Some Creators Don’t See Immediate Value in Instagram’s Controversial ‘Shop the Look’ AI Test
Instagram tested an AI‑driven “Shop the Look” feature that automatically tags products in creator posts, aiming to boost social commerce. The rollout, launched in February, sparked backlash as tags appeared without creators’ consent, linking followers to unvetted items and knockoffs. Creators such as Julia Berolzheimer publicly criticized the unsolicited links, while Meta framed the test as a feedback‑gathering exercise. Industry voices warn the move threatens trust and creator revenue unless consent and attribution are built in.
The Real Winners of March Madness? Brands that Move Fast on NIL Deals
Brands are racing to sign college athletes for NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals as March Madness draws record viewership, turning the tournament into a high‑impact marketing platform. Companies from footwear to fast‑food chains have partnered with stars like Azzi Fudd,...
Watsons Malaysia Celebrates Raya with ‘The Raya Glam Stage’ Campaign via MBCS
Watsons Malaysia, in partnership with Omnicom’s MBCS, launched the “Pentas Raya Glam” campaign to celebrate the Hari Raya festive season. The multi‑channel activation features a humorous film starring local celebrities, a #WatsonsPentasGlamRaya dance challenge on Instagram and TikTok, and in‑store sensory...
Foodcase Unveils New Brand Identity as Global Travel F B Partner
Foodcase has unveiled a refreshed brand identity that positions it as a full‑service food and beverage partner for the global travel industry. The new messaging emphasizes end‑to‑end capabilities, from concept design through onboard execution, across airlines and other travel operators....
Discovery Parks Introduces ‘Australia’s First Official Bark Manager’ in New Campaign via Born
Discovery Parks has introduced Bruce, a red Border Collie, as Australia’s first Official Bark Manager in a character‑led campaign created with agency Born. The initiative merges traditional storytelling with AI‑assisted production, using tools like Nano Banana, ElevenLabs and Unreal Engine...
Amazon Ads and Spotify Expand Partnership in Australia
Amazon Ads and Spotify have integrated Spotify’s premium audio and video inventory into Amazon’s demand‑side platform in Australia. The partnership lets Australian marketers buy across connected TV, display, audio and video through a single programmatic workflow, leveraging Amazon’s shopping and...
Flipkart Celebrates Ugadi with ‘Ugadi vs Yugadi’ Campaign by 22feet India
Flipkart has launched the ‘Ugadi vs Yugadi’ campaign with agency 22feet India, targeting the harvest festival celebrated in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. The activation uses the regional pronunciation debate as a humorous hook, directing users to a microsite where...
NT Tourism Hunting for Sweeping Brand Refresh
The Northern Territory’s tourism agency, now rebranded as Tourism and Events Northern Territory (TENT), has launched a tender for a sweeping brand refresh to be delivered by February 2027. The initiative replaces the seven‑year‑old "Different in every sense" platform and...
ADMA Launches New Podcast Unpacking How Marketers Can Harness AI to Lead the Next Era of Marketing
ADMA has released a new podcast episode that explores how marketers can ethically harness artificial intelligence to drive the next era of marketing. The discussion draws on findings from ADMA’s State of AI in Marketing Survey 2025, which shows 75%...
The CEO Website Trust Test: 7 Fixes That Turn “Looks Fine” Into “Book a Call”
CEO websites act as silent interviews, shaping buyer opinions in seconds. The article outlines seven practical fixes— from a decisive headline to faster load times— that turn vague, inconsistent sites into trust‑building assets that prompt “Book a call” actions. By...
Google AI Overviews Cut Germany’s Top Organic CTR By 59% via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
New SISTRIX data shows Google’s AI Overviews now appear on about 20% of German search queries. When present, they cut the click‑through rate for the top organic position from 27% to 11%, a 59% drop. Across all positions the average...
Reddit Partners with Pacvue to Expand Ad Access
Reddit has partnered with ad‑tech firm Pacvue to let advertisers buy and track Reddit campaigns directly within Pacvue’s management platform. The integration adds Reddit to Pacvue’s suite, which already supports over 100 retail media networks and serves more than 70,000...
