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Keep calm: We have a plan.

That's essentially been the adtech industry's response to Apple's latest crackdown on web trackers.

The workaround may only be a temporary fix, however.

Apple recently implemented new restrictions in its Safari browser designed to stamp out "identity resolution," a method used to track users across different devices and websites by linking data points such as IP addresses, email addresses, and other identifying information collected about them.

Adtech has largely united around a proposed solution: Move the identity resolution process so it takes place inside publishers' and adtech companies' servers rather than in the browser, where Apple has more control. Adtech industry execs have said the move will mitigate disruptions to publishers' revenue and measurement from Apple's blockers, while still allowing them to respect users' privacy choices.

Privacy experts, on the other hand, say that while the server-side shift might succeed temporarily, it's far from a permanent solution. Apple has made it clear that attempts to circumvent its tracking protections could trigger further restrictions on adtech companies.

"It's tough to predict how long Apple would need to find ways to block workarounds, but adtech companies that bet against the browser are in for a rude awakening at some point in the future," said Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher and cofounder of the adtech transparency platform DecryptAds.

The stakes extend beyond the adtech companies whose technology Apple is blocking. Publishers and advertisers have increasingly relied on identity resolution to target specific audiences and to measure whether campaigns are working. If identity resolution becomes less effective, advertisers could shift more of their budgets away from web publishers and to platforms like Google and Meta that have reams of their own logged-in user data.

Anthony Katsur, CEO of the IAB's Tech Lab, which created the Trusted Server project, said its estimates show that the Apple-powered browser ecosystem accounts for 40% of total web traffic, which leaves a large chunk of potentially unaddressable ad inventory.

"That creates tremendous downside for media companies to then prove themselves to agencies and brands they work with that, yes, a consumer saw this ad, and they converted," Katsur said.

How Apple could thwart adtech's server-side solution

How could Apple block identity resolution if the data matching occurs only on servers outside its control?

There is a precedent. When Apple blocked third-party tracking cookies in Safari, some adtech companies used a workaround called CNAME cloaking. It made third-party trackers appear to Safari as if they belonged to the website a reader had chosen to visit — known as "first-party" activity. Apple soon identified and developed protections against that tactic.

Edwards said many server-side tracking systems still rely on cookies or other identifiers stored in a user's browser to recognize them across websites. Apple can block the collection of identifying information before it reaches the server.

Privacy-focused browser company Brave, for example, already blocks scripts that are known to collect and record information used for server-side identification, said Pete Snyder, the company's principal researcher.

Katsur of the IAB Tech Lab said the switch to server-side isn't an attempt to trick the browser.

"This isn't about circumventing consumer privacy preferences; this isn't about circumventing regulations; it's about moving the advertising stack to a publisher-controlled server-side solution that complies with legal regulations," Katsur said.

He added that through the Trusted Server, publishers can also strip out unwanted third-party tracking identifiers from ads.

Katsur acknowledged Apple was likely to clamp down on server-side identity resolution eventually, but that the tech giant risks breaking essential web functionality if it goes too far.

The consumer opt-out option

Some server-side matching may be impossible for Apple to stop through browser technology alone. If someone provides their home address to an e-commerce site for delivery of their purchase, Apple's Safari can't prevent the retailer from knowing it. The retailer could then potentially use that information to match the customer against other databases.

Snyder said it's why Brave supports consumer opt-out mechanisms like the Global Privacy Control signal, a browser setting that tells a website a user doesn't want their data sold to or shared with third parties for targeted advertising, a preference companies must honor where the law requires it. Starting January 1 next year, the state of California will require browsers to provide an easy-to-find setting that lets users opt out of having their personal data sold or shared.

"Protecting users against this kind of tracking requires 'privacy in depth,' or using a wide range of privacy protections, by default and automatically, to minimize how often users share identifiers, and to, whenever possible, block sites trying to collect those identifiers," Brave's Snyder said.

Moving identity resolution to servers may temporarily put the method out of Safari's current reach, but not necessarily out of Apple's sights.

"This is basically a cat-and-mouse game, but the cat in this instance is a trillion-dollar company controlling one of the most valuable user data supply chains in the world," Decrypt Ads' Edwards said.

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Hugo Veiga and Diego Machado — the former AKQA global chief creative officers — spent two decades building brands at some of advertising's most storied creative agencies. Their next bet: a new type of agency that wants to be paid not just in cash, but in a share of the businesses it helps build.

Veiga and Machado exclusively told CMO Insider this week that they have launched !F Creative Capital, a company that combines conventional commissions with equity partnerships and revenue-sharing arrangements tied to clients' sales.

Rather than charging an upfront fee alone, !F Creative Capital offers creative consultancy in exchange for equity in companies it believes can grow. For example, it took a stake in the superfoods brand Authentic Fruits in a deal that includes a three-year creative engagement, a share of sales, and additional equity tied to sales performance. It has equity in CheckMy.Music, an AI platform that scans songs for plagiarism, and an equity partnership on a new project led by former Chelsea FC and Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti.

A long-held complaint on Madison Avenue is that agency holding companies prioritize businesses such as media buying — and, increasingly, data, technology, and AI services — because they are easier to package, measure, and sell repeatedly than bespoke creative work. Veiga and Machado said that !F Creative Capital was born out of a desire to create a model that more effectively ties the value of creative ideas to business results.

"In many of the creative industries, everyone is too busy doing decks, doing keynotes, and losing the connection with the final thing," Machado said.

