ENCO Upgrades SPECai With Multi-Voice and Video Capability
ENCO, Benztown, and Compass Media Networks announced a major upgrade to the AI‑driven spec‑ad platform SPECai at the NAB Show. The new features add multi‑voice generation with emotion control, integrated sound‑effects editing, and a plug‑in that transforms radio spots into video ads. Users can create full commercials from a website URL via InstaSpot, now with multiple synthetic speakers and a Voice‑to‑Voice tool for custom synthetic voices. The video plug‑in lets sales teams repurpose existing radio inventory for digital campaigns, expanding multi‑platform delivery.
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Back Button Hijacking Penalty, Spam Reporting Change, Google Ads AI Max Replacing DSAs &...
Google announced a new spam penalty targeting back‑button hijacking, expanding its enforcement toolkit. The company also said spam‑report submissions may be used for manual actions, tightening the feedback loop for abusive sites. In the ads arena, Dynamic Search Ads are...
The Most Overlooked Asset in Your Influencer Program Is the Content Itself
A retail client swapped brand‑produced creative for influencer‑generated assets across paid ads, email, and its website, delivering a 57% lift in ROAS, a three‑fold increase in email click‑through rates, and a 3.5× boost in on‑site conversions with a zero‑bounce rate....
Redefining Enterprise Engagement at InnoEX Hong Kong: Aurora Mobile’s EngageLab Unveils AI-First Solutions
Aurora Mobile unveiled its AI‑first engagement platform, EngageLab, at InnoEX Hong Kong, showcasing solutions that tackle fragmented channels, siloed data, and costly integrations for global enterprises. The demo highlighted intelligent fallback workflows that automatically shift messages from email to WhatsApp...
Google’s Product Feed Strategy Points To The Future Of Retail Discovery via @Sejournal, @Brookeosmundson
Google is repositioning Merchant Center product feeds as the backbone of retail discovery across its ecosystem, including Search, YouTube, Maps, Lens and AI‑driven formats. The company cites more than 1 billion daily shopping interactions and 20 billion Lens visual searches per month,...
Anthropic Debuts Claude Design for Building Marketing Assets, Decks, and UIs
Anthropic Labs launched Claude Design, an AI‑powered platform that creates marketing assets, slide decks, and UI mockups using natural‑language prompts. Built on the upgraded Claude Opus 4.7 model, the tool lets users generate, edit, and collaborate on designs in real time,...
Google Blocks 8.3B Policy-Violating Ads in 2025, Launches Android 17 Privacy Overhaul
Google announced that in 2025 it blocked or removed 8.3 billion policy‑violating ads and suspended 24.9 million accounts worldwide. At the same time it rolled out Android 17, which replaces the broad READ_CONTACTS permission with a granular Contact Picker and adds a one‑time...
Mega Influencers Explained: Definition, Follower Count, Cost, and When to Use Them
Mega influencers are creators with over 1 million followers on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, positioning them closer to celebrities than typical influencers. While they deliver massive reach and rapid brand awareness, their engagement rates hover around 1.97%, far...
Dove Awards Seven-Figure Influencer Brief
Unilever’s Dove has awarded a seven‑figure micro‑influencer marketing brief to a creative communications agency after a four‑way competitive pitch. The brief targets micro‑influencers to drive authentic engagement for Dove’s personal‑care products. The deal underscores Dove’s shift toward performance‑based, socially resonant...
Munch Studio Launches AI Video Editing Suite That Turns Long-Form Video Into Social Media Content in Minutes
Munch Studio unveiled an AI‑powered video editing suite that converts long‑form footage into platform‑ready short clips in minutes. The tool automatically clips, captions, scores relevance, adds music and formats videos for Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and LinkedIn. All...
The Stack: Advertising’s Next Phase
Advertising, streaming and regulation converged this week as platforms intensified monetisation while facing heightened scrutiny. The IAB unveiled a guide to mature AI‑driven commerce‑media networks, and Publicis reported 6.4% revenue growth with 86% of its services now AI‑powered. OpenAI rolled...
