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Mid-Year Checkpoint: What Six Months of 2025 Has Taught Us

By Paddy Davis, EVP, Brand Experience

Help me, AlliedGPT

• Need to organize your ideas? Use this prompt to summarize brainstorm notes into a paragraph with key takeaways.

• Type a social idea into Ask Anything and ask it to generate a caption based on your target audience and platform.

• Use Ask Anything to create a deck outline based on RFP guidelines from a client by copying the content of the RFP along with your plan to approach the campaign.

TL;DR

• OpenAI is releasing its GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini AI models in ChatGPT. GPT-4.1 excels at coding and instruction following compared to GPT-4o but is faster than its o-series of reasoning models. (Tech Crunch)

• Warner Bros. Discovery announced that Max will become HBO Max (again) this summer. (Warner Bros.)

• Netflix announced its ad-supported plan now has more than 94M global monthly active users, with more 18-34-year-old viewers than any other U.S. broadcast or cable network. (THR)

• Apple has blocked access to "Fortnite" on its iPhones in the U.S. and through Epic Games' own store in the E.U. (Reuters)

Agency updates

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  Our Paid Media team launched a campaign for the highly-anticipated return of "Maalaala Mo Kaya," the Philippines’ longest-running drama anthology. Aiming to reach Filipino communities across the U.S. and Canada, the campaign includes targeted social media, influencer engagement and iWantTFC’s first U.S. OOH campaign. To maximize a limited budget, they are working with Apex for programmatic digital OOH ads enabling flexible, episode-specific creative across multiple formats and vendors.

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  Our Field Marketing team executed a nationwide "Thunderbolts" campaign, featuring comic cover reveals on Phoenix and St. Louis morning shows, as well as exclusive Arthouse screenings in multiple markets with composer Son Lux and director Jake Schreier. MLB activations with the Yankees, Giants and Phillies helped generate buzz and fuel the film’s ongoing box office success.

Interesting campaigns / creative

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  Pepsi’s latest campaign insists that backyard barbecues are better with Pepsi. The 60-second spot follows a group of so-called "Pepsi Crashers" who show up to a cookout uninvited to swap out cans of Coke for Pepsi. (Marketing Dive)

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  Hinge is targeting the hopeless romantic reader by teaming up with five contemporary writers for a new OOH campaign. Showcasing dual POV love stories, the campaign seeks to encourage daters to pursue romantic connections with an open mind. (Marketing Beat)

Audiences

• 82% of U.S. viewers see streaming ads through a combination of free streaming services, ad-based tiers of subscription streaming services and vMVPD services that feature ads as part of their bundles. (TV Tech)

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  Among U.S. consumers aged 18-34, radio makes up as much as 47% of their daily time spent with ad-supported audio. For people aged 35 and older, that share is even higher, at 73%. (Nielsen)

• Responding to the trend of U.S. shoppers cutting back on spending, live TV streaming services are competing for new subscribers by slashing their prices. (THR)

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  40% of U.S. Gen Zers, and 19% of all U.S. consumers, have stopped using or purchasing brands who contradicted or reversed DEI efforts. (EMarketer)

Platforms

• YouTube will exclusively stream the first game of the 2025 NFL season, which will be available for free in the app. (NFL)

• To recognize Global Accessibility Awareness Day, TikTok rolled out updated accessiblity features including alt-text for photos, enhanced text presentation options and variable color contrast. (TikTok)

• TikTok is launching its first image-to-video AI feature called “TikTok AI Alive” that allows users to turn static photos into videos within TikTok Stories. (Tech Crunch)

Content

• Spotify Premium subscribers can now use voice commands to personalize what music they want DJ to play instead of relying on the playlist it curates based on their listening habits. (The Verge)

• Warner Bros. and New Line’s “Final Destination Bloodlines” is aiming for $35M to $45M from 2.8K North American theaters in its debut. (Variety)

• MoviePass has secured a $100M capital investment from Global Emerging Markets to accelerate the development of Mogul, a new fantasy gaming platform that the company launched this month. (Variety)

• The NFL has scheduled a Thanksgiving blockbuster between the Chiefs and Cowboys that could post the highest viewership of any 2025 regular-season game, and perhaps set an all-time record on the holiday. (Front Office Sports)

Tech & AI

• Meta has once again delayed the rollout of its flagship AI model, Behemoth, citing struggles to significantly improve its capabilities. (WSJ)

• Audible is planning to expand its audiobook catalog by giving select publishers access to its new AI production technology that will let them more easily convert titles to audiobooks with their choice of AI-generated voices. (The Verge)

• Google is bringing its Gemini AI assistant to devices with Google TV, cars with Android Auto and Google built-in, Wear OS smartwatches and Android XR. (The Verge)

• Samsung is set to release the first VR headset powered by Android XR, a spacial computing operating system, and Google is aiming to attract as many developers as possible to build apps for the device. (Fast Company)

Location-based entertainment

• As FTC’s ban on so-called "junk fees" took effect this week, Ticketmaster said it will start displaying the full price of a ticket as soon as consumers begin shopping. (CBS)

• Airbnb users will now be able to book museum visits and other cultural experiences on a redesigned app as the company expands its Services and Experiences offerings. (Blooloop)

• Herschend will acquire more than 20 Palace Entertainment attractions across 10 US states, including seven theme parks, six water parks and six family entertainment centers. (Blooloop)

Travel & hospitality

• Alongside accommodation bookings, Airbnb users will now be able to find beauty and wellness professionals as well as caterers ready to come to their vacation rental or even to their own home. (Barrons)

• The U.S. hospitality industry is expected to lose up to $12.5B in international travel tourism revenue this year, mostly due to recent administration policies. (Quartz)

• Expedia is rolling out a first-of-its-kind feature that allows travelers to seamlessly build an itinerary based on reels found on Instagram and then book directly on Expedia. (PR Newswire)

Gaming

• PlayStation's full-year operating income jumped 43% to $2.8B, having sold 303M games during the year. (gamesindustry.biz)

• Just a few months after announcing a new subsidiary with Tencent, Ubisoft has revealed that it will be focused on building ecosystems around some of the major brands under the company and turning them into billion-Euro franchises. (Gaming Bolt)

• Minecraft and adidas announced a multi-year collaboration to develop apparel and footwear products as well as digital experiences. (Adidas)

Mental health

• Gratitude comes with benefits − in this article, a social psychologist explains how to practice it when times are stressful.

• Ready to pull the plug on people-pleasing? Psychotherapist Dr. Hayley Trower explains how putting yourself first can change everything.