Today's Marketing Pulse
McKinsey predicts agentic AI will power two‑thirds of marketing activities
McKinsey’s new report forecasts that agentic AI could drive up to two‑thirds of marketing activities, shifting AI from a productivity add‑on to a core campaign engine. Early adopters are already using generative tools, while the next wave will involve autonomous agents that coordinate decisions across workflows. The firm outlines a five‑step roadmap for implementation.
Prime Video Makes 'The Boys' Flagship of 2026 Slate, Betting on Subscriber Growth
Prime Video has positioned the fifth season of "The Boys" as the centerpiece of its 2026 content slate. The move underscores Amazon's strategy to use high‑profile original series to attract new subscribers and deepen engagement, as the show debuted at #2 on Prime Video’s charts and earned strong reviews.
YouTube Deploys Conversational AI to Smart TVs, Unlocking New Video Ad Real Estate
YouTube has extended its conversational AI tool to smart televisions, gaming consoles and streaming devices, giving advertisers a fresh interactive format on a platform that already commands more than 12% of TV audience share. The feature, accessed via an “Ask”...
OpenAI Sets Sights on $100 Billion Advertising Market by 2030, Unveils Cybersecurity Model
OpenAI announced plans to pursue a $100 billion advertising empire by 2030 and will pilot a new cybersecurity framework for its ad‑tech services. The move positions the AI firm as a potential rival to established programmatic platforms and raises security questions...
One NZ’s ‘Finding Jade’ Campaign Returns Via McCann
One New Zealand has launched the third chapter of its “Finding Jade” campaign, produced by McCann New Zealand. The new instalment follows Jade and his friend Pepper on a cross‑country quest to locate Jade’s biological father, filmed entirely in New Zealand and featuring...
Polestar Australia and Designteam Set a New Benchmark for Automotive Launch Experiences
Polestar Australia partnered with design agency Designteam to unveil the Polestar 5 electric performance GT through a narrative‑driven "Story Studio" experience. The launch unfolded in two phases—a national reveal and a showcase at the Melbourne International Motor Show—featuring a three‑act journey...
Clear Tackles Hair Loss in Turkey with ‘Scalp Before Skin’ Campaign via Ogilvy Singapore
Clear, Unilever’s scalp‑care brand, teamed with Ogilvy Singapore to launch the “Scalp Before Skin” campaign in Istanbul on World Health Day. The initiative reframes scalp health as a preventive step, targeting Turkish men aged 25‑35 who are increasingly interested in...
Wealth Managers Drop $1 Million Minimums to Court HENRYs
Boutique wealth‑management firms are abandoning the traditional $1 million asset minimum, aiming to attract “HENRY” clients—high‑earners not yet rich—who earn $250,000 to $500,000 a year. The shift reflects pressure from robo‑advisors and the looming multitrillion‑dollar wealth transfer.
Social Becomes Frontline CX, Forcing CMOs to Rethink Strategy
New research from CMSWire shows that social platforms are now the primary customer‑experience touchpoint for many brands, exposing a blind spot in most CX strategies. The study warns that unanswered social interactions are perceived as indifference, prompting CMOs to treat...
Hyatt to Launch India’s First Locally Inspired Hotel Brand
Hyatt Hotels Corp. unveiled plans to create India’s first hotel brand built around local heritage, citing the country’s untapped tourism potential. The move follows the success of Hyatt’s Atona concept in Japan and targets tier‑1 and tier‑2 cities such as...
Netflix Debuts 'Playground' Kids Gaming App, Expanding Into Mobile Play
Netflix has launched Playground, a dedicated mobile gaming app for children available on iOS and Android. The move extends Netflix’s brand into interactive entertainment for families and could boost subscriber stickiness.
Google and Shopify Unveil Universal Commerce Protocol, Shifting E‑commerce to AI Agents
Google and Shopify introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at the NRF conference, collapsing discovery, checkout and payment into a single AI‑driven conversational interaction. The shift threatens traditional e‑commerce funnels and forces marketers to rethink measurement, visibility and monetization strategies.
