Brands and advertisers are seeking flexible terms as they face uncertainty about how President Donald Trump‘s new tariffs will affect their businesses.
The push for more lenient agreements, in which companies could pivot budgets quickly or shift their focus to different types of marketing as they react to the duties, has been the focus of conversations between media companies and advertisers in recent weeks, according to people close to the discussions.
President Donald Trump announced he would put minimum 10% tariffs on all imports into the U.S., with far steeper duties on dozens of countries including China and Vietnam. The scarcity of specifics in recent weeks, and sometimes contrasting messages coming from the White House, have fueled conversations about flexibility between chief marketing officers and media executives, the people said.
“In this period of uncertainty, we’re seeing a significant shift toward more flexible, performance-based advertising models that allow brands to adjust spending quickly if conditions change,” said Jonathan Gudai, CEO of Adomni, an artificial intelligence-powered programmatic video-everywhere advertising platform. Buying ads programmatically, or through digital platforms, has taken up an increasingly large part of ad spending, and using AI tools are now often part of the process.
Unsteadiness in the economy often mean companies pull back on spending for advertising and marketing. The potential hit to the ad market underscores the ripple effect of tariffs on companies that won’t directly contend with heightened costs on products.
Tariffs aren’t the only factor causing advertisers to rethink their budgets, said Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president of business intelligence of GroupM, WPP’s media investment group.
“We were pretty bullish in our December forecast on [ad spending] growth for the U.S. I think we’ll probably end up curbing that in the June forecast, based on the confluence of impacts,” said Scott-Dawkins. “From the rising inflation plus layoffs and unemployment plus the impact of tariffs. I think it’ll be all those things together that lead to a reduction in our expectations for the year.”
GroupM forecast spending in the U.S. ad market to grow 7% in 2025, after totaling $379 billion in ad revenue in 2024, excluding political advertising, according to a recent report.
For media companies, the uncertainty also comes soon after they contended with tightened ad budgets during the height of the pandemic.
In some regards, advertising has stabilized for many media companies since the pandemic — especially for streaming platforms and those with live sports rights. But traditional TV networks still face lower advertising revenue as consumers shift away from the standard bundle of cable channels, and digital platforms and streaming gobble up a larger share of ad budgets.
Some advertising categories such as autos haven’t rebounded, however, and companies are unsure what tariffs will mean for spending, the people…
Read More: Trump tariffs news: Advertisers look for flexibility
