PR Meets Influence: The New Engine of Brand Growth
On the latest Adspeak podcast, Dana Paolucci of Dove and Raven Walker of Collectively discuss how heritage brands can stay culturally relevant through creator‑led strategies. Dove has moved from one‑off influencer spots to community‑driven partnerships that produce authentic user‑generated content, exemplified by the viral Dove × Crumbl collaboration. The guests argue that integrating PR with influencer marketing creates a single engine for exponential awareness, while social listening and long‑term creator programs ensure brand safety and sustained engagement. Their framework offers a roadmap for brands seeking to turn cultural moments into lasting movements.
EXCLUSIVE: The Trade Desk Is Quietly Phasing Out Its Signature Periodic Table
The Trade Desk is quietly phasing out the signature periodic‑table interface in its Kokai platform, replacing it with a more spreadsheet‑like, customizable layout. The change introduces a new tile‑filter feature that lets advertisers tailor the view to their workflow. While...
WPP Integrates Google Earth AI Into Its WPP Open Agentic Marketing Platform
WPP has woven Google Earth AI’s planetary‑scale geospatial intelligence into its WPP Open agentic marketing platform, extending a cloud‑AI partnership that began in October 2025. The new capability fuses digital behavior data with real‑world signals such as traffic, weather and...
I’m Growing on Instagram After 10 Years — Here’s What I‘m Doing Differently
After a spontaneous cross‑post, a LinkedIn video garnered 110,000 views on Instagram, prompting the author to pivot from a Threads growth experiment to an Instagram‑focused Proof of Concept. The creator, who has maintained a personal Instagram account since 2016, now...
Publicis Groupe Acquires UK Social Agency Fabric Social
Publicis Groupe has acquired UK‑based social‑first agency Fabric Social for an undisclosed sum, making it the flagship social agency within Publicis’ UK PR, social and influencer division. Fabric, founded in 2021, employs over 110 staff and reported roughly £13 million (about...
Quiet Luxury Dominates Taiwan Influencer Marketing as Tod’s, Bottega Veneta, and Loro Piana Lead Q1 2026
Kolr’s Brand Aura Index shows Tod’s, Bottega Veneta and Loro Piana leading Taiwan’s luxury influencer marketing in Q1 2026, while YSL Beauty tops the beauty segment. The rankings draw on more than 6 billion data points across Facebook, YouTube, X, Threads, Instagram and TikTok,...
Social-First Creative Agency Uncovered Taps Ex-Coolr Exec Katie Fieldman to Head New Influence Division
Uncovered, a social‑first creative agency, has created a new Influence Division called “Uncovered Influence” and appointed former Coolr executive Katie Fieldman as its Director. The division will provide both standalone and integrated creator‑strategy services across the influencer ecosystem. Fieldman brings...
Why E.l.f. Beauty and Tula Skincare Won at US Influencer Marketing Last Month
In March, e.l.f. Beauty climbed to third place on Traackr’s Top Ten US Beauty Brands list, improving its month‑on‑month ranking by three spots. The brand’s ascent contributed to the overall US beauty sector moving up five positions on an organic...
Comment: Should AI Be Used to Design Adverts?
The article debates AI’s role in advertising, weighing creative benefits against environmental and ethical concerns. It cites a UK government report forecasting AI‑driven water use to jump from 1.1 bn to 6.6 bn cubic metres by 2027, and highlights mixed consumer reactions...
E.l.f. Beauty’s Brand President on the Marketing Strategies Driving the $2 Billion Beauty Powerhouse
e.l.f. Beauty’s brand president Kory Marchisotto outlined the marketing playbook that propelled the U.S. cosmetics label to roughly $2 billion in annual sales. Speaking at the Uncensored CMO: The Calling event in London on April 21, she highlighted the company’s early online...
Taboola Partners with Cricbuzz
Taboola announced a three‑year exclusive partnership with cricket‑focused platform Cricbuzz, becoming its sole content recommendation provider. The deal will embed Taboola’s AI‑driven engine into Cricbuzz to serve personalized articles, videos and ads. Cricbuzz, which attracts roughly 567 million page views each...
Profound Review: Features, Pricing and Alternative
Surfer SEO and Profound are the two leading AI visibility platforms, each taking a different approach to answer‑engine optimization (AEO). Surfer blends AI tracking with its full‑stack SEO suite, offering keyword research, rank tracking, and CMS integrations, while Profound focuses...
