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 all marketing functions, shifting AI from a productivity add‑on to a core strategic engine. The analysis notes early adopters are using generative tools, while the next wave will involve autonomous agents that orchestrate decisions across workflows, guided by a five‑step implementation roadmap.
Amazon, TikTok, Warner Music Lead Creator Economy Hiring Surge
Amazon, TikTok and Warner Music Group posted the most creator‑economy jobs in the latest weekly radar, signaling a push to expand content distribution and partnership teams. The hiring wave also includes fashion‑beauty brands and influencer agencies, underscoring broader industry investment in creator services.
"Long-Term Agency Partnerships Deliver the Magic": ITC’s Shuvadip Banerjee
ITC, a Rs 73,000 crore (≈ $8.8 bn) conglomerate, is accelerating its digital‑first agenda across its FMCG arm, which now generates roughly Rs 22,000 crore (≈ $2.6 bn) in revenue from brands like Aashirvaad, Sunfeast and Bingo. The company relies on an internal AI‑driven engine called "Sixth Sense"...
Practice Marketing Insider
In this 90‑second episode, Christy Plantinga of Place Digital debunks common, outdated marketing myths for therapy practices—like the need for a full website redesign or the belief that Google Ads always outperforms SEO. She highlights how AI and emerging mental‑health...
#OpEd: Brand Loyalty Programmes Drive Growth — the Maths Disagrees
Marketers in South Africa cling to loyalty programmes despite evidence they barely move growth. The latest Truth & BrandMapp whitepaper shows 82% of consumers belong to an average of 10.3 programmes, yet brand allegiance is eroding. Academic research, from Reichheld’s...
How HubSpot AI Agents Conquer the Midnight Shift
HubSpot unveiled its upgraded AI Customer Agent, Ruru, at the Grow conference in Sydney, where the New Zealand motorhome rental firm Wilderness deployed the bot to cover a 12‑hour overnight window. By quantifying a worst‑case hallucination loss at $15,000, Wilderness...
How Digital Maturity in Tier 2+ India Is Redefining Trust & Brand Loyalty
Digital maturity in India’s Tier 2+ towns—Jhansi, Tumakuru, Siliguri—is reshaping how brands earn trust. Consumers skip the desktop era, moving straight to mobile, then demand laptops that feel like extensions of their phones. Brands that blend affordable hardware with optimized software,...
Physie Finds Its Feel-Good in First National Campaign via Elevencom and Pearman Media
BJP Physie, a century‑old Australian dance‑sport organization, has launched its first national advertising campaign in partnership with creative agency Elevencom and media buyer Pearman Media. The "find your feel‑good at Physie" campaign rolls out on bus‑sides, BVOD, YouTube and social...
Think Turkey Teams with AJ Lawson for 'You Turkey' Campaign
Think Turkey has teamed up with professional basketball player AJ Lawson for its "You Turkey" campaign, launching a 15‑second television spot that debuted during the U.S. college basketball championships. The ad will run through the professional basketball championship series and be...
Yes, Retail Investment Needs a Boost – but the Squirrel Looks Too Tame | Nils Pratley
The UK Treasury has launched the "Savvy Squirrel" campaign, backed by a multi‑year advertising budget, to persuade retail savers to shift cash out of low‑yield accounts and into diversified assets. Barclays’ Equity Gilt Study shows cash saved from 2004‑2024 lost...
Disney Transports Brands Back to 80s World Rutshire to Mark Rivals Season 2
Disney Advertising has secured its first product‑integration deals for a scripted Hulu Original on Disney+ in the UK, partnering with four brands for season two of *Rivals*. Waitrose will recreate an 80s‑themed shop and launch a “Noshtalgia” food line, while...
Seven Tips for Writing Conference Recaps Readers Can’t Help but Pass on to Their Colleagues
Conference recaps serve as both a marketing engine and a scalable client‑service tool, positioning firms as thought leaders while educating clients on industry trends. The article outlines seven actionable tips, from adopting a dual‑track “me vs them” mindset to using...