Report Finds Reddit Ads Drive Strong Performance for Retailers
Fospha’s State of Retail Commerce 2026 report shows Reddit’s influence on retail conversions surged in 2025, delivering an 82% lift in ROAS when Amazon sales are accounted for and a 257% increase in revenue attributed to the platform. The study...
Wendy’s Seeks An Influencer for New Chief Tasting Officer Role
Wendy’s announced a contest to appoint its first Chief Tasting Officer, a brand‑ambassador role paid $100,000. The company asks applicants to post a one‑minute video on TikTok or Instagram using #WendysCTOContest, highlighting personal taste and creativity. The posting emphasizes a...
When Aflac Integrates AI Into Customer Service — And When It Doesn’t
Aflac has launched a six‑month generative‑AI pilot in its 450‑person call centers, where the system listens to calls and supplies agents with instant information, even updating addresses automatically. The initiative, involving about 300 employees from marketing, claims, finance and legal,...
From Journeys to Systems
Channel99 launched Paid Search Optimization, an AI‑driven feature that shifts B2B paid‑search measurement from clicks and CPC to cost‑per‑target‑account engaged. The capability surfaces waste, scores keywords and ad groups, and recommends budget reallocations, giving marketers and finance leaders clearer ROI....
MyFitnessPal Wants To Start The Health And Wellness Subsector Of Retail Media
MyFitnessPal has launched a data‑driven advertising business, expanding beyond its legacy mobile display unit to include video, interstitials, full‑screen takeovers, newsletter sponsorships and branded recipe integrations. The platform will leverage its opt‑in food‑logging data—averaging 16 items per user per day—to...
Court Temporarily Lifts Order Banning Perplexity From Amazon
An emergency petition by Perplexity succeeded, and a two‑judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary order lifting the district court injunction that barred its AI shopping agent, Comet, from accessing Amazon.com. The stay is...
Documenting the Move to Beehiiv
Alex Hilleary outlines his recent migration of a newsletter to the beehiiv platform, using Episode 135 of his "Freelancer Niche Explosion" series as a case study. The piece highlights how beehiiv’s tools streamlined audience growth and monetization. It also references...
Freak Steam Game Naming Coincidence Unintentionally Results in some of the Best Indie Marketing I've Seen
Neon Polygons and Gamkat both launched puzzle games titled "Piece by Piece" on Steam within days of each other, creating a naming clash that threatened discoverability. Rather than compete, the studios teamed up, offering a double‑bundle priced at $18.57. The...
YouTube Tests Sticky Banner After Ad Skip
YouTube is piloting a sticky banner overlay that stays visible after a viewer skips a video ad. The banner, linked to the original ad, remains on‑screen until the user dismisses it, extending brand exposure beyond the skip point. This experiment...
How Toyota Blurred the Line Between Advertising and Everyday Life
Toyota New Zealand partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi NZ, Spark Foundry NZ and Digitas NZ to refresh its “Let’s Go Places” platform by turning the country’s everyday streets into a giant advertisement. The campaign highlighted that one in four vehicles on New Zealand roads is a Toyota,...
Informa TechTarget Launches AI Visibility and GEO Solutions
Informa TechTarget unveiled two new offerings—the AI Visibility Audit and the GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) Topic Planner—to help B2B marketers navigate AI‑driven search ecosystems. The audit evaluates how audiences discover brands via AI, pinpointing gaps in visibility and accuracy, while...
Smartly Signs Letter of Intent to Acquire Measurement Platform Incrmntal
Smartly has signed a letter of intent to acquire Incrmntal, a real‑time marketing measurement platform. Smartly’s AI‑driven suite automates campaign creation, while Incrmntal provides incremental lift analytics across channels. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition aims to embed live...
As Retail Media Enters Its Second Act, Savvy Brands Diversify Networks and Tactics
Retail media is evolving from a bottom‑funnel, search‑only model to a full‑funnel ecosystem that includes video, display, and off‑site formats. Amazon’s share of retail media spend dropped from 56% to 46% as marketers allocate more budget to Walmart and mid‑size...
