (no, the present reality) of e-commerce, and brand marketers need to adapt their marketing strategies quickly. When the whole product discovery-to-purchase pathway is collapsed into a single chatbot conversation, traditional advertising tactics like Paid Search driving clicks to a website become irrelevant. Let Hillary explain: Zero-click Search Marketing We're entering a world where better marketing produces worse-looking Search metrics. One of our CPG brands saw a 30% decline clicks to site but were actually winning and gaining share in AI overviews. Brands relying on website clicks today to measure their success are actually falling behind, and your marketing is looking worse. So, we need to measure differently. We all know the old terms of share of voice, but what we're quickly finding is that in order to win today, you actually need to be looking at share of model. Is your brand or your product being cited and mentioned in these LLMS? The reason this matters is, if we evaluate all these new forms of technology under our own old models, we're going to lose. Now we're marketing to AI and consumers. So we really are thinking about this differently today, rewriting success. And when we look at all the new new traffic sources, where are leads coming from? Is it ChatGPT? Is it Copilot? Is it Gemini? These things matter. Reddit is a huge source that's really powerful. For one of our brands, we were able to identify that Reddit is the third most visible domain on Google, and that's pulling into all of the AI Overviews. Agentic commerce On Amazon Prime Day, we saw a 3,000% increase of GenAI traffic to Amazon. That's huge! And we really entered a tipping point that is quickly transforming the commerce world. The point of sale is now inside the conversation. Discovery is happening within all of these conversations. And if you think about the first prompt you ever gave AI, "I need a new pair of sneakers" is very different than how I talk to AI now and likely you do, as well. Really in-depth prompts about exactly what type of hiking shoe I need, that it needs to fit in my carry-on, I want them to be waterproof, only in blue. These are the types of information that customers are giving; they're having deep conversations with AI to find the right products. They're not visiting your website, but ultimately what we're seeing with retailers and commerce partners actively partnering with OpenAI is the future of retail and e-commerce. Conversational AI is a new purchase channel. As of very recently, we can start to buy ads there. But even without paid media, this is a really important tool for your brands to be thinking about because AI is predicting, recommending, and ultimately completing the transactions all within that chat. The retailers, as they continue to partner with OpenAI, will have really strong purchase data that isn't happening on your brand site. And we see that people are really leaned in. 63% of users are doing this for research and discovery, and 53% take it a step further and compare products and prices. So everything from your search to your retail PDPs need to be specifically consistent and translate to the AI so the AI models can mention and cite your brands and your products when relevant. A full-funnel media approach When we talk about building a brand, we're really talking about creating authentic relationships, repeat purchases, and brand enthusiasts. But LLMs have collapsed the timeline. In the old world, you'd invest in brand awareness for months, watch awareness metrics climb, then capitalize on that brand equity through performance channels like retail media and search. Brand and performance were sequential. Now, they're simultaneous. When a consumer asks ChatGPT or Claude, "What's the best protein powder for weight loss?" the LLM is pulling from: your brand mentions your website authority your customer reviews and the specificity of your product data, all at once. It's not deciding between brand awareness and conversion intent; it's weighing credibility signals and purchase readiness in a single answer. If you've only invested in performance metrics (ROAS, conversion rates), you're invisible to the LLM. If you've only built brand awareness, you won't show up in the purchase recommendation. You need both operating as one scientific brain. That's not a nice-to-have anymore; that's table stakes. Actionable Takeaways I encourage you to save this slide because these are tangible things you can bring back to your organization to introduce new ways of measuring success in this agentic commerce world. And just remember that if your organization is still measuring clicks, you're a little bit behind. But the good news is we're here to help. FAQs about AI shopping Q: I loved your insight about Reddit and how brands could get some leverage there. Jay Walker Smith [of MediaPost] wrote a piece recently that the number one source of expert information on the LLMs is Reddit. Number two is Wikipedia. Is that dumbing down the expertise, and is there going to be kind of backlash for brands who are using LLMs for, how should I say, less than perfect information? A: Definitely. It's it really is the wild west. I can't predict what will happen, but I think it's a "both/and situation" between what's happening on Reddit and Wikipedia (more of that user-generated [content]), plus what the brand is putting out. So you have to do both to in order to succeed. And so it does take a lot to be commerce-ready and visible and consistent across many different touch points where the formats are different. How people want to consume the information is different, but brands that are paying attention to both I think will be ahead. Q. The relationship between AI and search is undeniable in terms of the level of disruption there. I'm curious what you're seeing in the ripples with programmatic and display as well, because if that whole behavior and model shifts where people aren't searching online, and we're not retargeting them, and going through that traditional funnel, what are the recommendations, or where do you see programmatic moving with AI now? A. I think programmatic will take a lot of signals from what we're seeing and learning honestly with search as new releases are happening, in terms of product, and