Celebrities Win the Holiday Ad Crunch, CMOs on Podcast Measurement, & More

Business Insider covers a recent Oxford Road survey shared with CMO Inside. 57% of marketers polled say measurement gaps are holding back their podcast investments. Among brands with annual media budgets of $100 million or more, 90% call measurement a top concern. 40% say other channels deliver a better return than podcast ads. 40% expect to raise podcast and audio budgets in 2027. That is down from the 59% who raised them this year. EMARKETER expects U.S. advertisers to spend $3.76 billion on podcasts next year. That is up 10.4%, slower than the 16.8% growth it estimates for 2026. More than 40% of marketers also point to the advertising environment. They cite growing ad loads, repetition and inauthentic host reads. The July survey covered 41 marketers who represent $400 million to $500 million in podcast spend. Media buyers recommend multi-format partnerships and a mix of measurement methods, such as brand lift studies, holdout tests and media mix modeling. Oxford Road's Giles Martin points to the AMP Accords from the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting. They call for a universal definition of a podcast and standardized cross-platform impression metrics.

Kaya Yurieff and Jasmine Enberg rank the winners and losers of the 2026 midterms on social media and beyond. They name podcasting an unexpected loser. In 2024, the manosphere was credited with helping sway young men toward Trump. Joe Rogan has since distanced himself from the president. A Wall Street Journal analysis finds mentions of Trump on conservative podcasts down nearly 70% from their 2024 peak. The authors say podcasts drew less attention this cycle, partly because the format no longer feels novel. They also suspect many people saw candidate appearances through social clips rather than full episodes. Meme accounts top the winners list. Mainstream TV also did well. Nielsen counts about 25.8 million viewers across six major networks. NBC's "Kornacki Cam" drew 29 million views across platforms and was the top election livestream on YouTube. Hasan Piker's election night stream peaked near 242,000 concurrent viewers. The authors call creators' overall influence a mixed bag. Campaigns appeared to lean on local creators in battleground states.

Digiday finds that the first wave of holiday campaigns leans on celebrities, not creators. Sephora cast Seth Rogen. Kay features Colin Jost, and Gucci brought in Mariah Carey. Kantar's Lynne Deason says Christmas is a mass-market moment, so brands want a face everyone recognizes. Creators tend to reach audiences built around specific interests. Joseph writes that the Christmas ad is a brand's most scrutinized work of the year. That makes the familiar formula feel safer for CMOs.

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