AURN Teams With AdGrid For Multicultural Marketer Push
American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), a Black‑owned radio consortium led by Chesley Maddox‑Dorsey, announced a strategic partnership with ad‑tech platform AdGrid. The collaboration will launch a new initiative that blends AURN’s multicultural radio reach with AdGrid’s programmatic technology. The goal...
This CEO’s Storytelling Strategy Helps Turn Messy Situations Into Big Brand Wins
Sam Bakhshandehpour, former Global CEO of the José Andrés Group, leveraged spontaneous restaurant moments—like a rain‑soaked paella—to craft authentic brand stories that span dining rooms, TV series, and product kits. He positioned storytelling as the core of the company’s identity,...
Compound Growth: How U.S. Bank Uses AI to Drive Revenue and Results
U.S. Bank is embedding artificial intelligence into its core growth engine, using AI‑generated synthetic audiences to slash campaign development time by roughly 50 percent. The bank’s AI‑driven personalization platform is already delivering tens of millions of dollars in incremental revenue by...
Sephora’s Zena Arnold on Navigating Trends, Shaping Discovery, and Marketing at the Speed of Culture
Sephora’s U.S. chief marketing officer Zena Arnold explained how the retailer distinguishes fleeting fads from genuine behavioral shifts, using systematic trend‑filtering processes. She highlighted the shift to continuous beauty discovery, where brands must appear across creators, culture and community. Arnold...
Inside the SXSW 2026 Brand Activations, Ranked in Tacos by ADWEEK
South by Southwest 2026 unfolded without its central convention center, scattering events across downtown Austin and turning Congress Avenue into a pedestrian hub. Brands seized the fragmented landscape with pop‑up activations, though the festival saw fewer large‑scale immersive experiences than...
15 Best SEO Tools for Content, Rankings, and AI Visibility
AI‑driven search engines like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews now surface answers directly, but they still rely on well‑optimized, authoritative content to rank. The article reviews 15 SEO tools—from comprehensive suites such as Semrush and Ahrefs to niche utilities like...
Conversational Keywords as the Foundation of Generative Engine Optimisation
The article argues that generative engine optimisation (GEO) now hinges on conversational keywords rather than traditional, rigid terms. As users pose full‑sentence questions, AI‑driven search engines evaluate intent and context, making keyword stuffing ineffective. Voice‑assistant adoption—over $9 billion in market size...
Publicis Advises Clients to Avoid The Trade Desk, According to a Leaked Memo
Publicis has instructed its clients to stop recommending The Trade Desk after a third‑party audit uncovered improper fee applications and a lack of transparent cost invoicing. The audit, performed by FirmDecisions, concluded that The Trade Desk charged fees without clear...
Beverage Marketer Sees Cost Savings with Agentic Media-Buying Test
PubMatic and Butler/Till executed Geloso Beverage Group’s first fully autonomous, AI‑driven media campaign using the AgenticOS platform. The test cut buy‑side supply‑chain costs by 5.5× while delivering a 98% video‑completion rate and 40% more impressions than planned. Quality metrics were...
General Mills Revives Taco Shell Maker La Tiara
General Mills is reviving La Tiara, the Kansas City‑origin taco‑shell brand it bought for $10 million, and will sell the products nationwide for the first time through Walmart starting in April. The company is reopening the Gladstone, Missouri plant, creating more than...
Sprite Reclaims NBA Soft Drink Sponsorship in Blow to PepsiCo’s Starry
Coca‑Cola’s Sprite has reclaimed its role as the NBA’s official soft‑drink sponsor, ending a three‑year stint by PepsiCo’s Starry. The multiyear agreement activates immediately, giving Sprite presence at marquee NBA events, international games, and digital fan experiences. The partnership revives...
Gamma Adds AI Image-Generation Tools in Bid to Take on Canva and Adobe
Gamma has unveiled Gamma Imagine, an AI‑driven image‑generation tool that lets users create brand‑specific marketing assets such as charts, infographics, and social graphics from simple text prompts. The product plugs into a suite of integrations—including ChatGPT, Claude, Zapier, Atlassian, n8n,...
