Category: Commentary

Commentary

Google Marketing

Edition #524 Your margin is my opportunity, OpenTable & a new social network from AppLovin? Zuckerberg has talked about the ole your margin is my opportunity for advertising. If they can squish the cost to produce or scale creative, that expands the budget available for working media.  And we see Google just quietly executing on this same exact thesis. AlreadyCMO shared: Google is assembling a full-stack marketing suite inside Labs, and the iteration speed is aggressive. If… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 26, 2026

Commentary

Apple Creators

Edition #523 Apple video ads, ChatGPT ads and Bedrock raises a round.  Apple’s foray into video ads is coming. At least, this week they announced video in the podcasts app. A funny about loop, as Apple arguably invented the podcast. But others ran with video. Although, I vaguely recall in the early days, you could offer video. But it was lost somewhere along the way. The other neat thing Apple is doing, is they’re going to get F1… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 19, 2026

Commentary

WebMCP

Edition #522 The protocol that will change the internet, Super Bowl Ads and everything OpenAI ads. Fun fact, a kiwi directed three of the Super Bowl ads! Taika Waititi. I love that. When I watch, I’m usually trying to figure out which were filmed in New Zealand, often it’s at least three to four. But that was a neat fact I didn’t know. And who doesn’t love Taika, right? The AI ads, didn’t get much credit from the… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 12, 2026

Commentary

Thinking modes

Edition #521 Modes of thinking, advertising agent interoperability & Lego’s new programmatic team. I was at Davos the week before last, great to see some readers there too! A few friends asked what Davos was really about, so I put together A spirit of dialogue from Davos. A lot of recent pieces have been very forward looking, 2x, Humans in the loop, The Machines. And that is because we are facing a lot of change and… Continue reading

Ben Young

February 5, 2026

Commentary

Physical TVs

Edition #520 Off schedule, social & TV, creating for Netflix and AI performance reports.  A little off schedule this week, with travel interruptions at my end! Apologies.  My friend Noah was on Odd Lots recently, talking Claude Code. If you’ve heard of Claude Code but not really dug in, give it a listen (or a watch). Why the tech world is going crazy for Claude Code.  The other undercurrent in this weeks stories, is how digital video is… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 29, 2026

Commentary

The Machines

Edition #519 The vernacular switch to machines, Instagram authenticity and agentic ads. I saw a tweet this week about how you can ask an AI agent to make a media recommendation and it won’t include TV. Because none of the training data included tv in a meaningful way. “The television industry faces an invisible crisis. The AI systems that will soon make billions in media-planning decisions don’t seem to favour TV. Not because the data says so, but because… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 15, 2026

Commentary

2026 Begins

Edition #518 Welcome 2026, CES and Nike’s new mind lab. Welcome to 2026. I kicked off the year with a couple of days in Vegas (just the right amount of time) for CES. We forget it is first and foremost a consume electronics show. TechCrunch had a summary of the gadgets launched this week, including some of the bizarre. My fav being the smart Lego brick. Looking forward to playing with those. Robotics is a big trend… Continue reading

Ben Young

January 8, 2026

Commentary

2025 Fin

Edition #517 Final recap of the year.  One of the things about newsletters is, it is a one way medium (generally speaking). I’ll have someone come to a breakfast, who has read for years, but you don’t know! But it also means there’s a quiet community of like minded people who are and have subscribed (for years). Sometimes an email just hits on a week where people are more engaged, sometimes the subject matter pops in the inbox. And sometimes… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 22, 2025

Commentary

TBPN

Edition #516 The rise of TBPN, Taika’s Christmas Ad and Agentic AI everything.  I haven’t mentioned TBPN this year, but does feel like they’re worth a shout. They’ve exploded into the Twitter timeline, with their clips of tech folks. And then set up shop around events, getting scoops from guests like Nadella, Marc Andreessen, Larry Ellison, Benioff.. the list goes on. If you’re not familiar, BI has ‘Aura Farming with TBPN‘. What is nice is… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 11, 2025

Commentary

AI Thanksgiving

Edition #515 On how chat shifted from BTC to AI at thanksgiving, all the AI developments and a POV on next year for brands. A week of OpenAI calling code red, us seeing maybe ads coming to their android app but oh no they’re being delayed to combat Gemini. But really last week was the AI Thanksgiving, because the amount of traffic from AI to retailers websites went up 805%. And, next year we’ll see another leap up. It’s like… Continue reading

Ben Young

December 4, 2025