what the actual ad formats available will be, and it'll change over time. Again, I don't think it's replacing what we've seen. A lot of fears around volume of search decreasing didn't actually come to play; volume of search is actually up, but how people are consuming and ultimately getting the information is just resulting in less clicks. So, what we're expecting in the programmatic space is even more innovation in terms of ad formats and similar results in terms of expectations around click-based performance. Q. I'm excited now that you said we will soon be making a purchase within an AI platform, and I'm just curious, can you share anything about like a personal purchase that you found very smooth through an AI platform? A. Definitely. Walmart is doing it really well. [Adoption] is low right now. We're at about 8% of people are actually transacting within ChatGPT. I think there's still concerns around adoption and trust. So, giving ChatGPT your credit card is the default, but actually you're giving Walmart your credit card. Purchases that I've made are pretty boring, but mostly in the grocery category. For further reference Watch Hillary's presentation video: MediaPost Live on YouTube. "The New Path from Discovery to Digital Shelf." March 2026. For more on personalization in AI shopping: EMARKETER. "How AI has remade product pages, discovery, and personalization." March 2026. For different retailers' offerings: ADWEEK. "Walmart and Target Are Battling to Show Up in AI Shopping Tools. Here's How Their Strategies Compare." March 2026. About the Author Hillary Kupferberg is the VP of Performance Marketing at Exverus by Brainlabs where she holistically oversees the agency's robust retail media and e-commerce team, programmatic advertising, paid search, and paid social teams. Over a decade-plus in advertising, Hillary's expertise has expanded to meet each new technological innovation, bridging gaps between channels for the strongest possible returns. Previously, Hillary served as Director of Digital Strategy for top luxury brands, winning industry awards and speaking at conferences like IAB.

Acquisitions can put employees on edge and dilute the culture you've created. Learn how to ease minds and preserve your values from a founder who's been there. If you're a Founder or CEO in the process of selling your company, or just thinking about your future exit strategy, you'll need to be intentional about preserving the company values that made it successful in the first place. Company culture isn't just what's in your mission statement or posted on the wall; it's how your employees would describe their work life when you're not in the room. It's in lunchtime conversations and private Slack messages and work-from-home habits. A positive culture with team cohesion and high employee engagement requires active maintenance, and a merger or acquisition can seriously threaten it if you're not careful. Independent ad agency Exverus was built by 3 founders on the values of radical candor, work-life balance, passion, and service. So when we sold to Brainlabs (a much larger, but still independent agency); aligning company values was top priority. Exverus Cofounder and Managing Partner Talia Arnold joined the AdvertisingWeek Agency Alchemy Podcast to discuss how we've maintained our people-first, flexible yet high-quality work culture post-acquisition. Q&A about company culture Let's go back to the origins of Exverus. What defined the culture and operating philosophy? Well, the name Exverus is Latin for 'from the truth', and being founded by three partners who all came from larger agencies, we had a deep feeling that things could be done more directly, more straightforward without hiding. This was back in the days before transparency was a major catchphrase in the advertising world. And the idea of starting an advertising agency all around the truth, at that time, was very novel. So, that has always been our foundational value: telling the truth in the work we do for clients, how we charge them, whether or not their results are good or bad or ugly, and how we all relate to each other. We also have this big belief in radical candor, which is something that has not been written or talked about enough. How do you walk that line of telling the truth, even when it's uncomfortable, even when people don't want to hear it, while still being respectful and solution-oriented? That has always been our goal. Acquisitions can often dilute what made an agency special to begin with. What specifically made Brainlabs feel like the right partner for that, vs. any other growth opportunity for the sake of growth? It's something that any company that is thinking about selling will really have to search their souls to evaluate, because it depends on the reason you want to sell. A big part of the reason we wanted to sell was because we felt we were constrained by our ability to grow. We wanted to keep doing what we were doing, what we still believed in, but within a larger support system. And so, when we met Brainlabs, it was very much complementary services: They are very strong on performance, data, tech. They had developed a lot of their own proprietary tech, which we were desperate to take advantage of; and at the same time, we wanted to maintain our culture, our client relationships, the trust we built, our strategic value. We're really a strategy-based agency, so being able to combine the strategic thinking with acting on many areas of our clients' business with data, technology, creative services, and so on -- it gave us the confidence that the partnership would be very symbiotic. Digiday first broke the story of our acquisition in 2025. You've emphasized commitment to people, and the culture, and the service. How do those values actually show up in the day-to-day, and how do you protect them at scale? When you start a company with three people and see it grow one by one, you see how literally every individual employee transforms a company. And the way that plays out day to day is, we're very ownership-based, meaning employees feel a sense of ownership over their projects. They can come up with new revenue opportunities, new ideas, new solutions; and there's a lot of freedom to do that - there's not a lot of red tape or