Sam Peña-Taylor

23 May 2023 Creativity is wasted if it only sells to the media budget holders and charges by the hour, argues Rory Sutherland. WARC hears how creative agencies are missing a trick.
09 May 2023 The IAB UK’s digital ad spend forecast shows a sector well placed to capture growth but also vulnerable to pullbacks, meaning the industry must look further afield for signals in the noise. WARC’s Sam Peña-Taylor takes the temperature at the report’s launch. 
12 April 2023 AI promises ever more content, much of which, on current evidence, will be unreliable. Sam Peña-Taylor considers what that might mean for advertising.  
05 April 2023 At IIEX Europe, WARC’s Sam Peña-Taylor takes the temperature of the research community as it looks to the rise of AI: what might it do for us and what might it say about us as people and professionals?
01 March 2023 It feels impossible to avoid AI in marketing circles at the moment. Sam Peña-Taylor, present at a recent Meta event, takes the tech temperature.
02 February 2023 Meta has managed to please the markets with its latest results announcement, which describe a difficult environment in which to do business but also point to the areas in which Facebook needs to strengthen and seek growth in its advertising business – now surrounded by investor-pleasing mentions of AI.
30 January 2023 Barely a month into 2023 and AI is – after years of promise – the breakout technology of the year; analysts are now looking across industries for signs of disruption as OpenAI’s ChatGPT steals the thunder of much larger players like Google, whose dominance in search now appears under threat, but as the technology hits the mainstream ethical and commercial questions abound.
19 January 2023 McDonald’s recent productless and restaurantless spot is an ad that plays with a deep cultural understanding and recognition – WARC explores how the brand built itself into a behemoth capable of playing around with its most recognisable signals. 
02 December 2022 Following the FTX debacle, SPT assesses what's happening in crypto-world and what it means for brands and marketers.
03 November 2022 Elon Musk’s apparently chaotic takeover of Twitter is not a scaled test and learn but instead suggests a strategic void that threatens to undo the entire Musk brand.
26 June 2022 The economic situation, the reaction of marketing, which ad companies are on the up, the new role of commerce, effectiveness, purpose, the cookie, and the metaverse – here are eight big ideas we saw emerging from Cannes Lions 2022.
26 May 2022 At Brainy Bar 10, experts discussed the neuroscience behind the idea of the gendered brain, and the importance of external messaging and stimuli to the establishment of gender – Sam Peña-Taylor reports.
31 March 2022 With revelations that the social networking giant ran a smear campaign against its fast-growing competitor, the fallout points to a critical lesson when marketing to youth: maybe young people want to be corrupted.
01 February 2022 RENEW 2022 saw industry associations come together virtually to kick off the year – Sam Peña-Taylor takes the pulse.
25 January 2022 Generally, people know that blockchains consume huge amounts of energy but the reasons why and how to reduce it will be key to discussions of blockchain-based applications and Web3 in a time of climate crisis.
08 October 2021 Sky Glass, a new streaming-first TV set,  is an ecosystem play, a piece of hardware that gets Comcast’s Sky – and Australian launch partner  Foxtel – into the heart of audience’s big screen streaming, not just as an icon on someone else’s connected TV system, but the home screen, the content, and the connection all in one.
21 January 2021 The backlash against the popular messaging app’s privacy policy changes won’t destabilise either WhatsApp nor parent firm Facebook, but it points to the high cost of trust when you haven’t built it – Sam Peña-Taylor.
03 September 2020 With the announcement of a new health-tracking device, Halo, Amazon takes a step in the direction of probably the most disruptable marketplace, healthcare.
28 July 2020 The discussion over the ban on ads for HFSS products is a particularly unedifying example of eye-catching tactics over the difficult business of strategy.
13 July 2020 The questions swirling around the suitability of Facebook’s open platform for advertising mask a different debate: whether advertising has forgotten its role in ensuring a healthy media ecosystem.
01 July 2020 The Creative Effectiveness Lion is one of the most prestigious awards to win at Cannes – here, the 2021 jury president explains what she will be looking for. 
22 June 2020 As Lions Live begins, WARC’s reporter looks back at what Cannes Lions has always been about and what this year’s digital event shows: advertising is all about solving problems.
15 May 2020 There will be winners and losers in the current crisis and big tech isn’t going to be in the latter group; Sam Peña-Taylor heard Professor Scott Galloway’s take.
13 April 2020 As the industry contemplates the likelihood of severe spending cuts, Mark Ritson argues for strategists to spot an opportunity to overtake their competitors and plan to grow market share.
25 February 2020 Firms want professional-level advanced analytics, on a global scale and on a budget. But how brands know what they know is less of a discussion at IIeX as knowledge-sharing takes centre stage (and top sponsor billing), says Sam Peña-Taylor.