Reinventing a 77-Year-Old Brand: NASCAR’s Modern Playbook with Tim Clark and Jimmie Johnson
NASCAR’s chief brand officer Tim Clark and champion Jimmie Johnson discuss a multi‑pronged strategy to modernize the 77‑year‑old sport. The plan includes staging races in unexpected locations, leveraging gaming platforms like iRacing for talent and fan acquisition, and shifting from...
M&S: Why Brand Health Is the Ultimate Insurance Policy
Marks & Spencer retained its position as the UK’s strongest brand in the YouGov Best Brand Rankings 2026, even after a ransomware attack that erased £300 million of profit and £750 million of market value. The retailer’s long‑term brand strategy—modernising stores, shifting...
McDonald’s Rolls Back the Years with Cards Collection
McDonald’s UK, together with Leo UK, has launched a nationwide “McDonald’s Cards” promotion that reimagines iconic brand characters, menu items and rituals as a collectible card set. The collection features 24 hand‑illustrated designs across four categories—Characters, Fans, Retro and Legendary—and...
HB Exclusive: Enseo Introduces New Corporate Identity
Enseo, a 26‑year hotel technology provider, unveiled a new corporate identity to signal its strategic evolution from hardware manufacturer to an integrated software platform. The rebrand highlights a unified solution that merges in‑room entertainment, managed Wi‑Fi, marketing tools, property monitoring...
Future Is Training Its AI On Publisher First-Party Data
Future Media unveiled Helix, an AI‑powered audience platform that builds on its first‑party data assets. Helix replaces the legacy Aperture system in the U.S., adding predictive modeling and real‑time audience segmentation for outcome‑based campaigns. Early tests across 20 fashion, retail...
Malta Broadens Tourism Strategy, Courting LGBTQ Americans and Chinese Travelers
Malta is expanding its tourism outreach by targeting two distinct segments: U.S. LGBTQ travelers attracted by the island’s progressive rights record, and high‑spending Chinese tourists drawn to its Mediterranean heritage and English‑speaking environment. The dual campaign blends Pride‑focused messaging with...
Best Influencer Database Software in 2026
Influencer database software has become essential as brands scale creator programs, with 59.4% of marketers planning to raise influencer budgets in 2026. These platforms turn manual scouting into searchable, filterable datasets that include demographics, engagement, and cross‑platform reach. The article...
Retail Media X Europe 2026: Why Retailers Need to Be in the Room This May
Retail Media X Europe will convene over 750 senior executives, brands, agencies, and tech innovators in London on 14 May 2026 to discuss the fast‑growing European retail media market, projected to reach £25 billion by 2026. The conference features three tracks—scaling networks,...
Gartner: 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience
Gartner’s survey of 650 B2B buyers shows 67 % now prefer a rep‑free buying experience, while 45 % used AI tools during a recent purchase. The findings highlight a shift toward self‑directed, digitally mediated buyer journeys. As early interactions drop, static sales...
Google Knowledge Panel: What It Is & How to Get One
Google’s Knowledge Panel is an information box that appears in search results when Google identifies a recognized entity such as a brand, person, or place. The panel can occupy up to half of the visible SERP, offering facts, images, and...
OPINION: Retail’s $210 Billion Paid Advertising Blind Spot
Global ecommerce retailers—estimated at nine to twelve million—are collectively spending about $210 billion on paid digital advertising each year, yet confidence in the returns from that spend is eroding. The rise of privacy regulations, cookie deprecation and AI‑driven ad platforms has...
How Software Startup InsightSquared Wrestled with Creating an Optimal Sales and Marketing Strategy
Harvard Business School lecturer Mark Roberge uses the InsightSquared case to illustrate why SaaS startups often stumble when they rush to scale sales after a Series A. He argues that founders rely on superficial Excel forecasts instead of bottom‑up revenue models,...
Perion Is So Over The AI Hype Cycle
Perion CEO Tal Jacobson says the AI hype is merely a re‑branding of technologies the company has used for 15 years, and the firm is now building an AI media‑trading agent called Outmax. The platform allocates spend across CTV, DOOH,...