How We Built Agents That Understand The Language of Product Analytics
Amplitude unveiled its Global Agent, an AI‑driven analytics assistant that leverages the platform’s own semantic layer to provide context‑rich answers to product‑data questions. By embedding event taxonomy, dashboards, experiments and custom knowledge bases, the agent can retrieve and reason over...
Teaching Marketing—But Are We Doing It Well Ourselves?
Guest faculty Unmisha Bhatt highlights a paradox: Indian institutes excel at teaching brand strategy yet lag in showcasing their own legacy online. A study of six million searches and 28 million social engagements shows Instagram #campusdiaries posts now serve as the...
ChatGPT Pulls SEO Answers Straight From Google
I asked ChatGPT about pagination in SEO - it defaulted to Thinking Model (5.4) for a better answer, and as a result of its laser-targeted fan-out searches (including site: searches), ALL of the responses came from Google. In other words -...
Orchestrate Launches First, Content Follows Naturally
I studied a dozen tiny solopreneur businesses doing $3k–$30k/month. The pattern: They’re not short on content ideas. They’re short on orchestration. Hours writing posts. Minutes mapping launches. When your OS starts with: - launch dates - revenue targets - offer stack …content becomes downstream, not a separate job. That’s the mental...
X Boosts Incentives for Original Content Creators
X announced a revamp of its creator revenue‑share program to prioritize original content. The company will cut aggregator payouts to 60% for the current cycle and plans a further 20% reduction in the next cycle. New detection tools will allocate...
AI Generates Complete Site Architecture to Prevent Future Mess
I built a skill for Claude Code that plans your entire site architecture — page hierarchy, URL structure, navigation, and internal linking. You tell it your site type and goals, and it maps out every page you need in a visual...
Mazda CX-5 Campaign Drives Surge In Attention, Brand Perception
Mazda’s CX‑5 launch leveraged a cinematic campaign that debuted a 60‑second trailer during the 98th Academy Awards and rolled out five genre‑specific short films. The effort, built by WPP’s VML, included a custom ad selector on HBO Max and Hulu, letting...
Google March 2026 Core Update Visibility Shifts & Patterns In the US
Google’s March 2026 core update reshaped US search visibility, pulling traffic away from intermediary, aggregator and quick‑answer sites toward stronger, more authoritative destinations. Across verticals—dictionary, jobs, government, travel, real estate, health and finance—domains like Merriam‑Webster, Wikipedia, Amazon.jobs, Census.gov and Zillow saw...
Why Ecommerce SEO Is More Complicated Than It Looks
E‑commerce SEO is far more complex than standard website SEO because online stores must optimize thousands of product pages, manage crawl‑budget constraints, and handle faceted navigation. Technical factors such as page speed, duplicate content, and structured data become critical, especially...
Google Backs Immersive Eyewear Brand Gentle Monster's Retail Revolution
Big fan of Google’s $100m investment in Gentle Monster to do smart glsses. Been to a few of its stores and layouts are slick. The South Korean lux eyewear brand does ~$600m a year. Retail setups have dope sculptures and 3D...
Social Media Week Serves as Marketing’s Candid Reality Check Amid Budget Strains
Social Media Week highlighted that more than 60% of marketers now struggle to measure ROI across channels, underscoring tightening budgets and eroding trust in platform metrics. Speakers urged a move from hype to disciplined execution, signaling a pragmatic turn in...
Hulu Pushes Three Feel‑good Series for Sunday, Backed by $12.99 Bundle Deal
Hulu is promoting a Sunday lineup of three feel‑good series— the revived 'Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair', family‑friendly 'Pets on a Train', and reality hit 'Married at First Sight'— while offering a Disney+ bundle for $12.99 per month....
