Influencers Are Introducing US Web Surfers to Chinese EVs
U.S. influencers are showcasing Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) to American audiences, generating millions of views and a surge in curiosity. A Strategic Vision survey found one‑third of prospective U.S. car buyers would consider a Chinese‑built EV, despite a 100% tariff and strict EPA/DOT compliance barriers. High‑profile reviewers like Richard Benoit and Marques Brownlee have driven Chinese models, prompting thousands of price‑quote requests that cannot be fulfilled under current regulations. While Chinese makers such as Geely, BYD and Xiaomi claim no immediate U.S. passenger‑car plans, they are seeding market awareness through influencer partnerships.
See What Happens when Creative Legends Use AI to Make Ads for Small Businesses.
Google today unveiled The Small Brief, an initiative that teams three advertising legends—Jayanta Jenkins, Tiffany Rolfe and Susan Credle—with local businesses to produce studio‑quality campaigns. The creatives were given unrestricted access to Flow, Google’s AI‑driven creative studio, to craft ads...
Leo Chicago Corrals Aldi's Supermarket Savings
Leo Chicago, a Publicis Groupe agency, unveiled a new Aldi advertising series featuring a cowboy narrator in two 30‑second spots titled “Bread Sage” and “Cart Coral Cowboy.” The campaign runs on TV, connected TV, online video and social platforms, emphasizing...
14 SEO Trends 2026: What's Real, What's Hype and What We Don't Know Yet
In 2026 AI search has moved from pure keyword matching to Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), where search engines first retrieve relevant pages and then generate answers. Studies show AI overviews appear in nearly half of queries, but the sources they cite...
Creator Agency NewGen Launches AI Platform to Help Brands Scale Creator Campaigns With Compliance Controls
London‑based creator agency NewGen has unveiled Multiple, an AI‑driven platform that consolidates every stage of influencer campaigns—from creator matching and outreach to contract generation, payment tracking and performance reporting. The system promises to cut campaign launch times by up to...
‘Stop Posting Pretty Things. Build a Business’ – Hannah Wilson on How to Scale as a Creator Enterprise
Hannah Wilson, a creator with over one million followers, leverages her experience at Insta360, livestream commerce, and CGTN to run her personal brand like a business. She stresses rapid skill acquisition, constant re‑branding, and treating brand deals as relationships rather...
Levanta Makes the Case That Creator Channels Belong Alongside Every Amazon Ad Budget
Levanta, the Seattle‑based affiliate and creator platform, announced the acquisition of Perch+, an early Amazon‑focused affiliate network. The deal brings hundreds of brands and publishers into Levanta’s marketplace, consolidating two of the longest‑standing players in the Amazon affiliate space. Levanta...
How Social Commerce Summit Aims to End the Silo Problem That Has Cost Brands Real Money
The Social Commerce Summit convenes May 14‑15, 2026 at Westdrift Manhattan Beach, offering an invitation‑only, complimentary forum for senior brand operators, platform leaders, and investors. Organized by Social Commerce News, the event is deliberately neutral, avoiding agency or platform sponsorship,...
This Canadian Running Brand Just Went Full Arc’teryx on Race-Day Apparel
Ciele Athletics, the Canadian running brand known for its caps, has launched a revamped Elite Collection aimed at premium road‑racing apparel. The line features COOLmatic | EXP TERRAperf fabric infused with graphene for faster heat dispersion and includes shorts with carbon‑fibre yarn, a...
Duluth Trading Launches Cheeky Underwear Marketing Campaign
Duluth Trading Company unveiled a cheeky underwear campaign featuring its new mascot, Max Gluteus, timed with March Madness. The initiative leveraged humor to position low‑priced underwear as a gateway product, driving first‑time purchases and long‑term loyalty. On Meta the campaign...
Jameson Launches Limited-Edition MLS Bottles
Jameson has unveiled a limited‑edition bottle collection celebrating its second year as the Official Whiskey of Major League Soccer. The series features club‑specific designs for Chicago Fire, LA Galaxy, NYCFC and Orlando City, each bearing a QR code that directs...
