Netflix in Perspective: For a funnier take on the Netflix decision, Funny or Die did a PSA-style short with Jason Alexander, who describes the subscription price hike as “literally the worst thing that’s happened to white people.”
Quote of the Day: “In an agency of 500 people, only about 20 do good, smart work.” Gerry Graf, ad agency creative veteran and founder of boutique agency Barton F Graf 9000, speaking at AdAge’s Small Agency conference.
Long Live the Black Box: Have demand-side platforms lived up to their hype? The advent of ad exchanges and the growth of DSPs on the buy side promised to herald an end to the black-box approach to buying ads at scale. That hasn’t happened, as noted by Organic’s Steve Kerho in Fast Company. Ad networks not only haven’t died, they continue to thrive. So are DSPs a failure? Not so much. Kerho sees greater transparency vis DSPs on what sites and audiences are performing for advertisers. The problem he sees is a human-machine disconnect. The DSP algorithm will surface insights but they the human planner won’t be able to act on them in time to make a real difference to a campaign. For now, Kerho sees DSPs continuing to operate in the lower-funnel part of marketing, unless they begin to address the thorny issues around attribution.
More in Media

Media Briefing: Step by step, publishers are building toward an agent-led ad business
Agentic AI-driven media trading could wipe out a lot of the problems caused by its programmatic predecessor. Namely, ad tech middlemen.

In Graphic Detail: How AI search is changing publisher visibility
AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Mode are driving more search activity. Some publishers are gaining visibility — but not traffic.

AI royalties for small and midsize publishers: collective licensing’s next big play
Don’t credit OpenAI’s ChatGPT, credit corporate LLMs – enterprise RAG is what’s creating royalty revenue for publishers.