Tim Cook Built Apple Ads, But His Successor Has the Harder Job
Apple’s advertising division, quietly built under Tim Cook, is projected to generate about $7 billion in 2025, with roughly 95 % of revenue coming from App Store search ads. The company has kept its ad inventory limited to owned platforms such as...
Code and Theory’s New President Will Help CMOs Navigate AI Complexity
Code and Theory has appointed former VML chief growth officer JJ Schmuckler as its new president to steer the agency through the accelerating AI wave. CEO Michael Treff said the traditional service‑only model is ending, and the firm will blend technology,...
Make These 3 Changes to Your LinkedIn Posts to Improve Reach With the 360 Brew Algorithm
LinkedIn’s recent shift to the LLM‑based 360 Brew algorithm reshapes how creator posts are ranked. The system heavily weights the first 240 characters, requiring a clear statement of topic, target audience, and reader payoff. It also favors content that audiences...
That Is a Wrap on Social Media Week 2026!
Social Media Week 2026 concluded after a three‑day hybrid program that attracted over 2,000 marketers, platform executives, and creators in New York and online. The event, now in its 15th edition, highlighted Meta’s metaverse‑commerce roadmap, AI‑driven content, and short‑form video dominance....
OpenAI’s ChatGPT Ads Just Went Cost-per-Click, and the AI Advertising War Has Its Battle Lines
OpenAI has switched ChatGPT ads from a cost‑per‑thousand‑impressions model to cost‑per‑click, allowing bids of $3‑$5 and cutting the minimum spend to $50,000. The change follows a rapid drop in CPM rates from $60 to as low as $25, which made...
Adobe Summit 2026 - NBCUniversal Outlines Its Approach to Rollout of AI Agents and Assistants as Adobe Rolls Out New...
At Adobe Summit 2026, Adobe unveiled GenStudio, Brand Intelligence and Firefly‑powered AI agents that can turn a marketing brief into a full campaign in under ten minutes, a task that previously took weeks. The demos showed instant asset retrieval, on‑the‑fly...
PayPal Goes After Streaming TV Advertisers With New Adtech Deals
PayPal is extending its advertising platform into streaming TV and the open web with a new offering called Curated Ads. The product leverages PayPal’s transaction graph to build purchase‑based audience segments that can be targeted through partnerships with Warner Bros. Discovery, Spectrum...
Radox Appoints Agency to Make Splash on Social Media
Unilever-owned personal care brand Radox has appointed global digital agency SAMY to overhaul its social media presence on Instagram and TikTok. The partnership moves the brand away from broad audience targeting toward a creator‑led, always‑on strategy that emphasizes organic content,...
Comcast’s Xfinity and Adobe Co-Innovate on Deep Brand Intelligence for Marketing Campaigns
Comcast’s Xfinity has teamed with Adobe to test Adobe Brand Intelligence, an AI‑driven solution that embeds brand governance directly into the creative production workflow. The technology aims to replace static brand guidelines with a continuously‑learning system that flags tone, visual,...
Target’s Creator Program Exit Is a Warning Shot for E-Commerce Affiliate Strategy
Target has quietly discontinued its Creator affiliate program, replacing it with a gamified nano‑influencer strategy that emphasizes smaller, community‑focused creators. The shift reflects the difficulty of scaling hybrid affiliate‑influencer models and the growing consumer preference for authentic, low‑reach recommendations. At...
Krispy Kreme ‘Boxes Clever’ in First Campaign by Ark
Krispy Kreme has launched its first-ever UK and Ireland brand campaign, developed by Ark, to navigate new less‑healthy food advertising restrictions. The "It could only be Krispy Kreme" campaign features two versions – one showing the doughnuts and another focusing...
Retail Media Is Not Just About Retailers Any More
Retail media is expanding beyond traditional retailer‑owned inventory to capture shopper intent before a purchase decision is made. Multi‑retailer apps, digital leaflet aggregators, and deal platforms now generate pre‑purchase intent signals that can be packaged into targetable audience segments. Brands...
Navigate Health Drives +48% Ad Revenue Growth with Opti Digital
Navigate Health partnered with ad‑tech specialist Opti Digital to overhaul its ad stack, deploying the Ad Manager Hub and Insights Hub. The integration accelerated ad call speeds, raising fast calls from 5% to 35% and cutting slow calls dramatically. Unified...