Hearst News All-In-One: Publisher Cuts Deal To Help Programmatic Advertisers
Hearst News has struck a deal with ad‑tech firm Magnite to create an all‑in‑one programmatic marketplace for its 80 million‑strong audience. The partnership will enable high‑impact formats such as web exit‑intent placements, CTV pause ads, and dynamic video through Magnite’s SpringServe...
Bing Webmaster Tools' Brand Prompts Reveal SEO Mismatches
There's some really good stuff in Bing Webmaster Tools now that you can get branded grounding prompts. We found that GEO can mean something very different to copilot, but what I really loved was seeing the brand prompts and...
Why Your Instagram Strategy Stopped Working (and What to Do Instead)
Instagram reach drops in 2026 stem from changed user behavior, not a mysterious platform penalty. Users now scroll faster, follow fewer accounts, and demand immediate value, prompting the algorithm to prioritize watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach....
New AI Marketing Tools Aim to Produce Pro-Quality Content
Delta Media Group unveiled Delta Create Studio, an AI‑driven design tool embedded in its DeltaNET CRM, letting agents generate flyers, postcards and social graphics directly from listing data. Startup Editora introduced an AI “creative director” that turns property photos into...
Dick’s Sporting Goods Tries Out AI-Powered Coaches From Adobe
Dick’s Sporting Goods has partnered with Adobe to embed AI‑powered “digital coaches” into its mobile app, offering sport‑specific training tips and personalized product recommendations. The rollout leverages Adobe Brand Concierge, while Adobe Experience Platform will unify shopper data across the...
Old El Paso Celebrates Rare "Taco Totality" With Exclusive Merch and Tacos for Fans Nationwide
Old El Paso is marking the first "Taco Totality" since 2020—a rare convergence of Cinco de Mayo and Taco Tuesday that won’t recur until 2037—by launching a limited‑edition Taco Totality Gear Box. The box bundles new TABASCO‑flavored taco shells, a...
Schiaparelli Unveils Art‑Inspired Pop‑Up Takeover at Harrods
Schiaparelli has transformed key areas of Harrods with art‑inspired pop‑up installations that showcase its iconic golden keyhole motif and promote the new book “Anglomaniac.” The takeover coincides with the Victoria and Albert Museum’s “Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art” exhibition, marking the...
Iterable Rolls Out Nova Agent AI Platform to Power Real‑Time Personalization
Iterable unveiled Nova Agent, an autonomous AI engine that automates campaign building, optimization and analysis in real time. The platform aims to close the gap between fast‑moving customer behavior and legacy marketing workflows, giving brands a faster path from data...
Ulta Beauty and Google Deploy Gemini AI to Transform Online Beauty Shopping
Ulta Beauty and Google announced a Gemini‑enabled shopping experience that integrates the Universal Commerce Protocol across Google Search, the Gemini app and Ulta’s own sites. The partnership promises real‑time product recommendations and checkout without leaving the discovery surface, marking a...
Hisense UR9 RGB Mini‑LED TV Hits 93% BT.2020 Coverage, Sets New Color Benchmark
Hisense unveiled its UR9 RGB Mini‑LED TV, which Tom's Guide measured at 93% BT.2020 color coverage, surpassing leading QD‑OLED and SQD Mini‑LED models. The launch coincides with Hisense's World Cup 2026 campaign, positioning the set as the most colorful consumer...
YouTube Names SiriusXM Media Exclusive U.S. Audio Ad Representative, Unlocking 255 Million Listeners
YouTube has appointed SiriusXM Media as the exclusive sales representative for its U.S. audio advertising inventory. The deal, effective fall 2026, lets brands buy guaranteed audio impressions that reach up to 255 million monthly listeners, nearly 90% of Americans aged 13...