!F Creative Capital has also launched its own brands, including SNIFF, a pet company that lets dogs smell food before their owners buy it, and Baitts, a toothpick brand.

Elsewhere, the company is coproducing a feature film set for release next year, and it's preparing to launch an eight-week "School of Creative Entrepreneurship" to help people turn their ideas into businesses.

While !F Creative Capital has taken on commission-based creative work for brands including Corona and Cristiano Ronaldo's Globe Sports Award, Veiga and Machado said they are reinvesting that money into the equity-focused side of the business and their in-house projects. !F Creative Capital is self-funded and has a team of around 15 people spanning seven countries, along with a broader network of contributors.

'You have an idea, and you give it for free'

Veiga said the long-term vision is for !F Creative Capital to become independent from commission work as it builds its own brands and effectively becomes its own client. The result might look more like a holding company for brands than the creative agencies where the duo made their name.

"A lot of times you have an idea, and you give it for free, or you push to make it happen without owning that," Machado said of the agency business.

Adland's creative agencies have explored similar equity-focused business models in the past. Uncommon, the London-based studio in which Havas acquired a majority stake in 2023, took equity in the compostable coffee pod company Halo and the finance app Communion. In 2010, former Deutsch exec Mike Duda cofounded the hybrid early-stage venture firm and creative agency that later became Bullish. Anomaly, now owned by Stagwell, began incubating and acquiring stakes in brands in the 2000s.

Brian Wieser, CEO of the advisory and consulting firm Madison and Wall, said that while the equity model still persists in the agency industry, the practice isn't common and mostly ties to the individuals running those companies because the skill sets are different.

"Most people who can do venture well focus on venture capital," Wieser said. "But the right person with the right relationships can make this happen."

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McDonald's is exiting the playing field.

The fast-food giant's surprise decision to end its 32-year run as a FIFA World Cup sponsor shows how major global brands are reassessing the cost, clutter, and commercial return of sports' biggest properties.

McDonald's ran its largest-ever World Cup marketing push during this summer's tournament, and McDonald's CFO Ian Borden said on an August earnings call that the effort "underperformed versus our expectations."

The company said last week that it had decided not to renew its current deal, which is due to end this year. It also indicated to FIFA that it isn't looking to invest in next year's Women's World Cup, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Sports sponsorship is seen as a way for brands to tap into huge, live global audiences and associate themselves with the feel-good factor of athletes' achievements. Management consultancy Kearney estimated the global market for sports sponsorship and in-venue advertising at $52 billion in 2025 and expects it to grow by 8% to 9% annually through 2030, reaching about $80 billion.

While many marketers continue to spend heavily on sports, they often find it hard to measure the commercial uplift from their sponsorship outlays. Research from Forrester, published in 2025, found that 76% of US business-to-consumer marketing executives who invested in sponsorships the prior year reported struggling to calculate the return on investment, or ROI, of their sports sponsorships.

"They are gaining a lot of traction around brand awareness, but can't necessarily calculate the hard and fast ROI numbers to prove to their CFOs that the money and long-term commitment for these kinds of sponsorships are necessary," Mike Proulx, a Forrester VP, told me.

For McDonald's, the figures evidently didn't justify a renewal. The deal was valued at $40 million annually, per the research firm GlobalData Sport.

For a globally recognized brand such as McDonald's, the scope for the World Cup to deliver another spike in brand awareness and associated sales may have reached its ceiling. Heineken appeared to make a similar recalculation last year when it said it would end its 30-year UEFA Champions League partnership in 2027. The brewer said it was shifting its sponsorship focus to platforms "where spend is proportionate to value creation," while retaining Formula 1 and adding Premier Padel.

McDonald's CMO Morgan Flatley said in a statement last week that sports remains important to its marketing strategy. At the company's September investor day, Flatley said she was focusing her campaigns "on McDonald's collection of iconic IP, not someone else's." The company continues to sponsor dozens of sports properties, including France's Ligue 1 top-flight soccer league and the All-American Games.

The 2026 World Cup reached nearly 6 billion people worldwide across different platforms, according to FIFA, which helps explain why brands continue to spend heavily to be associated with it. While FIFA has not disclosed a final sponsorship total for the 2026 World Cup, its latest budget forecasts $2.8 billion in marketing-rights revenue across all commercial partnerships in the 2023 to 2026 cycle. That would be about 59% more than it generated across the 2019 to 2022 Qatar cycle. For the 2026 tournament, FIFA also introduced a program that allowed host cities to sell local supporter packages, making the sponsorship market increasingly crowded compared to previous years.

Rory Natkiel, founder of sponsorship effectiveness consultancy Box Count, said the additional host-city partners risked shrinking McDonald's "share of property" — the portion of the event's commercial attention it could realistically command.

That dynamic could make smaller or newer sports properties more attractive to mature global brands. While they might not offer the global scale of long-standing events like the World Cup, they can provide greater flexibility to tailor marketing to specific audiences and channels than the tightly controlled multiyear packages from major rights holders allow. For a company like McDonald's, that could open up an opportunity to offer consumers an experience they remember rather than a sponsorship they simply expect.

"If they start going into new sports and trying to attract a different audience to the global football audience — padel for a slightly more premium audience, or whatever it might be — it does create a new compelling angle and a new avenue for creativity," said Rory Stewart-Richardson, a longtime sports sponsorship executive.

Stewart-Richardson said he wouldn't be surprised if other legacy brands start recalibrating their sponsorship deals, focusing more on local markets and digital activations, with an emphasis on "building from the consumer out rather than trying to buy into temporary cultural relevance."