Davidson: It’s Time for Naked 2.0
AI and automation are driving down the cost of media execution, exposing a mismatch in traditional agency billing that bundles strategic thinking with operational work. The article argues for separating these functions: pricing execution on measurable outputs while charging a premium retainer for pure strategy. This “Naked 2.0” model revives the early‑2000s Naked Communications concept, now viable thanks to AI‑driven efficiencies. Industry leaders, including WPP’s CEO, are already signaling a shift toward output‑based pricing.
Posca Hydrate Steps up to Support Australian Steelers in ‘Officially Unsponsored’ Campaign
Posca Hydrate, an Australian hydration‑soda startup, has been named Official Drinks Partner of Wheelchair Rugby Australia and the Australian Steelers, joining the ‘Officially Unsponsored’ campaign that strips kits of branding in favor of QR‑coded blank canvases. The partnership includes hand‑delivered...
TikTok Expands #BookTok Bestseller Lists Across Europe and the UK
TikTok is extending its #BookTok bestseller rankings to six additional European markets, including Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. The new lists will combine TikTok’s engagement data with NielsenIQ BookData sales figures to produce monthly trend reports. The...
Amazon Australia Partners with Jordan Mailata to Tackle Packaging Waste in Campaign via Poem
Amazon Australia has named NFL Super Bowl champion Jordan Mailata as its Packaging Reduction Officer in a new sustainability campaign with Poem. The role focuses on minimizing added packaging while protecting items, building on a tripling of orders shipped without...
Pinterest Shares Tips on How to Utilize Its AI-Powered Ad Options
Pinterest has released new guidance for its AI‑driven Performance+ campaigns, which automate creative, targeting and budgeting. Launched in October 2024, the fully automated solution leverages Pinterest’s engagement data to optimize ad delivery. Internal tests show advertisers achieve more than 10%...
Brisbane Builds on Soaring Demand with Next Iteration of ‘Brisbane Favours the Bold’ Campaign via Bigfish, Content Lion and Dentsu...
Brisbane’s tourism board has launched the third phase of its "Brisbane Favours the Bold" campaign, created with Bigfish Design, Content Lion and dentsu Queensland. From January to September 2025 the city attracted 7.1 million domestic travellers and generated $9.9 billion in visitor...
Vodafone Swaps Product Demo for Moshpit in Samsung Launch
Vodafone unveiled its new experiential platform, “First Night Only,” in partnership with Howatson+Company, turning the Samsung Galaxy S26 launch into an underground live show featuring Genesis Owusu in Sydney. The event highlighted the phone’s 200MP camera with bespoke lighting and...
Social Media Analytics for Small Business: What to Track and What to Ignore
Social media has become the primary growth engine for U.S. small businesses, with 96% leveraging platforms to drive brand awareness and sales. The same algorithmic distribution that powers multi‑million‑dollar budgets is available to solo founders, making content performance the true...
LiveRamp, Chalice AI Partnership Offers Growth Scored Audiences
LiveRamp and Chalice AI have formed a strategic partnership that embeds Chalice’s Growth Scored Audiences directly into LiveRamp’s data collaboration ecosystem. The offering assigns a predictive growth score to every U.S. household, reflecting its likely impact on a brand’s specific...
Tax Prep But Make It Catchy
Boss Up Taxes, a Houston‑based tax‑preparation outlet, has exploded on TikTok, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers and generating a surge in client appointments ahead of the April 15 deadline. The firm’s bold, meme‑style videos contrast sharply with the traditionally...
Elite Island Resorts Launches Antigua Campaign With Agent Tools
Elite Island Resorts has unveiled “A Love Letter To Antigua,” a multi‑component campaign designed to equip travel advisors with ready‑made itineraries, an interactive 360° map, and a summer promotion offering a free fifth night at The Verandah Antigua. The initiative...
Breaking the Martech Value Plateau
Most organizations tap only 57% of their primary martech platform’s capabilities, leaving nearly half of their investment idle. The shortfall is attributed to strategic misalignment rather than technology limitations. Platforms like Adobe Experience Cloud offer real‑time AI‑driven personalization, yet many...
