The Attention Recession
Bill Sparks’s Cold Read continues its look at how branding is being remade. This time he takes on a strange paradox: ad spending is headed for a record $1 trillion while every dollar buys less. He breaks down the forces behind the slide and what Adidas, Lululemon and Duolingo learned by going a different way.
Who, or What, is the Media Now?
Paul Pfanner takes apart the word "media" in 2026 and finds a surveillance economy sitting under the pull, then makes the case for the one thing paper can still do that a screen can't.