![Hot Pursuit: Watch This Harbinger Electric Van Chase Down a Package Thief [Video]](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/04/harbinger_CHASE.jpg?resize=1200%2C628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Hot Pursuit: Watch This Harbinger Electric Van Chase Down a Package Thief [Video]
Harbinger released a promotional video featuring its all‑electric delivery van accelerating at 440 hp and 1,200 lb‑ft of torque while chasing a package thief. The ad highlights rapid acceleration, a tight turning radius, and high‑performance credentials of the medium‑duty EV. It positions...
Epic Games Teams with Disney to Revive Fortnite with New Characters
Epic Games has struck a partnership with Disney to embed Disney franchise characters into Fortnite, a move designed to rekindle player interest after the game’s downturn and a recent layoff of over 1,000 staff. The collaboration follows Disney’s 2023 $1.5 billion...
Facebook Shuts Down Analytics Platform June 30, Shifting Marketers to Three New Tools
Facebook announced the retirement of its standalone Analytics dashboard effective June 30, redirecting users to three alternative reporting interfaces. The move reflects declining demand for panel‑based data, heightened privacy regulations, and a strategic focus on social commerce. Marketers must now...
Five9 Names Jay Lee Chief Marketing and Growth Officer to Drive AI‑Powered B2B Demand
Five9 announced the appointment of Jay Lee as its first Chief Marketing and Growth Officer, tasking him with unifying marketing, data and revenue functions to boost AI‑driven customer experience. The move signals a strategic push to scale B2B demand generation...
Turning Loom Videos Into Multi‑Channel Customer Education
Going to make it a mission that every customer knows and learns our top capabilities in Gong. Like everything we've rolled out the last year. Spent 2 hours this afternoon: -10 Loom Videos -Queue'd up Loom Videos on YouTube Series -Took Transcripts from...
Generative Engine Optimization: The New Tech Hustle or a CX Reality?
The marketing world is moving from traditional SEO to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), where large language models like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini decide which sources appear in AI‑generated answers. Because these platforms hide query volumes and ranking formulas, a new...
2X Names Emily Atkinson Chief Client Officer to Operationalize Its Unified GTM Engine
2X announced Emily Atkinson as its new Chief Client Officer, a role created to unify the company’s go‑to‑market (GTM) engine across strategy, execution, technology, and AI. Atkinson will oversee the global client organization, aiming to close the execution gap that...
Aave's Landmark Vote Makes DAO Treasury Token‑Centric
Aave Will Win, the most important proposal in Aave's history just passed with a landslide. Here's the master plan going forward: General Direction - Aave becomes fully token-centric: one asset, one model: $AAVE - To date, protocol revenue per AIP-1 has accumulated to the...
Reddit Demands Authenticity, Not Spammy Lead Funnels
Reddit is not your free billboard. It's not a marketing channel where you dump your landing page, cross your fingers, and wait for conversions. It's one of the last places on the internet where strangers will give you brutally honest feedback if...
Meta Spent $88 Billion on a Brand No One Asked For
Meta poured roughly $88 billion into its seven‑year Metaverse push, yet the platform never attracted more than about 900 daily active users. The effort failed because it tried to invent a new category without a clear consumer need, delivered a subpar...
CDP Market Projected to Top $9.7 B by 2026, Fueling Sales Ops Innovation
Markets & Markets estimates the global customer data platform (CDP) market will grow from roughly $9.7 billion in 2023 to a substantially larger size by 2026. The forecast underscores how unified first‑party data is becoming a cornerstone for sales, revenue operations,...
Reliance Jio Launches ₹189 SIM‑Active Plan, the Cheapest Voice‑focused Offering in India
Reliance Jio has unveiled a ₹189 (about $2.30) SIM‑active recharge that delivers unlimited voice calls, 300 SMS and 2 GB of data for 28 days. The plan follows the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) push for low‑cost voice‑only tariffs and...
Reddit AI Visibility Webinar Claims 2,000% Search Lift and Six‑Figure Deals
Search Engine Journal will host a May 5 webinar that outlines a five‑stage Reddit community framework promising up to a 2,000% increase in AI‑search visibility within 90 days and the potential to close six‑figure enterprise contracts. The session is led by...