Google, iHeartMedia and PBS Win Top Honors at 2026 Webby Awards
Google, iHeartMedia and PBS dominated the 30th Annual Webby Awards, each taking the top honor in their category. The wins underscore the growing importance of brand storytelling, podcasting and public‑media outreach in digital marketing.
How to Influence LLM Responses?
Brandwatch released a quartet of spring blog posts that map out actionable tactics for marketers. The pieces cover a curated list of 20 May social‑media holidays, the analytical upside of merging social and search data, step‑by‑step guidance for boosting brand...
From Guangdong to New Mexico, Craft-Focused Brands Are Shaping Fashion’s Future
Heritage craftsmanship is becoming a strategic differentiator for emerging fashion labels worldwide. Brands such as Bode, Diotima, Josh Tafoya, Kinyan Lam, and Suket Dhir are reviving traditional techniques—from up‑cycled antique textiles to Jamaican crochet, Rio Grande weaving, natural Chinese dyes, and Indian Jamdani...
Advertisers Are Optimistic About Netflix’s Dynamic Ad Options
Netflix is expanding its ad-supported tier by offering dynamic ad insertion (DAI) for the 2027 Women’s World Cup broadcast. The streamer’s ad revenue is projected to reach $3 billion in 2026, reflecting steady growth since the ad tier launched in 2022....
Your Next Client Is Already in Your Network
🔥hot take: your next client is probably already in your network. you just don't have a system for staying in front of them. if i only had 5 minutes a day to move the needle on my business relationships, i'd follow...
AI Turns Coffee Brand Ideas Into Instant Reality
Been wanting to open a coffee brand and coffee shop, so I mocked up the whole thing with ChatGPT’s new image generator. Brand world, packaging, storefront, interiors, the whole vibe. Honestly kind of wild how fast you can now go from idea...
Canva Acquisitions Expands Marketing AI Capabilities
Canva announced the acquisition of Simtheory, an AI workspace for building custom agents, and Ortto, a customer‑data and marketing‑automation platform. The deals are intended to transform Canva from a design‑centric service into an end‑to‑end AI marketing platform under the Canva...
Tailor Demos to Buyer's Problem, Not Product Features
I watched a rep lose a $300K deal because he used the product team's demo. It was a polished demo, actually. But it was built to show features, not to answer the specific problem the buyer named twenty minutes earlier on the...
Barilla Selects SAMY As Global Influencer Marketing Partner
Barilla has appointed social‑first agency SAMY as its global influencer‑marketing partner, launching a unified creator strategy across Italy, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark. The partnership follows a formal pitch process and will deliver strategic playbooks that preserve Barilla’s brand...
Claude Design Turns Brand Guidelines Into Ready Slides
been using claude design and loving it it's basically claude code under the hood but with a very opinionated ontology for input and output - the input ontology is logo, colors, fonts, etc. - the output ontology is slides, decks, business cards as...
Creator Exit Playbook: How MatPat Built — and Sold — a YouTube Empire
Matthew "MatPat" Patrick and his wife Stephanie sold Theorist Media, the YouTube network behind Game Theory and its spinoffs, to Lunar X in 2022. At the time of the deal the company operated four channels with a combined 34 million subscribers...
Seedance 2.0 Delivers Ultra‑Realistic AI UGC Ads
How I Make (insanely) Realistic AI UGC ads with Seedance 2.0 WATCH HERE 👉 https://t.co/WXdgLmQEox In this video, I show you how I use Seedance 2 to create insanely realistic AI UGC ads for dropshipping. The biggest game changer is the...
Applovin Rescues Clients as Meta Experiences Major Outages
Applovin is my saving grace for all these bugs on Meta right now. Things are actually doing really decent for a number of clients while Meta is down bad.
Ulta Partners With Google Gemini To Power Agentic AI For Beauty Shoppers
Ulta Beauty has teamed with Google to embed the Gemini generative‑AI model into its website, mobile app, and product listings across Google Search, Shopping, YouTube, Lens and the Gemini discovery platform. The partnership leverages Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, allowing shoppers...