![AI Overviews & Local SEO: What Multi-Location Brands Must Do [Webinar] via @Sejournal, @Lorenbaker](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/2-3-60.png)
AI Overviews & Local SEO: What Multi-Location Brands Must Do [Webinar] via @Sejournal, @Lorenbaker
The webinar “AI Overviews & Local SEO” explains how generative AI is reshaping local search for brands with multiple locations. AI‑driven overviews now pull data from listings, schema, reviews, and location pages to decide which businesses to cite. Inconsistent or...
Omnicom Expands Adobe Partnership to Drive Industry-Specific AI-Powered Marketing Transformation
Omnicom announced an expanded partnership with Adobe to co‑develop an enterprise‑grade, industry‑specific AI Agentic Operating Model. The solution blends Omnicom’s Omni platform, its agentic framework, and Adobe’s marketing and creative stack to orchestrate strategy, creative, planning, activation and measurement for...
Seedtag Revolutionises Media Planning & Activation with the Launch of NeuroX
Seedtag unveiled NeuroX, a Neuro‑Contextual exchange that embeds its decade‑old AI engine, Liz, into every impression across more than 30,000 premium publishers and broadcasters. The platform translates emotional tone, intent and interest into addressable signals, allowing agencies, publishers and brands...
‘An Element of Exploitation’: The World of TikTok Child Skincare Influencers
TikTok’s child skincare influencer boom is drawing scrutiny as minors as young as 13 receive free products and promote brands like Benefit, Sephora, Evereden and Bubble. Italy’s competition regulator (AGCM) opened an investigation into LVMH‑owned brands for potentially marketing anti‑ageing...
MarTech Interview with Max Groth, CEO at Decentriq
Decentriq CEO Maximilian Groth warns that most marketers build martech stacks around internal preferences rather than the customer, leading to fragmented data and poor experiences. He stresses that reliance on third‑party data is eroding, making first‑party data the new foundation...
Innovid Announces General Availability of Hypermode, Cutting Social Campaign Setup Time by Up to 80%
Innovid has launched the general availability of Hypermode, a high‑precision execution layer for social advertising that now supports Meta, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat and TikTok. The platform claims to cut campaign‑setup time by up to 80%, delivering up to six‑fold faster...
The 2026 Facebook Reach Checklist for Affiliates
Facebook’s 2026 algorithm overhaul turns the platform into an AI‑driven discovery engine that heavily favors short‑form video, private shares and native affiliate tags while penalising link‑heavy posts. Meta Verified subscribers can retain link reach, but non‑paying creators see their distribution...
EDO Strikes Back Against iSpot By Offering TV Intelligence Data For Free
EDO, recently ordered to pay $18.3 million to rival iSpot, is fighting back by offering its basic TV‑ad intelligence for free through an AI chatbot called ChatEDO. The free data spans 375 million linear‑TV airings from 120 national networks and 2.6 million ads...
Content360: How CHAGEE Replaces Traditional Media with Content Ecosystems
At Content360 Singapore 2026, CHAGEE’s APAC CMO Eugene Lee unveiled a brand strategy that treats tea as a cultural ecosystem rather than a simple beverage. The eight‑year‑old company now runs about 8,000 stores worldwide, relying exclusively on social‑first content and...
Trusted Media Brands Gets An AI Assist To Sell Cross-Platform Audiences
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) is deploying generative AI from Jasper.ai to stitch together disparate audience data across print, web, social, streaming and newsletters. The AI parses massive performance datasets, turning them into concise narratives that help sales teams answer RFPs...
Think You’re Not A Data Broker? California’s Delete Act Might Say Otherwise
California’s Delete Act now forces any business that collects and sells consumer data without a direct relationship to register as a data broker with the CPPA. Starting August 1, 2026, registered brokers must process deletion requests through the new Delete Request and...
Kill Boring Dead Takes Three Webby Nods Home, Proving “Weird” Wins at the Webby Awards
Australian agency Kill Boring Dead (KBD) secured a Webby Award in the Social & Games – Weird category for its Loctite “Museum of Second Chances” campaign, while also earning a nomination in Arts, Culture & Lifestyle against heavyweights like Taylor Swift...