Shake Shack Rolls Out Project Catalyst to Power AI‑Driven Loyalty and Unified Commerce
Shake Shack announced Project Catalyst, a technology overhaul that adds AI‑powered loyalty, unified commerce and edge‑based POS upgrades. Partnering with cloud‑native platform Qu, the chain aims to scale to 1,500 company‑operated restaurants while tightening direct guest relationships.
How to Turn Claude Into a Content Writing System in 11 Steps
Sifu Yik outlines an 11‑step framework that transforms Claude from a simple chat tool into a full‑fledged content operating system. The guide emphasizes enabling Memory, creating Projects, uploading style guides, and using adaptive thinking to keep the AI aligned with...
Copywriting Frameworks Differ only by Pressure Point
Every copywriting framework has the same goal: get someone to take action. PAS, AIDA, BAB, PASTOR. All of them. The only real difference is where they put the pressure. PAS puts the pressure on the pain. You name a problem and make it...
AI-Generated Content Floods SERPs, Threatening Sustainability
It works until it doesn't... but it's still working for now. This one will be interesting to watch. Massive scaled content abuse. Nearly 1M pages indexed now. Surging like crazy in the SERPs. Including news surfaces. I don't think this...
Building Your Agentic Company
The post outlines how organizations can evolve into "agentic companies" by structuring work around AI agents rather than traditional human teams. It defines six foundational building blocks—company, teams, agents, projects, tasks, and skills—and explains how agents function as role‑based entities...
Newsletter Hits 21k, Seeks 22k Milestone
It’s wild to blink and now have 21,586 people subscribe to my newsletter. That’s 4x the following of my X! Feels like yesterday (Jan 2023) when I was ~outbounding my dad, family and friends to subscribe. Each week: -Content of the week (top...
10 Hidden Email Issues Plaguing Every E‑commerce Account
These 10 email problems show up in almost every ecom account we audit. Including the ones that look like they’re running fine. (bookmark this) https://t.co/TmpJZsENk4
Your Profile Is the Secret Sauce of Social Selling
The “Secret Sauce” of Social Selling: Why Your Profile is Your Best Pitch by @Timothy_Hughes https://t.co/8dMzYaxhZ9 @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesTips #SalesLeader #Salesforce #SalesEnablement #RevOps #Leadership #Marketing #MarketingStrategy https://t.co/cNyj9Po9SR
Beware Scams: GEO/AEO Won’t Replace SEO
Fun fact: if someone tries to sell you something by saying “GEO/AEO is replacing SEO. Your website can rank #1 on Google but be invisible in ChatGPT” there’s a very high chance they are lying to you and scamming you.
Turn Functional Brands Into Emotional Movements
#TimTalk - Using the Dove’s iconic campaign as an example - How do you transform a functional brand to an emotional movement? with Luan Wise and Dr. Tom Bowden-Green https://t.co/8ciqTwj3Yo via @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Marketing #MarketingStrategy #MarketingSuccess #MarketingTips
IA Outperforms BAU in $100k A/B Test
A/B test results against BAU vs IA test All creative / setup the exact same about $100k in spend so far IA is the top result - very curious if these will continue to hold. https://t.co/BBA731MpGN
Content Marketing Success Starts Before and After Creation
Let’s debunk the biggest myth about content marketing… It’s not just about the content. It’s about what you do before and after creating it that matters most.. https://t.co/XPc4Og70VS
Make Google Search Console Your Primary SEO Tool
Focus on Google Search Console as your main SEO tool. The rest for guessing, but I guess guessing is better than not guessing 🤣
Automate SEO Title Tags with AI for Instant CTR
Why are SEOs still manually writing title tags when Claude can generate 20 variations optimized for CTR and search intent in 15 seconds? Just plug your Ahrefs, GA4, GSC, build your dashboard, plug your CMS, monitor the situation and approve...