Marketing

Marketing

Zachary Jarvinen is vice president of marketing for Exact Payments, a leader in embedded payment solutions for SaaS businesses. Customer lifetime value (CLV) is among the most critical metrics for businesses, reflecting the total revenue a company can expect from a customer throughout their relationship. Strategic advertising plays a key role in maximizing CLV-not only by identifying and acquiring high-value customers, but also by driving long-term loyalty and engagement when executed effectively.

I'll never forget the first time I saw the power of a group gasp. Years ago, at a Baltimore Ravens game, a film I'd helped create played across the stadium's newly installed LED screens. In the climactic moment (a close-up shot as the kicker's foot struck the ball) the entire crowd seemed to freeze, breath held, before erupting in a wave of energy that swept the stands. That's because the shot was perfectly timed with the real kick-off that started the game.

Today's customers don't separate their lives into channels, and they don't expect brands to either. They want experiences that feel relevant and personal, whether that's confirming a delivery, getting a reminder about an appointment, or receiving an offer they actually care about. Imagine a shopper who adds items to their cart but never checks out. Hours later, the reminder email arrives, but by then it's buried in a crowded inbox. The opportunity to recapture their attention has passed.

At this morning's IPA Effectiveness Conference, WPP's Jane Christian dropped the most important digital marketing finding in the past decade: creators are digital's first true brand-building channel. Not via the usual they're authentic guff we've been fed for years. But in hard econometric terms that should make any CFO weak at the knees. We finally know how to use creators Analysis led by the IPA has combined 220 econometric studies across 133m of creator spend, covering 28 markets, 36 categories, and 144 brands.

Rather than in-housing or outsourcing, executives on a panel at Advertising Week New York on Tuesday (Oct. 7) described their new relationship as one built on "co-sourcing," an interdependent approach where the two companies more closely share business KPIs and are less formal - read: speedier - when it comes to processes like briefing. PepsiCo ultimately recognized that, for all its talent, scale and legacy, social remained a difficult nut to crack, but also an increasingly essential one for reaching content-hungry consumers and propelling sales.

Crises rarely start with a press release or a breaking news segment. More often, they emerge quietly on social media-an offhand comment from a customer, a trending hashtag, a viral video-before quickly snowballing into something far bigger. For marketing leaders, the lesson is clear: Reputation can take years to build and seconds to erode. Yet too many crisis management playbooks still rely on slow, traditional escalation paths that leave brands reacting far too late.

Marketing is often undervalued, which is not news to many reading this newsletter. When companies are looking to make budget cuts, they often begin by looking to their marketing teams and campaigns. But a new white paper from insights company TransUnion and marketing trade organization MMA Global uses their Brand as Performance (BaP) framework to determine the true value of campaigns, and finds that traditional measurement methods have undervalued brand marketing's impact on sales by as much as 83%.

"Unlike transactional affiliate programs, Gap Inc.'s new social media advocacy platform is a centralized hub for creators to engage deeply across Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta," Gap Inc. indicated. "Modeled to create community, it will offer [creators] early access to new releases, product seeding, and exclusive promos, as well as content collaboration opportunities and the ability for creators and their content to be amplified across paid, social, and brand-owned channels."

Sydney Sweeney has great jeans

Amazon's advertising unit on Wednesday introduced its roster of presenting sponsors for the opening season of Prime Video's NBA coverage, a clutch of top-tier sports spenders that includes the likes of AT&T, Mercedes-Benz and State Farm. As part of a series of signings that will help defray Amazon's annual $1.8 billion rights payment to the NBA, the online retailer/streamer has landed AT&T as the title sponsor of its new halftime show ( The Half).

"Brand building is a bit like pointillism ... Every time you activate your brand, you're placing a dot in somebody's brain," said Kaplan, explaining that those individual dots cluster over time to form richer perceptions of a brand. Marketers who have a strong grasp of such perceptions can act with confidence on whether and how to deploy their brands in different cultural contexts while those who don't may simply create more noise.

