VuePoints Newsletter - Summer 2025
Hi, I’m John Cobb , CEO and Co-Founder of VuePlanner . Welcome to this week’s edition of VuePoints—your curated look at the latest trends shaping media, marketing, and technology. From AI’s growing role in retail and creative workflows to bold brand moves in the NFL spotlight, we’re seeing innovation accelerate across the board. This week, we’re also spotlighting powerful conversations from Cannes, smart takes on ad tech evolution, and a few standout podcast episodes worth your time. Let’s dive in.
A new report from Amperity finds that while nearly two-thirds of retailers use AI regularly, only a small fraction have scaled it across multiple business units, with just 16% achieving widespread adoption. Most use AI in sales, marketing, or customer support, but high costs, limited technical expertise, and integration challenges remain major barriers. Despite this, 58% of retailers plan to increase AI investment over the next year, with many expecting it to drive headcount growth rather than reductions. Learn more.
This Digiday article discusses how generative AI changes the economics of creative work, indie agencies are rethinking how they charge clients—shifting from traditional hourly billing to pricing based on output. While AI tools offer speed and efficiency, many agency leaders say the technology still requires human refinement to deliver high-quality results. As AI continues to evolve, agencies expect a hybrid model—combining automation with human oversight—to drive more efficient and competitively priced creative services. Learn more.
Bud Light kicked off its National Football League (NFL) season campaign with a humorous new ad featuring Peyton Manning parachuting into a stadium and audibling “Omaha” before crashing into a billboard. This Marketing Brew article discusses how the campaign also brings back team-branded cans with QR codes offering exclusive content and prizes, plus at-home tailgate experiences tied to 18 games. Bud Light aims to stay top of mind with fans by showing up wherever they watch and celebrate football. Learn more.
McKinsey & Company highlights how digital innovation is fundamentally reshaping consumer-facing industries, urging executives to harness advancements like generative and agentic AI, automation, and emerging technologies to meet evolving customer expectations. The briefing emphasizes the need for leaders to reimagine traditional business models by weaving these technologies into consumer experiences, operations, and organizational strategies. In doing so, they can unlock greater personalization, efficiency, and competitive advantage in the rapidly changing tech‑driven marketplace. Learn more.
This week’s Post of the Week is a bit of a self-promo—but one worth sharing. It features a clip from one of the latest Exploring the YouTube Ecosystem podcast episodes, where host Michael Shields sits down with Kelly Metz , Chief Investment Officer at Spark Foundry , during Cannes. They discuss the speed and agility modern campaigns require—and how creator-led media is reshaping the landscape. Give it a watch and check out the full episode!
The first podcast I want to share today is a recent episode of a MarTech Podcast . This episode features Nicholas Holland , Head of AI at HubSpot , as he discusses AI Agents for marketing automation. Check it out here.
The second podcast I’m excited to share comes from a recent episode of AdExchanger Talks, featuring Paul Longo , GM of AI in Ads at Microsoft Advertising . He dives into how AI is reshaping the way ads are delivered—especially through conversational experiences—and outlines Microsoft’s evolving ad tech approach as it phases out the Xandr DSP. Listen to the full episode here.