Should Affiliates Buy Likes on Social Media? Here’s What the Articles Promoting It Won’t Tell You
The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, effective October 21, 2024, prohibits buying fake Instagram likes, followers or engagement when used to misrepresent commercial influence. Violations carry civil penalties of up to $53,088 per infraction. For affiliate marketers, the rule means that...
Spain Study: Streamers Using Geo-Targeted Ads to Boost Revenue
A Spanish university study of Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max reveals that all four services are integrating geo‑targeted, personalised advertising into ad‑supported tiers. Researchers examined 920 ads across 536 episodes, finding that Prime Video runs the most ads...
Consumer Use of Google for Discovery Declines
Clutch Research reports a sharp decline in Google reliance as AI assistants take center stage. Sixty‑nine percent of AI‑assistant users now use Google less, while 32% turn to AI first, surpassing the 28% who still start with Google. Daily AI...
MAG International Picks Oliver Chislett as Group Head of Programmatic
Media Agency Group International (MAG International) has appointed Oliver Chislett as Group Head of Programmatic. Chislett arrives with two decades of media‑sales and trading experience from firms such as Spotify, News UK, CarGurus, Etisalat and JCDecaux. In his new role he will...
PUMA India Turns RCB Jersey Into Everyday Fandom with #RCBEverywhere
PUMA India launched the #RCBEverywhere campaign, urging Royal Challengers Bangalore fans to wear the team jersey in everyday settings. The initiative features Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar and Krunal Pandya in a digital film and highlights a viral Kumbh Mela fan moment. PUMA reports a...
Hot Take: YouTube Shouldn’t Rely On Creators To Convince Brands It’s TV
YouTube is positioning its platform as a television equivalent to capture premium ad budgets, emphasizing the growing share of viewing on living‑room screens. At its NewFronts event, the company let creators pitch the TV narrative, citing data such as 62%...
DoubleVerify Creates AI SlopStopper for Social to Tackle Low-Quality AI Content
DoubleVerify has launched AI SlopStopper, a new tool within its DV AI Verification suite designed to identify and block low‑quality AI‑generated content on social and video platforms. The solution blends proprietary AI detection with human oversight, feeding results into the...
The Rundown: Q1 Dealmaking Cools Across Ad Tech and Martech as AI Remains the Hottest Ticket
Deal activity in ad‑tech and martech cooled sharply in Q1 2026, with LUMA Partners reporting an 11% drop in total M&A volume to 103 transactions and a 30% decline in deals over $100 million. While ad‑tech deal counts held steady, high‑value...
Inside the Creator-Led Media Economy: Coachella
Influencer marketing now commands 20‑30% of media budgets, with Australian creator spend hitting $830 M AUD (≈$550 M USD) in 2025 and projected to reach $1 B AUD by 2030. The Coachella festival has become a high‑velocity content factory, where brands like Revolve, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, and...
Google Blocked and Removed More than 8.3 Billion Ads in 2025
Google’s 2025 Ads Safety Report shows the company blocked or removed more than 8.3 billion ads, with over 99 % stopped before they reached users. The crackdown included suspending 24.9 million advertiser accounts—four million linked to scams—and deleting 602 million scam‑related ads. Enforcement also...
Weigel Broadcasting Taps OpenAP for Advanced Advertising Tools
Weigel Broadcasting announced a partnership with OpenAP to roll out advanced advertising tools ahead of the 2026 Upfront season. The collaboration lets advertisers access richer audience data and purchase inventory across Weigel’s nine niche TV networks, including MeTV and Heroes...
Agentic Advertising Needs Interoperability, Standardisation, and Adoption to Thrive
The IAB Tech Lab has introduced the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols (AAMP), a standards‑driven suite designed to make advertising agents interoperable, transparent, and production‑ready. AAMP adds new protocols—Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent‑to‑Agent (A2A)—and an open Agent Registry that mirrors...
AARON Awards Crown Inaugural Winners Spotlighting Rise of AI-Native Creative
The inaugural AARON Awards announced their first global winners, drawing entries from 45 countries and positioning AI as a standalone creative discipline in advertising. Judges praised projects that treated AI as a medium requiring direction and restraint, rather than a...