ContinuumGlobal Partners with Inbox Monster
ContinuumGlobal has teamed up with Inbox Monster to embed the latter’s email rendering and quality‑assurance tools into its Smart Marketing Engine. The integration lets marketers create thousands of personalized email variations and instantly preview how each will display across more...
How Brands Can Use Creators as Cultural Translators
Creators have become cultural translators, shaping trends and consumer trust on platforms like TikTok. Brands that partner with creators see dramatically higher engagement, exemplified by CeraVe’s 15.4 billion pre‑Super Bowl impressions and a 70 % lift in click‑through rates versus traditional ads....
Loyalzoo Unveils Integrated CRM and Advanced Loyalty Functionality for New MX™ POS Smart Terminals
Digital loyalty specialist Loyalzoo has partnered with POS provider Priority to embed its CRM directly into the new MX™ POS terminals. The built‑in solution gives merchants immediate access to customer data, AI‑powered segmentation and tiered loyalty programs without separate installations....
‘Dumb Is Hard to Replicate’: How Garage Beer Wins with Content, Community
Garage Beer is turning absurd, low‑budget content into a growth engine, from the "Attorney at Lager" March Madness spot with Jay Bilas to a Super Bowl ad that quickly pivoted to horse‑themed merchandise. The brand’s weekly Instagram series "Thank Garage...
How Crumbl Leveraged CTV to Drive Mobile App Downloads
Crumbl’s inaugural connected‑TV campaign, run with Samsung Ads, delivered more than 16,000 mobile‑app downloads—213% above its goal—over a seven‑week period. The CTV‑to‑Mobile solution used machine‑learning to place ads across Samsung TV Plus, mastheads and other screen‑first environments. In the first week...
Kale’s Isha Patel: Why Fan-Powered Marketing Works Better Than Average Influencer Campaigns
Isha Patel and Luis Molina founded Kale in 2021 to turn everyday customers into a scalable, trackable marketing channel. Leveraging insights from LinkedIn’s creator ecosystem, Kale offers a fan‑advocacy platform that rewards low‑friction content and provides real‑time analytics. The company’s...
#paid Partners With Pinterest to Connect Brands With Consumers Through Creator-Led Campaigns
#paid has become an official execution partner for Pinterest’s Idea Ads, linking its creator‑brand matching technology and Handraise workflow with Pinterest’s creator ecosystem. The integration enables creators to self‑select campaigns and produce Idea Ads that blend organic inspiration with paid...
Visit Hungary Expands Use of Amadeus Media Solutions to Drive Demand to the Destination
Visit Hungary has deepened its partnership with Amadeus Media Solutions, adding travel‑agency targeting to its digital campaigns. Leveraging Amadeus Travel Intelligence, the destination saw a 20% year‑over‑year increase in bookings generated by travel sellers. The data‑driven approach enables continuous audience...
Sky Media Opens Premium VOD Inventory to Programmatic Buying Through DV360
Sky Media announced that its premium video‑on‑demand (VOD) inventory is now available through Google Display & Video 360 (DV360), extending programmatic access across Sky’s owned and partner channels. The offering includes entertainment, drama, sport and news assets such as Sky Atlantic,...
The Last Mile Problem: Why Publishers Need Independent AI/ML Infrastructure for Yield Optimisation
Publishers are still using manual, weekly rules for ad‑yield while buy‑side platforms have leveraged real‑time machine learning for years. The gap, called the "last mile" problem, stems from the complexity of building impression‑level data pipelines, feature engineering, and sub‑50 ms inference...
Adobe’s AI Image Generator Can Now Be Trained on Your Own Art
Adobe has opened a public beta for Firefly Custom Models, letting creators and brands train its AI image generator on their own artwork. The tool preserves specific visual attributes such as stroke weight, color palette, lighting, and character features, ensuring...
Colgate Aims for Stressed Millennials with Campaign About Resilience
Colgate launched the "Your Smile Is Your Strength" campaign on March 19, targeting millennials who juggle caregiving and work. The multi‑platform effort spans linear TV, YouTube TrueView, Disney CTV, Meta Moment Maker and TikTok Top Feed, and includes more than 30...