bureaucracy, still. We still very much have a remote work culture where that makes sense and a lot of together time. Our annual company retreats, the way we celebrate each other's personal lives and accomplishments. And my absolute favorite thing: We still have 3x week all-hands status meetings, and every Friday, we do shout-outs where individuals send gratitude to people on the team for their contributions that week. It's the most heartwarming thing ever. There's a lot of talk right now about AI replacing people or driving efficiency through cuts. You've taken a different path by building technologies in-house. What's the philosophy behind that decision, and how has your team been impacted by it? Like I spoke about earlier, the team has a lot of accountability and ownership over the work they do. We have basically individual labs where people can digitally develop their own tools using AI, to invite others to collaborate, to say, 'Here's a process we used to do, and I've created a program that automates it or evaluates it.' So, people are really excited about the opportunity to take control of not only the work, but how it gets done. For other agency leaders perhaps considering an acquisition, what do you think is the biggest misconception about maintaining culture? What advice would you give? The day one advice is, establish relationships with people as individuals. It's like any new relationship - dating, marriage - you've got to get to know each other and understand each other's values. It's definitely a learning process for us, understanding What are the Brainlabs values? How do they like to work? How's it different, or what can we take from it? For me, it was a bit like starting a new job, or the 'first day of school' kind of feeling. But at the same time, I had my family back home, my Exverus family where everything was consistent. How do you see growth now and moving forward, say 12 months from now? We've always seen growth as the power of the combined impact between both organizations. We're really seeing the benefit of the full-funnel media approach that Exverus has always had and the deep category knowledge in CPG, entertainment, tech, health and wellness; combined with what Brainlabs has brought in B2B, travel, and tourism. With those complementary skill sets, we can now to go market with so much more experience and credibility; that's the unlock. Links to the full podcast interview on all streaming platforms are on advertisingweek.com

The #1 burger has officially moved in with the #1 baseball team. Habit Burger x LA Dodgers: Hometown heroes in fresh heaven Habit Burger & Grill has set down roots in Dodger Stadium and transformed an existing Habit location on Sunset Blvd. into "Dodgers x Habit Home Base" — a dedicated fan destination open pre- and post-game. Supporting the whole effort is an iconic DOOH media campaign placed along actual fan game-day routes — meeting people where the energy already is, not interrupting it. The eye candy is a sweeping mural by celebrated LA artist Ali Gonzalez that makes the partnership feel less like a sponsorship and more like a love letter to the city itself. Two brands that have spent decades earning deep loyalty in LA are finally sharing the same stage, right as the Dodgers come off of back-to-back championship seasons. Like many brands in 2026, Habit recognizes that consumers are hungry for in-person, communal experiences, and nothing beats a baseball game for that. It’s part of Habit’s nationwide expansion that aims to be a good neighbor in each new local community they enter. Media planning, buying, and analysis is led by Exverus by Brainlabs, with creative by OptimismBH and OOH execution by Kevani. Leading the charge at Exverus is Media Director Georgia Schreiner, a 15-year advertising pro and Ad Age Media Planner/Buyer of the Year. About Habit Restaurants, Inc. Born in sunny Southern California in 1969, Habit Burger & Grill quickly gained a devoted following for its Charburgers, cooked to order over an open flame. Since then, the menu has grown far beyond burgers, offering a fresh take on Californian-inspired flavors. Guests can choose from a meaningful selection of handcrafted sandwiches, crisp salad bowls topped with hot, chargrilled chicken, and creamy handspun shakes, all made fresh and cooked to order. Habit has earned notable recognition over the years, including its Double Char being ranked #1 twice by USA Today 10Best*, its Tempura Green Beans named the #1 side twice by USA Today 10Best, and the brand itself recognized as the #1 Fast Casual Restaurant by USA Today 10Best. Connect with Habit: Instagram, TikTok, & LinkedIn About Exverus by Brainlabs Founded in 2014, Exverus is a global, independent media agency growing brands through full-funnel media planning & buying, traditional and programmatic advertising, retail media & e-commerce, paid search, paid social, and analytics. Our data-driven media plans combine brand and performance under one scientific brain to confidently allocate every ad dollar for the maximum return. Named for the Latin phrase "from the truth", Exverus (acquired by Brainlabs in 2025) is dedicated to transparency and long-term client trust. Learn more at exverus.com. Connect with Exverus: LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube

Programmatic digital out-of-home media is now more precise and more measurable thanks to advances in AI-powered ad placements. Forget static billboards on a dusty highway. Out-of-home media (OOH) is impactful, innovative, and drives major business growth downstream. Now that digital OOH media can be bought programmatically, it's easier than ever to both target audiences and measure outcomes more precisely. EMARKETER projects that DOOH will account for 45.2% of total OOH ad spending by 2028, more than doubling since 2016. This growth is largely driven by AI-powered innovations that enhance targeting capabilities, measurement precision, and creative possibilities. Photo Credit: Marcus Herzberg Benefits of AI-powered digital OOH media buying The integration of AI into digital OOH advertising has created significant advantages for marketers seeking impact beyond crowded digital channels. Real-time responsive adjustments According to the OAAA's 2023 OOH Tech Showcase