From Audit to Execution: Your First 7 Days of a Clean Social Strategy
The article presents a step‑by‑step, seven‑day social‑media strategy reset that begins with a 60‑90‑minute audit and ends with a week‑two content plan. It stresses platform‑specific audits, profile optimization, a single‑session content batch, and early engagement before scaling volume. The workflow...
Yahoo DSP Taps Guardian in Push for Cleaner Programmatic Supply
Yahoo DSP has partnered with The Guardian to create a direct‑to‑publisher pathway that lets advertisers buy the newspaper’s premium digital inventory through Yahoo Backstage. The integration simplifies campaign discovery, activation and optimisation, reducing the complexity of programmatic buying. The Guardian...
Nexxen Launches Enhancements to ‘nexAI DSP Assistant’ to Amplify ‘Full-Funnel’ Campaign Outcomes
Advertising technology firm Nexxen unveiled major upgrades to its AI‑driven demand‑side platform, the nexAI DSP Assistant. The enhancements expand the assistant’s role to pre‑campaign quality assurance, real‑time mid‑flight optimization, and post‑campaign analytics, while a new user interface simplifies workflow and...
How to Build a Signature Content Series that Grows Your Audience
The article provides a step‑by‑step guide to creating a signature content series that accelerates audience growth, highlighting a five‑step framework that starts with planning six episodes before launch. It distinguishes episodic, serialized, and hybrid formats, stressing the importance of a...
Coachella 2026 Wasn’t Just a Music Festival; It Was a Brand Universe
Coachella 2026 transcended a music event, becoming a sprawling brand universe where beauty, spirits, AI and hospitality brands built immersive experiences. Hailey Bieber’s Rhode launch, Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila outpost, and Red Bull’s 20,000‑sq‑ft Mirage turned product drops into cultural...
Google Details AI Push Against Harmful Ads
Google announced that its Gemini‑powered AI models are now filtering harmful ads more effectively, removing 438.6 million ads and suspending 594,000 advertiser accounts in Australia during 2025. The same technology blocked over 8.3 billion ads worldwide and shut down 24.9 million accounts, including...
BCM Group Launches Search Works, to Unify Owned, Earned and Paid in an AI Era
Queensland‑based BCM Group has launched Search Works, a data‑driven brand visibility platform that replaces traditional SEO with an adaptive SEO/GEO model tailored for AI‑powered search. The service, led by Managing Director Lukas Temple, already secured new clients Youi Insurance and...
Pinterest's Plea: 'Put Down Your Phones'
Pinterest is rolling out a "How did they do it" ad campaign that tells users to put down their phones and live offline, debuting on May 1 across TV, cinema, out‑of‑home and digital channels. The company frames its platform as engineered...
The Content Cultures That Last Have One Thing in Common
Content programs often lose momentum after about 18 months, with only 22% of B2B marketers rating their efforts as highly successful. Research from the Content Marketing Institute shows that 62% of the winners have a documented content strategy aligned to...
Facebook Wants to Scan Users’ Camera Rolls for Content
Meta has begun testing an opt‑in camera‑roll suggestion feature for Facebook users in the United Kingdom. The tool scans a device’s photo library, identifies standout moments and proposes ready‑made collages, videos or story drafts that can be posted to Feed,...
Instagram Expands Your Algorithm Tool to Explore
Instagram is extending its "Your Algorithm" content‑recommendation tool from Reels to the Explore feed, allowing users to fine‑tune the topics they see across both surfaces. The feature, first tested on Reels in October, now appears for English‑language users in Explore,...
How to Use AI Brand Monitoring for Always-On Brand Health
AI‑driven brand monitoring is shifting from a niche advantage to a baseline requirement as the internet’s content volume explodes. Large‑language models synthesize mentions across social, news, forums and emerging AI chatbots, turning raw volume into thematic insights and nuanced sentiment....
How to Create AI Agents for Social Media Marketing
Social media teams are overwhelmed by the volume of platforms and messages, prompting a shift toward AI agents that can autonomously generate content, monitor trends, and handle customer interactions. The guide outlines how to build such agents—from selecting LLMs and...
Threads Expands Social Media Management Functionality
Meta’s Threads platform is rolling out a suite of API enhancements that let brands cross‑share to Instagram Stories, schedule posts up to 10,000 characters, embed content without tokens, and receive real‑time notifications. The changes also lower the follower threshold for...
