Virgin Media O2

Creators Are Driving Marketing’s Entertainment Era

At Cannes Lions 2026, creators moved from peripheral campaign talent to central partners in marketing, with talent agencies, brands and creative shops treating creators as media partners, production teams and IP owners. The festival highlighted a convergence between marketers and creators: brands increasingly hire creators or their representatives for longer, operational engagements (episodic/always-on content) rather than one-off posts. Agency and brand leaders — including figures from UTA, OpenAI, Bose, L’Oréal, Kraft Heinz and Unilever — argued creators supply authenticity, creative execution and audience relationships that traditional media and campaigns no longer reliably build on their own. Creators report mixed ROI for attending Cannes but see value in relationship-building and future commercial opportunities.

Week in Review: UK LHF Changes, Dentsu CEO Vision, Bertelsmann M&A

This Week in Review covers proposed updates to the UK’s nutrient profiling model (NPM) affecting the less healthy food (LHF) advertising restrictions, prompting industry pushback; Dentsu’s newly appointed global CEO and president Takeshi Sano outlining an outcomes-driven strategy and a streamlined global management structure; and Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe saying the group has a strong M&A pipeline and is considering larger deals after a slight EBITDA dip. The roundup also highlights product and platform moves across the ad ecosystem — including Google integrating Gemini into DV360, Roku partnering on Google’s Confidential Publisher Match, a Spectrum Reach–DoubleVerify data partnership, OpenAI winding down its Sora video product, and multiple CTV, measurement and publisher announcements from LG, Tubi, Roku and others.

AI Beats Scammers by 'Playing Dumb'

The article describes how conversational AI and on-device detection tools are being used to disrupt phone-based social-engineering scams by exploiting scammers' psychological models. It profiles 'Daisy,' an O2-built conversational AI persona that wastes scammers' time by posing as an elderly target, and outlines platform-level measures such as Apple iOS 26's call screening and Google’s on-device AI scam detection for Android. The piece highlights a broader shift from static rule-based fraud models toward adaptive AI systems (including Mastercard’s Consumer Fraud Risk) that score transactions and monitor conversational cues in real time. It also notes limits: many calls originate from trafficked operators in organized crime syndicates, and technology alone cannot address governance, labor and enforcement aspects. The author argues that deliberate friction — a pause that restores user deliberation — is a valuable UX design principle in fraud prevention.