Layoffs Loom at Skydance, Apple Blocks AdTech, and AppLovin Sues Unity

Morning Brew is acquiring CPG-focused media brand Express Checkout, bringing co-founders Nate Rosen and Jenna Movsowitz into the company. Express Checkout will remain a standalone brand while gaining access to Morning Brew’s ad sales, audience development, events, and content teams.

It’s an interesting approach to growth. Rather than build every new vertical from scratch, Morning Brew can acquire creators who already have an audience, a distinct voice, and multiple content formats, then give them the resources to grow. Creator-focused monetization at Morning Brew is already up more than 50% year over year, and the company says more deals are coming. B2B creators are increasingly building valuable media businesses, and traditional publishers are starting to take notice.

Read ADWEEK

Can AI help marketers grow boldly?

Christian Gerron of StackAdapt talks about smarter workflows, cutting busywork, and why humans still need to understand the decisions AI is making.

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Is better measurement actually leading to better decisions?

Bradley Keefer of Keen Decision Systems discusses the evolution of measurement, where AI and agents fit, and why having faster technology doesn’t necessarily mean organizations are ready to move faster.

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WBD compared five major video measurement providers across more than 50 TV and streaming campaigns, and the results were all over the place. In one campaign, Comscore counted 43.5 million impressions while iSpot counted just 24.6 million for the exact same audience.

That’s not measurement variance. That’s two completely different versions of reality.

We’ve spent years adding more currencies, more identity graphs, more attribution models, and now more AI, while apparently skipping the part where everyone agrees on what actually happened. If two respected measurement companies can look at the same campaign and come back nearly 20 million impressions apart, maybe we should stop pretending measurement has become more sophisticated.

For now, we wait.

Read AdExchanger

Apple’s latest iOS 27 update blocked domains used by The Trade Desk, ID5, LiveRamp, Permutive, and others, disrupting identifiers and, in some cases, stopping ads from being served entirely. Apple has partially addressed The Trade Desk issue, but that almost feels secondary now.

The real concern is what Apple just showed the world it can do.

Apple is able to dynamically block hundreds of adtech and data companies without an iOS update and potentially without warning. For advertisers, the consequences are significant: Campaigns can suddenly lose reach, frequency controls can break, measurement gets worse, performance can suffer, and costs can go up all while marketers may have absolutely no control over any of it.

That should concern every advertiser spending money across the open web.

Privacy matters. But one company being able to quietly decide which advertising technologies work across hundreds of millions of devices is no longer just a privacy discussion. It’s a power discussion.

Read Business Insider

AppLovin is suing Unity, claiming its Ad Quality SDK collected data from AppLovin ads and then used some of that data to improve models competing in mobile ad auctions. Unity says that’s not what’s happening and AppLovin is simply trying to slow down a competitor.

AdTech companies see a lot of data. But if you’re using data from a competitor’s ads and auctions to make your own models better, where exactly is the line?

I have a feeling we’re going to be asking that question a lot more as AI gets built into everything.

Read Digiday

The room every marketer wants to be in is returning to New York City.

On March 9-10, 2027, Marketecture Live will be back at The Glasshouse NYC for a two-day event that will convene leading executives across brands, agencies, publishers, and adtech.

Wondering what the hype is all about? Marketecture Live takes a different approach: expertise first, no panels, no filler, no fluff. Across more than 40 sessions and breakouts, every conversation is designed to be sharp, relevant, and worth your time.

The event has consistently sold out, so don’t wait to lock in your ticket at the best price you’ll find.