Advertising Week New York: We came, we saw, we conquered survived.

The four-day conference last week was chock-full of, well, everything, including panels and keynotes from brands like Mattel and Netflix and topics ranging from women’s sports to the importance of food delivery. And in addition to some extremely long lines, we saw some surprisingly candid conversations about the realities of the business.

In no particular order, here are some things we heard onstage at the conference that had our ears perking up.

On Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

“People think maybe we may have had something to do with it. Absolutely not. We knew nothing. We knew what you guys knew.”—Marissa Solis, SVP of global brand and consumer marketing for the NFL, on a panel about Gen Z and sports

On Barbie and Barbie

“There were pressure points where I might have gotten a few extra gray hairs and lost some sleep. The first was having lunch with the president of marketing at Warner Bros. when he pitched me the marketing handle for the teaser campaign: ‘If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.’ That immediately took me aback. As a brand steward, why would I put the word ‘hate’ out there? It was really uncomfortable. But we agreed that we wanted to reach a broad audience and get people that had maybe not been associated with the brand for a while to re-engage. We had to be self-aware.”—Lisa McKnight, EVP and chief brand officer, Mattel, in a conversation about the brand’s evolution.

Read what else we heard here.—KS, AM, KH, JS

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Last week, several major holding companies reported quarterly earnings, providing a sense of how the industry is faring during a year of economic uncertainty.

During Q3, Omnicom and Havas clocked 3.3% and 4.5% organic revenue growth, respectively, while IPG reported a 0.4% loss.

Omnicom: The holding company, which owns agencies including BBDO and Omnicom Media Group, earned nearly $3.6 billion in revenue during the quarter. It saw a 9.2% YoY increase in its experiential advertising category. Meanwhile, its advertising and media vertical grew 6.1%, while its precision marketing business experienced a 4.3% bump year over year. Organic revenue in its Latin American market grew almost 20% year over year, while US revenue increased 2.7%. The company confirmed its expectation of 3.5% to 5% full-year organic growth.

IPG: The owner of agencies including FCB and R/GA brought in $2.7 billion in Q3. The holding company saw a 5% drop in organic net revenue in the Asia Pacific region and a 1.2% dip in the US, though other markets experienced growth. In an earnings release, CEO Philippe Krakowsky said “decreases in client activity in the tech and telecom client sector,” as well as “slower-than-anticipated onboarding of some new business,” hampered growth. However, Krakowsky said he expects roughly 1% organic growth in Q4.

Havas: The holding company—which recently named new co-CEOs at its New York office—saw organic growth across Latin America, North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, earning ~$698 million in net revenue. It also bought a majority stake in UK shop Uncommon, and acquired Australian PR firm APA and Portuguese firm CV&A. Additionally, it struck a retail media partnership with e-commerce firm Mirakl during the quarter.

Continue reading here.—JS

Changes at X continue: The platform plans to roll out new “premium” subscription tiers, Elon Musk said in a post last week.

According to Musk, “One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads.” He didn’t share pricing details nor a release date, only saying the tiers would debut “soon.”

The platform already offers X Premium, previously known as Twitter Blue, which costs $8 per month. According to the company, X Premium subscribers get a blue checkmark as well as access to other features, like the ability to edit a post. Those who subscribe to X Premium “see approximately 50% fewer ads in the For You and Following timelines,” per the company.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that X was testing three different premium tiers: Basic, Standard, and Plus. News of the tiers comes as X still struggles to win back advertisers, many of whom left due to content moderation concerns when Musk bought the company last year. A recent report found that X’s monthly revenue has fallen 55% on average in each of the past 12 months.

Navarrow Wright, COO and CTO at creator network and programmatic marketplace Mirror Digital, told us the new tiers could make X less attractive to advertisers than it already is.

“The barriers are increasingly raised for the consumers to consume content and engage,” he said. “The tiers are an example of X and Elon realizing themselves that it’s becoming less and less of a viable advertising platform.”

Keep reading here.—JS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Soiled: The Information explained what diaper startup Hello Bello’s bankruptcy filing says about digital advertising.

Testing, one, two, three: Instagram appears to be experimenting with a “Nearby” feed for Stories that’ll showcase posts from nearby businesses and users.

Know your history: Ad Age chronicled the legacies of J. Walter Thompson, Y&R, and Wunderman, which WPP recently merged together.

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