This Week in Media & Marketing, 18th July.
Authenticity, Leadership & Brand Scale: This Week’s Top Media Stories.
It’s been a pivotal week in media and marketing, with leadership moves at major agencies, a sharper focus on authenticity in content creation, and new thinking on how brands scale trust across markets.
Authenticity takes centre stage—why algorithms alone can’t build real audience connections.
Leadership reshuffles—Katie Lee steps up at Starcom UK while Baiju Shah is appointed global CEO of AKQA.
Global brand building—Svetlana Stotskaya on how meaningful interactions shape brands that matter.
Data to decisions—unlocking strategic scale through smarter media tech stacks. An exclusive interview with Tom Smith, the CEO and Founder of the market research company GWI.
Reddit advertising Boom - Reddit’s ad revenue is set to hit $1.8 billion in 2025
Publicis Groupe smashes expectations - strong Q2 results, upping its full‑year organic growth forecast and dismissing the threat from Meta’s AI tools.
Here’s your quick briefing of this week’s top stories.
From Algorithms to Authenticity: Genuins
A critical look at how modern media platforms are shifting away from pure algorithmic amplification toward more authentic storytelling. The piece highlights why creators and brands need to build genuine audience relationships rather than chasing vanity metrics.
Katie Lee to Lead Starcom UK as CEO
Katie Lee, formerly COO of Wavemaker UK, has been appointed CEO of Starcom UK. Her move underscores Publicis Media’s push for sharper, more dynamic leadership at a time when agencies are balancing creativity with data-driven precision.
Building Brands That Matter—Global Edition
In this feature, global marketing executive Svetlana Stotskaya explores how the world’s most enduring brands are built through small, consistent interactions that create deep emotional resonance. She argues that today’s brand equity is earned through relevance over reach aligning purpose and values with local audiences while maintaining a coherent global narrative. From micro-storytelling to data-informed personalisation, Stotskaya highlights practical frameworks that help brands remain authentic as they scale internationally.
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WPP Appoints Baiju Shah as Global CEO of AKQA
WPP has named Baiju Shah—formerly Chief Strategy Officer of Accenture Song—as the new global CEO of AKQA. The appointment signals WPP’s ambition to fuse creative excellence with data and AI innovation, reinforcing AKQA’s role as a technology-driven creative partner.
From Data Depth to Strategic Scale
In this feature, Tom Smith, founder and CEO of GWI, explains how organisations can unlock strategic value from their growing data ecosystems. He highlights the importance of moving beyond raw data collection to create integrated stacks that automate insights, personalise at scale, and drive meaningful decisions. GWI’s approach blends deep consumer research with AI-driven analytics, helping brands transform overwhelming data volumes into clear, actionable strategies that deliver measurable impact.
Reddit’s Advertising Boom
Reddit’s ad revenue is set to hit $1.8 billion in 2025, growing nearly 50% year-on-year. With 606 million ad users, the platform now surpasses X and is closing in on Snapchat, driven by AI-powered ad tools and trusted community engagement.
Publicis Groupe smashes expectations
Publicis Groupe delivered a stellar second quarter, recording 10% revenue growth and 5.9% organic increase—driven by a surge in new business and widespread regional strength. CEO Arthur Sadoun dismissed concerns around Meta’s AI capabilities, stressing clients prefer transparent, multi-platform strategies over “walled gardens.” The ad giant completed a €12 billion digital overhaul, built advanced in‑house AI tools, and secured marquee clients such as Coca‑Cola, Nespresso, Lego, Paramount, and Spotify.