report, AI-powered solutions are helping advertisers deploy more relevant content by analyzing real-time data feeds and adjusting creative elements accordingly. AI algorithms can analyze environmental factors such as weather, traffic patterns, and time of day to dynamically switch out creative assets, transforming what was once a static medium into a hyperresponsive digital channel. Efficient audience targeting AI-powered bidding platforms use up-to-date information on consumer behavior, location, and environmental conditions to deliver hyper-relevant ads, ensuring the right message reaches the right audience without wasting ad spend. Improved measurement Advances in measurement have addressed one of OOH media's historical challenges. According to a 2022 study by the Digital Place Based Advertising Association (DPAA), 64% of surveyed media planners and brands cite improved measurement capabilities as a key factor in increasing their DOOH investments. What gets measured gets managed, as they say. Omnichannel media plan integration With programmatic buying platforms, AI technology easily connects digital OOH media activations with other advertising channels, making it a key component of a unified media strategy. Programmatic DOOH campaign examples We used DOOH to take over Times Square in NYC with portraits of smash TV hit The Chosen, shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz! The client saw financial contributions spike instantly. We also knocked out a Times Square DOOH activation for Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), leading to expanded awareness and pay-per-view clicks. Photo Credit: NPRP Media And check out this award-winning example of a "living wall" we created in partnership with NPRP Media and Humanaut for SUJA organic juices: Current Limitations and Future Challenges Despite impressive advances, AI-powered digital OOH still faces certain limitations. Privacy considerations represent a significant challenge as more sophisticated audience measurement techniques emerge. A 2023 report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) highlights that while 72% of advertisers want more detailed audience data from DOOH networks, only 47% believe current privacy frameworks adequately address consumer protection concerns. AI-driven OOH will require careful navigation of data ethics and consumer trust. Technical infrastructure presents another hurdle. While programmatic DOOH spending is growing, implementation costs for advanced AI systems and the uneven distribution of digital inventory limit campaign reach in certain geographic areas. Measurement standardization continues to evolve but still lacks the universal acceptance found in online channels. Brands and their media teams will need to determine case by case which marketing metrics and KPIs truly drive the business outcomes they want to see. OOH is no longer just about broad scale; it’s about precision, personalization, and performance. AI is taking it there faster than ever. Break out of that small screen, and get ready to make a big impact your audience won't forget. For more advertising news and tips, join our free, weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter.

We took over Times Square with giantThe Chosen: Last Supper portraits by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz Courtesy of NPRP Media (LOS ANGELES) FEBRUARY 21, 2025 -- Ahead of its debut in theaters nationwide on March 28, creator/executive producer Dallas Jenkins and star Jonathan Roumie were in Times Square February 13 to reveal The Chosen: Last Supper (Season 5) key art with portraits by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. Shot in cinematic format, The Chosen: Last Supper features Holy Week, the most pivotal week in history, in this special theatrical release. Exverus by Brainlabs, 5&2 Studio’s media agency of record, worked with longtime collaborator NPRP Media to bring the takeover to life. “Times Square was the perfect place to showcase The Chosen’s beautiful photography in anticipation of the theatrical release to the public." - Exverus Media Director Anna Elema “We had 12 units surrounding Times Square for one hour with several units at eye level to be captured in The Chosen's livestreams and social posts. One of the digital wraparound units (TSX) is 18,000 square feet, so it’s fair to say we made a big impression!” - Brad Magers, CEO NPRP Media Annie Leibovitz, cast, and crew in Times Square for the reveal Then, the OOH campaign extended to Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Rome, Madrid, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paolo; translated to each local language. We selected these markets for the psychographic and movie-going habits of their locals. After the Times Square takeover, financial contributions to the show spiked significantly. Organic branded searches surged to 3.8MM in April alone! The DOOH media activation worked in harmony with the campaign's digital, video, and earned media strategies to lift brand awareness by 4.6x the Entertainment category norms! And most importantly, The Chosen: Last Supper sold 6.1MM tickets, grossing $50MM in theaters and setting a new record for the brand. ABOUT EXVERUS Founded in 2014, Exverus is a global, independent media agency growing brands through full-funnel media planning & buying, traditional and programmatic advertising, retail media & e-commerce, paid search, paid social, and analytics. Our data-driven media plans combine brand and performance under one scientific brain to confidently allocate every ad dollar for the maximum return. Named for the Latin phrase "from the truth", Exverus (acquired by Brainlabs in 2025) is dedicated to transparency and long-term client trust. Learn more at exverus.com. ABOUT 5&2 STUDIOS 5&2 Studios connects people around the world to stories from the Bible through uniquely human and authentic storytelling. Founded by Dallas Jenkins following the global success of The Chosen, 5&2 has expanded into producing both scripted and unscripted series, an animated series, and an expansive library of digital content. The independent studio also manages its own distribution, marketing, studio facilities, and consumer product line. For more information, visit 5and2Studios.com.

