Macy’s has been consistent in its annual support of Black History Month, Black-owned brands, and UNCF scholarships.
Yet the 2026 celebration depicted above is a carbon copy of the 2024 version below.
Thursday, February 12, 2026
17354: On Pitching & Prime Redlining.
Advertising Age reported on new business pitches won by holding companies in 2025, with Publicis Groupe, WPP, and Omnicom (pre-IPG acquisition) taking the top 3 positions, respectively.
The leaderboard displayed: Publicis sucked up 1,458 wins; WPP nabbed 672 wins; Omnicom collected 656 wins.
How did the wins ignite layoffs, especially for losing White advertising agencies?
Also, how did the White holding companies rank in Prime Redlining, screwing non-White advertising agencies during account reviews?
Publicis won twice as many new business pitches as WPP or Omnicom in 2025
By Brian Bonilla
Publicis Groupe dominated the new business front in 2025, winning 56% of all global billings from new business opportunities, according to the latest new business report ranking holding companies from Mediasense.
Of the 3,885 pitches tallied by the consultancy, Publicis won 1,458. WPP took second place with 672 wins; Omnicom was right behind with 656 wins. The rankings included Interpublic Group of Companies, which was acquired by Omnicom late last year, as its own entity with 192 total wins. If the wins at Omnicom and IPG were combined, Omnicom would have been second in total wins.
Publicis, WPP and Omnicom weren’t immediately available for comment.
In an interview with Ad Age, Greg Paull, Mediasense’s president of global growth, said the ranking corrects a misnomer about the French holding company.
“I think people see Publicis as a media-driven holding company, but actually it [showed] a diversity of wins in social, public relations, creative, influencer, and data,” he said.
Publicis’ new business revenue from creative ($622.8 million) was higher than its new business revenue from media ($471 million).
That’s especially notable because the number of creative pitches and billings from those pitches overall was down 17% from the prior year, according to Mediasense. The number of media pitches dropped 11% and media billings were 17% lower than in 2024.
WPP also had a strong showing creatively ($363.8 million in new business), led by Ogilvy, Paull said, but its results were “dragged down” by media, which posted a $127.1 million decline in new business revenue. As a result, the British holding company’s media revenue from account losses exceeded its revenue from wins.
2025 was the most dominant year for a holding company, according to Paull, who has been helping compile these rankings since 2002.
“We never had a year this dominant,” Paull said. “Last year, 2024, [Publicis] won about 40% of the business, and even that was a record.”
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
17353: BHM 2026—The New Press.
The New Press presents a new twist on a standard BHM line: Black History Is Living History.
Buy any Black History titles and receive 30% off—along with a free Lift Every Voice eBook.
17352: WPP Creative Sounds Unoriginal.
MediaPost noted multiple UK sources reported WPP plans to combine its White advertising agency networks—Ogilvy, VML, and AKQA—under a single banner called WPP Creative.
In other words, WPP CEO Cindy Rose is mimicking predecessor Mark Read, as well as copying the consolidation schemes of other holding companies.
Adland commoditization is simplifying to Adland commode.
Reports: WPP’s Next Restructuring Move Will Realign Creative Agencies
By Steve McClellan
WPP is preparing to reorganize its major creative agency networks—Ogilvy, VML and AKQA—under a single entity called WPP Creative, according to multiple reports out of the UK on Monday.
The move, expected to be announced later this month, is part of an ongoing streamlining effort at the holding company.
Last year the firm restructured its media agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom, previously organized within GroupM, under a new entity called WPP Media.
Production operations were similarly restructured under WPP Productions last month.
A WPP spokesperson said the company had no comment on the reports.
But the firm has announced that it will be releasing full-year results as well as a “strategy update” on February 26.
WPP has been trying to streamline its far-flung operations for years in a bid to make them easier for clients to understand and access. When Cindy Rose took over as CEO last September, she said the company hadn’t gone far enough with the effort and pledged to do more.
She launched a new strategic review designed to further simplify and integrate the firm’s offering while simultaneously improving execution. She also pledged to build a “high performance culture,” expand the firm’s addressable market and strengthen financial operations.
And she’s under the gun to show results. Over the past year WPP shares are down more than 60% and have continued to fall since the beginning of the year by about 20%.
Last week, most of the major holdco stocks and others outside the sector were down amid worries that AI would threaten, not improve, future revenue streams at many companies.
Marketing analyst Madison And Wall notes that Publicis successfully centralized its creative operations several years ago, sensing correctly “the preferences that global marketers were expressing and the need for scale to free up resources for internal investments.”
