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WPP Says Tariffs Will Chill Ad Market for Years; FTC Ropes Ad Giants Into X Boycott Probe; Judge Tosses Baldoni’s Lawsuits Against Lively and the NYT
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Good morning. Today, a leading ad-industry forecast gets worse; the Federal Trade Commission wants advertising holding companies to help its investigation into brands’ retreat from X; and Blake Lively and the New York Times notch wins over Justin Baldoni.
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Marketers are likely accelerating their adoption of AI in an attempt to save money, WPP Media said. Photo: Chris J Ratcliffe/Reuters
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WPP Media, the media-agency giant formerly known as GroupM, said trade disruptions and economic deglobalization have led it to cut ad revenue growth expectations for 2025 to 6%, excluding U.S. political spending, from its December prediction of 7.7%, Megan Graham reports for CMO Today.
The current situation is a significant break from two centuries of broadly increasing economic openness, said the report, written by Kate Scott-Dawkins, WPP Media’s global president of business intelligence.
“If the current trajectory continues, we do expect this to have a chilling effect on global advertising growth over the next five years,” it said.
Many marketers have taken a wait-and-see approach, maintaining planned ad spending while seeking more flexibility in their deals. But they are also probably seeking cost savings from AI a little more intently, the report said.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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Cannes Preview: Amazon’s Cheever on How Creativity Drives Performance
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Before heading to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week, Claudine Cheever, VP of global brand and marketing at Amazon, reflects on the power of big ideas. Read More
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The FTC is seeking information in its investigation of advertiser pullbacks from sites including X. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg News
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The Federal Trade Commission is asking some of the world’s largest ad companies for information as part of a probe into whether advertising and advocacy groups broke antitrust laws by coordinating boycotts of sites including Elon Musk’s X, Suzanne Vranica and Dana Mattioli write.
The FTC on Monday sent requests for information to companies including Publicis Groupe, Omnicom, WPP, Dentsu, Havas, Interpublic and Horizon.
The newest round of civil investigative demands are part of the agency’s inquiry into groups including nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media, which rates the quality of news sources for advertisers.
Alvaro Bedoya, a Democratic FTC commissioner who was fired by the Trump administration, said in his resignation letter this week that he opposed the investigation of Media Matters.
“Bizarrely, new FTC leaders have started an investigation into Media Matters, apparently because it may have driven down ad revenues for the President’s $288 million donor, Elon Musk,” he said.
Related: YouTube since President Trump’s inauguration has been encouraging its content moderators to leave up more videos that break its rules as long as they are in the public interest. [NYT]
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$438.7 million
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Sum Disney will pay to finish buying out NBCUniversal’s stake in Hulu, following an earlier payment of $8.6 billion. The deal values Hulu at significantly less than NBCUniversal was seeking in arbitration but slightly more than Disney argued it was worth.
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Allegations flying between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni overshadowed promotion for Lively’s latest film, ‘Another Simple Favor.’ Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
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A judge dismissed lawsuits by Justin Baldoni against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and the New York Times, Joseph Pisani and Robert Barba write, the latest turn in a PR battle-slash-legal saga gripping Hollywood.
The dispute centers on Baldoni and Lively’s behavior around the movie “It Ends With Us,” in which they co-starred and which Baldoni directed.
Lively in December sued Baldoni, his publicists and others, alleging “invasive, unwelcome, unprofessional and sexually inappropriate behavior” by Baldoni and the CEO of Wayfarer Studios, co-founded by Baldoni.
Baldoni, Wayfarer, its CEO and their publicists then sued Lively and Reynolds, her husband, for defamation, invasion of privacy and contract interference. Baldoni also sued the Times for libel over an article about it all.
Among other findings, the ruling said Baldoni didn’t show that the accused knew their statements were false, a requirement for defamation cases.
It doesn’t end with this: Baldoni has until June 23 to file a complaint on the contract interference claim. Lively’s suit has a trial date in March.
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Chatbots are replacing Google’s traditional search, devastating traffic for some publishers. Illustration: Emil Lendof/WSJ, iStock
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Traffic to news sites is tanking as AI chatbots replace traditional Google search results, eliminating the need to click on blue links. [WSJ]
Meta is forming a new AI research lab with the aim of developing “superintelligence” more intelligent than the human brain. [NYT]
Waymo restricted travel to certain parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco after its graffitied and burning driverless cars became an emblem of protests against ICE roundups. [WSJ]
Austin has replaced San Francisco as the center of companies’ robotaxi competition. [Fast Company]
Apple failed to meet even the low expectations on AI coming into its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. [WSJ]
How sportswear brand Fabletics keeps track of what consumers want as it aims to double revenue over the next five years. [Glossy]
Paramount Global will cut its U.S. workforce by another 3.5% after reducing it by 13.5% last year. [Deadline]
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