Buying digital out-of-home media programmatically offers stronger ROI, more precise targeting, and easier measurement than ever before. Photo by Marcus Herzberg Consumers are bombarded with digital ads daily, many of them skippable, ignorable, or forgettable. That's why out-of-home (OOH) media has grown as a popular alternative method for brands looking to reach a massive audience with high-impact visuals. OOH and digital out-of-home (DOOH) media reaches audiences in real-world environments, free from the distractions and ad-blocking capabilities of digital screens, making it a highly effective advertising channel. And, unlike the old traditional billboards of yesterday, DOOH media can now be purchased programmatically, applying the advantages of programmatic advertising to scale and memorability of OOH. What is programmatic DOOH media? Programmatic digital out-of-home media (prDOOH) is optimizing the process of planning and buying out-of-home media by facilitating trades through programmatic display-side platforms (DSPs). By leveraging data-driven technology, advertisers can now purchase OOH inventory in real-time, ensuring that their ads reach the right audience at the right time. This level of precision and efficiency is a far cry from the more traditional methods of OOH planning and execution. One of the key benefits of prDOOH is its ability to integrate seamlessly with other digital channels. By combining OOH with programmatic display, social media, and search advertising, brands can build omnichannel campaigns that create a halo effect for maximum impact. Studies have shown that campaigns that allocate spending across multiple media channels are significantly more effective than those that rely on a single channel. What is an example of out-of-home media? Some examples of OOH media include billboards, bus or car wraps, bus station screens, wallscapes, sidewalk prints, or posters. OOH media also includes experiential activations like branded pop-ups, stadium signage, and cinematic advertising. Check out this award-winning example of a "living wall" we created in partnership with NPRP Media and Humanaut for SUJA organic juices: Think beyond the screen and bring your brand to life. Measuring ROI in DOOH For years, OOH advertising has been criticized for its lack of measurability. However, the advent of prDOOH has changed that. By tracking audience impressions, dwell time, and foot traffic, advertisers can now quantify the return on investment (ROI) of their OOH campaigns. We can also measure the interactive effects of DOOH with lower-funnel conversions using marketing mix modeling (MMM), marketing cloud software (MCS), and AI-powered predictive analysis tools. The integrate data capabilities of programmatic buying platforms allow brands to make more informed decisions about their media spend and optimize their OOH strategies going forward. Learn how building giant brand awareness drove major ticket sales for The Chosen in 2025. Emerging trends in programmatic DOOH As programmatic DOOH continues to evolve, we are seeing a number of exciting new trends emerge. These include: Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO): DCO allows advertisers to personalize their OOH ads in real-time based on audience demographics, weather conditions, and other factors. This ensures that ads are always relevant and engaging. 3D Creative: 3D OOH ads offer a more immersive and attention-grabbing experience for consumers. Studies have shown that 3D ads can increase conversion rates by up to 40%. Sustainability: Consumers are increasingly concerned about environmental issues, and brands are responding by incorporating sustainability into their marketing strategies. prDOOH can be a sustainable advertising option, as it often involves less waste than traditional forms of OOH. In-Store Retail Media Networks: As more consumers shop in-store, retailers are leveraging their physical locations to deliver targeted advertising messages. In-store retail media networks provide brands with opportunities to reach shoppers at the point of purchase. For more media buying news and tips, subscribe to our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter.

