Seb Joseph

London

Executive News Editor at Digiday

Senior news editor @Digiday. Thinking of a master plan. Get me on [email protected]

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Articles

Pitch deck: Amazon instructs advertisers to spend amid Trump’s tariff turmoil

1 day ago | digiday.com | Krystal Scanlon |Seb Joseph

This article is part of an ongoing series for Digiday+ members to gain access to how platforms and brands are pitching advertisers. More from the series →When the economy wobbles, most marketers ease off the gas. Amazon is telling them to floor it — on its ads, naturally. It’s a predictable pitch from a media owner. But Amazon isn’t just any seller of ad space. It can draw a straight line from impression to impact — be it a sale or a sentiment shift.
Publishers remain unsure of what comes next, even as Google's ad tech is ruled a monopoly

1 day ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph |Jessica Davies

It’s been nearly a week since U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google illegally monopolized the tools that direct how ad dollars flow across the internet. The moment felt, briefly, like vindication for publishers. After years of mounting frustration, they finally saw their suspicions ratified in a courtroom. Google hadn’t just dominated the open web — it had done so illegally. Because as clear as the verdict was, the path forward is anything but.
New tariffs, familiar spin for advertising and media bosses

2 days ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph

Earnings season has returned and with it a familiar exercise in managing uncertainty. For the first time since President Trump’s administration put sweeping tariffs on imports, the country’s biggest advertisers, retailers, media companies and platforms will be asked a pressing question: What’s the impact? Few have clear answers.
In LG Ad Solutions' CTV plan, the home screen takes centre stage

2 days ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph

By Seb Joseph • April 22, 2025 • For LG, the future of advertising isn’t flashy ad tech or buzzworthy partnerships — it hinges on something far more mundane. The TV menu. The South Korean electronics giant has quietly bet its ads business on turning its smart TVs into the starting point for viewers’ streaming habits.
Apple's rebranded Apple Ads shows renewed focus on advertising

6 days ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph |Krystal Scanlon

For years, Apple has played the role of the bystander in advertising — wealthy, capable and largely disinterested. It had the reach, the hardware, the data, the closed loop ecosystem, it had everything but the need. Apple’s quiet rebrand of its search ads business to the more assertive “Apple Ads” may seem like a modest semantic update but in the context of platform power plays, language rarely shifts without intention.
How Google took control over online advertising, according to those who watched it happen

6 days ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph

U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema just called it: Google broke the law to cement its monopoly over online advertising. Four weeks in September laid bare exactly how it did it. But if you missed the courtroom drama or need a refresher, here’s the unfiltered story of how Google boxed out rivals and took over online advertising — straight from the people who were caught in the crossfire.
Inside WPP's $150 million InfoSum purchase

1 week ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph |Ronan Shields

The holdco has bought a business it believes, rightly or wrongly, can bolster its cash cow: GroupM. The media buying unit has faced those pressures for some time, and those cracks have played a role in several high-profile client departures over the past year. Yes, WPP has chalked up some headline wins recently — Amazon and Unilever, to name a couple — but there’s no denying that whatever GroupM is selling, CMOs aren’t buying it like they used to. The pitch is simple enough.
Publicis CEO says advertisers walk a fine line amid tariff talks

1 week ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph

“To be clear, our clients are going to wait to see if there is more visibility before starting to invest,” Sadoun said on the group’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday. And yet for now, they’re still spending, he added. Because even in uncertainty, marketers are under pressure to sustain and grow market share. That paradox — investing in the face of volatility — isn’t new. But it’s becoming more pronounced. CMOs are walking a fine line between short-term caution and long-term competitiveness.
Retail media was built for growth. Now, it's being rebuilt for risk

1 week ago | digiday.com | Kimeko McCoy |Seb Joseph

No one has a firm answer yet. If anything, the sudden backtracking on the more aggressive tariffs only underscores the futility of trying to make marketing decisions in real time when the policy backdrop can change by the hour. The prevailing logic now looks like this: Wait as long as possible, and be ready to move the moment it counts.
Ad execs are now working as Trump tariff policy translators for advertisers

2 weeks ago | digiday.com | Seb Joseph |Krystal Scanlon

The Monday after President Trump’s tariffs rattled global markets and raised the specter of a recession, global agency group Dept did what few in advertising are built to do: it pivoted to policy. The shop stood up a 10-person team of strategists — not to pitch an idea but to translate Trump’s policies on tariffs into something a marketer could act on. And not a moment too soon. Unlike past macroeconomic crises, this one put marketers at the center.