Category: In the News

The Digiday Media Buying and Planning Awards recognize companies, campaigns and technology that have been most successful in the modern media landscape. This year’s nominees prioritized technology-driven storytelling, strategic brand partnerships and immersive and interactive experiences. 

Snapchat and LEGO stand out in the Best Emerging Technology Campaign category for the pair’s redefined digital play with Bricktacular, an always-on AR game designed to reintroduce play to adults. Leveraging Snapchat’s latest AR technology, including Spectacles, the campaign transformed passive scrolling into interactive creativity, allowing users to build with virtual LEGO bricks on real-world surfaces using voice and hand controls. With over 1 million unique creations and more than 8 million minutes of play, Bricktacular showcased AR’s limitless potential in gaming. The campaign’s global impact cemented LEGO’s relevance among adult audiences while pushing the boundaries of AR as a tool for engagement and creativity.

Disney Entertainment’s campaign for “Agatha All Along” on Disney+ delivered a high-impact, omnichannel experience that captivated audiences and drove engagement at scale, earning it a nomination for Best Creative. Partnering with Roku, Disney+ launched an immersive “Fan Experience” offering exclusive sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content and character introductions, seamlessly linking users to the streaming platform. The campaign generated 870 million impressions, doubled Disney+ signups beyond benchmarks and boosted streaming hours by 42%. By integrating awareness, acquisition and engagement strategies, Disney Entertainment set a new standard for creative digital campaigns, leveraging interactive experiences to deepen fan connection and expand Disney+’s reach.

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As ad spend in the fast-growing retail media network ecosystem continues to grow, marketers and media buyers are increasingly concerned about the transparency in negotiations, otherwise known as the joint business planning (JBP) process.

In response, some advertisers are pulling their ad dollars and walking away from the negotiation table. Notably, there’s been executive dysfunction in the $140 billion global business that is retail media, according to 2024 figures from eMarketer. When it comes to the purse strings for retail media spend and budgets, there are disparities among advertisers over which teams control retail media budgets as well as what budgets should support retail media spend.

Retail media networks have become big business, expected to account for almost a quarter of all U.S. media spend by 2028, according to eMarketer. Still, retail media networks are asking for more ad dollars, positioning themselves as media companies to take in media dollars instead of the shopper and trade dollars they’ve been historically relegated to. But as the industry grows, so do complications in negotiating with the retail media giants.

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