FreeWheel vs Publica

Marriott Media turns hotel bookings into a shopping calendar

Marriott's advertising arm, Marriott Media, is leveraging its Bonvoy loyalty program data and booking signals to help brands target travelers with timely, contextually relevant ads. The company announced new partnerships with FreeWheel, LiveRamp, Nexxen, and Viant, enabling brands to combine their own customer data with Marriott's traveler audiences for media buying beyond hotel properties. Marriott cites research indicating travelers make purchases like clothing and beauty products weeks before a trip, positioning its data as a predictive shopping calendar. The company is developing attribution and brand lift measurement tools. It emphasizes privacy, noting that only 500 of its captured attributes are available for targeting, and it reviews creative for suitability in hotel settings.

• Marriott Media announced partnerships with FreeWheel, LiveRamp, Nexxen, and Viant.
• Marriott claims that 75% of consumers bought beauty or personal care products for a trip and 85% bought clothing and accessories, based on third-party research.
• Marriott Media has 500 attributes available for custom audiences, not all captured data.

AI Agents Reshape Roles and Business Models in AdTech

The article analyzes how artificial intelligence agents and the Advertising Context Protocol (AdCP) are transforming programmatic advertising. AI agents are evolving from simple chatbots to autonomous systems capable of planning, negotiating, and executing media buys. AdCP provides a standardized communication layer, enabling Buyer Agents and Seller Agents to interact across platforms. This shift moves advertising from platform-centric buying to agent-based advertising, where media briefings become executable tasks for AI agents. The article discusses changing roles for agencies, DSPs, SSPs, and publishers, and highlights new AI-native players like Concord and Apostra. Traditional intermediaries face pressure to differentiate, while the focus shifts to data, integration, and context. The article concludes that operational excellence alone is insufficient; a deep understanding of customers and business objectives becomes crucial.

• AdCP 3.2 introduces version negotiation, brand verification, and clearer runtime rules.
• WPP Media is developing a buyer agent for video within WPP Open.
• Concord positions itself as an 'Agentic Media Buying Platform'.

Hamid Davari Joins FreeWheel as Commercial Director, MENA to Lead Strategic Regional Expansion

Press Release - October 6, 2026

Publica Flags Live Sports Broadcasts to Maximize Ad Value

At DMEXCO 2026, Tom Page, Publisher and Platform Director EMEA at Publica by IAS, discussed the company's initiative to flag live sports broadcasts in metadata to help publishers maximize ad impression value. He noted that the men's World Cup was among the first major tournaments where publishers and broadcasters trusted their CTV ad stack for streaming inventory. However, a significant volume of valuable live sports inventory exists outside tentpole events, and technical challenges remain, notably distinguishing true live programming from reruns. Publica's metadata solution aims to address this. The interview also touched on consolidation trends in the TV industry.

• Publica by IAS is working on flagging in metadata when a sports broadcast is live.
• The men's World Cup was a major tournament where CTV ad stacks were confidently used for streaming inventory.
• Tom Page is Publisher and Platform Director EMEA at Publica by IAS.