Hyundai Motor India Launches ‘Respect the Young’ Campaign for Verna
Hyundai Motor India has unveiled the "Respect the young" campaign to promote its new Verna sedan, explicitly targeting Generation Z buyers. The initiative highlights themes of ambition, individuality and confidence, positioning young consumers as decisive influencers in car purchases. A...
What Can Log File Data Tell Me That Tools Can’t? – Ask An SEO via @Sejournal, @HelenPollitt1
The article explains why SEOs should incorporate server log file analysis into their workflow, highlighting that logs capture raw bot and user interactions that other tools miss. It outlines how logs reveal crawl frequency, budget allocation, technical outages, and spoofed...
Goodwood Revival Revs up with First Campaign by Ark
Goodwood Revival has partnered with Ark Agency for its inaugural campaign, “There’s Nothing Like Goodwood Revival,” rolling out across social, print, out‑of‑home and radio. The campaign draws on the event’s own archive and features hand‑stamped, one‑off ads that celebrate the...
Digital Remedy Takes on the Biggest Pain in Ad Performance
Digital Remedy launched Echo, a unified measurement platform that aggregates cross‑channel ad data—including CTV, display, audio, DOOH, and search—into a single dashboard. Echo enables marketers to analyze performance at hyper‑local levels such as DMA or ZIP code, compare regional outcomes,...
Why Email Is Now Identity and Deliverability Infrastructure
Email continues to grow its share of digital marketing spend, accounting for 7.4% and delivering 10‑to‑50× ROI, making it a budget‑resilient channel. However, inbox competition and stricter authentication standards have lowered average placement to 83%, turning deliverability into a core...
The End Of Easy Measurement: Building An Evidence-Based System For Marketing ROI
Marketers face a $400 billion US media spend in 2025, yet privacy restrictions and loss of third‑party IDs erode clear ROI measurement. The article argues that the era of last‑click attribution is over, advocating a deterministic‑first, closed‑loop system that combines experiments...
Nippon Paint Signs Punjab Kings as Official Partner for IPL 2026
Indian paint giant Nippon Paint has signed Punjab Kings as an official partner for IPL 2026, securing jersey sleeve branding and a mascot-driven fan program. The deal features the brand’s logo on the right sleeve of the team’s kit and...
Miles Partnership Promotes Los Cabos Travel
The Miles Partnership has signed a $985,560 two‑year marketing contract with the Los Cabos Tourism Trust to boost brand awareness across North America. The campaign targets high‑income travelers who take three or more luxury trips annually, highlighting Los Cabos’ exclusive...
DemandFactor Rebrands as Demand.com
DemandFactor announced it has rebranded as Demand.com, launching a new website that reflects its full‑funnel B2B demand generation and performance‑marketing services. The rebrand aligns the company’s name with its core focus on generating revenue‑driving demand for enterprise clients. With a...
Brand Placements Fuel Growth in the Ad-Skip Era
As audiences increasingly skip traditional commercials, brands are turning to authentic product placements to maintain relevance. EightPM’s partnership with 7‑Eleven led to a subtle integration on the hockey rink in the series Heated Rivalry, illustrating the power of early, low‑touch...
Google: 404 Crawling Means Google Is Open To More Of Your Content via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
Google’s John Mueller clarified that repeated crawling of pages returning a 404 status is not a problem and can even be a positive signal. Googlebot continues to revisit 404 URLs for an extended period to verify whether the content has...
Nestlé Leans Into ‘Convenient Indulgence’ as the Fourth Wave of Coffee Accelerates
Nestlé is targeting the "fourth wave" of coffee, a Gen Z‑driven shift toward at‑home café experiences that prioritize cold, convenient, customizable, and crafted drinks. The company is expanding cold‑forward offerings, including Starbucks Crema Collection concentrates and a new Coffee Mate Cool Crème frozen...
Buying Traffic: Does It Work?
Affiliates are increasingly turning to paid traffic as organic search becomes volatile, but success hinges on a simple margin test: earnings per click must exceed cost per click. High‑ticket SaaS, finance, and insurance offers provide enough commission to absorb higher...
