Kendra Barnett

New York

Associate Editor at The Drum

Senior tech reporter @Adweek covering adtech & platforms. Poet & Pushcart-nominated essayist. Armchair philosopher. Signal: kendra.16

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Articles

Michael Kassan Sees More Holdco M&A in the Next Year

1 week ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

Michael Kassan, one of the media and marketing industry’s most influential dealmakers and the head of advisory firm 3C Ventures, anticipates another agency holdco mega-merger on the near horizon. “I don’t think they can continue without some consolidation,” Kassan speculated of the holdcos in an interview with ADWEEK at Kassan’s 3CV Plage at Cannes.
Sights and Sounds from the DoubleVerify Yacht: A Secret Champagne Fridge, Luma's Terry Kawaja Schmoozing with DV CEO Mark Zagorski

1 week ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

I visited the DoubleVerify yacht—only somewhat against my will—to take a meeting. When I arrived, there was already quite the line forming to gain entry to the adtech company’s chic Monday night party. Luckily, I was able to slink into the interior cabin, which is off-limits for most partygoers. Caught a glimpse of this champagne and rosé wine fridge. What’s the ROI on that thing?
TikTok Creative AI Tools Come to Adobe Express, WPP Open

1 week ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

On Monday, TikTok unveiled a slate of generative AI tools, designed to help automate creative production. They’ll not only live natively on TikTok but will also be integrated within Adobe Express and WPP Open for marketers’ use. As part of its Symphony suite of AI-powered creative products, TikTok will now offer image-to-video generation to transform still product images, inspiration mood boards, or brand visuals into five-second branded video clips.
PayPal Debuts Shoppable Ads for Publisher Sites

1 week ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

Digital payment giant PayPal is introducing shoppable ads on publisher sites that enable users to buy directly from the ad without leaving the publisher’s site or app. The new format, dubbed Storefront Ads, brings together PayPal’s shopping behavior data—collected from about 400 million consumers and 30 million merchants worldwide—with its payment infrastructure to feature a “Buy Now” button on ads.
Madwell’s Chris Sojka Tries to Sell $19M Jet Amid Legal, Financial Chaos

2 weeks ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

The private jet that Madwell CEO Chris Sojka quietly bought for $17.5 million last year—even as the indie agency struggled to make payroll on time amid its intensifying financial woes—is on the market. The news arrives as the recently-collapsed agency appears to be struggling to pay off its various debts to former employees, vendors, and business partners.
Lyft Taps DoubleVerify for Ad Verification Services

2 weeks ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

Rideshare giant Lyft today announced it is teaming up with brand safety adtech vendor DoubleVerify, one of the dominant players in brand safety, for ad verification across the brand’s various advertising platforms. Through the new partnership, which will go into effect in the coming weeks, Lyft will have access to a range of post-bid measurement and verification tools for programmatic ads from DoubleVerify.
Adalytics vs. the Industry

2 weeks ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

Adalytics’ reports—which often expose wrongdoing in the digital ad industry, from the inadvertent monetization of child abuse material to the problem of spammy ‘made for advertising’ sites—tend to cause waves. Now, Adalytics’ research has gotten the firm hit with a defamation lawsuit after its March report on bot traffic implicated ad verification vendor DoubleVerify.
Google's AI Search Era Is Here-But Its Ad Business Hangs in the Balance

2 weeks ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

On a warm day in May, at the annual developer conference Google I/O, the tech giant’s CEO Sundar Pichai strode across the outdoor stage at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California in front of an audience of thousands. For Google, the stakes have never been higher. Its core search business, indomitable for nearly a quarter century, is under siege. A federal judge last August ruled Google’s search business a monopoly, threatening to break it up.
Gravity Global Taps 5 Ex-Madwell Leaders to Launch Gen Z Division

2 weeks ago | adweek.com | Kendra Barnett

Five former employees of Madwell, the debt-saddled indie agency whose various controversies led to its collapse in late April, have been tapped to form Gravity One, a millennial and Gen Z-focused division within the full-service agency Gravity Global, ADWEEK has learned. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Gravity One will be helmed by Charlie Smith and Devin Kharpertian.
EXCLUSIVE: Marketers Move Millions in Ad Spend from The Trade Desk to Amazon’s Ad Platform

3 weeks ago | videonuze.com | Trishla Ostwal |Kendra Barnett |Mark Stenberg |Paul Hiebert

Advertisers are shifting millions of dollars in ad budgets, particularly in connected TV (CTV), from The Trade Desk’s demand-side platform (DSP) to Amazon’s. Key reasons include lower fees, improved user interface, greater measurement visibility, exclusive live sports, Prime Video’s growing reach, and a more collaborative partnership model.