“Centralizing resources should be helpful for WPP as it was for Publicis, at least if doing so sets the stage for an eventual combination of the creative networks into a monolithic business unit," the advisory commented.
“The disadvantages of complexity and limited scale that follow from operating multiple creative networks no longer offset the advantages of operating several distinct brands within a single agency holding company, such as a potentially improved ability to attract talent and the higher costs they require. Today’s news is a step that appears to recognize this reality.”
This story has been updated.
17351: BHM 2026—USA TODAY.
USA TODAY offers Special Edition Black History Month 2026, inviting readers to take a 100-Year Journey for only $4.95. At least the publication didn’t declare Black History is USA TODAY History.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
17350: Lying Down & Lies From Mickey D’s.
This Mickey D’s Super Bowl campaign from Wieden+Kennedy NY is explained as follows:
While other brands compete for pre-game and in-game attention, we’re focusing on the moment that’s ownable to McDonald’s—the morning after any big night, especially the Super Bowl.
Everything we do starts with a fan truth. This idea came from a pretty universal one: There’s nothing like McDonald’s Breakfast to help you recover after a big night.
We found that millions of Americans planned to take the Monday after the Super Bowl off from work. Some say it should be a national holiday for…recovery. Even if you still have work, your body wants nothing more than to be horizontal. So, we thought, let’s give that opportunity to our fans.
The idea: “The horizontal breakfast”. While the country either literally is horizontal or dreams to be, we flipped our communications this match their orientation—billboards, the TV spot, our social channels all turned horizontal—because that’s the posture many of our fans will be in as they recover from the big game. McDonald’s breakfast, specifically the hot honey sausage + egg biscuit is the thing that will help you get vertical again (or at least reason enough to get vertical for a moment).
The breakfast features the hot honey sausage + egg biscuit, hash browns, and a coke.
The only thing our fans will have to do is lift their finger and press order in the app.
Okay, except there’s plenty of evidence showing how eating while lying down—or even lying down after eating—is not healthy.
In short, this campaign is wildly irresponsible coming from a leading junk food advertiser. The responsible White advertising agency must’ve been asleep at the wheel—or lying down on the job.
17348: On Perceived Brands’ Icy Responses To ICE.
Advertising Age published a perspective cautioning brands targeting Latino consumers to not ignore how ICE impacts lives in the segment. In short, the author thinks brands should avoid staying silent and playing it safe when communities face pressures.
It’s a debatable proposition, as brands don’t necessarily benefit from taking political stances. Indeed, there are many examples of classic fails when brands publicly advocated for causes.
Sure, Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
But such leaders didn’t have to contend with brand destructors like President Donald J. Trump, the Gaslighter-in-Chief behind ICE.
Brand silence is not necessarily siding with oppressors. Rather, it can be a sign of respect, in terms of standing clear of situations where brands have no business, so to speak.
Why brand silence isn’t a safe strategy when communities are under pressure
By God-is Rivera
Every major brand briefing seems to start the same way lately: Hispanic and Latinx consumers are our fastest-growing segment. The data backs it up.
Nielsen reports that Hispanic households represent about 14.7% of U.S. households but account for 15% of total consumer spending and 23% of U.S. dollar growth in retail. Their impact is outsized relative to their population size.
But there’s a glaring disconnect between how aggressively brands are pursuing Hispanic consumers and how little they’re acknowledging the lived reality of that community.
Today, families are navigating fear and instability due to ICE. Cultural identity is being politicized. People are making daily decisions about where to shop, travel, work, or even leave their homes under conditions many marketers have chosen to treat as “off-limits” for brand engagement.
You cannot build sustainable growth with a community you refuse to fully see. Here’s how to back your brand with values that resonate:
Growth without context is not a strategy
When brands say Hispanic consumers are their growth engine while ignoring the pressures shaping their lives, it reveals a dangerous assumption that purchasing power is disconnected from lived experience.
Everyone knows the meme-able Jet2holidays audio that became synonymous with travel fails. The brand got in on the joke and leaned in appropriately, engaging with the moment and expanding cultural relevance well beyond its traditional audience.
But when the same audio was later used in content depicting immigration enforcement and detainees being transported, Jet2Holidays was abruptly pulled into a far more serious conversation. They were prepared. The company responded quickly, publicly distancing itself from the usage.
Brands that pursue growth without understanding how cultural meaning travels, especially in volatile moments, leave themselves vulnerable to being defined by contexts they didn’t plan for. And if they don’t respond to the situation in a timely manner, or ignore it, it can be a recipe for brand-building disaster.