Gwyneth Paltrow Discusses How ‘Not Giving a F*ck’ Led Goop’s Marketing Strategy
Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar‑winner and Goop chief executive, opened the Meltwater Summit by explaining how the company’s mantra of "not giving a f*ck" shapes its marketing playbook. She argued that unapologetic authenticity, rather than cautious PR, fuels Goop’s product launches and...
How to Run Prompt-Level SEO Experiments for AI Search
As large language models (LLMs) become primary answer engines, brands must ensure they appear in AI‑generated responses. The article outlines a hypothesis‑driven, prompt‑level SEO framework that structures tests with an if‑then‑because format to isolate variables such as content tweaks or...
Hazel E: The Blueprint of Power — How a Public Relations Architect Built a Global Empire on Vision, Discipline, and...
Hazel E, a former public‑relations architect for TMZ, Viacom and VH1, has turned her name into a global brand through disciplined storytelling and strategic media placement. Leveraging early PR experience, she built a personal narrative that extends beyond reality‑TV appearances into...
Amy Martin Ziegenfuss Named CMO of Six Flags
Amy Martin Ziegenfuss has been appointed chief marketing officer of Six Flags, succeeding Christian Dieckmann. Ziegenfuss comes from Carnival Cruise Line, where she served as CMO for three years, and previously held senior marketing roles at Hilton. In her new...
Amazon Brings Content-To-Commerce Technology Into Publisher Services
Amazon Publisher Services has added Shopsense, an AI‑driven content‑to‑commerce platform, to its Connections Marketplace. Shopsense analyzes images in articles, videos and photos, automatically generating product‑listing ads that link to more than 1,000 retailers. The integration requires no code and promises...
Renting Customers or Building a Business: Ishan Manchanda on LTV, Retention, and the Next Wave of B2B Growth
Ishan Manchanda, CEO of GrowthSpree, explains how his agency fills the missing playbook for B2B SaaS growth, emphasizing LTV over vanity revenue metrics. He warns that static LTV calculations and weak retention undermine unit economics, while a 5‑point boost in...
Luxury Brands Have a Language for Uncertainty – Not a Strategy
Luxury executives boast sophisticated frameworks—strategic oscillation, temporal calibration, legacy‑driven adaptation—to navigate climate urgency, geopolitical shifts, and Gen Z demand. Yet the article argues these vocabularies often mask a gap between narrative agility and real strategic execution, especially around sustainability and digital...
PubMatic’s Agentic AI Is Going Beyond Direct Deals
PubMatic announced that its AgenticOS platform has run more than 30 fully autonomous, end‑to‑end campaigns and over 1,000 direct publisher deals, signaling a shift from agentic ad tech being limited to direct buys. The AI‑driven product helped lift emerging‑revenue growth...
Amazon Data Will Be Available on Netflix Inventory in the UK May 18
Amazon’s demand‑side platform will let UK and EMEA advertisers overlay Amazon shopping data onto Netflix’s connected‑TV inventory starting May 18. The feature, first rolled out in the United States on April 13, enables Amazon Audiences to be applied to Netflix campaigns via...
Meet Stan, Caitlin Clark's New Teammate
State Farm has transformed its long‑standing stanchion‑pad logo into a animated robot mascot named Stan, pairing him with WNBA star Caitlin Clark in a new advertising campaign. The spots debut with the opening night of the WNBA season and will...
SEO’s New Goal in 2026: Recognition, Not Rankings
The search ecosystem has shifted from ranking‑centric tactics to a recognition‑first model as AI overviews, large language models and zero‑click answers now dominate user journeys. Traditional #1 SERP positions no longer guarantee visibility because generative AI draws on brand citations,...
B2B Appointment Setting Services: A Smart Way to Generate More Qualified Leads
B2B appointment‑setting services outsource the early‑stage prospecting process, delivering pre‑qualified meetings for sales teams. By leveraging phone, email, and LinkedIn outreach, providers identify decision‑makers and schedule appointments that align with a company’s ideal customer profile. The model promises higher conversion...
GetDandy Launches Autonomous AI Workforce for Local Businesses, Delivering 24/7 Customer Engagement With No Setup Required
GetDandy unveiled an autonomous AI workforce that manages every customer interaction for local businesses across phone, SMS, Google Business Profile, web chat, email and social media, requiring no setup or ongoing training. The system automatically trains agents using each business’s...