YouTube Lets Users Remove Shorts From Its Home Feed Via Timer Setting
YouTube has expanded its time‑management settings to let any user set the Shorts feed limit to zero minutes, effectively removing Shorts from the home feed. The option, first introduced in October 2025 with a 15‑minute minimum and later limited to parental...
3D DOOH Goes Local: How Brands Are Driving Store Visits Faster
Big Happy’s 3D digital‑out‑of‑home (DOOH) platform is shifting from pure brand awareness to a measurable performance channel by slashing production cycles to under a month and integrating mobile retargeting. Recent campaigns, including a retail activation during a peak shopping period,...
Podcasting’s Audio Primes, YouTube Limits Livestream Ads, & More
The Sounds Profitable report introduces "Audio Primes," listeners who consume at least 75% of podcasts as pure audio and show lower enthusiasm for AI‑generated voices than video‑first audiences. YouTube rolled out two livestream features that pause ads when viewers send...
Introducing the Newest Edition to Your Team: The Marketing Engineer | Vol 288
Profound announced a new Marketing Engineer role that blends marketing strategy with technical execution, offering a free certification through Profound University. The position is designed to build AI‑driven agents, automations, and end‑to‑end workflows that accelerate existing processes and create capabilities...
PR Roundup: Creators Get Certified, Bieb-Chella Buzz and Philanthropy’s Trust Problem
The Institute for Responsible Influence unveiled a Responsible Influence Certification Program, giving creators a seal that proves they understand FTC disclosure rules and truth‑in‑advertising standards. Justin Bieber dominated Coachella’s social conversation, accounting for roughly 30% of posts and generating 340 million...
Fibr AI Launches Ads-to-Web and LLM-to-Web Personalization to Convert Paid and AI-Referred Traffic
Fibr AI unveiled Ads‑to‑Web and LLM‑to‑Web personalization, technologies that carry the intent expressed in paid ads or AI‑generated queries through to the landing page. The platform can spin up to 1,500 tailored page variants in under two weeks, delivering 35‑50%...
Moloco Launches AI-Powered Performance CTV for App Marketers
Moloco has introduced Moloco Ads for Performance CTV, extending its AI‑driven advertising technology to connected‑TV inventory. The platform optimizes each impression in real time, targeting specific marketing outcomes while leveraging advertisers' chosen mobile measurement partners for attribution. It promises premium,...
Albertsons Media Collective Offers New Measurement for Advertisers
Albertsons Media Collective launched an onsite incrementality measurement tool that isolates the causal impact of display ads on sales using test‑and‑control frameworks. The solution, dubbed iROAS, quantifies revenue generated solely by advertising, revealing up to a 6.5‑fold variance across campaigns....
The Team Behind Zohran Mamdani’s Viral Campaign Wants More Political Candidates to Get Candid on Social Media
At AD Week, Melted Solids—co‑founders Anthony DiMieri and Debbie Saslaw—and video director Donald Borenstein broke down the social‑video playbook that helped Zohran Mamdani win New York City’s mayoral race. Their strategy centered on authentic, on‑the‑fly footage that let Mamdani riff in...
Target Puts Creators at Forefront of Pokémon Anniversary Campaign
Target is launching a 100‑item Pokémon × Target collection to mark the franchise’s 30th anniversary, rolling out May 2‑June 6 in select stores and online. The campaign puts social creators such as Sydeon and SuperDuperDani front‑and‑center as “trainers,” extending the promotion across social, digital,...
IAB: Ad Revenue Reached $294.6B In 2025
The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that total internet advertising revenue hit a record $294.6 billion in 2025, a 13.9% year‑over‑year increase. Social‑media ads led the surge, generating $117.7 billion and accounting for 40% of the market, driven by the creator economy and...
5W PR Launches Digital Growth Program Tailored to B2B Clients
5W PR unveiled a new digital growth program aimed at B2B companies in technology, enterprise solutions, and professional services. The offering fuses public relations, search‑engine optimization, generative engine optimization (GEO) and content creation into a single growth engine. It promises...