YouTube has become one of the world’s most powerful advertising ecosystems, now competing directly with linear TV for living-room attention. It has around 2.6 billion monthly users and annual revenue exceeding $60 billion (€52.3bn) in 2025, of which more than $40 billion is attributed to advertising, according to WARC Media. However, the platform’s ad business growth is slowing, and it finds itself under pressure from rivals such as Netflix and TikTok. WARC Media’s Iatest Platform Insights report examines YouTube’s ad revenue trajectory and competitive position, how and where audiences are consuming content, and what the data says about campaign performance. Alex Brownsell, Head...
Closing Bell | Netflix shares tumble after Q3 outlook disappoints
Netflix Q3 revenue and earnings fell short of Wall Street targets as the streaming giant said it would cut the frequency of viewing-hours reports as it seeks new avenues of growth. Shares fell by around 8.6 per cent in after-hours trading on July 16th to $67.99 (€59.38). Netflix reported earnings that beat estimates and revenue that was roughly in line with forecasts in Q2. Revenue grew 13.4 per cent year over year to $12.56 billion, slightly underperforming Bloomberg consensus estimates of $12.58 billion. Revenue growth also moderated from 16.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year. Netflix shares...
Louis Vuitton Celebrates 130 Years anniversary of the Monogram in style
In 2026, Louis Vuitton commemorates the 130th anniversary of its most enduring emblem: the Monogram, born in 1896. To mark this extraordinary milestone, the House unveils the Monogram 130 collection, a masterful dialogue between heritage and innovation, distilled into an exquisite range of small leather goods spanning long wallets, compact wallets and coin purses. A Modern Tribute to an Icon The Monogram Origine and Monogram Emblème lines breathe new life into the House’s signature motif, rendered in soft, vintage-inspired pastels and intricately woven jacquard. Beloved silhouettes, including the Victorine wallet and sleek zip-around designs, are refined with meticulous detailing, paying homage to time-honoured French...
Expert Analysis | Are we creating better customer experiences … or just better fraud opportunities?
There is no question that customer expectations have changed. Today, people expect to open a bank account in minutes, secure insurance online, sign property documents digitally or register for services without ever visiting a branch. Organisations that make these experiences fast and intuitive are often rewarded with higher conversion rates, stronger customer loyalty and a valuable competitive advantage. As business leaders, we are continuously striving to remove unnecessary friction from customer journeys, but our eagerness to please is where the problem arises, and in our pursuit of convenience, we inadvertently make life easier for fraudsters too. Across industries, we’ve seen...
Thought Leadership | A forged PhD reached a listed boardroom. The real question is how?
The Bogdanov ruling is not a story about one director. It is a test of whether South African companies can spot dishonesty before it sits at the top table. On 1 June 2026, the Financial Services Tribunal dismissed an application to overturn sanctions against a former independent non-executive director of a JSE-listed technology group. The Tribunal sided with the JSE, confirming a R500,000 fine and a ten-year disqualification from serving as a director or officer of a listed company, after a finding that she had misrepresented holding a PhD. It would be comfortable to file this under one person’s dishonesty...
Inventive guerrilla advertising from Mediology for Cheekies Chicken uses Google Maps to be (very) cheeky!
The chicken restaurant industry is a war. The “Chicken Wars” as we like to call them. It’s a big business. It serves over 15 million customers monthly. KFC has 900 outlets. Chicken Licken has around 300. Nandos has over 200. Together they spend hundreds of millions on advertising. For a new brand entering the market this is problem. How do you attract ANY attention if you have no budget? Together with Mediology, the brand introduced CHICKEN MAPS. Google Maps is by far the biggest maps app in SA. 77% of people with digital access use it. But as traffic in...
NBA on Prime sees significant global audience growth Outside USA
As the inaugural NBA on Prime season came to a close with the New York Knicks breaking a 53-year drought to win their third NBA Championship on June 14th, Prime Video confirmed its coverage outside of the US was up 28 per cent year-on-year across the first season, with significant viewership increases throughout Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America compared to the 2024-25 NBA season. Prime Video’s 11-year global media rights deal makes the NBA accessible live to fans in more than 200 countries as part of their Prime membership at no added cost. Data provided by Fifty5Blue, a specialist...
The Most Overrated PC Components (You Don’t Need to Buy)
PC hardware marketing is exceptionally good at convincing buyers they need more than they actually do. RGB lighting systems are sold as performance enhancers. Extreme overclocking headroom is marketed to users who will never adjust a voltage. Sound cards are pitched to people whose motherboard audio is already excellent. The result is that a significant portion of what many PC buyers spend goes toward components and features that deliver no meaningful benefit to their actual use case, while the components that genuinely matter are sometimes left underfunded in the budget as a consequence. The goal of any smart PC build...
The Anatomy of a Break-in: What criminals look for and how you can stop them
As winter has settled in across South Africa, the longer nights create conditions that many criminals are quick to exploit. Homes are often left in darkness for longer periods, gardens become overgrown, and families travel during school holidays, making this an ideal time for homeowners to reassess their security. Understanding how criminals identify vulnerable properties is one of the most effective ways to reduce risk. While no two break-ins are identical, security professionals consistently see common patterns in the way opportunistic criminals assess a home before deciding to strike. One of the first things they look for is visibility. Poorly...
Case Study and Thought Leadership: Why operational agility is becoming the next competitive frontier for African banks
As banks across Africa continue to invest in digital channels, a growing gap is becoming harder to ignore: many customer experiences have been digitised, but the operational workflows behind them often remain manual, fragmented and difficult to scale. Flokzu, a cloud-based no-code/low-code Business Process Management (BPM) and workflow automation platform, says this operational layer is becoming one of the next major battlegrounds for banking transformation. Part of Hyperclear Tech, the company points to its work with Absa Bank Mauritius as an example of how financial institutions can scale automation beyond isolated departmental projects. Using Flokzu, Absa Bank Mauritius automated more...