New AI Search Links, Core Update Winners And Losers – SEO Pulse via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google rolled out five tweaks that add inline links, end‑of‑answer citations, and public‑forum previews to AI Overviews and AI Mode, giving each reference more context. A March core update analysis shows aggregators such as YouTube, Reddit and travel OTAs losing...
Forget Product – Luxury Is Now About Privacy, Trust and Emotional Value
At Spear’s 500 Live, industry leaders argued that luxury is shedding its overt product focus in favor of "quiet luxury" built on privacy, trust and emotional connection. Panelists from Scott Dunn Private, Sevengage and AHD Consulting highlighted that ultra‑wealthy clients...
How Hershey Is Using AI to Future-Proof Its Marketing Model
Chocolate giant Hershey has built an AI‑powered marketing measurement system after nearly a year of development. Trained on three years of sales and marketing data, the tool aggregates social, search and streaming signals to deliver monthly mix updates and prioritize...
Redesigning Your Marketing Organization for the Agentic Age
AI is reshaping product development cycles, delivering continuous releases that double the volume and speed of launches marketers must support. Existing marketing operating models, built on sequential, siloed processes, cannot keep pace, creating bottlenecks for CMOs. Leading firms such as...
Why Intent Alignment Matters More than Perfect Technical SEO
Once a site reaches technical parity with its rivals, further technical tweaks yield diminishing returns, and Google’s ranking algorithm shifts focus to relevance. Relevance is measured by how well a page’s content aligns with the searcher’s intent, influencing signals such...
Bharat Vedica Contrasts Fast Living with Slow Food in New Brand Film
Bharat Vedica unveiled a brand film called “The Art of Slowing Down,” showcasing traditional Indian food practices. The video contrasts today’s fast‑paced lifestyles with time‑intensive methods such as making Bilona ghee, wood‑pressed oils and stone‑ground flours. It emphasizes patience, cultivation...
Mona Kattan’s Kayali Teams up with Calm to Make Wellbeing Tools More Accessible
Fragrance brand Kayali, founded by Mona Kattan, has partnered with mental‑health app Calm. For the month of May, every Kayali online purchase includes a unique code that unlocks three months of Calm Premium for free. The offer gives users full...
Paula's Choice Boosts India Presence with Tira Beauty Launch
Paula's Choice, the Seattle‑based skincare line owned by Unilever, is expanding its Indian footprint by launching on Reliance Retail’s omni‑channel platform Tira. The partnership gives the brand presence across both digital storefronts and select brick‑and‑mortar locations, debuting with three flagship...
ProWebChat Emerges as a Leading AI-Powered Chat Assistant Redefining Engagement With Advanced AI Integration
ProWebChat, the AI‑powered engagement platform from Ground Zero Intelligence, is gaining traction as a comprehensive solution that goes beyond basic chat widgets. It offers instant, 24/7 visitor interaction, real‑time lead capture, and the ability to embed custom AI tools into...
Quaker’s Latest Campaign Puts Breakfast Nutrition in Focus
PepsiCo India has launched a refreshed Quaker brand campaign emphasizing protein and fibre in its oats, featuring updated packaging and a new television commercial. The initiative aligns with a Mintel report that identifies protein and fibre as top considerations in...
OTB Group and Google Cloud Launch AI-Powered Hyper-Personalised Shopping Experiences
OTB Group, the owner of Diesel, Jil Sander, Maison Margiela, Marni and Viktor & Rolf, has teamed with Google Cloud to roll out an AI‑driven, hyper‑personalised shopping experience. The service uses Google Cloud’s Virtual Try‑On API, powered by Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform,...
AI Companies Are Selling Heartwarming Ads – They’re Racing To Automate Your Job via @Sejournal, @Gregjarboe
OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are running heart‑warming consumer ads that portray their AI as friendly household helpers, while simultaneously developing agentic systems that automate complex professional workflows. Their latest models—OpenAI’s GPT‑5.5, Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro, and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7—are being positioned to replace...
