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.
Beckham Launches Pepsi’s ‘Football Nation’
Pepsi has launched "Football Nation," a World Cup‑timed campaign fronted by long‑time brand ambassador David Beckham. The ad features a roster of celebrity guests, including chef Gordon Ramsay, and is produced by entertainment agency Big Time Creative. With a creative rating of 6.5 on the MAA scale, the spot blends music, sport and humor to capture global football fever. The initiative positions Pepsi to compete more aggressively for consumer attention during the 2026 tournament.
Is Your AI Readiness a Mirage? By AtData
Marketers are rushing to label initiatives as AI‑powered, but many overlook a critical flaw: the quality of the data feeding those models. AtData argues that fragmented, outdated or fraudulent identity data produces confident yet misleading outputs, turning AI into a...
Is Your AI Readiness a Mirage? By AtData
AtData warns that many marketers mistake data volume for AI readiness, overlooking the quality of the inputs that feed models. Fragmented, outdated or fraudulent identity data leads AI to amplify errors, producing misleading targeting and conversion metrics. The article argues...
AI's True Value: Enhancing Quality Over Speed
The current cycle of AI is focused on cost reduction. (I think that's kind of lame.) Look at AI. Objectively: it's fast. But fast doesn't mean effective. What's effective is doing things BETTER. A t-shirt made of cheap polyester is fast. It ships quick...
Anthony Joshua Fronts Wilkinson Sword Campaign
Wilkinson Sword has launched its latest Quattro campaign, titled “Protect What’s Important,” featuring heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua. The effort is part of the brand’s Blade Masters platform, introduced in 2024, and positions the razor as a tool for confidence, discipline...
Super Mario Galaxy Movie Nears $750 Million Globally, Tops Box Office Third Week
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has pulled in $747 million worldwide and led the domestic box office for a third straight weekend, marking the biggest global cinema revenue story of the day. Its sustained performance underscores Nintendo’s rare ability to turn...
Is AI Redefining the Structure of Marketing Teams? SailPoint and The Ortus Club Examine the Future of Work at Singapore...
SailPoint and The Ortus Club will host a keynote at the Singapore B2B Marketing Summit to explore how generative AI and automation are reshaping marketing team structures. The session, titled “The AI Imperative,” will examine which tasks should be automated,...
The Chain Reaction
The article introduces the “chain reaction of attraction”®, a modern spin on age‑old evangelism. It argues that businesses should focus on courting a small group of high‑influence individuals rather than mass‑appealing to thousands. By securing these key connectors, a brand...
CMOs Turn to Hybrid Human‑AI Pods to Accelerate Marketing Agility
Chief marketing officers are reorganizing their departments into modular pods that combine adaptive AI with creative and analytical talent. The new structure promises up to a 30% lift in efficiency, helping brands keep pace with volatile markets and heightened customer...
Henkel Bloo Taps Into Retail Media With WPP Media Partnership
Henkel has teamed with WPP Media to launch a retailer‑led, full‑funnel commerce strategy for its Bloo toilet‑cleaning brand. The initiative deploys a connected retail media system that leverages shopper data and closed‑loop measurement to deliver consistent messaging from brand exposure...
Concha Y Toro Launches New Subsidiary Focusing on Chardonnay and Pinot From Limarí
Viña Concha y Toro has spun off its Viña Amelia label into a new subsidiary dedicated exclusively to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Limarí Valley. The Quebrada Seca vineyard, located near the Pacific and influenced by the Humboldt Current,...
Omnicom Advertising Asia Installs New Regional Leadership, Names Subbu Chief Knowledge Officer
Omnicom Advertising Asia announced a new regional leadership structure, elevating S. Subramanyeswar (Subbu) to Chief Knowledge Officer while retaining his India CSO role. The team, reporting to President Sean Donovan, includes chiefs for creativity, innovation, strategy, client partnership and growth,...
