Teads is returning to Cannes Lions post-merger with Outbrain, and its telling clients how the newly-combined company, can help brands make use of artificial intelligence, targeted advertising and data-driven strategies to expand their businesses and reach.
Here, Teads CEO David Kostman and Chief Business Officer of the Americas Jeremy Arditi talk to The Post about life post-merger, how the company works with news publishers to win back advertising dollars and to harness the power of AI.
Q: What is the mission of Teads and how do you work with clients to maximize their advertising strategies?
David Kostman: At Teads, we’re focused on creating a platform to drive the best outcomes at large scale
on the open internet, delivering real results for advertisers for all their campaigns from branding to performance. Our goal is to become the one-stop partner for brands and agencies to better connect the steps of the consumer journey — balancing branding and performance marketing strategies to more effectively nurture audiences as they move through the funnel and deliver real business outcomes from their media investment.
Jeremy Arditi: Brands have relied for too long on point solutions when advertising on the open internet. There’s a massive opportunity for Teads to become the destination for these advertisers to reach the open internet audience at scale and drive stronger business outcomes from them with a cohesive full-funnel strategy. We know that finding the ideal balance of investment in long-term brand awareness and short-term performance gains is a tantamount issue for modern marketers — we intend to become the partner that enables them to find that ideal balance and seamlessly execute against it.
Q: How has Cannes Lions evolved for your company and what are you most looking forward to this week?
DK: It has been only four months since we merged Outbrain and Teads, and we’re thrilled to
share more about the Teads brand and strategic direction at the Cannes Lions this year. Cannes is a great opportunity to meet so many of our great partners and have in-depth discussions with them around the future of the industry and how Teads will play a major role in their plans.
JA: In 2025, brands are more focused than ever on driving measurable outcomes, especially amidst such high macroeconomic uncertainty. We expect the Lions to feature many discussions around advertising efficiency, results, and the role of AI in powering them. We believe the vision and mission of the new Teads could not be more timely with that in mind — and plan to focus most of our time at Cannes on sharing how we can enable our partners to navigate these critical topics.
Q: Outbrain recently acquired Teads. How has that amplified your business?
DK: It’s been an exciting time, as the union of Outbrain and Teads forms one of the largest advertising platforms on the open internet – with over $1.6 billion in gross advertising spend. The two companies bring together decades of deep expertise in performance advertising, predictive modeling, omnichannel branding, and video. That combination enables us to not only create a scaled advertising platform — but one that is better positioned to help brands optimize their advertising strategy from branding to performance.
JA: We rolled out the tagline “Elevated Outcomes” to represent the new Teads vision, reflecting our focus on driving real business outcomes with every media dollar while elevating advertiser expectations of the beautiful creative experiences they can deliver from screen to screen. It’s been thrilling to see the market response and how much interest there is in this value proposition just a few short months after the announcement of our merger closing.
Q: Consumers are cautious to spend due to economic uncertainty and news of the tariffs, have you seen an impact on advertising budgets as a result?
DK: We’ve seen advertisers focus more on true business outcomes, given the larger economic uncertainty in the market today. Advertisers want to understand exactly how each step of their marketing funnel, from branding to consideration to performance, correlates to real outcomes and sales ROI [return on investment]. Platforms that are able to offer clear solutions to these questions and point to an attributable result for every investment type will be the ones that thrive in this period.
business outcomes in this uncertain economy. Teads
Q: What are some examples of your most successful partnerships?
JA: We’ve built an incredible foundation through the more than 50 Joint Business Partnerships with Fortune 500 brands around the world. This model reflects several of Teads’ core strengths, most of all, our ability to serve as a consultative partner who deeply understands the brand’s larger objectives, brand values, and considerations when reaching their audiences.
With the new Teads, we’re able to expand how we advise these partners – providing solutions to seamlessly connect the creative experience they deliver from CTV [connected television] to web and beyond. All while showing how delivering both branding and performance strategies through one scaled
platform delivers stronger business results. We’re excited to keep expanding this business and become JBPs’ one-stop partner to drive the best business outcomes everywhere their audience consumes media.
Q: Brands have been cautious of advertising with news publishers. How do publishers combat that? What have you seen that works?
DK: The caution here is a perception problem, not a performance problem. We’ve seen brands block trusted news publishers out of caution while running ads next to misinformation on social platforms. That disconnect needs to be challenged. What works is shifting the conversation from emotion to evidence. The reality is, ads on quality news content perform just as well as those on lifestyle or sports pages. Publishers who present this data clearly and use technology to avoid genuinely unsafe content are winning back trust.
Teads is working closely with partners like Stagwell and Prohaska to bring awareness and dollars back to premium news. When brands see that these environments are not only safe but effective, they recognize the value. It’s not about asking them to support journalism out of principle — it’s about showing them it works.
Q: How will AI accelerate the open internet’s ability to become a complement to walled-garden advertising strategies?
DK: Walled gardens have successfully delivered outcomes because of their algorithmic approach, tied directly to deterministic user behavior and interests, optimized for advertiser outcomes across a massive scale of diverse media environments. Still, their access is limited to only specific user moments and mindsets — the open internet provides a broader canvas of moments to generate awareness, influence purchase decisions, and drive outcomes. As a result, it has one of the most diverse quality ranges of engagement, attention, and interest data signals to fuel AI models.
Leveraging these signals effectively can enable us to capture a much larger opportunity in terms of how we connect consumer experiences across screens to drive outcomes. AI will allow us to fill critical gaps in understanding how consumers move through a brand’s marketing funnel. In the past, deterministic insight into the user’s profile has been necessary to enable this. Now, AI is challenging us to re-think what factors we really need to deliver a great, relevant consumer experience that best matches brand offers with consumer moments.
Q: What is the future of platforms and demand-side platforms as brands navigate and harness AI transformation?
JA: AI is set to reshape the future of platforms and DSPs [demand-side platforms], especially in how brands develop and scale campaigns. On the creative side, it enables rapid production and testing of personalized, high-quality assets across screens — something once reserved for large advertisers. At the same time, AI is lowering barriers to entry in CTV, making premium video more accessible to small and medium businesses by reducing costs and simplifying production. As AI continues to evolve, the future of advertising will be defined not just by who has the biggest budget but by who uses technology most intelligently.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