Silence is being mistaken for brand safety
Many marketers believe the safest move right now is to stand still. Say nothing. Delay campaigns. Shelve anything that might be perceived as risky.
But recent examples suggest the opposite.
After facing intense backlash over Pride-related merchandise, Target scaled back displays in certain markets, framing the decision as a move to protect employee and customer safety. The reaction among many consumers—particularly younger and multicultural audiences—was swift. For some, the pullback signaled retreat rather than protection. Boycotts and social media protests have cost the retailer.
When brands retreat entirely, consumers are far less charitable than brands expect.
Hispanic consumers are also more likely to research corporate policies and participate in boycotts based on a brand’s stance, with 51% participating in at least one boycott according to a study by Numerator.
Your fastest-growing consumer is also your most attuned
Hispanic consumers are deeply attuned to brand values. Further research from Numerator shows 60% of Hispanic shoppers say they would stop buying from brands that don’t reflect their values.
Nike has long understood that growth with multicultural audiences requires consistency in beliefs. When the brand has taken public positions aligned with its stated values, it has weathered backlash while maintaining long-term loyalty, particularly among younger, diverse consumers. While not every move has been universally praised, Nike’s audience understands what the brand stands for.
That matters deeply to Hispanic consumers. These audiences don’t expect brands to speak on everything. They expect them not to disappear when values are tested.
This moment requires cultural readiness, not crisis comms
Too many brands are still relying on outdated crisis playbooks. What’s required now is cultural readiness. Your brand needs to understand communities before moments erupt, to know which voices matter, and to make decisions anchored in real values.
From its response to global refugee crises to its clear stance against discrimination on the platform, Airbnb has invested in systems, policies, and partnerships that allow it to act quickly when cultural moments arise. These decisions were enabled by groundwork laid well before public pressure mounted.
Companies that have invested in this kind of readiness move differently. They respond with clarity because they’ve already done the work of understanding who they are and who they serve. But readiness doesn’t always have to be defensive. It can recognize moments of positive cultural momentum, such as HRC’s #LoveWins, and grow by showing up in ways that feel timely.
Growth is a relationship, not an extraction model
The Hispanic and Latinx community represents an enormous opportunity, but opportunity is not a one-way transaction. Growth without care is not growth. The brands that will win the future are not the ones that waited for the moment to pass.
They recognized a simple truth: When the community is under pressure, business as usual no longer works.
God-is Rivera is chief strategy officer at Burrell Communications Group
Monday, February 09, 2026
17347: BHM 2026—The White House.
A Proclamation from the President of the United States of America takes the standard “Black History is American History” approach.
17346: ICYMI Super Bowl LX DEIBA+ WTF BS.
Advertising Age published the annual lengthy examination of exclusivity in Super Bowl advertising, revealing campaign creators are predominately White—a trend officially recorded since at least 2010.
For Super Bowl advertising, systemic racism continues to reign as a perennial dynasty.
Super Bowl ads retreat from diverse storytelling as brands pull back on inclusion
By Lindsay Rittenhouse
At a time when political tension around immigration in the U.S. is high, Super Bowl advertisers are missing out on efforts to truly connect with diverse audiences, industry experts said.
With some notable exceptions, Hispanic representation is largely absent in Big Game spots this year, according to diversity ad inclusion experts interviewed by Ad Age. This is particularly disappointing, they said, given that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s targeting of the community has left them already feeling isolated and vulnerable.
And the exclusion is not limited to the Latino community. These experts cite a glaring lack of diverse storytelling overall in Big Game ads, as creative featuring white male stars and casts far outpace ads that spotlight minority or multicultural groups.
For the fifth consecutive year, Ad Age is evaluating how in-game advertisers prioritize diversity and inclusion both on screen and behind the camera. But this list is not comprehensive. That’s because voluntary participation in our survey, which asks every Super Bowl advertiser how it approached diversity in casting and production, has steadily declined amid larger cutbacks to diversity initiatives in the industry. Last year’s survey yielded just 14 responses, out of the 58 brands with in-game spots.
So rather than reach out to every advertiser in the coming game, Ad Age compiled this report based on the limited information it had access to, including celebrity appearances and directors, with the goal of spotlighting strong examples of representation among this year’s Super Bowl ads.
Also new to the report this year is a ranking from Havas evaluating how some in-game ads are perceived by neurodiverse individuals.
With the cost of a 30-second national Super Bowl LX spot reaching $8 million, brands must prioritize diversity if they want to connect with younger viewers and an increasingly global audience, the experts said.
“The real risk for brands isn’t in taking a stand—it’s in ignoring the reality of the American consumer,” said Myles Worthington, CEO and founder of agency Worthi.