Media agency recognized by annual WARC Effectiveness Awards for ingenious e-commerce advertising campaign in 2024 (MAY 23, 2024) LOS ANGELES -- Exverus Media's 'Premier Nutrition: Winning Prime Day' campaign is the proud winner of a Silver WARC Effectiveness Award, presented in association with Cannes LIONS, for Best Path to Purchase North America 2024. The campaign demonstrated ingenious tactics for successfully bridging social media with e-commerce, making Premier Protein shakes one of the top-selling items on Amazon during its October 23 Prime Day event. What is a WARC Effectiveness Award? The North America WARC Effectiveness Award for Best Path to Purchase "recognises how brands have used omnichannel strategies to optimise the customer journey across the funnel. The judges reward activity that has driven businesses forward through a successful orchestration of e-commerce, social commerce, and physical channels." The campaign challenge: Amazon Prime Days are always sales-driving events, but outperforming the heavy competition there required thinking along the entire purchase path. Instead of just loading up on targeted ads on Amazon, we took a risk by meeting our target consumers where they are (largely, social media) - something extremely rare and perhaps never done before in this way. The winning strategy: On TikTok and Instagram, we served up the kind of influencer content our target enjoys to create awareness; nurtured consideration and urgency with TikTok’s timer features; and attached shoppable links from the social videos directly to the Amazon product pages with excellent deals to follow through with purchase. The future of omnichannel marketing success lies in seamlessly guiding a potential consumer from wherever they naturally gravitate toward a purchase with a single click. The results: Premier Protein Shakes were the #1 item sold on Amazon across ALL products and categories during Prime Day! This exceptional achievement garnered widespread attention in leading national press outlets like CNBC, Rolling Stone, Retail Dive, and The Messenger, among others, resulting in millions of press impressions. Total New-To-Brand Customer Revenue also soared, showing a remarkable +56% growth compared to past Prime Days - these were new customers. Additionally, Total Brand Engagements experienced a substantial +47% surge over prior Prime Days. We exceeded the results of every brand in North America by reimagining the social media and e-commerce playbook for a new age. About Exverus by Brainlabs Founded in 2014, Exverus is a global, independent media agency growing brands through full-funnel media planning & buying, traditional and programmatic advertising, retail media & e-commerce, paid search, paid social, and analytics. Our data-driven media plans combine brand and performance under one scientific brain to confidently allocate every ad dollar for the maximum return. Named for the Latin phrase "from the truth", Exverus (acquired by Brainlabs in 2025) is dedicated to transparency and long-term client trust. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

The 4-Step SAP framework developed by Exverus transforms reactive marketing to agile advantages A year ago, none of this was in your media plan: shoppable CTV, LLMs shaping purchase decisions before a search even happens, agentic commerce marketing. Now it's all part of your customer journey, ready or not. Your media performance can turn on a dime, and if your strategy can't move with it, it doesn't matter how elegant your annual plan looks in a deck. Where most teams fail on agility Agility in marketing is not about trend-hopping; in fact, quite the opposite. Most teams are failing at it in predictable ways: They plan for a funnel that no longer exists. If each impression can't simultaneously build the brand and drive action, you're too slow. They lock decisions too early, with annual plans and rigid allocations becoming a liability in a market that moves monthly. They confuse reaction with agility — cutting brand spend when budgets tighten feels decisive, but it's short-term thinking that hollows out future performance. And they can't execute when things change: creative expires, a platform underperforms, legal delays a launch. If your team goes dark for weeks when any of these happen, you don't have an agility problem; you have an operating model problem. There are better ways to visualize the complex, fractured customer journey today. Click to steal ours. The answer is situation adaptive media planning Situation adaptive media planning (SAP or SAMP) is a proactive framework for anticipating and responding to unexpected shifts like platform volatility, consumer behavior swings, sales fluctuations, or competitive spend spikes before they become crises. It runs on 4 steps: Media Playbook: Establish initial direction for how strategies and tactics flex when the unexpected hits. This is built on past learnings, industry best practices, and media mix modeling tools. Collaborative Monitoring: Keep a shared eye on signals across the ecosystem: sales trends, emerging platforms, distribution changes, competitive moves. Tailored Response: When a situation surfaces, adapt the playbook to the specific goal, KPI, and parameters at hand. No two situations are identical. Optimization & Learnings: Execute real-time budget reallocations, then capture what worked to sharpen future responses. The framework only works when the brand brings the intel — sales patterns, supply chain pressures, distribution changes, seasonality signals — and the media team brings the systems to act on it fast. Exverus by Brainlabs developed this 4-step framework for situation adaptive planning (SAP) in marketing and media strategy "The biggest challenge in SAP is effective collaboration between all involved parties: intel from the brand client, planning from the media perspective, and cooperation from creative agencies, PR departments, or other external teams." -- Melissa Andraos, SVP of Strategy, Exverus Examples of agility in practice Nike didn't get lucky during COVID. When the pandemic forced a shift from physical retail to digital channels, they leaned into their existing app ecosystem — the Nike Training Club app, Run Club, and their retail app — to connect directly with consumers. Digital sales grew 75% in Q4 2020, and the brand finished the fiscal year at $5.5 billion in digital revenue, up 47% from the prior year. That's SAP in action: Recognize the shift. Adapt the approach. Leverage what you have. Measure and move. Closer to home, our partners at Kargo applied the same logic mid-campaign: when they identified performance decline from creative fatigue, they pivoted to an A/B test rather than riding out a bad result. The creative refresh boosted performance. The outcome beat the original plan. In 2026 and beyond, audience segments will reshuffle; media channels will converge; paths to purchase will shorten; and AI will optimize everything. Build your exit ramps before you need them The best defense in media planning is a good offense: Know where the budget goes if a channel stops working — before it stops working. Manage your mix the way a portfolio manager manages assets: continuously, not annually. Let MMM, incrementality data, and retail signals drive in-flight decisions, not just post-mortems. The brands thriving right now aren't reacting faster. They're not reacting at all — because they already planned for this. That's the difference between a media plan and a media system. For more media buying tips, agency news, and case studies, subscribe to our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter.