Sector Snapshot: Sales And Marketing Gets An AI Makeover
Venture funding for sales, marketing and CRM startups has steadied around $8 billion annually, far below the $20 billion peak of 2021‑22. AI‑centric companies now dominate the share, pulling in $3.7 billion in 2026 so far. Notable deals include Sierra’s $950 million round at...
Earning Buyer Trust in an AI Driven Marketing World
Artificial intelligence now powers most demand‑generation tactics, with 96% of marketers deploying some form of AI. Yet the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer shows only 32% of U.S. respondents trust AI, creating a confidence gap that can stall B2B deals. The...
Campaign Trail: Tecate Empowers Repatriated Mexicans
Mexican beer brand Tecate launched the "Welcome Back, Paisano" campaign to spotlight the labor void created by the recent deportation of roughly 170,000 Mexican workers from the United States. The satirical ads depict U.S. employers lamenting the loss of Mexican...
Why My Agency Doesn’t Have a Strategy Department
Claire Grecian argues that experiential marketing is more than a delivery tool; it serves as a rich source of strategic insight that most agencies overlook. She notes that agencies typically treat experience as a production function, lacking a dedicated strategy...
Soralios Launches AVAATR, an AI-Based Digital Cloning Platform for Professional Communication and Automation
Soralios announced AVAATR, an AI‑powered digital cloning platform that acts as a 24/7 “Better Self” for professionals. Unlike static clones, AVAATR can conduct voice and video conversations, integrate a user’s entire knowledge base, and operate across social, CRM, and meeting‑room...
The New York Times Grew Digital Ad Revenue 32% in Q1. Here’s How to Copy It
The New York Times posted a 31.6% year‑over‑year rise in digital advertising revenue in Q1 2026, reaching $93.3 million. The growth follows a 24.9% increase in the prior quarter, marking two straight quarters of outsized ad performance. Chief advertising officer Joy Robins credits a clear...
How to Connect Social KPIs to Larger Business Objectives
Patrick Pho, head of the content studio at Volkswagen of America, stresses that social media must be tied to clear business objectives to avoid wasted effort. He outlines a three‑step process: define a specific objective (exposure, consumption, or engagement), set...
Titan’s IRTH Launches ‘Always a Little Ready’ Campaign
Titan Company’s IRTH handbag line unveiled the “Always a Little Ready” campaign, a short film that frames handbags as extensions of women’s daily routines. The spot highlights the brand’s Spring/Summer collection, which leans toward softer palettes such as dusty blue...
Virat Kohli, RCB Players Spotlight AI Seat Finder in ConfirmTkt’s New Campaign
ConfirmTkt, the official train‑ticketing partner of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for 2026, has rolled out AI Seat Finder, a conversational feature powered by ixigo’s TARA AI. The tool scans real‑time rail inventory and surfaces only trains with confirmed seats, letting...
Marketers Stuck in Never-Ending Loop of Transformation
The World Federation of Advertisers and Ogilvy Consulting released a Global Brand Transformation study showing that 96% of multinational brands are currently in a state of perpetual marketing transformation, with 80% viewing it as an ongoing condition rather than a...
Himalaya BabyCare’s New Ad Focuses on Emotional Milestones of Motherhood
Himalaya BabyCare launched a Mother’s Day digital campaign featuring a short film set to the lullaby “Chanda Hai Tu.” The ad follows a mother preparing her daughter for school, recalling earlier milestones such as massages and bath times to underscore...
How Web Gaming Is Applying Behavioral Analytics Principles That E-Commerce Pioneered
Web gaming is catching up to e‑commerce by leveraging large‑scale behavioral analytics. Traditional game testing relies on internal playtests and recruited panels, which suffer from observer bias and cannot mimic first‑time user behavior. Poki, a web‑gaming platform, reached 100 million monthly...
How to Find and Fix What AI Gets Wrong About Your Brand
Brands increasingly discover that generative AI models such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity are shaping public perception, but the answers they return often contain outdated facts, fabricated details, or misattributions. Because AI draws from a mix of training...
How Can Beauty Brands Prepare for the Next Wave of Agentic Shopping?
A new Pattern Group report finds 59% of beauty brands are exploring AI‑powered search and shopping agents, yet only 27% feel fully prepared to make agents a primary discovery and purchase channel. Fiona Reid, Director of International Business at Pattern,...