Industry Insights
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How to Cultivate an Engaging and High-Performing Work Culture
Leading Edge December 15, 2025All companies want to foster a culture of high performance, engagement, innovation, and productivity. Accomplishing this, of course, is easier said than done – especially in a rapidly evolving world where needs and wants change as culture changes – and as technology alters how we work and interact.
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The Case for a Dedicated YouTube Budget
Leading Edge December 12, 2025John Cobb, EVP general manager at Cadent VuePlanner, discusses why all marketers should have a budget for YouTube.
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What Holiday Movies Teach You About Marketing — Without Trying
Leading Edge December 12, 2025Holiday movies aren’t business textbooks. They’re glossy, snow-drenched, and awash in manufactured feeling. But look past the bells and whistles, and you'll notice how often these chestnuts roast on the same fire: commerce. Somebody's chasing a bonus, a rating, a product launch, and a family moment that's been packaged like a Q4 campaign. When the chase turns sour, the movie accidentally tells the truth about what makes people stay. Here are five lessons from seven tinsel-laden Tinseltown classics that still work in July.
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Auctions and Agents: The Next Evolution of Digital Advertising
Leading Edge December 11, 2025Vlad Stesin, CEO at Optable, discusses Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) and how marketers can harness the technology.
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5 Strategies Top Marketing Teams Use that Low Performers Miss
Leading Edge December 10, 2025Drawing from insights in Fratzke Consulting’s latest 2026 Digital Marketing Trends Report, which surveyed over 350 marketing leaders across industries and maturity levels, this piece will highlight five proven strategies that distinguish high-performing marketing organizations from the rest.
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The New Rules of Marketing Measurement in the Age of AI
Leading Edge December 10, 2025With agentic AI, not only can actual data analysts measure advertising in more ways, AI makes it more approachable for a broader set of people on the marketing team to run analytics using natural language and intuitive prompts. However, several key elements need to be in place for advertisers to reap the full benefit.
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10 Tips for Building a Successful Creative Resourcing Model
Leading Edge December 9, 2025Here are 10 ways to ensure your resourcing model positions your in-house team for real and lasting impact.
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AI Helped These Brands Garner Tremendous Results
Pulse December 8, 2025Many brands are now starting to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) more and more. Despite the fact that the technology isn’t new (though it has advanced significantly over the last few years), marketers can still be skeptical and/or uncertain how to leverage the technology. Below are campaigns that can provide inspiration and be a roadmap for using AI.
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Alongside AI, You Need Authenticity
Leading Edge December 8, 2025For the first time, the ANA Marketing Word of the Year is not one, but two words. When we began working on the initial list of words for members to vote on this year, the prevailing theme – as in recent years – was AI.
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ANA 2025 Marketing Words of the Year: Agentic AI and Authenticity
Leading Edge December 8, 2025Since 2014, the ANA has surveyed our members to select the ANA Marketing Word of the Year. For the first time, the ANA Marketing Word of the Year is not one, but two distinct words. Agentic AI was the top vote-getter, and the very close runner-up was Authenticity.
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ANA Ethics in Action: Year in Review and What’s Next in 2026
Leading Edge December 8, 2025It’s been quite a year for marketing as AI and shifting politics have been disrupting old traditions. This year, our Ethics Policy Committee tackled some of the most pressing issues shaping marketing today. From AI ethics to building consumer trust, here’s what dominated our conversations.
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2026 Ad Tech Forecast: Simplification, Context, and the Rise of Agentic AI
Leading Edge December 5, 2025Brendan Norman, co-founder and CEO of Classify, discusses tech trends for 2026.
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Codifying Brand as a Meaningful Contributor to Business Value
Leading Edge December 4, 2025Stephanie Fierman, EVP and head of the ANA Brand Practice, discusses the importance of maintaining, building, and growing brand.
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From Brand to Business Architecture: Rethinking B2B Brand Strategy
Leading Edge December 4, 2025ANA's latest release, The Confident B2B Marketer Report, explores what effective B2B marketers, “Confident Marketers,” do differently from the rest. This article discusses three of their best practices.
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Why the Future of Media Buys Is Local, Layered, and Data-Driven
Leading Edge December 3, 2025Let’s be honest: “Cable” is an awkward word nowadays. As of 2024, a little less than half of U.S. households no longer pay for traditional TV, and cord-cutting is now the norm, not the exception, according to Park Associates. But paradoxically, many viewers still rely on linear news sources. So, how do you reconcile that?
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Everyone Says Retail Media Has Peaked. Here's Why They're Wrong.
Leading Edge December 2, 2025Jonathan Hopkins, co-founder of Sonder, discusses the importance of retail media networks.
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Account-Based Marketing (ABM): A Proven Tactic
Pulse December 1, 2025Below are some campaigns that successfully utilized ABM.
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National Geographic’s Lisa Lytton on Their Bold Move into B2B Storytelling
Pulse November 25, 2025Denise McDevitt, SVP of award programs at the ANA, connects with Lisa Lytton, VP of the Storytellers Collective at National Geographic, who shares how the brand’s legendary storytelling legacy was reimagined for the business world — and why emotional resonance, when paired with strategic utility, is reshaping how organizations communicate, align, and lead.
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Why the Supply-Side Needs to Prioritize Performance Over Scale
Leading Edge November 25, 2025The programmatic industry has spent the better part of the last decade chasing scale. More inventory, more bid requests, more supply sources — all in the belief that volume automatically equals value. The Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) latest Programmatic Transparency Benchmark delivers a sobering reality check: Despite years of supply path optimization efforts, the industry is still wasting $26.8 billion annually on inefficient media transactions.
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Here’s What Brands Can Do to Survive Fake AI Information
Leading Edge November 24, 2025MJ (Mary Jo) Behrman, global head of marketing & media at Designit, discussed mitigating brand crises in the age of AI.
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