The news is full of stories about the coming “robot revolution.” Boeing’s 737 Max planes just made headlines for artificial intelligence (AI) flying systems that may have malfunctioned. PepsiCo has launched a six-wheeled robotic vending machine that delivers snacks to college students. And near our Mediassociates’ agency headquarters in Connecticut, grocery stores now have robots slowly circulating aisles, alerting staff for spills and cleanups.

Mediassociates, a leading independent media planning, buying, and analytics agency, has been retained by Eaton as its media agency in the United States. Mediassociates will manage advertising media strategy, implementation and measurement for Eaton’s broad portfolio of power management products and services.

Too much information and too little time? You’re not alone.

Short-form video is a reaction to two things: the volume of information produced and introduced to us daily and the way our brains respond to stimuli. Nielsen reports that in spring 2018, the typical U.S. consumer watched or listened to 10 hours and 24 minutes of “media” each day — sometimes stacked between multiple devices! The attention span of viewers has decreased over the past decade and our ability to process information has also shortened. Given consumers’ fleeting attention span, brands need to engage fast and get their message across quickly.

For all the troubling headlines facing some of the media agency giants, many independent media agencies are thriving. At Decisions 20/20, a recent advertising industry association event convened by the 4A’s, Jeff Larson, president of independent media shop Mediassociates, presented an optimistic picture of the future. “Independent agencies have been the beneficiaries of a lot of the disruption in our industry,” said Larson. “There’s a fundamental lack of trust between many brands and their agency partners which is not a healthy way to build a relationship.”

Dear marketers, ever worry that your ads online are in safe company?

YouTube just got in hot water again for, yes, running ads next to questionable content. TechCrunch just reported last week on how YouTube searches for certain content may pull up videos for soft-core pornography; others have recently questioned the vast rise of conspiracy videos on YouTube, and whether advertisers really want to be there.