Of the 71 celebrities appearing in the Super Bowl confirmed as of this writing, 22 identify as women and 49 as men. Only two celebrities (Andy Cohen, appearing in Nerds’ Super Bowl ad, and Bowen Yang, in the Ritz commercial) are openly part of the LGBTQ+ community. Only 27 celebrities are aged 50 or older.
SofÃa Vergara, starring in Boehringer Ingelheim’s in-game spot, is one of just five Hispanic celebrities (alongside actors such as magician David Blaine, who appears in YouTube TV’s spot, and Danny Trejo, who is in Novo Nordisk’s ad)—they underscore a big gap in Hispanic representation. Six of the celebrities, including Olympians Sunny Choi and Chloe Kim (who appear in the Michelob Ultra and Oakley and Meta ads, respectively), are Asian American and Pacific Islander, while only 12 celebrities are Black, such as Spike Lee (Oakley and Meta) and Serena Williams (Ro). DJ Khaled, who appears in Novo Nordisk’s ad, is Palestinian-American, and former ice hockey pro TJ Oshie, who appears in Michelob Ultra’s in-game spot, is of Native American descent. The majority of the celebrities—46 of 71—in spots released so far are white.
Based on those numbers, the majority of brands in the Super Bowl have “decided to limit their growth to just that segment, which is unfortunate,” said Lisette Arsuaga, the co-president and co-CEO of DMI Consulting, a strategic marketing firm specializing in diverse segments, and the co-founder of the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM).
As of this writing, Ad Age has confirmed only six of 31 directors behind this year’s Big Game spots are people of color, including Rodrigo Saavedra (Toyota’s “Superhero Belt”); Aiden Zamiri (Poppi); Taika Waititi (Pepsi Zero Sugar and Xfinity); Felipe Lima (Him & Hers); and Brandon Pierce (who directed Dunkin’s ad alongside Ben Affleck). Savannah Leaf, who directed Dove’s “The Game Is Ours,” is the only Black woman directing a spot and the only female director of a national in-game ad confirmed so far.
Marketing to a global audience
While the ads are not necessarily diverse, many experts praised the NFL for choosing Bad Bunny as the performer of the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show. The Puerto Rican reggaeton star, fresh off a big Grammys win, is also going to be a big draw for global audiences. Fans are even calling this year’s Big Game “The Benito Bowl,” a reference to the artist’s first name.
Worthington pointed out that Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed global artist of 2025. “Bad Bunny isn’t just counterculture; he is the culture,” he said.
While many people still think of the Super Bowl as a purely American event, it is not. A record 62.5 million viewers outside of the U.S. watched the 2024 Super Bowl—the final international viewership total for the 2025 game has not yet been confirmed by the NFL.
Despite this, brands largely have not yet leaned into global advertising tactics in the Super Bowl, said Kelsey Cross, president and co-founder of independent agency Tower 28, which might impact how the ad themes are perceived outside the U.S.
“Not enough brands take into account the growing global viewers tuning into the Super Bowl,” Cross said, noting that “Americana” themes such as Clydesdale horses and beer will be isolated in some markets. “It’s an interesting space to be playing in for brands, to be thinking of how [they] strike a responsible balance.”
NFL’s ‘You Are Special’ spot
The NFL is being lauded for its in-game cause spot—a 30-second version of a 60-second ad that’s been airing since December, showing NFL players including Cam Heyward and Christian McCaffrey singing Fred Rogers’ “You Are Special” with groups of children. The spot was directed by Ben Quinn of the Los Angeles production company Superprime, which is female-owned.
Arsuaga said the spot continues the NFL’s mission of inclusion and promoting mentorship of young kids, and showcases a diverse cast of children, highlighting their value and importance.
She added that it feels authentic because the NFL has carried out this mission on and off screen, as its foundation supports various youth education, mentorship and community programs.
Ensuring your brand is taking actions off-screen that mirror your brand messaging is critical at a time when consumers are much more aware of these efforts, and will call marketers out for paying lip service.
“If your body of work outside of the Super Bowl behaves in a certain way and you do something completely different, people recognize that, and not necessarily in a good way,” said Christine Guilfoyle, an executive VP at the Association of National Advertisers and president of its SeeHer global initiative, dedicated to championing the positive representation of women.
An NFL spokesperson said the cast for the spot “consisted of 78 total talent, including a diverse range of ethnicities, including Asian, Black, Latino and white talent.” The kids are also actual members of the organizations highlighted in the spot, including Harlem Children’s Zone, Boys and Girls Club and Smash, according to the spokesperson.
