Join us Oct. 26-28 in Newport Beach for the Digiday Media Buying Summit
Advertisers love “impactful” ads that grab attention. In the case of ESPN.com, that means rich-media units that break through or interrupt the content. There are plenty of readers who can’t stand it, but publishers have to pay the bills. ESPN might have wanted to pause its homepage rich-media “breakthrough” ad for its Jeep campaign when the site was running a story about Joe Paterno’s memorial service. The end result: a Jeep Wrangler rampages through the former Penn State coach’s casket. Yikes. Via NESW Sports.
More in Media
Media Briefing: Overheard from publishers at Digiday London Media Strategies Town Hall
At Digiday’s Media Strategies London event on Tuesday, executives weighed new ways to measure audience value, the risks of blocking AI crawlers, the uncertain economics of licensing content to LLMs, and whether agentic media trading is ready for the real world.
Inside Wirecutter’s push to diversify beyond affiliate revenue as AI reshapes discovery
Wirecutter is expanding beyond affiliate commerce with new categories, franchises and advertising opportunities as AI reshapes search.
Amazon News, Politico and Warner Bros. Discovery are finalists for the 2026 Digiday Awards finalists
This year’s Digiday Awards finalists demonstrated how innovation, audience insights and multiplatform storytelling can work together to create more engaging and accessible experiences. Their work reflected a focus on understanding audiences, reaching them across channels and turning creative investments into measurable results. These nominees represent a media landscape where effective storytelling must balance experimentation with […]