Cal AI’s Jake Castillo Shows How a Four‑Person Team Scaled to Millions and Sold to MyFitnessPal
Cal AI, an AI‑powered calorie‑tracking app, was acquired by MyFitnessPal less than two years after its April 2024 launch. Co‑founder and CMO Jake Castillo says the four‑person team reached millions in monthly revenue by leveraging influencer partnerships and relentless speed....
68 Million AI Crawler Visits Show What Drives AI Search Visibility via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
A recent Duda analysis of 858,457 websites reveals AI crawlers generated 68.9 million visits in February 2026, reaching 59% of the sampled sites. Real‑time answer retrieval now dominates crawling activity, accounting for 56.9% of requests, with ChatGPT alone responsible for 81% of...
Quickplay Revamps TVNZ+ with Cloud‑Native OTT Platform in 12‑Month Sprint
Quickplay finished a 12‑month, cloud‑native rebuild of Television New Zealand’s streaming service TVNZ+, replacing a fragmented vendor stack with a single platform on AWS. The upgrade adds AI‑powered personalization, co‑viewing ad data and a unified live‑ops console, positioning TVNZ+ to...
Quantifying Investment in Brand
In this episode of On Point, host Peter Van Artryk talks with Lorraine Jekylls, CEO of the London‑based agency Free Brands and incoming chair of the Insurance Marketing and Communications Association, about the unique challenges of branding in the insurance...
20 Social Media Holidays to Celebrate This May
The article outlines 20 social‑media holidays in May, from Mental Health Awareness Month to National Hamburger Day, offering concrete content ideas for each. It emphasizes pairing purpose‑driven observances with lighter, relatable moments to keep brand messaging human and engaging. Brandwatch...
Brands Falling Short on Emotional Drivers
A new Phaedon research report reveals that U.S. consumer brands are overestimating loyalty, as customers note a persistent gap between valued emotional drivers and brand delivery. While companies score well on reliability, data security and program clarity, they fall short...
5 Influencer Marketing Tips Brands Use to Drive ROI
Influencer marketing generated $32.55 billion last year, with 85% of marketers rating it effective. By 2026, 72% plan to boost budgets over 50%, treating the channel like paid media. Brands now focus on performance metrics—conversion, CAC, and ROI—rather than pure reach....
Transformation Heavy Lifting over, Time to Move on with Agentic AI - Publicis Pitches a 'Head Start' Vision for a...
Publicis Groupe says its AI‑driven transformation is complete, citing a decade of data, tech and the 2017 Marcel platform. The firm reports nearly 20% organic growth, adding roughly $2.2 billion in net revenue and almost doubling EBITDA while margins rose 270...
Lumen Research Partners with Cint to Strengthen the Link Between Attention & Brand Outcomes
Lumen Research, a leader in eye‑tracking technology, has teamed up with Cint to fuse real‑world attention data with Cint’s continuous research platform. The collaboration gives advertisers and agencies a way to quantify how seconds of visual attention translate into upper‑funnel...
Hookflash Hits the Bullseye with Darts’ Giant Digital Brief
Nodor Group, the maker of Winmau and Red Dragon darts, has hired digital agency Hookflash to overhaul its e‑commerce platform and drive direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) growth. The agency will apply a data‑driven conversion‑rate‑optimization (CRO) and experimentation framework to increase website value....
I Built an AI App with a Tiny Team. We Scaled It to Millions and Sold It to MyFitnessPal in...
Cal AI, an AI‑powered calorie‑tracking app founded by Jake Castillo and three teammates in April 2024, grew to millions in monthly revenue and was acquired by MyFitnessPal in under two years. The startup’s growth hinged on aggressive influencer marketing, signing...
Making Your Mark when You’re Ready for International Trade Shows
International trade shows remain the most effective revenue driver for B2B marketers, with 66% naming them the top channel through 2026. Startups fresh from funding often lack polished brand assets, making a strategic, funded approach essential to compete with established...
What Restaurants Are Doing Differently on TikTok and Why It’s Driving Visits
TikTok has become the top platform influencing U.S. dining choices, with over 200 million monthly active users and 75% of diners saying it shapes where they eat. The platform’s blend of authentic, creator‑driven videos and paid formats like Spark Ads and...
