From headline to punchline, AdExchanger’s once a week comics boil down advertisement tech industry news into something our viewers can laugh about.

Since, yes, the absence of programmatic openness , the effect that chatbots are carrying author web traffic and the Google ad tech antitrust test are significant service– but that’s no reason we can’t additionally have a little enjoyable.

Every week, our really skilled comic musician, Kevvo , brings our goofy concepts to life and likewise learns a little much more concerning our goofy market against his will.

This year, most of our sharpest comics were motivated by high dramatization (no person suches as being called a “reseller”) and a little injury (generative AI search is an existential hazard to publisher money making).

But, hi there, if you can not child about, you might wind up sobbing– so we did the following ideal point. We had Kevvo help us out with a little art therapy.

Continue reading for the word play heres, individualities and peculiar motivations behind AdExchanger’s leading 10 comics of 2025

Loan consolidation, Consolidation, Consolidation

Holdco consolidation hit sitcom degrees of togetherness this year, as competing brother or sisters were packed together under one roofing and told to “play nice.”

Normally, we couldn’t withstand transforming that family members drama into a Brady Bunch-themed comic.

We released this in January, not long after the merger contract between Omnicom and IPG was initially revealed

In the months that adhered to, the Federal Trade Compensation held up its authorization of the offer ostensibly to check out anticompetitive threats and to bargain safeguards.

However the firm’s uncommonly slim focus on brand security “boycotts” suggests the hold-up may have been driven as a lot by political stress as by conventional competitors worries.

Ultimately, Omincom and IPG agreed not to coordinate on brand security practices, and the FTC offered its blessing over the summertime The EU accepted the sell November , getting rid of the method for Madison Avenue’s greatest blended household to ultimately relocate with each other.

The Crawling AI

The headache horror of the infringing AI that let loose agonizing traffic decreases on a streaming globe!

What much better visual might there be as an insinuation to AI-related web website traffic declines than a crawling, all-consuming AI beast provided in the design of a terrifying 1950 s horror classic?

Full credit history for this concept mosts likely to AdExchanger Elder Editor Anthony Vargas, who keeps in mind seeing the initial film as a child.

See the trailer if you dare.

The Treatment Phase

There isn’t adequate snacks (or Advil) on the planet.

The Google advertisement technology antitrust test entered its remedy phase this year after Court Brinkema discovered Google guilty in April of unlawfully keeping monopoly power over the publisher advertisement web server and ad exchange markets.

AdExchanger Senior Citizen Editor James Hercher took a trip down to Alexandria, Virginia, two times in three months to cover the trial.

In September, he took notes in the courtroom as the DOJ said for a huge structural separation and Google countered with promises to change its habits and modify its products. Then, in November, James jumped back on Amtrak to be there for the closing disagreements.

Now we’ll simply have to wait and see what the court prescribes to heal Google’s supremacy.

Well, This Is Humiliating …

Google’s Privacy Sandbox officially attacked the dirt in October , returning the majority of its privacy-preserving APIs after years of screening, delays and tepid market uptake.

Third-party cookies will continue to be in Chrome forever, with just a little handful of Sandbox APIs holding on for specific niche utilizes

Cue the depressing trombone. What else is there to do?

No need to spill any more ink on this topic.

“If You Desired It Succeeded, Do It Yourself”

The Profession Workdesk ruffled a few plumes this year by introducing OpenAds , a Prebid fork bring back universal purchase IDs, after Prebid.org dropped them to suppress purchaser power. Then came PubDesk , a dashboard for authors with intel on customer demand.

TTD insists that it’s fighting for transparency and high quality in the supply chain and against obfuscation by supposed “resellers”– and not trying to make a sell-side land grab, as doubters suggest.

Or perhaps TTD chief executive officer Jeff Environment-friendly is simply carrying his internal Kevin Costner as John Dutton from “Yellowstone.” If you want to save the cattle ranch, possibly you’ve obtained ta do it on your own.

Joggers Up

Sticks And Stones

Mentioning TTD, in August, it sparked debate when it reclassified all SSPs as “resellers” on its Kokai platform and started prioritizing direct author paths, like its very own OpenPath.

SSP leaders, consisting of Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale, called the move “ignorant” and anticompetitive, arguing that it ignores direct publisher connections and shifts power to TTD at the cost of author CPMs.

Zing.

The Great Curation Debate

Is curation simply a glossy advertisement network in camouflage, bundling inventory with a little much less opacity yet the usual middleman vibes? I s a hotdog simply a sandwich?

You can’t say the advertisement technology sector does not enjoy navel gazing and questioning semiotics.

Agentic Programmatic

AI representatives do not need coffee breaks.

(This human in the loophole, nonetheless, does. )

“Yeah, But What’s Your Conversion Rate?”

We just desired an opportunity to do a comic with Pope Leo putting on a White Sox hat

Transparency Knight-Mare

And often the wordplay simply composes itself.

Many thanks again to Kevvo for bearing with us!