Lush Head of Retail on Its Experiential Retail Plans for 2026
Lush’s UK&I head of retail, Kasey Swithenbank, outlined a slate of experiential initiatives slated for 2026, including fragrance readings, on‑site skincare services and a new events‑booking feature in the Lush app. The retailer is deepening its omnichannel capabilities with click‑and‑collect, product‑scanning via the Lush Lens, and expanded in‑store experiences such as spa treatments and workshops. While the brand’s ethical stance and social‑activism differentiate it, growing competition in experiential retail pressures Lush to continuously innovate. The company believes these moves will turn visits into memorable experiences rather than simple transactions.
Dove Selects Agency for New Influencer Marketing Blitz
Unilever’s Dove division has appointed PrettyGreen as its new agency to lead a revamped micro‑influencer, content, and e‑commerce strategy. The agency will manage an integrated brief that spans social storytelling, creator collaborations, and TikTok Shop commerce, starting with a debut...
Microsoft Bing Offers IndexNow Support To The Internet Archive
Microsoft Bing announced it will support the Internet Archive’s adoption of IndexNow, a protocol that lets sites instantly notify search engines of new or updated URLs. Fabrice Canel, Bing’s product lead, posted on X that the integration will help the...
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 AtData argues that fragmented, outdated or fraudulent identity data produces confident yet misleading outputs, turning AI into a...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 Fragmented, outdated or fraudulent identity data leads AI to amplify errors, producing misleading targeting and conversion metrics.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...
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...
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,...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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...
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...
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...
The World Cup Is Set to Lift Demand for Digital Out-of-Home Spending
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is igniting a surge in digital out‑of‑home (DOOH) advertising as brands like Hyundai, Coca‑Cola and Unilever line up stadium, airport and fan‑zone placements. eMarketer projects U.S. out‑of‑home spend at $11.28 billion, with 42.3% allocated to digital...
Why Mondelez Is Hiring a Global Lead to Solve for AI-Driven Shopping Bots
Mondelez International is creating a global lead role to shape its emerging agentic commerce strategy, targeting AI‑driven shopping bots that could handle a sizable share of online traffic. Retail partners expect 30% of site visits to come from such bots...
From Page Views to Propensity: How the Daily Mail Is Retooling for a Zero-Click World
Daily Mail is shifting from page‑view focus to engagement‑centric metrics as zero‑click search erodes referral traffic. Monthly visitors dropped 17% YoY to 218 million, with 60% now direct, prompting the rollout of an AI‑powered dynamic paywall and a push to grow...
Sam’s Club Hires ‘Experts’ to Make Video Reviews for Product Pages
Sam’s Club is rolling out a new "expert review" video feature on product pages, hiring niche specialists—such as chefs, tech gurus, or health professionals—to create short, brand‑specific videos. The initiative, announced on April 16 as part of the Member Access Platform,...
Supplement Brand Staje Launches with Brand Strategy and Voice Identity via Willow & Blake
Staje, a new supplement brand for women, launched with a line of stage‑specific multivitamins that pair clinically proven ingredients with beadlet capsule technology. The brand partnered with Australian agency Willow & Blake to develop a theatrical brand voice and positioning...
ACM Research Introduces ACM Planetary Family™ Product Portfolio Structure
ACM Research has rebranded its expanding suite of semiconductor equipment into the ACM Planetary Family, a process‑based structure that groups eight product series under planetary names. The new layout aligns each series with a core step in wafer fabrication, from...
True5G + Accenture Song Thailand Explore ‘Unsaid Love’ in True Love True Connection Campaign
True5G has teamed up with Accenture Song Thailand to launch the “True Love True Connection” campaign, positioning its 5G network as a conduit for deeper human emotion rather than just speed. The centerpiece is a film that asks viewers when they...
Silence Is a Climate Risk – Brands Urged to Trumpet Sustainability Progress by ‘Greenshouting’
A new "greenshouting" communications guide, launched by Creatives for Climate and B Lab, urges brands to break the silence around sustainability and replace the emerging trend of "greenhushing" with open, accurate storytelling. The guide outlines four practical "dials"—simplicity, abundance, culture...
Legora Calls on Jude Law to Make Legal AI Look Good
Legora, the legal‑AI platform, has launched a new advertising campaign starring actor Jude Law to make its technology feel more compelling. Created by Swedish agency NoA Åkestam Holst, the hero film and supporting spots appear on out‑of‑home screens in London, New York, Los Angeles and...
TRP Wins Butter Brand Lard Ass, Launches New Campaign
Australian premium butter maker Lard Ass has appointed independent agency TRP as its creative agency of record, launching the brand’s first major advertising campaign. The campaign, rolling out across out‑of‑home and social channels, spotlights the brand’s hand‑crafted, cultured butter and its...
Former Stan CMO Joins Gifting Platform Prezzee As Global CMO
Prezzee, the digital gifting and payment platform, has hired Diana Ilinkovski as its global chief marketing officer. Ilinkovski, who helped launch and scale streaming service Stan into Australia’s leading subscription brand, will steer a unified global marketing strategy that leverages...
TaoKaeNoi Taps Chinese Celebrity Star Power to Boost Seaweed Snack Growth
TaoKaeNoi, the Taiwanese seaweed snack brand, has signed Chinese celebrity Chen Zheyuan to accelerate its evolution into a global lifestyle brand. The partnership combines hyper‑localisation of product flavors for Chinese tastes with cultural synergy through a star whose image matches...
MrBeast Searches for CMO to Build a ‘Serious Commercial Machine’
Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, is expanding Beast Industries beyond YouTube by launching a global search for a chief marketing officer. The new CMO will steer a rapidly diversifying portfolio that includes entertainment releases, snack brands, toys, telecom services, and...
ALDI Turns ‘Smart Shopping’ Into a National Game with ALDI IQ Push
ALDI Australia has unveiled ALDI IQ, a national, social‑first campaign that turns grocery shopping into an interactive quiz. Developed by agency Bastion, the ALDI IQ Test scores shoppers from ‘Apprentice’ to ‘Genius’, reinforcing the retailer’s value‑focused brand promise. The 10‑week...