Venatus Delivers 5x Higher Video Ad Attention by Activating Audiences “In the Zone”- Lumen Research Finds
Venatus Media, in partnership with Lumen Research, reports that its video‑ad platform achieves up to five times higher attention by targeting audiences "In the Zone"—users deeply engaged in gaming, sports or entertainment. The technology assesses mindset, context and timing to...
Traditional Channels Beat Digital as ‘Super Touchpoints’
A new DMA and Jicmail report finds traditional media outperform digital in trust, creativity, targeting, and measurement. Channels like TV, radio, out‑of‑home and direct mail—dubbed “Super Touchpoints”—deliver 25% higher effectiveness but are used in only 55% of campaigns. Effectiveness rises...
MCM Begins Year-Long 50th Anniversary Celebration
German luxury label MCM is marking its 50th anniversary in 2026 with a year‑long campaign that includes a refreshed logo, a digital content series, and refreshed versions of iconic products such as the Ella Boston handbag and Liz tote. The...
Sonali Bendre-Led The Happy Pawdcast Teams up with The Souled Store for Co-Branded Line
India’s pet‑focused podcast The Happy Pawdcast, hosted by Sonali Bendre, announced a co‑branded merchandise line with online retailer The Souled Store. The partnership follows Season 2’s strong performance, which reached over 14 million pet lovers, generated more than 20 000 hours of content,...
Influencer Marketing Around IPL Set to Touch ₹700 Crore in 2026: Report
Influencer marketing tied to the Indian Premier League is projected to hit roughly ₹700 crore by the 2026 season, according to Qoruz. Spending has risen from about ₹250 crore in 2023 to ₹550 crore in 2025, reflecting a 40 % compound annual growth rate....
Why Is Glossier Closing Stores to Chase Gen Z?
Glossier announced it will shutter nine of its twelve global stores over the next 2.5 years, retaining only flagship locations in New York, Los Angeles and London. The move follows a slowdown in millennial‑driven growth and a strategic pivot toward...
What Does A Beta Test Of A Sell-Side Agent Look Like?
Publishers are piloting AI‑powered sell‑side agents that use large language models to negotiate and package ad inventory on behalf of sellers. Early adopters such as The Weather Company and Optable have built prototypes leveraging the open Prebid framework and Anthropic’s...
What Does A Beta Test Of A Sell-Side Agent Look Like?
Publishers are experimenting with sell‑side agents—LLM‑powered sales bots that negotiate ad inventory on their behalf. An open‑source framework donated by AdCP to Prebid now lets companies build and test these agents, with early pilots at The Weather Company and data‑clean‑room...
Why Programmatic Quality Control Needs To Focus On The Bid Request, Not Domains
Programmatic buyers have traditionally relied on domain‑level whitelists and blacklists to clean up inventory. The article argues that domains are merely containers and that true quality control must happen at the bid‑request level, where signals such as device, geo and...
Brands Turn Niche News Creators Into a New Earned Media Engine
Brands are shifting earned‑media budgets toward niche news creators on platforms like TikTok and podcasts. Companies such as Tropicana’s Naked Smoothie, NASCAR and AI firms are partnering with creators who deliver news‑adjacent content to reach Gen Z and socially‑savvy audiences. This...
TikTok Shop Turns Shopping Into Shoppertainment in New Fishermen Integrated Spot
TikTok Shop partnered with Fishermen Integrated to launch the Ramadan‑Raya campaign “Bazar Direka Untuk …”, turning the shopping journey into a curated shoppertainment experience. The initiative runs from 1 March to 13 March 2026 and blends product curation, creator‑led content, original music and...
How Sanrio Is Bringing 'Kawaii' To Street Style, One Chuck at a Time
Sanrio has teamed with Converse to release a new Chuck Taylor collection that blends the Japanese brand’s kawaii characters with the iconic sneaker’s street‑wear heritage. The line features Hello Kitty, Kuromi, My Melody and Cinnamoroll across shoes, apparel and accessories,...
AAMI Kicks Off the 2026 AFL Season with New TV Commercial ‘Luck of the Bounce’ via Leo
AAMI has launched a new TV commercial called “Luck of the Bounce” to mark the start of the 2026 AFL season. The spot, directed by Stephen Carroll and produced by FINCH, highlights the sport’s unpredictable nature and colorful characters. It...