Welcome in, today is Monday, August thirty-first, and we begin with Omnicom Media, which says it has formally launched a new global media network. Omnicom Media announced Friday the launch of Hearts United, a network created by combining its Hearts and Science and Mediahub agencies. Per that announcement, the new shop operates across forty markets and represents about nine point one billion dollars in billings last year. It arrives with new-business claims the company sources to the COMvergence dashboards: first in the United States year to date on wins minus losses including retentions, and third globally and in EMEA. Omnicom Media chief executive Florian Adamski framed it as, quote, a new globally scaled network built from complementary strengths. Leadership is set in two regions so far. The same announcement names Nicole Estebanell, previously chief executive of Mediahub in the US, to lead there, and Ross Jenkins, who ran Mediahub across EMEA, to lead that region, with APAC and LATAM counterparts expected in the fourth quarter. For client teams, that redraws pitch rosters and reporting lines across two former rivals. One market sits outside it. Mumbrella reports the merger does not include Australia and New Zealand, where Mediahub is not wholly owned by IPG. There, Hearts and Science Australia takes the Hearts United name, while Mediahub Australia continues as a separate agency under chief executive Sue Squillace. Industry reaction is largely positive, though a recurring skeptical thread reads the launch as consolidation framed as a challenger story, and questions whether merging two networks adds capability or mainly removes overlap. On the platforms side, Adweek reports agency executives are cautioning against sudden changes to Meta allocations following the platform's seventeen billion dollar settlement, opting instead to watch whether other social platforms follow suit. That argument treats the payout as a reason to wait rather than to reallocate, which matters to anyone holding social budgets into the fourth quarter. Reaction in the market leans toward reading the settlement as priced in rather than structural, with a recurring view that an intact recommendation engine and engagement-driven revenue model make the payout look like an operating cost. Also today, Old Navy is reworking its marketing approach after a soft summer. Marketing Dive reports the brand is replacing its chief executive following several lagging quarters, and points to a recent campaign with Cardi B as the marker of a revamped approach. Per that reporting, Gap Inc. chief executive Richard Dickson says the campaign is already the most-viewed in Old Navy's history and is improving performance, a company account rather than an independent measurement. It is a live test of celebrity-led creative as a traffic fix at scale. Industry reaction leans toward reading the leadership change as a succession already in motion rather than a snap response to a weak quarter, and a recurring caution is that record campaign viewership is being cited alongside a comp figure that is still negative. Across the category, Google has put its Gemini Omni model inside Asset Studio in Google Ads. WebProNews reports advertisers can now turn creative briefs, brand guidelines and existing assets into campaign-ready video in multiple formats for Demand Gen, Performance Max and YouTube campaigns, where the tool previously handled image variations and simple text overlays. That account, citing Search Engine Land's first report, says the generated clips are editable and that Google requires human review before publication. Production moves a step closer to the buying platform. Among practitioners, the recurring read is that holding brand tone and visual identity across scaled variations, not the generation itself, is where these tools usually break. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Twenty-four percent of marketing professionals name consumer ad avoidance as a main concern, per Statista's Marketing Worldwide report as carried by Merca2.0, even as global ad and marketing spend is projected to reach about two point one trillion dollars this year. Digiday reports creators are moving into brands' AI search playbooks, as brands race to show up in AI-generated answers. And finally, following our earlier report on the week's marketer moves, Adweek is out with eight more, including changes at Wendy's, Skims and Kohl's.