Episode One of Signal & Noise by ADOTAT is here, and we’re starting exactly where the industry lost its mind.

This week: the Super Bowl performance delusion, why one percent conversion rates are not a strategy, and the inconvenient truth that curiosity beats QR codes every time. We unpack the reseller purge and who actually gets crushed when platforms declare moral superiority. Tubi quietly posts receipts while YouTube prints $60B and still acts misunderstood. The IAB rolls out another Greek-god measurement project. And Hearst blows a crater in the brand safety industrial complex with data that should make every media buyer uncomfortable.

It’s sharp. It’s unsentimental. And it separates what actually drives performance from the weekly panic cycle.

Sponsored by Troutman Amin LLP and Incremental.

Stay Bold. Stay Curious. Know More than You Did Yesterday.

The one where we unpack the ad industry's post-Super Bowl existential crisis, Google's "agentic commerce" power grab, Amazon muscling into Prebid like it owns the place, the IAB trying to regulate AI without admitting everything's already AI, LiveRamp's SaaS survival mode, and — oh yeah — AppLovin's growing pile of allegations, SEC investigations, and a stock down 40% while the CEO insists everything is totally fine. Plus: GEO is the new SEO because apparently we're gaming chatbots now. Welcome to 2026.

Keywords: ad tech, Super Bowl advertising, programmatic advertising, Google agentic commerce, Amazon Prebid, AppLovin allegations, AppLovin SEC investigation, AXON engine, click fraud, IAB AI disclosure, LiveRamp SaaS, GEO generative engine optimization, OOH taxonomy, digital advertising, AI in advertising, ad fraud, TCPA, privacy compliance, adtech podcast, Signal and Noise, ADOTAT

Everyone's optimizing. Nobody's in control. This week on The Weekly Reckoning by ADOTAT: Nielsen was supposed to be dead — so why is everyone still signing contracts? VideoAmp admits it owns less than 1% of the market. iSpot is quietly laying off a quarter of its staff. Netflix built a $1.5B ad business and still acts like advertising is a communicable disease. Google turned your targeting controls into "suggestions." Amazon dropped a $200B capex bomb. And Michael Kassan is back with $50M in revenue and a Cannes party. We break down what it all means, who's lying, and why control is the biggest illusion in ad tech.

WPP unveiled a turnaround plan named after the year things might stop being embarrassing — then accidentally dumped nine billion dollars in client spending data into a public court filing. Omnicom swallowed IPG and killed the Big Six era because the holding company endgame was never about ideas — it was about owning the pipes. The Trade Desk posted fine numbers and Wall Street punished them anyway. Discord tried demanding passports from users whose last verification partner leaked seventy thousand government IDs. A new creator agency launched promising you "can't fake relevance" — in a press release faking relevance. And the ANA heroically discovered that not buying fraudulent junk impressions leads to better results. We break down all of it — who's winning, who's bluffing, and why the industry keeps rebranding the same problems and hoping nobody notices.

The Trade Desk is in talks to put programmatic ads inside ChatGPT — and Wall Street loved the idea so much the stock jumped twenty percent on the rumor alone. Netflix opened the door to Amazon's commerce data, meaning what you shop for now determines which ads interrupt your binge. Meta killed the credit card payment option for advertisers, ending the beloved side hustle where founders funded Bali honeymoons off their AmEx points. WPP filled another leadership chair after months of limbo. A neurodiverse creative studio called The Ability Machine launched and might be the most genuinely interesting thing to happen to the industry in years. And Zoom hired a real media agency because "you're on mute" was never a long-term brand strategy. Every surface is becoming a monetization opportunity. The only question is whether anyone's going to draw a line. This week's evidence suggests probably not.

This episode pulls together a set of stories that, on the surface, look unrelated: a $20 million investment in digital out-of-home tech, layoffs at one of the internet’s biggest viral publishers, a culture-driven agency going independent, the rise of a new AI protocol for ad tech, regulators revisiting subscription traps, and YouTube quietly overtaking Hollywood’s biggest TV companies in ad revenue.

But underneath all of them is the same theme: control of the system is becoming more valuable than the content running through it. OUTFRONT is modernizing billboard sales with cloud software to meet programmatic buyers where they already work. LADbible is confronting the risks of relying on social platforms after Facebook engagement collapsed. Obsidianworks is reclaiming independence to control its own growth. Meanwhile, the industry is experimenting with AI infrastructure like Model Context Protocol, while regulators push back against subscription dark patterns and YouTube continues to consolidate power in video advertising.

In this episode, we connect the dots across media, ad tech, platforms and regulation to explain how the advertising ecosystem is shifting toward infrastructure, ownership and platform control—and what it means for brands, publishers and the future of the industry.

Stay Bold. Stay Curious. Know More Than You Did Yesterday. 🎙️