A brand marketer's guide to retail media buying strategies for sustained growth Key Facts: Retail media will grow about 15% to $198B in 2026. Amazon dominates with 75.2% market share — more than 10 times larger than second-place Walmart Connect. Retail media CTV ad spending grew about 45% in 2025, with Walmart controlling over 20% of the US TV market through Vizio. RMNs have evolved beyond last-touch conversion to offer full-funnel experiences including CTV, programmatic, and brand awareness campaigns. With retail media set to account for one in eight digital ad dollars, mature retailers are already growing sales by expanding how they reach consumers and the ad products they offer to brands. Historically, retail media networks have focused on lower-funnel tactics, but Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, and an ever growing list of other retail media networks are now offering a full-funnel experience to advertisers and media buyers. What is a retail media network (RMN)? According to RetailTouchpoints.com, "Retail media is the broader term used to describe the concept of retailers using their systems, infrastructure, data and access to their shoppers to help advertisers reach consumers. A retail media network is the actual platform that retailers put in place to do this." These ads can appear in various formats and locations, including search results pages, product pages, category pages, and even in-store displays. But what sets retail media networks apart is their access to valuable first-party data—the key to effective targeting and personalized advertising. What are the top retail media networks? Amazon is, by far, the top retail media network, projected by EMARKETER to command over $56.71 billion in 2026, more than 10 times that of No. 2 Walmart Connect. Other big RMNs include Target's Roundel, Kroger Precision Marketing, Alibaba, Instacart Ads, and Costco Media Network. More are popping up every day! This blossoming of RMNs offers advertisers more opportunities to put their products in front of their target audience when they're already in a purchasing state of mind, but the downside is a lack of consistency or standardization across the platforms. The better question is: where are your shoppers, and where is your product actually sold? Sponsored search on Amazon is table stakes for most CPG brands, but that doesn't mean it should eat your whole RMN budget. Brands should always try to maximize exposure through sponsored search campaigns first before tapping into other tactics, since sponsored search typically has the highest return — but that's just the starting point, not the full strategy. How does retail media fit into an omnichannel marketing strategy? At the top of funnel, RMNs' off-site capabilities — including programmatic display, CTV, and DOOH placements powered by first-party retailer data — let you reach in-market audiences with a level of purchase-intent precision that is genuinely hard to replicate elsewhere. If you know someone bought your category at Kroger three times in the last 90 days, that's an audience worth paying for at the top of the funnel, not just at checkout. In the middle, sponsored search on Amazon or Walmart is not just a conversion tool — it's an awareness driver. Appearing at the top of a category search while a consumer is actively browsing tells them your brand belongs there. That's brand building, even if the click leads directly to a purchase. At the bottom, yes, retail media excels at conversion. Sponsored products, retailer-native display ads, and on-site placements close the loop between consideration and purchase with a directness that most channels can't match. What's an example of full-funnel retail media? As we illustrated to The Current by The Trade Desk, "We have one client who is running a CTV awareness campaign — very typical, but what's new is we're able to target Walmart shoppers and then actually drive them to Walmart, and that is an incredible aspect because now we have a CTV awareness campaign that I can actually share back that they're driving millions of dollars in sales, and to have that data and that closed loop attribution is really going to propel the future of what we can do while we're in the weeds." Hear more about this below: Is retail media a good investment? The truth is, retail media can be both a goldmine or a budget sinkhole, depending on how you use it. The goldmine: closed-loop attribution, high-intent audiences, and endemic relevance -- especially when paired with strong creative and smart sequencing. The black hole: fragmented networks, sky-high CPMs, and opaque reporting. Many RMNs prioritize margin over performance, which means your media dollars may be going to prop up retail partnerships rather than drive actual growth. The smart play? Treat retail media like part of your broader media plan, not a separate obligation. It should work with your other channels, not in isolation. That means aligning measurement, creative, and budget logic across the funnel. Click to learn about AI Shopping, or agentic commerce, for product-based brands. How do we negotiate our JBPs to get more media value? This question comes up a lot during media planning season, and it's a real skill. In the age of the RMN boom, retailers have been all too happy to strike deals with marketers, selling off ad space on their own platforms and audience data for ads on third-party platforms. But not every brand knows how to negotiate media value into those commitments. The brands who treat JBPs as purely a merchandising conversation are leaving significant media inventory on the table. Action items Audit your retail media investments quarterly. Audit more often than that, and you'll miss longer-term trends; any less often, and you'll miss opportunity. Map each placement to a funnel stage Identify overlap or redundancy, and Hold your retail partners accountable to the same standards as your other media by evaluating the same metrics like reach, frequency, and sales incrementality. Critically, the time is now for brands to leverage the two largest retailers, Amazon and Walmart, as complete advertising ecosystems. Further references: The Current. https://www.thecurrent.com/exverus-media-hillary-kupferberg-vp-marketing-retail-media-ctv-sales Digiday. https://digiday.com/media-buying/wpp-estimates-commerce-media-spending-to-overtake-tv-this-year/ Bain & Company. https://www.bain.com/how-we-help/are-you-ready-for-the-retail-media-revolution/ This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here.

