Author: Geek Planet

Brands are demanding consistency and clarity in measuring the success of their investments in retailers’ ad businesses.That was a clear theme of Digiday, Modern Retail and Glossy’s Retail Media Advertising Strategies event in New York City on Sept. 10. Representatives from many different brands and agencies said variations of this on stage through multiple panels. Instead of simply determining attributable return on ad spend (ROAS), many speakers were especially interested in ways to measure incrementality. What incrementality attempts to measure is whether a sale happened because of a certain retail media spend or advertisement — or whether or not a…

The rumor mill offered a glimpse into Samsung’s foldable ambitions last month, with a report suggesting the company is working on a new foldable phone designed to deliver a tablet-like experience. This device is expected to take on the upcoming iPhone Fold, which is also rumored to feature a shorter, wider design. Although Samsung has yet to share any details about the so-called “Wide Fold,” the company has confirmed a new foldable phone is in development and set to arrive later this year. Samsung’s plans were revealed during its Q4 2025 earnings call, where the company acknowledged the ongoing pressures…

Retail media networks have been striking deals and inking partnerships with social and streaming platforms to open up ad inventory across the internet. It’s a push to get advertisers to see RMNs as full funnel marketing channels as opposed to a search and display one trick pony.  Now, if advertisers see it as such, that’s still up for debate. “The challenge we continue to have is the overlap and national scale,” said Danielle Sporkin, svp of media and marketing services for North America at Ferrero. “As we start to add more and more retailers to a retail media mix, are…

After the backlash that greeted Coca-Cola’s AI-generated Christmas ad last month, you’d expect other corporate giants to be more cautious about releasing their own AI-infused efforts. But no. McDonald’s Netherlands decided it’d be a really good idea to use generative AI tools to knock together its own festive commercial. But folks didn’t respond well following its release on December 6. In fact, the criticism was so bad that the company has now pulled the commercial. The 45-second ad, which runs with the idea that Christmas is “the most terrible time of the year,” depicts various mishaps taking place during the…

S4 Capital has dropped the pretense. The company’s top brass are now openly framing AI agents not as enhancement to agency work, but as the replacement. In their view, the traditional agency model isn’t evolving – it’s being automated out.And that automation is already reshaping how ads get made. Clients like Google are now paying S4 for what its AI agents can deliver, not its people.  Take a recent film for Google’ Pixel smartphone, created as a proof of conept. AI handled nearly every part of the production pipeline: scriptwriting, storyboarding, even directorial decisions. Pre-production, production, post – all generated…

We’re on the cusp of the holiday season, when marketers look to turn brand awareness and share of voice into greenbacks.And in a year when many businesses are dealing with thinner margins as a consequence of President Donald Trump’s tariff program, the October to December window is even more important than usual. Yet consumer confidence doesn’t look promising. In August, the University of Michigan’s regular sentiment tracker placed U.S. consumer confidence 10% lower than the same time last year, while 43% of American households say their finances aren’t keeping up with inflation (2.9% at the time of writing), according to…

Intel looks like it’s finally ready to trade punches with AMD’s fastest mobile chips again. New benchmarks for the upcoming Core Ultra X9 388H – part of the “Panther Lake” family – just leaked, and the numbers are surprisingly strong. Even though this was just an engineering sample, it’s already matching the single-core speed of AMD’s top-tier “Strix Halo” processors and showing a solid jump in multi-core power over Intel’s current lineup. What the Benchmarks Reveal About Intel’s New Flagship A new Geekbench leak gives us a peek at what this chip can do, and on paper, it’s a beast.…

When Google started talking to marketers about AI Max — its suite of AI-powered tools to improve results for advertisers’ search campaigns — ahead of its initial roll out over summer, the platform’s 11-page pitch deck left them with more concerns than clarity.Which is why Google has recently been circulating an updated (and detailed) 26-page pitch deck which aims to address those issues. The deck, unsurprisingly starts off similarly to its earlier iteration, with facts and stats about search and reach across Google, before diving into how AI Max actually works. WTF is AI Max? Now available globally in beta…

CES 2026 is coming sooner than you think, and one of the biggest gaming brands that loves to make a quirky entrance is Razer. It’s known for its premium gaming laptops and peripherals, for sure, but it also shows off some wild concepts like a heating and cooling gaming chair. Is it available? Nope, but it’s definitely fun. Razer won’t have a broadcast showing off its latest tech like some other big names in the industry, but it will have a presence on the show floor of CES 2026, which’ll take place between January 6 through January 9. With Razer…

No doubt, generative AI tools have optimized the creative process, edging marketers closer to personalized content at scale. But not all marketers are sold on AI for final campaign assets, especially ones with human likeness.While generative AI has been used by the industry at large to produce everything from pitch decks to campaign assets, creative and legal challenges are preventing full adoption, agency execs say — and not to mention the risk to brand reputation if shoppers feel the creative is false advertising. “That missing layer of authenticity can create dissonance, which is a risk we don’t believe is worth…