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The news: Women’s sports is continuing to grow in relevance, reaching new milestones in 2024, per research from the charity Women’s Sport Trust. Leagues like the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) grew significantly across social media in the 2024 season, reaching a single-season record of nearly 2 billion video views across WNBA social media platforms—more than quadruple the previous season. Our take: As more brands invest in women’s sports and viewership spikes, advertisers must recognize women’s sports not as a niche category only relevant for select moments, but as a critical part of a comprehensive sports marketing campaign.

The news: A wave of cyberattacks is sweeping through the retail industry, with Cartier and North Face the latest to report breaches. Both companies recently notified customers that their names and email addresses had been stolen, although financial information remained secure. Our take: The surge in cyber incidents is coming at the worst possible time for retailers, who are already dealing with extreme upheaval in their supply chains and looking for any opportunity to cut costs. But M&S’ cautionary tale should be a wake-up call for companies to invest in cybersecurity.

This decision feeds into the rising enthusiasm for stablecoin as the future of payments.

Netflix and BBC team up for new podcast: While Netflix teases video podcasts on its own platform, work needs to be done to win over audiences.

The streaming service also launched in the UK last year in an effort to capitalize on the market’s FAST viewership boom, though it faces stiff competition from entrenched streamers. What’s next: Tubi will have to prove that it can handle the large viewership that its broadcast is likely to attract in order to prove to new viewers and advertisers that its service is worth returning to.

Brazil’s digital economy continues to thrive, driven by shifting advertising trends and increased social media usage. This report series explores key media consumption trends in Brazil in 2025.

Brazil’s digital advertising economy continues to thrive, driven by retail media investment, growing video ad spend, and slower social ad spending. This report explores trends shaping Brazil’s digital advertising landscape in 2025.​

A series of major milestones are on tap for total media and digital media ad spending around the world in 2025, although growth will be uneven across countries and regions.

Most consumers accept ads in streaming: An Attest study highlighted the growing preference for ad-supported options as streaming proves sustainable.

That's a greater share of internet users than in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. In addition, consumers in China are more optimistic about AI than those in most other countries: 80% of adults in China are excited about products using AI—No. 1 of 32 countries in a June 2024 Ipsos survey. They were also the among the least nervous about AI.

In 2024, Ä¢¹½AV data partner GWI started offering data on respondents ages 65 and older in seven markets: the US, the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel, and Japan. For ease of comparison, our report features data for respondents ages 16 to 64 in all countries. But we have included the data for respondents 65 and older for those seven countries here as a supplement.

National Bank plans to expand its offerings by leveraging Canadian Western’s sizable presence in Ontario and British Columbia as well as its focus on and relationships with small- to medium-size corporations, per a press release.

For example, only three other countries will exceed even a 25% ecommerce penetration rate: the UK (30.4%), South Korea (27.2%), and Indonesia (26.6%). China will account for 50.4% of all worldwide ecommerce this year, so its weight unreasonably skews the global math. If China is excluded, ecommerce’s share of worldwide retail lands at a more realistic 12.5%.

Even as ecommerce alcohol sales rise, physical stores continue to dominate the path to purchase. Nonalcoholic beverages and Dry January are also picking up steam.