The Exverus by Brainlabs Media Director earned the prestigious industry title of 2026 for her work on TV show "The Chosen". MARCH 26, 2026 (LOS ANGELES) -- CampaignUS magazine has awarded Anna Elema the prestigious title of Media Planner/Buyer of the Year 2026 for her work at Exverus leading media strategy for TV's "The Chosen." The trade publication's annual Agency of the Year Awards recognize excellence in marketing, advertising, and paid media strategies for brands large and small. See all the 2026 winners here. As one of Exverus' four original employees, Anna has been loyally smashing campaign goals for over 11 years, putting together full-funnel media plans for brands as varied as "The Chosen", Stella & Chewy's pet food, MasterClass, and Premier Boxing Champions. She has served as a mentor and role model for her direct reports along the way. Anna follows in the footsteps of Exverus VP Tasha Day, who earned the same title in 2023. CampaignUS writes: As lead media planner for The Chosen, Elema's team faced an unusual challenge: bringing a streaming-native series to movie theaters for its Season 5 finale. The multi-platform campaign spanned YouTube, Amazon Prime, Netflix, TikTok, Snapchat AR lenses and massive out-of-home placements including a Times Square takeover. The results exceeded every benchmark. Non-viewer awareness jumped 44% to reach 72%, aided awareness hit 4.6 times entertainment category norms and video completion rates reached 98.6%. The campaign sold 6.1 million tickets and grossed $50 million at the box office, earning coverage from Variety, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The View. Elema then turned to the show's merchandise operation, tasked with hitting $50 million in sales on 37% less media spend than the prior year. By building a media mix across video, social commerce and search that pulled double duty on brand awareness and direct sales, her strategy delivered an $11.90 return on ad spend from Amazon in the first half alone. An Exverus founding team member who has watched the agency grow from four people to over 50, Elema's path from fashion modeling in Paris to media psychology studies in the Netherlands to over a decade in LA media planning gives her a perspective most planners simply can't replicate. Click to learn more about the 2025 full-funnel media campaign Anna led that broke records for an underdog brand! Anna leads her teams with the same core values that make Exverus by Brainlabs an outstanding independent agency: truth, passion, service, and creativity. She makes every new Exverian feel welcome and included; whether in the office in Los Angeles or while working remotely from the Netherlands for a month every year. She encourages her direct-reports to take the time they need, and she embraces new ad-tech offerings with a sharp eye for client opportunity. Throughout her decade at Exverus, Anna has mastered the cosmic shifts in media buying, from the rise of retail media to in-house programmatic trading, AI search, and many more. She is known for building out creative media campaigns with fresh ideas that go beyond the basics and leverage midsized budgets for outsized impact. There’s a reason Anna’s campaigns keep winning the top industry awards – they prove that originality and technical precision are the magic ingredients for media excellence, today and tomorrow. "Anna does an amazing job at listening to our vision and needs and turning it into a world-class campaign that drives results. The Exverus team is an active partner with us, not only planning and executing the campaign, but also making real-time optimizations based on what they are seeing. They do not ‘set it and forget it’ – they are a close partner truly obsessed with our success.” - Andrew Young, Head of Global Advertising & Insights for "The Chosen" More examples of Anna Elema's effective media campaigns 'The Chosen App: Download Your Calling' wins the 2024 MediaPost OMMA for Best Mobile Marketing Campaign 'Stella & Chewy's: America's Next Top Petfluencer' wins the 2024 Adweek Media Plan of the Year Award for Best Use of Mobile Media Adweek. This Interactive Ad Format Helped Stella & Chewy's Reach Pet Parents. Nov 2023. In 2023, Anna's team built a multichannel sweepstakes to get feet in the door of neighborhood pet shops and drive sales of Stella & Chewy's pet food. Areas of Anna Elema's expertise as a media planner & buyer Full-funnel media planning: FAQs & examples for brands Hyperlocal advertising How brand lift studies illuminate marketing performance Integrated marketing communications (IMC) Ready to build a full-funnel media strategy that delivers results? At Exverus by Brainlabs, we combine strategic planning, data-driven optimization, and cross-channel expertise to help brands navigate the complexity of modern media. Let's talk!