Digiday Daily

November 18, 2025

What used to be two distinct tracks — one focused on brand storytelling, the other on message discipline is increasingly a shared lane. In some companies, the shift is formal: a single exec handling both brand campaigns and crisis comms. In others, it’s more ambient: org charts bending under the weight of fewer people and more scrutiny.

Hewlett Packard merged the CMO and CCO roles together last year. Simon & Schuster followed. Geisinger did it in January. Six months later, T-Mobile did the same.

TOP STORY

Brands in Culture

The CMO-CCO split is becoming a corporate fiction

The longstanding divide between marketing and communications is eroding — not with a bang but with a slow, steady merging of responsibilities.

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW

Performance TV advertising is performance marketing for TV screens. It offers precise audience targeting like other digital channels, but with the immersive experience few other channels can claim. Partner insights from tvScientific.
In a resource-constrained environment, some view AI as the solution to inefficiencies while others worry that AI risks accelerating waste. Partner insights from Blockboard.
Rather than launching a back-to-school campaign with a single message, delivering experiences for different segments, like budget-focused families and first-time school parents, is more effective. Each experience reflects the same strategy but is tailored to specific motivations. Partner insights from PadSquad.

MARKETING

Evolving Agencies

Paramount Skydance’s remarks show principal-based media unease isn’t going anywhere

The back-and-forth over whether Publicis Group and IPG were both buying and selling ads for Paramount shows how contentious the practice remains, even as the holdcos try to normalize it.

A MESSAGE FROM DIGIDAY EVENTS

Seven seats left for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

Join us for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, December 1-3 in New Orleans, where we will unpack the forces reshaping programmatic advertising — from agentic ad-buying and AI-powered attribution to the latest automated overhauls of internal workflows. Secure your seat while passes remain.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM VISTAR MEDIA

Why trust is the metric that moves product

Building brand trust requires more than frequently exposing shoppers to a brand’s messaging. Consumer trust is earned through meaningful connections. OOH naturally builds brand connections and adds brand relevance to a given moment in time.

The Programmatic Marketer

The 'hot dog vs. sandwich' problem in AI advertising

The AI agents have come for programmatic advertising. And like AI’s invasion everywhere else, guardrails are needed, as Digiday editors discussed on this episode of the Digiday Podcast.

Generative AI

WTF are synthetic audiences?

Publishers and brands are using AI to create a copy of audience behavior patterns to conduct market research faster and cheaper.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM FLUENT

Why more brands are engaging customers post-checkout

By connecting with shoppers through relevant discounts, loyalty points or category-matched recommendations, brands turn the confirmation page into a profitability lever.