News and Insights
Media Pulse: 3 Trends Shaking Up the Media Landscape
October 20, 2025
I was in NYC for Advertising Week 2025, and after a lot of coffee and Midtown chaos, one thing became clear: The era of comfortable, predictable media planning is over. Brands are co-creating with fandoms instead of targeting them, and ad sales are popping up in the most unpredictable places. This month’s Media Pulse breaks down three shifts worth acting on now.
Trend 1: Co-creation with fans builds superpower brands
At Advertising Week, the brands getting the most attention weren’t the ones with the biggest media budgets. They were the ones treating audiences like partners, not targets. WEBTOON’s session with Crunchyroll, Duolingo and Wavemaker made the case that fandom isn’t a vanity play anymore. It should really be looked at as a performance engine.
Some proof for you: Duolingo just dropped a five-part anime game series. No, not a 30-second spot surrounding anime content, but an actual game that real users can co-create and play. Creator videos now outperform 77% of traditional ads for delivering new information and beat 72% on credibility – and Duolingo is testing this in a big way.
Co-creation isn’t niche anymore. WPP’s mid-year forecast predicts creator platforms will eclipse legacy media in ad revenue this year. The shift from interruption to participation isn’t just philosophy because it’s producing results.
💓 The Pulse
- Participation over interruption: Partnerships with what we’re calling brand communities are beating broad audience buys for engagement and authentic advocacy.
- Gen Z expects organic: When fans co-create content, they don’t just consume it — they distribute it. Traditional ads get tuned out; co-created content gets amplified.
- AI scales discovery: Platforms are using AI to match creators with micro interests, making organic partnerships repeatable and scalable beyond one-off activations.
OUR TAKE
Don’t be afraid to test new strategies. Embedding brands within content their fans (read: audiences) enjoy is a much more engaging strategy than surrounding the content in moments when they’re likely ignoring it. Co-develop ideas with creators and let the community shape the story. And measure what matters: saves, shares and branded search lift, not just CPM.
Trend 2: Banks are the new media empires
Some of the most powerful media networks launching this year aren’t being built by traditional media companies. They’re being built by financial institutions. And they’re doing it with first-party transactional data that shows exactly what, when and where people buy.
In the span of one week in October, both Mastercard and American Express launched commerce media networks. Mastercard Commerce Media went live October 1, claiming up to 22x return on ad spend (ROAS) across retail, travel and dining. Five days later, Amex debuted Amex Ads with access to 34 million U.S. card members, a pilot with Tumi that beat ROAS targets by 30%. JPMorgan Chase’s Chase Media Solutions is already live, leveraging purchase history from 80 million customers to connect ad exposure directly to incremental spend.
U.S. financial media network ad spend is projected to cross $1 billion in 2026, with a 67% compound annual growth rate through 2027.
💓 The Pulse
- First-party data at scale: Banks sit on transaction data that shows real purchasing behavior, not browsing signals or intent proxies. That’s purchase truth.
- Closed-loop attribution: These networks can connect ad exposure directly to incremental spend using their own transaction data, no third-party cookies required.
- New walled gardens: Expect strong performance claims with limited transparency. These are closed ecosystems with their own rules.
OUR TAKE
Tracy-Ann Lim, chief media officer at JPMorgan Chase, said something last week that stuck with me: “Why are we always chasing digital transformation if it’s always transforming?” She’s right. The point isn’t to wait for things to settle; it’s to test smart while they’re shifting.
The first-party data access here is too valuable to ignore. Start small and get crystal clear on fee structures upfront. Travel, dining and retail are obvious verticals here, but watch performance closely against your other tactics. These networks will promise big returns, so make sure you’re actually seeing them before you scale.
Trend 3: Meta collapses the marketing funnel into a single AI-powered interaction
Meta’s new Business AI turns ads into conversations. People can interact with an ad, ask product questions, compare options, personalize offers and complete purchases — all without leaving Meta’s platforms. Read that again. Search, social and commerce just merged into a single conversation. Sound the alarms!
Meta isn’t being subtle about where this is headed either. The company has stated publicly that it aims to fully automate creative and targeting by 2026. Starting December 16, 2025, it’ll begin using AI chat interactions to personalize both content and ads. This isn’t about shaving a click or two off the customer journey. It’s about fundamentally reimagining what an ad can do and collapsing the traditional funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion) into a single AI-powered interaction.
💓 The Pulse
- Funnel compression is real: Awareness, consideration and conversion can now happen in a single interaction. The traditional multi-step journey just became a conversation — one that closely aligns with Google’s Messy Middle, a model we love over here at FINN.
- Conversation replaces clicks: Instead of driving people to landing pages, ads become interactive experiences. Treat the ad like a shopping assistant, not a billboard.
- Creative matters more: When ads become conversations, creative quality and chat UX become performance drivers. Bad interaction design will kill results fast.
OUR TAKE
Don’t expect this to stop with Meta. We predict so many other players in the space will test a similar approach. YouTube is testing conversational shoppable units. Amazon is testing assistant-powered sponsored experiences (Hi, Rufus). Even CTV (Connected TV) platforms are experimenting with voice and QR-initiated chats. If it works on Meta, expect retail media networks and marketplaces to follow with their own on-site assistants that blur the line between content and commerce.
So, buckle up. The question isn’t whether ads will become conversations. It’s how fast you can adapt your creative and measurement frameworks to make that shift work for you.
About the author
Ashley Blais co-leads FINN Paid Media, our global team of experts who live and breathe today’s fast-paced and fast-changing media landscape. The team delivers a full suite of services, including omnichannel planning and buying, performance media strategy and management, and comprehensive measurement, resulting in award-winning campaigns that drive client success.
POSTED BY: Ashley Blais
