23% now say it’s in crisis—the highest share in 30 years—with affordability fears at the core.
Pharma companies see pricing concessions as the lesser of two evils, as the price cuts grant exemption from Trump’s tariffs on US drug imports.
As AI moves into decision-making support, the next challenge is helping patients trust how it fits into their care.
But pharma companies are missing the mark with their digital UX—doctor’s satisfaction ratings are dropping as they use digital to reach pharma more.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss our “very specific but highly unlikely” predictions for 2026: what Amazon will do with the price of Prime; between OpenAI and Apple, who’s most likely to buy whom; and why a potential WBD acquisition by Netflix might not go through in 2026—if at all. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Principal Analyst Nate Elliott, and Vice Presidents of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
YouTube users streamed over 700 million hours of video podcasts on their TVs in October. That’s nearly double the 400 million hours in October 2024, per Bloomberg. Video podcasts are an increasingly popular medium that streamers like Spotify, and even Netflix, are racing to support. Marketers should capitalize on the flexibility of YouTube’s cross-format reach to test creative placements in video podcast content, repurpose social video assets for CTV consumption, and gain greater insights into conversion and visibility than can be offered by linear TV.
Even as the majority of podcasters (71%) use video, per Sounds Profitable, video podcast ads are falling short of driving purchases compared with audio ads. YouTube’s video podcast ads are 18% to 25% less effective than audio downloads at driving users to purchase, according to an Oxford Road and Podscribe study. Video podcast consumption is growing, and YouTube remains the largest media platform globally, but advertisers looking to target podcast consumers specifically must make audio a core part of their campaign planning.
Amazon is recalibrating its relationship with the agencies and adtech firms that helped build its retail-media dominance. While Amazon insists agencies remain central, many intermediaries say rising data costs and tool duplication echo earlier platform playbooks from Google and Meta—centralize strengths, limit external dependencies, and scale in-house automation. The result is a more controlled, AI-driven ecosystem that may reduce tooling diversity while boosting Amazon’s own ad stack. For marketers, the challenge will be balancing Amazon’s convenience and scale with the flexibility, transparency, and customization offered by independent partners.
In today’s attention economy, many companies find their rebrands becoming the story—drowning out the products or services they’re meant to elevate. From HBO Max’s naming whiplash to Apple TV’s identity blur, the narrative often shifts from innovation to confusion. Marketers should treat rebrands as thoughtful acts of storytelling, not stunts. Build rollout campaigns that quickly return attention to your core experience. When rebranding becomes the headline, your product risks becoming the footnote.
On today’s EMARKETER Miniseries—AI-Driven Media Management—we explore how to break down the media manager role into workflows that can be automated or augmented by agentic AI, what agencies misunderstand about AI, and which agency tasks are ripest to hand off to AI right now. EMARKETER Senior Director of Content Jeremy Goldman speaks with Adam Epstein, co-founder and CEO of Gigi. Listen everywhere you find podcasts, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
As retailers prepare for next year, they acknowledge that convenience has evolved from a value proposition to a structural shift in how all of retail operates. We asked leaders across retail media, digital identity, payments, mobility, and connected commerce, and they agreed that convenience will continue to change throughout the next year as expectations shift and AI eliminates friction.
Agencies are increasingly acting as commerce media guides, helping brands move past outdated structures, sort through measurement standards, and bring AI into their planning. While commerce media networks (CMNs) have expanded to capture more than just retail media dollars, the silos between brand, retail, and sales teams make integration a challenge.
"The retail media landscape is only becoming more crowded, but Target's guest insights are often cited as a key differentiator," said our analyst Sarah Marzano during EMARKETER's recent Commerce Media Summit.
2025 challenged many of retail’s long-held assumptions. What looked like familiar patterns often turned out to be something different entirely, and in the process, a few key trends were either missed or misread by brands trying to make sense of shifting shopper behavior. Here are three trends from 2025 that were either overlooked or misunderstood, and why they will matter in the year ahead.
Albertsons Media Collective has rolled out a new off-site feature that lets consumers add products, recipes, coupons, or offers directly to their Albertsons cart from media placements across the open web.
While commerce media networks expand, retailers can take advantage of the efficiencies and measurement capabilities that they can provide.Retail media networks alone are expected to claim one-fifth of US digital ad spending by 2029, according to EMARKETER’s September forecast.
In 2026, Apple will introduce additional ad placements beyond the single premium slot at the top of search results, giving brands more chances to reach users who are actively looking to download. Apple Ads is evolving from a scarce, premium product to a scaled performance channel. Apple reports more than 800 million weekly App Store visitors, with over 85% downloading at least one app per visit. By expanding search ads, Apple increases monetization without changing user behavior—while raising competitive pressure for advertisers.
US inflation eased more than expected in November, with headline CPI rising 2.7% and core inflation slowing to 2.6%, but many highly visible essentials—including electricity, insurance, beef, and coffee—continue to climb much faster than the overall index. These increases are weighing on sentiment as wage gains cool and more households struggle to cover rising costs, leading to softer financial confidence and growing paycheck-to-paycheck pressures. With forecasts pointing to weaker real spending and looming jumps in healthcare premiums, easing inflation does little to offset the reality that household budgets remain under significant strain.