Digital has never been just marketing for me. It is a tool that connects creativity and influence. I always say: attention is the new currency. It all started with short videos and bold ideas that unexpectedly went viral. This gave me the confidence that I can use the language of cinema and storytelling on social media to create projects that change the perception of brands.

Awards often recognize individuals.

Italian intimates brand Intimissimi has introduced a new marketing concept with the launch of its "Feel the Billboard" out-of-home campaign for its Ultralight With Cashmere collection. Set at street level, the billboards, which went up Monday night, have a wild posting aura as they invite passersby on the street to interact with it by inviting them touch and feel an enlarged swatch of the Ultralight With Cashmere materials, which is adhered to the advertising poster.

Absolut Vodka has unveiled the latest in its iconic artist collaboration series with a striking homage to Pop Art legend, Keith Haring. With a custom bottle and immersive gallery experience taking over Charing Cross tube station (aptly renamed 'Haring Cross'), the brand champions Haring's mission to make art accessible for all. After a triumphant Warhol collaboration back in 2024, Absolut was left questioning how it could top its previous project.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google is testing an Ask AI Mode anything carousel feature. Bing is testing an updated Copilot product search box. Google Merchant Center allows you to use your own brand name in your short title. Google Discover was showing the publisher's name twice, it was a bug. Plus, I am offline today for Sukkos, so this email was pre-written

From activities to cultural interactions, now more than ever, travelers want experiences, and GenAI is playing a pivotal role in helping them book trips that will meet or even exceed their expectations. A 2025 Phocuswright survey found that 78% of respondents felt GenAI improved trip planning, and Google is now incorporating AI-generated content into its search results. Now, instead of spending hours meticulously researching potential destinations, hotels and activities, travelers are getting AI recommendations, ideas and even full-blown itineraries with just a few prompts.

Kantar's head of shopper and category insights says people still love stores, carts and the joy of finding something new, but discovery, conversion and delivery can now happen in a blink. "Someone can become acquainted with a brand, convert it and have it delivered to their house. That's... a subterfuge for classic path to purchase." In her view, the job for retailers and brands is to meet that reality, not pine for the old map.

This Halloween, horror fans will be invited to a live experience from Coca-Cola's Fanta, where they'll be spooked by iconic scary movie characters like Chucky and M3gan and challenged to navigate a series of escape rooms. The Haunted Fanta Factory, open nightly in New York from October 29 to 31, is the product of a Coca-Cola partnership with Hollywood studio Universal Pictures and its production partner Blumhouse. There will also be soda cans sporting movie characters, a limited flavor sold at AMC theaters,

Two of the most iconic names in play are joining forces for the first time in history. To celebrate MONOPOLY's 90th anniversary, Hasbro and Mattel have unveiled a special crossover: the MONOPOLY x Hot Wheels "Pass 'N Go" 1:64 die-cast collectible. The collaboration brings together nearly a century of board game nostalgia and generations of die-cast car culture, resulting in a miniature that perfectly captures the shared spirit of imagination, strategy, and competition that defines both brands.

Let's be brutally honest. Your user personas are probably garbage. They're a collection of stock photos and demographic fluff that you and your team spent a week creating, only to file them away in a Google Drive folder to be forgotten forever. "Marketing Mike," who is 35, married, and "enjoys hiking," isn't helping you make better decisions. He's an art project.

An A.I company just spent $1 million+ on print advertising in nyc, one of the biggest campaigns ever done.. only for it to be immediately graffitied by locals from r/interestingasfuck Created by Friend's 22-year-old CEO Avi Schiffmann, it seems the campaign was engineered to spark backlash. In response to a curious commenter on X who wrote, "Tell me the graffiti was part of the original print," Avi simply responded, "Why do you think I left so much white space?"

"It just kind of snowballed almost out of my control," she said. "I would drive by this little shop here, and it was just a dark hole on this side of School Street, and I just visualized and felt like I needed to be here inside this building, and it just worked out in the most wonderful way."