Google AI Mode Shows Citations as Person Names
Look at this super weird way Google is changing title links / citations in AI Mode - just the name of the person, with a link to the place they were mentioned @glenngabe @rustybrick https://t.co/ihFss0tQvp
Scale Proven Content Pillars with Dedicated Accounts
This will be the future of content pillars. Have a specific content pillar that’s proven to work. Test repeatable concepts around it. Create another account for it. Scale the show on that account.
Xbox Isn't Ditching Mobile Games, Says New CEO
Microsoft appointed Asha Sharma as Xbox CEO, promptly retiring the "This is an Xbox" campaign. Sharma clarified that the previously hinted Xbox mobile games store is still in development, underscoring a more open, cross‑platform vision. The move follows a recent...
Just 4.3% of Brands Reach Early Buyer Questions
"Only 4.3% of companies maintain a healthy discovery funnel where their brands appear in early-stage buyer questions." Wow.
Google Prioritizes Non‑Commodity Content Over Commodity
Very informative slide via Google's Danny Sullivan explaining the difference between "Commodity" vs "Non-Commodity" content Google prefers the later IMO, lots of evidence this is spot-on, not where Google is going in the future, but where it already is now via @ChouinardJC https://t.co/PcVtb2N7MV
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,...
Past Buyers Respond Differently: Apparel
Apparel brand advertising new drops to past buyers: high incrementality. vs Supplement brand advertising the same bottle to past buyers: low incrementality.
Search Is Behavior—Be Everywhere Your Audience Looks
"Search is a behavior, not a channel.” — Lacey Reichwald Your audience is “searching” on TikTok, YouTube, AI tools… not just Google. Are you showing up everywhere they look? Full interview 👉 https://t.co/gVeYqeVDov @ahamediagroup #marketingstrategy #hcmktg https://t.co/qBsry4BqoG
EXCLUSIVE: DISNEY PUSHES “PRADA 2” WITH INFLUENCERS BEFORE AWFUL REVIEWS COME OUT
Disney staged a high‑profile, tent‑covered premiere of *The Devil Wears Prada 2* at Lincoln Center, livestreaming arrivals on Disney+. The studio deliberately kept critics out, substituting them with a cadre of fashion and lifestyle influencers who flooded social feeds with glowing...
Structure Your Blog First, Rankings Follow
Google doesn't hate your blog posts. You're publishing without structure. That's why nothing ranks. Site-wide: - Topical map - Pillar pages - Hubs or clusters Page-level: - Competitive research - Consensus analysis - Keyword data Structure first. Writing second.
Typeface Brings Agentic Marketing Orchestration to Google Cloud
Typeface, a marketing orchestration engine provider, has integrated its Agentic Content layer with Google Cloud and is now a featured independent software vendor on the Cloud Marketplace. The integration uses Typeface’s Arc Graph brand‑intelligence system and Arc Forge workflow engine within Google’s...
NIQ Partners with Stirista
NIQ, a consumer intelligence firm, has partnered with Stirista, an identity‑driven marketing platform, to build new audience solutions and media‑planning tools for advertisers. The collaboration will combine NIQ's omnichannel shopper insights with Stirista's privacy‑safe data on mobile usage, professional status,...
SAP and Google Cloud Expand Partnership to Deploy Multi-Agent AI
SAP and Google Cloud have deepened their alliance by linking SAP Engagement Cloud, SAP Customer Experience and Joule solutions with Google’s Gemini Enterprise AI platform. The integration enables marketers to deploy multi‑agent AI that accesses unified data across both ecosystems...
Win in Saturated Markets with Better Offer, Marketing
I spent years trying to find 'unsaturated' products. Never found one. I made my first million selling a 'saturated' product with a better offer and better marketing. Stop looking for no competition. Start being better competition.