Startups Are Spending Six Figures to Show Up on College Campuses. How They’re Winning Over Coeds
Startups are redirecting six‑figure marketing budgets to college campuses, turning pop‑up events, free swag, and celebrity‑hosted parties into a new growth engine. Agencies such as Intern Queen’s IQ Agency have tripled in size, now employing 20 full‑time staff and about...
SEO Checklist: 43 Tips to Optimize Your Website
The article presents a 43‑item SEO checklist that expands traditional optimization to include AI‑driven search surfaces such as Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT. It groups best practices into six sections—basic SEO, keyword research, technical SEO, content/on‑page, link building, and agentic...
China Focus: TaoKaeNoi X Chen Zheyuan Collab, Processed Foods Debate, Gut Health Trends in China, and More
Thailand’s snack maker TaoKaeNoi has appointed Chinese actor Chen Zheyuan as its global ambassador, aiming to accelerate seaweed snack sales and reposition the brand as a health‑focused lifestyle label. In parallel, Chinese food‑science leaders are urging a more science‑based view...
Developing A Brand Narrative In A Family Business
Developing a brand narrative is a strategic imperative for family businesses, linking heritage, current capabilities, and future ambitions. A cohesive story differentiates the firm, builds trust, and unifies employees around a shared purpose. Boards must ensure the narrative reflects values,...
Flashy and Sweet: Brands Tap Health Trends in Artificial Sweetener Push
Chinese additive firms are marketing non‑nutritive sweeteners (NNS) as wellness ingredients as they expand globally, echoing a broader industry shift toward sugar‑reduction. Brands such as Coca‑Cola, Pepsi, Mixue, Haribo and Mars Wrigley are swapping aspartame for sucralose, isomalt or allulose to...
5 Strategic Features that Predict Survival in the Zero-Click Era
The rise of the zero‑click era has forced publishers to rethink their business models as Google and AI increasingly answer queries without directing users to external sites. An analysis of 400 websites that survived the 2024‑2026 traffic collapse identified five...
Tailor Content to Each Platform's Contract, Not Copy‑paste
Copy-pasting content across platforms isn't distribution. It's lazy broadcasting. Every platform has a different contract with its audience. Twitter rewards conviction. LinkedIn rewards credibility. Email rewards intimacy. Same message. Wrong contract. Dies every time. Took the same idea. Wrote it three different ways. Twitter version: punchy, contrarian, one sharp...
Use Decay Agents to Boost Your SEO Rankings
Position Decay Agents for your SEO. Magical. Learn how to do this: link in bio. https://t.co/eB3UIuSpPI
“This Company Reeks of Desperation”: Microsoft Is Giving Away $1 Million and a Mercedes-Benz Just to Get You to Use...
Microsoft has launched a $2 million sweepstakes—including a $1 million cash prize and three Mercedes‑Benz cars—to persuade users in the US, Canada, Mexico and select European nations to make Edge their default browser. Participants can earn up to 465 entries by using...
Search Evolution Redefines Brand Visibility Forever
Search is bigger than ever. Our behavior is evolving. The way your brand shows up has changed, forever. https://t.co/EeNJXsthtk
Target Influencers First, Then Decision‑Makers in New Digital Territory
When entering a new “Digital Territory,” who should I target first: the decision-makers or the influencers within that space? https://t.co/OJa5Sg1oQj via @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesTips #SalesLeader #Marketing #MarketingSuccess #MarketingStrategy #ArtificialIntelligence
Digest: Price Drops for ChatGPT Ads; Google in Talks with Pentagon; Publishing Giants Plan Cuts
OpenAI announced a steep reduction in ChatGPT advertising rates, with CPMs falling from the original $60 to as low as $15, and lowered the minimum spend to $50,000. Google is in negotiations with the U.S. Pentagon to grant access to...
Most Writers Miss This Substack Feature. The Easiest Way to Grow Your Paid Subscribers.
