The Brief – Friday 8 April: AA centenary, Snap and WBD earnings, Google to sponsor ITV’s World Cup coverage

🎉 The Advertising Association celebrated its 100th anniversary at a reception in London Wednesday night. At the event, CEO Stephen Woodford delivered a keynote speech in which he said, “Advertising must be recognised for its contribution to growth, rather than as a cost to cut or something to ban.” (AA)

Read more: AA President Andria Vidler: “Great stories have always been at the core of great advertising – but are we telling the right ones about our industry?”

👻 Snap reported 12% year-on-year revenue growth to £1.53bn in Q1. Adjusted Ebitda more than doubled to $233m, but the company reported a net loss of $89m. Snapchat’s monthly and daily userbase grew 5% year on year, with daily active users totalling 483m. (Snap)

🎥 Warner Bros Discovery reported a 3% year-on-year decline in total revenue to $8.9bn in Q1. Total advertising revenue dropped 8%, driven by a loss of NBA rights. Advertising at WBD’s smaller streaming segment grew 19% in comparison. Paramount is still on track to acquire the company, which now has $30.1bn in net debt and 3.4x net leverage. (Warner Bros Discovery)

📺 Google has agreed to sponsor all of ITV’s coverage of the 2026 Fifa World Cup. Google will have sponsorship idents for its Pixel and Gemini products across all related programming on ITV1, ITV4, ad ITVX, as well as across ITV’s digital and social inventory, including on Google-owned YouTube. The partnership was brokered by media agency WPP Media. (ITV)

🌍 Marketing transformation is no longer a project with an endpoint but a perpetual state of evolution for multinational brands. That is according to a new study by the World Federation of Advertisers and Ogilvy Consulting which found 96% of multinationals are currently in “transformation mode”. (WFA)

🗞️ Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker has warned that powerful figures are increasingly threatening to sue news outlets before they have even published a story. The lawfare, according to Tucker, is part of a PR strategy that leverages declining trust in media institutions. (The Guardian)

📺 A new report from Dentsu and IGN argues that “platform loyalty is effectively dead” after finding that 59% of Gen Z consumers churn their subscriptions, cancelling and renewing based on the availability of one TV series or film. Nearly one-third of the cohort surveyed also said they won’t pay full price for a video game. (IGN)

💰 James Murdoch has joined what has become a bidding war to acquire Vox Media. His company Lupa Systems, founded after James removed himself from the Murdoch family trust, is reportedly in talks to acquire the Vox Media Podcast Network and Vox’s magazine brands for $300m or more. (CNN)

📈 Teads has expanded its partnership with attention measurement company Lumen Research to introduce attention measurement across its CTV offering. (Teads)