Understanding Contextual Advertising Trends

The most interesting shift in advertising right now is the shift from “Here’s an ad” to “Here’s help”, thanks to agentic AI. Microsoft Advertising’s latest updates shared by CVP Kya Sainsbury-Carter point to a future where ads behave more like helpful nudges than interruptions. Think: - A travel ad going beyond showing you a beach to booking your flight. - A B2B campaign going beyond pitching a product to answering your procurement questions. - A retail banner going beyond promoting a sale to remembering your size, your style, and your last return. Microsoft’s pivot away from traditional DSPs signals a belief that the next era of advertising will be built with AI agents that act, adapt, and assist. Forget about being “personalized.” That's so yesterday. Now, it’s about being useful in the moment. Conversational. Context-aware. Capable of doing something, not just saying something. That’s a big leap. And it’s going to change how we brief, how we measure, and how we build. If you’re in marketing or media, here’s one small way to start preparing: - Pick one of your current campaigns. - Now reframe the creative brief from a message to deliver to a task to help someone complete. - What changes? Make note. This can become a reality. If you want to go deeper, read Kya's post here: https://lnkd.in/dveqDneU and follow leaders actually building this such as Paul Longo, Tim Frank, and Pedro Bojikian. #hicm #AI #AIinAdvertising #AgenticAI

Today on The Drum Recommends: why gaming is teaching the entire advertising industry a hard lesson. [Read more 👇] The problem with most advertising today? It interrupts what people actually want to do. You're watching a video, boom - ad break. You're browsing, boom - pop-up. You're reading, boom - banner. Gaming audiences have systematically rejected this model. 66% of Gen Z use ad blockers. Gaming streams see 89% ad-skip rates when pre-roll interrupts gameplay. But here's what's interesting - it's not because the creative is bad. Agencies produce brilliant campaigns daily. The issue is timing. Gaming forced brands to try something different. Instead of interrupting, they started integrating contextually: 🥤 Danone's breakthrough: AI monitored Fortnite gameplay to detect when characters' energy levels dropped, then showed snack ads at that exact moment. 650,000 views from perfect timing. 📱 T-Mobile's voice recognition: Technology listened for streamers naturally saying "fastest network", then auto-triggered branded animations. Result? The phrase became the most spoken in Polish gaming streams, with 10,000+ organic mentions. 🧀 Cheetos' virtual pet: Created the first branded game integrated with Twitch streams. Viewers cared for a virtual cheetah through chat commands, turning advertising into collaborative entertainment. 3.2M views, 50,000 interactions. The fundamental shift: From "what should we say?" to "when should we say it?" When advertising becomes indistinguishable from content through perfect contextual timing, creative work finally achieves its intended impact. This isn't just about gaming anymore. AI contextual technology is expanding to podcasts, social media, even traditional TV. The lesson: Context determines creative success more than content quality ever could. What's your take on contextual vs traditional advertising? Have you noticed examples that felt natural vs intrusive? And of course, thank you to the courageous inStreamly clients and partners who lead the way in contextual innovation in gaming. Danone, Anna Trybuszewska - Iwasyszyn Elzbieta Olszewska, mspark powered by KH Akcelerator, WPP Media, VML, T-Mobile, Paulina Rekosz Ewa Żebrowska, Aneta Zima, PepsiCo, Natalia Ropiak, and Zenith. 🚀 Full article on The Drum - link in comments 👇 #contextualadvertising #gamingmarketing #advertising #creativity

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 just evolved - Again! From 𝑁𝐿𝑃 → 𝑁𝐿𝑈 → 𝐴𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝐴𝐼, we're entering the 3rd evolution of contextual intelligence. Brian O'Kelley 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑇𝑎𝑥𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑦 laid the groundwork (link in comments below 👇) Now we’re extending it with 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 - dynamic systems that evaluate not just what content is, but what it means, who it reaches, and how it performs in real time. In legacy models, we asked 4 key questions: 1️⃣ Is it brand-safe? 2️⃣ Is it brand-aligned? 3️⃣ What should we say here? 4️⃣ What assets should we use? But in the Agentic era, our 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 expands to 𝟏𝟐 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 across: 🛡️ Safety & Alignment 🎯 Audience & Sentiment 📊 Performance & Goals 🔥 Cultural Fit & Competitive Risk 📏 Measurability & Compliance All structured in a machine-readable JSON schema that looks like this 👇 Intelligence tied to LLM APIs between the AI Agents : Exchnage → Media → Contextual → Optimization → Outcomes. This is no longer contextual targeting—this is 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒅𝒈𝒆, led by AI that remembers, reasons, and adapts. 🧩 Let’s build beyond taxonomy. Let’s make media intelligent. #contextualadvertising #agenticai #brandsuitability #mediaplanning #programmatic #digitalmarketing Please share your POV - Eric Wheeler Ionut Ciobotaru Ari Paparo Alessandro De Zanche Erez Levin 🎗️ Joshua Lowcock Ciarán O'Kane Adtech God Mario Diez Kasper Skou Phil Schraeder Albert Nieto Riera Jorge Poyatos Vaibhav Arya Peter Mason Jonathan Epstein Richard Raddon Philipp Pieper Hitesh Chawla Jeremy Fain Julien Verdier Adam Singolda and Lisa Utzschneider Contextual and semantic ad tech players: Integral Ad Science, Seedtag, GumGum, illuma, Contextual AI (formerly part of Contentsquare), Silverpush, PEER39, Zefr, InMobi, Proximic by Comscore, Grapeshot, Playwire, Media.net, OpenWeb, TripleLift and Taboola