Secure your place at the Digiday Media Buying Summit in Nashville, March 2-4
Grab an ice bucket and load up the podcast machine — it’s the end of the year and we’re in a list-makin’ mood.
But first, a moment to pause and reflect. This is a piece of “content” generated by a “newsroom,” after all. Digiday is a publisher but it is also a brand. You, too, are a brand. If everything is a brand, then everything is also a native ad for itself. So let’s set aside the semantic arguments for now. We still have each other; we’re not all bots yet. This content was not programmatically delivered.
So. Are you a brogrammer or a girl who codes? Will this resonate more with millennials or Gen Y? Are you in or are you out? We’ll let you know below. Consider this an Uber for year-end lists. A tweet-storm in listicle form. Here’s what’s waxing and what’s waning as a pixellated sun sets on 2014’s digital landscape. Just don’t call it a hate read:

List image created by Matthew Fraher
More in Marketing
‘Creators as the new storytellers’: Over 10,000 apply to be part of Dick’s Sporting Goods creator program
Dick’s Sporting Goods is boosting its creator roster as it looks to play a bigger role in culture, events and social-media trends.
‘Agentic with a small a’: CMOs are adopting AI more slowly than it’s evolving
And the caution isn’t confined to large language models or flashy generative tools. It bubbles up just as clearly in decisions about agentic workflows.
Digiday+ Research: Brand marketing will be the priority in 2026, after revenues fell short of expectations
Revenues fell short of marketers’ expectations in 2025. But they’ll be working with bigger budgets in 2026, and focusing on brand marketing.