Shared Screens: Co-Viewers in APAC Are More Likely to Act on Ads Than Solo Viewers
PubMatic’s new report reveals that shared‑screen viewing on connected TV (CTV) drives markedly higher ad performance across APAC. Co‑viewers pay 42 % more attention, recall brands 53 % better, and are 70 % more likely to act than solo viewers. The study of...
Samsung Partners With AnyMind Group to Boost Live Commerce in Eight Markets
Samsung Electronics has partnered with AnyMind Group to power its live‑commerce efforts in eight Asia‑Pacific markets using AnyMind’s AI‑driven AnyLive platform. The rollout adds roughly 4,450 livestream hours each month and introduces ten AI‑generated avatars that can answer shopper questions...
What Agencies Notice After 50 Guest Posts (And Why They Don’t Go Back)
Agencies that run guest‑post campaigns notice a turning point around the 50th placement. Early posts are treated as experiments focused on cost, turnaround and raw metrics, but after enough volume the conversation shifts toward stability and editorial fit. Publishers that...
TVNZ+ Rolls Out Major Overhaul With New Ad Formats
TVNZ+ is rolling out a major platform upgrade built with Quickplay, Amazon Web Services and Evergent, aiming to boost viewer experience and ad capabilities. The redesign adds a refreshed content carousel, a Top 10 belt, simpler login and audio‑description features, while...
The Hidden ‘Bland Tax’ that Could Erase Your Brand From AI Search
At Adobe Summit, Semrush CMO Andrew Warden warned that AI‑driven search is filtering out bland brands, coining the “bland tax.” With 60 % of Google queries ending without a click, AI answers now dominate, making SEO fundamentals and brand authority essential...
Why Integrated Communications Drive Stronger Business Outcomes
In ASEAN’s rapidly expanding digital economy, startups and B2B tech firms often run fragmented PR, content, social, and digital marketing streams, leading to duplicated effort and mixed brand messages. The article argues that integrating these functions into a single narrative...
Nike Turns to Australia for Its First Local Tiktok Play
Nike has launched @nikeaustralia, the brand’s first country‑specific TikTok account, debuting with a CommBank Socceroos‑themed bulldozer stunt and later featuring Paralympian Dylan Alcott’s Ability Fest promotion. The move marks a shift from Nike’s global‑first model to a local‑first strategy that...
Social Listening Explained: Benefits, Tools, and Strategy
Social listening captures brand‑related conversations across social platforms, forums and review sites, turning raw chatter into strategic insights. Unlike reactive social monitoring, listening aggregates mentions to reveal language patterns, sentiment shifts and emerging trends that inform marketing, product and leadership...
Distribution & Devotion: Learn Why Great Content Finds Its Audience At Cairns Crocodiles
The Cairns Crocodiles Film & Screen Track hosted a "Distribution and Devotion" panel on May 13, featuring HBO Max Australia senior director John Beohm, writer‑director Caden Pearson, RUSH Films producer Cody Greenwood, and tourism expert Julie King. The discussion centered...
Social Media Analytics Explained: Metrics, Tools, and Strategy
Social media analytics transforms raw platform data into actionable insights that drive content strategy and ROI. The guide outlines how to differentiate analytics, listening, and reporting, and stresses focusing on a handful of KPIs tied to business goals. It recommends...
Best Social Media Schedulers in 2026 (and How to Pick One)
The social media scheduler market, now worth roughly $39.14 billion, is crowded with tools that differ in pricing, platform coverage, and collaboration features. The article evaluates nine leading schedulers—Later, Buffer, Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Planable, Metricool, Agorapulse, Loomly, and Sendible—using criteria such...
‘Do We Half Accept It As Normal?’: MOBI’s Liz Cherry Warns Marketers Of AI Language Creeping Into Campaigns
MOBI’s marketing lead Liz Cherry warned that the rapid adoption of AI tools is making campaign language increasingly uniform, even as it accelerates production and improves metrics. While AI can automate repetitive tasks and free marketers to focus on strategy,...
VaynerMedia Australia Expands Leadership to Meet Demand for Social-First Marketing
VaynerMedia Australia announced the addition of four senior specialists to its leadership team, reflecting the agency’s response to the accelerating shift of consumer attention and ad spend toward social platforms. The hires—Elle Batchelor, Sophie Tschuchnigg, Belle Brown and Nathan Bramley—bring...