Good morning. This is Patrick Coffee filling in for Nat Ives. Today, clipping is ready for prime time with big brands on board, Electronic Arts wants more of your ads in its games, and Nielsen's jury trial record falls to 0-2.

The rise of clipping, or the practice of paying armies of people to cut longer videos into short viral clips, has inspired debate over whether a band, politician or influencer is really as popular as they seem.

For many marketers, however, it’s just one more way to catch consumers’ attention as the insatiable demand for more content continues to heat up, I report for the WSJ Leadership Institute.

So the idea of clipping isn’t new. But as it grows more popular, the big lesson for marketing executives is that short-form videos are now more important than their source material, according to Ian Schafer, president and co-founder of production firm Ensemble.

Some CMOs aren’t quite sold on that point yet, Schafer said. But we’re getting there.

This story was inspired by some great recent reporting that positioned clipping as a kind of invisible hand artificially inflating the popularity of “looksmaxxing” creator Clavicular, indie rock band Geese and a bunch of other names that seem to have weaseled their way into our social feeds overnight.

What really got me interested was seeing many of the industry folks I follow respond to these stories with some version of, “This is just digital marketing, lol. We’ve been doing it for years.”

That is kind of true! Though I'd say a brand team cutting its own videos down into a bunch of shorts isn't quite the same as them hiring an agency that farms the work out to freelancers with dozens of burner accounts like @OnlyClips4321.

As I report in the story, it can still be very difficult to figure out who’s pushing some of the clipping campaigns, even when they have household names like Activision and Netflix attached.

Major players want to turn clipping into a more buttoned-up practice, because they think it has become a central component of the online content ecosystem. When MrBeast gets involved, there's no going back.

Video game maker Electronic Arts today became the latest publisher to release its own ad ecosystem with EA Advertising.

Marketers have for a while been able to reach players of EA titles like "Madden NFL 26" and the "FC" soccer franchise through one-off sponsorships where, for example, a brand logo would appear on a stadium’s signage.

This formal offering expands the options for brands looking to show up without interrupting gameplay, according to EA Vice President of Advertising & Sponsorships Alex Dao, who joined the company from Snap last year.

State Farm mascot Jake, for example, appears in the stands cheering when players score a goal in the latest FC title, and characters in "Sims 4" can now try on clothing and accessories from luxury brand Coach. Visa sponsored a recent challenge where players complete tasks to unlock new skills and jerseys, then compete live against other players in a Visa-branded stadium.

“It's a really unique opportunity for marketers and brands to come in. because unlike other entertainment mediums that are maybe more passive, where you're just viewing [or] dual screening with your phone, it's very interactive, it's participatory, and it's driving a ton of value for our players," Dao said of the new ad products.

EA worked with the Interactive Advertising Bureau to bring standard targeting and measurement features to the display ads, which will be sold on a cost per thousand impressions basis, said Dao. Custom activations will be measured through EA’s own engagement data, and some can include calls to action that are directly tied to sales, he said.

Brands are spending more on in-game ad products, with related revenues expected to hit $10 billion by 2029, according to eMarketer.

The firm, however, predicts that only 2.3% of digital ad spend will go to gaming ads in 2026. That share is disproportionately small, given that the average U.S. consumer spends more than an hour every day playing digital games.

A Delaware jury on Friday ruled against measurement firm Nielsen in a case alleging that competitor Tvision had infringed on the company’s patent for a service called automatic content recognition, which uses sound to help determine which TV, radio or podcast programs a household consumes and, by extension, what ads reach that household.

This marks the second time in less than a year that a jury has rejected infringement claims made by Nielsen. A jury last summer ruled that HyphaMetrics, another Nielsen competitor, had not copied two other products used to measure household media consumption.

Tvision CEO and co-founder Yan Liu told me in an interview that the case typifies Nielsen’s pattern of filing lawsuits in order to stymie competition.

The damages sought in these cases are very small compared to the legal fees that each side must pay, he said.

CMOs will be affected by such disputes, according to Liu, because they restrict the companies involved from bringing new measurement products to market.

This wasn’t the first time Nielsen sued Tvision, and the decision doesn’t mark the end of the two companies’ legal tussles. Tvision in November filed a counterclaim as part of another Nielsen infringement suit that accuses its larger rival of using anticompetitive tactics to maintain a monopolistic 90% share of TV audience measurement services in the U.S.

A Nielsen spokeswoman declined to comment on the verdict or the antitrust claim.

According to Tvision, the patent at the heart of this case expired in March.

Hollywood's favorite new archetype is, apparently, the bisexual man. [WSJ]

Have Coke and McDonald's hit a rough spot in their relationship? [WSJ]

Fox said it is acquiring streaming company Roku in a deal worth around $22 billion, including debt. [WSJ]

Soccer has yet to take over American culture, though it's not for lack of trying. [Bloomberg]

Former viewers of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" are migrating to Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. [Puck]

Publicis and the Trade Desk resolved a dispute that led the holding company to stop recommending the adtech firm to its clients. [AdAge]

NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde says overwhelmed consumers will pivot back toward legacy media companies. [NYT]

Chile reduced childhood obesity rates by banning marketing techniques such as mascots on kids' cereal boxes, a report says. [Le Monde]