The post highlights a hidden Substack tool that lets writers send a single, targeted message to free readers most likely to become paying subscribers. It argues that the real revenue bottleneck isn’t gaining the first thousand followers, but converting existing...
The Growth Levers You Keep Ignoring
The post argues that most growth issues stem from misallocated attention rather than a flawed strategy. Companies often tweak pricing, offers, or channels without fully exhausting existing assets, creating activity but not scale. The author suggests shifting from constant optimization...
Kickstarter Tips for Authors: Rewards, Shipping, Marketing, and Lessons Learned
Kickstarter has become a major revenue channel for authors, with 69,000 publishing projects raising over $380 million and 3.2 million backers to date. The platform’s success rate is high—84% for campaigns that attract at least 25 supporters—while average pledges have jumped from...
Sussan’s Quiet Power Play: Inside the Fashion Brand’s Pivot to Lifestyle
Sussan, the 85‑year‑old Australian women’s fashion retailer, is expanding into lifestyle and homewares, building on its historic strength in sleepwear. The brand says lifestyle sales are up more than 45% year‑over‑year as it adds candles, glassware, bath and body items....
Focus on Partnerships, Not Paychecks: Why Agencies Must Reinvent Themselves
In a recent Adspeak episode, ADWEEK’s Alison Weissbrot convened a Brandweek panel with leaders from M&C Saatchi, Team Epiphany, and Known to discuss how agencies must reinvent partnership models as budgets tighten and AI reshapes workflows. The panel argued that traditional fee‑based...
Casper Returns to Advertising With Daymares You Can Finally Sleep Off
Casper Sleep is back on TV after a four‑year advertising hiatus, launching the "Daymares" campaign created by Orchard. The series of three dark‑humor films—"Birthday Boy," "Crowded" and "Poor Connection"—show everyday anxieties that dissolve when sleepers drift off on a Casper...
Saudia, Adidas Reveal ‘Made to Fly’ Collab Bringing Culture, Sport and Travel Together
Saudia and adidas have launched the adidas × Saudia “Made to Fly” pack, a first‑of‑its‑kind sportswear‑aviation collaboration available in select stores across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Morocco and online. The collection is built on adidas’ premium SOFT LUX line, featuring a...
Free Gifts Outperform Discounts without Eroding Margins
Discounts are often the lazy promo. They train customers to wait, hand away margin, and once you start, they're hard to stop. A free gift can move the same needle without any of that baggage.
Brand-Trained Agents Can Give Marketers A Fuller View Of Their Customers
Envive, an AI commerce platform, has deployed brand‑trained chatbots for footwear retailer Clove, exposing about 95% of site visitors to a real‑time shopping assistant. By integrating CRM, campaign and third‑party data, the agent tailors responses and captures question histories, allowing...
Brand-Trained Agents Can Give Marketers A Fuller View Of Their Customers
Envive, a commerce‑focused AI firm, builds brand‑trained chatbots that sit on retailer sites and pull insights from campaign, CRM and third‑party data. Its partnership with footwear brand Clove introduced a widget in July 2025 that now appears for about 95%...
I Compared 6 Semrush Alternatives for SEO Workflows
The article reviews six leading Semrush alternatives for 2026, highlighting Ahrefs, Clearscope, Moz Pro, Seobility, SE Ranking and Similarweb, each with pricing and core strengths. Ahrefs stands out for backlink analysis, while Clearscope excels at AI‑driven content optimization. Moz Pro offers an affordable...
What Happens When The Attribution Cartel Meets Advertising’s Halo Effect?
A new W3C draft called “Attribution” seeks to move ad‑effectiveness measurement into browsers, handing control of attribution data to Google, Apple and Meta. Marketed as a privacy win, the proposal introduces a restrictive privacy‑budget mechanism that could permanently block corrected...
A Survival Guide for Independent Brands
Business of Fashion has released a practical guide for independent fashion brands, addressing cash‑flow management, wholesale pitfalls, and the shift toward direct‑to‑consumer (DTC) models. It highlights bootstrapped financing, disciplined inventory, and the need for a one‑month cash buffer amid 2026...