“We were mindful to ensure diversity across gender, race and those with disabilities, featuring a young girl with Down Syndrome,” a spokesman said in a statement.
Dove’s ‘The Game is Ours’
Arsuaga also praised Dove’s “The Game Is Ours” ad, which continues to champion its mission of keeping girls in sports.
Arsuaga said it was particularly refreshing to see girls of all different sizes and shapes to promote body positivity. She said Dove is “breaking the mold and the stereotype” of a typical thin athlete.
A Dove spokesperson said the brand not only worked with Leaf—the only confirmed Black female director behind a Big Game ad this year—but also with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and choreographer JaQuel Knight to shape the creative vision. Its agency partner is WPP’s Ogilvy.
Toyota’s ‘Superhero Belt’
Although there was not a big showing of AAPI representation in this year’s Super Bowl advertising, an ad from Toyota stood out as an authentic tale that well captured cultural nuances, several people interviewed said.
“Superhero Belt,” one of two of the automaker’s in-game spots from Publicis agency Saatchi & Saatchi, was directed by Rodrigo Saavedra, one of the few directors of color behind Big Game spots this year.
The 30-second spot flashes back to a grandfather as he convinces his grandson to put on his seatbelt by referring to it as a “superhero belt.” The grandson mimics him 30 years later as an adult, telling his now elderly grandfather to buckle his “superhero belt” in his 2026 RAV4.
The ad “did a really good job” promoting Asian-American family values, in which the younger character shows respect to his grandfather, Arsuaga said.
Guilfoyle also praised the effort. “Automotive often is aspirational, and this just felt gritty and real and everyday American,” she said. “And I loved that.”
Come Near’s ‘Is There More to Life than More?’
Come Near has been one of the few Big Game advertisers that has consistently shared diversity data across its casting and production teams over the past few years.
This year’s in-game spot—“Is There More to Life Than More?”—takes aim at modern life’s constant need to have “more” things. It shows a rapid-fire montage to visualize mass consumerism and tech obsession, and then suggests Jesus can help people find the true meaning of life.
It was created by Hispanic-owned independent agency Lerma/ and directed by Salomon Ligthelm. The production shop behind the effort was Prettybird, which was co-founded by Kerstin Emhoff and Paul Hunter, who is a director of color, according to Come Near.
Its cast in the spot was 53% female and 46% male; 24% of actors were of multiple races; 21% of actors were Black; 9% were Hispanic; 9% were Asian; and 3% were Middle Eastern, Come Near reported.
The organization noted that, true to the mission of the message, it did not use AI in the making of the spot.
“Working on He Gets Us felt deeply personal,” Ligthelm said in a statement. “It gave me space to wrestle honestly with faith, doubt and the pressure of being human, and to tell authentic stories that don’t preach or prescribe but invite all people to feel seen and understood.”
Uber Eats ad outperforms with neurodiverse viewers
For the first time this year, Havas tapped into Neuroverse, its consultancy dedicated to embedding neurodivergent talent into its creative process, in partnership with AI company Vurvey Labs, to analyze a select group of Super Bowl ads. It evaluated how accessible those ads actually are across different neurodivergent identities, including autism, dyslexia and ADHD.
With nearly 50% of Gen Z identifying as neurodivergent, according to Neuroverse, which represents more than 1.7 billion consumers “who interpret content differently,” the agency asked: “Is your creative connecting with them, overlooking them or overwhelming them?”
The most accessible ad, Neuroverse uncovered, was Uber Eats’ “Hungry For the Truth,” its 60-second spot in which Matthew McConaughey continues his conspiracy campaign to convince Bradley Cooper that football was created to sell food. The ad scored a 7.2 out of 10 for appealing to neurodivergent viewers, based on the ranking.
“The narrative was immediately clear and unfolded without abstraction,” the report stated. “Familiar characters, a simple premise and visual and verbal cues reduced cognitive load and reinforced comprehension rather than fragmenting attention. This allowed viewers to focus on a single primary signal at a time, making the experience comfortable to follow from start to finish.”
In contrast, Instacart’s in-game spot with Ben Stiller and Benson Boone scored the lowest with a 3.2 rating due to “rapid cuts, overlapping audio, flashing visuals and constant motion, [which] made it difficult to establish a focal point, reducing viewers’ ability to extract the brand message,” per the report shared with Ad Age.
The takeaway for brands: “Humor scales best when it’s anchored in simplicity. Clear premises, controlled pacing and repetition can reduce cognitive load, making comedy more accessible to a broader audience without dulling its impact,” according to Neuroverse.
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