"Consumers have the right to know exactly what they're purchasing, but also what words and phrases are ultimately nothing more than marketing tactics," Amy Bi, VP of The Ordinary, says in a press release.
Being a rebel, to me, essentially means parking the industry playbook. It means not necessarily following the herd. So, when people go that way, perhaps you go the other way or in that direction. It's not about chasing clicks; it's not about chasing short-term wins. I think, at the end of the day, it is about giving your audience credit and not dumbing down,
Smaller, less healthy food (LHF) brands should not fear the forthcoming legislation that will restrict when and where they advertise. Rather than weakening performance, compliant ads can increase comfort and trust and evoke positive emotions with viewers. This is a key finding of a study undertaken by Azerion in the run-up to the three-month voluntary compliance period, which started on 1 October 2025, ahead of the rules coming into force on 5 January 2026.
I got rejected from every single internship I applied to last summer - consulting, finance, tech, and entertainment. At the very end, I settled for a role at a startup called RecruitU as a social media intern. I grew their Instagram from 0 to 100,000 and my own account from 0 to 50,000. I also grew the company's user base by 400%. I was pretty much their only distributor.
The easy button doesn't exist. Tools matter, but they're only about 25% of the solution. The other 75% is expertise, knowing how to apply the right tools to your unique business context. In other words, the difference between good and great measurement is a lot less about the technology you use and a lot more about the framework that guides how you use it.
The definition of TV has never been broader. From video on demand to subscription services to platforms like YouTube on connected TVs, audiences are watching more and in more places than ever - but with shifting viewership behaviors, achieving your brand's reach goals requires a new approach to planning and measuring media effectiveness. Instead of treating each streaming service as a silo, a unified CTV
Sharing his thoughts on the social media platform X on Saturday, the investor outlined Tesla's need for better marketing. "TSLA has the best product, but the product won't just sell itself," Black said in the post. He also highlighted that "influencers" sharing videos of Teslas on social media wasn't an example of "great marketing since it reaches audiences who already own Teslas."
A backlink is a vote of confidence. When other sites link to yours, it signals that your content is worth referencing. The more credible those links are, the stronger your site's reputation becomes in the eyes of search engines. But there's a catch: not all links carry the same value. Some can push your rankings up fast, while others are nothing more than digital clutter.
If you haven't seen them yet, OpenAI's launched new ad campaign of short 30 seconds videos that embed AI into an idealised, warmly analog, version of the past. They're quite visually pleasing, to be honest, with a slight VHS grain and muted colours, and depict very relatable everyday scenarios like wanting to impress a girl or getting fitter. They lean hard on 80s soundtracks and cheesy movie vibes.
Debuted during NFL Primetime, the ads are slated to run in the US and UK on traditional media - TV, streaming platforms, paid social, outdoor and influencer partnerships through the end of 2025. But underscoring the AI industry's formidable struggles with public perception, Adweek reports that themarketingresearch company System1 tested both theabove ads witha panel of US consumers - and the results were absolutelydismal.
Have we, as a society, reached peak customer satisfaction survey? It's not unexpected to be asked to submit feedback, either on an internal system or on a public-facing website like Tripadvisor, for everything from a hotel stay to a technology helpline. It isn't hard to understand why companies ask for this, or even why they would incentivize filling them out. But there's also a big question: at what point do efforts to get feedback go too far?
The 'madferits' showed exactly how powerful nostalgia can be. It takes us back to (perceived) happier, simpler times, igniting sentimentality, joy and yearning. There is an instant comfort in fond memories and rose-tinted perspectives, and brands attaching themselves to this emotional response can thrive from this association. An emotional connection to a brand holds significant power, it has the potential to turn a one-time customer into a lifelong fan.
For years, brands tried to split the difference by hiring a PR agency for visibility, an affiliate manager for commerce coverage and affiliate partnerships, and a media buyer for paid social scale. Seven years ago, I, in fact, was one of them as the former VP of Marketing and Founding Team at Ritual. On paper, it made sense. In practice, I found it created silos, competing agendas, and a lack of shared accountability and synergy across agencies and partners.
Because they land in an inbox already flooded with hundreds of other requests and are immediately deleted. This is usually because they are written as announcements, not as compelling stories. They scream "look at us" instead of offering genuine value to the journalist and their readers. The brutal reality is that you only have seconds to prove you're different, and you can do that by being strategic.
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.
Executives from , Panera and Digitas, plus creator Nicky Campbell will take the Advertising Week stage on Oct. 9 for the "Leveraging Moments to Create Moments" panel. The group will share the strategy behind Variety's partnership with Panera, as the two worked to create an organic, influencer-driven campaign promoting the restaurant chain's new Croissant Toast Sandwich and limited-edition Croissant Clutch. The campaign was tied to fashion's biggest night of the year: the Met Gala, which was held in May.
This fear is completely misguided. Ads placed next to stories covering politics or crime perform just as well as ads next to business, sports, or entertainment stories, according to Stagwell's Future of News APAC News Advertising Study conducted among 9,876 adults across Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Vietnam. The study, which tested four different localized real brand ads placed next to six types of real news content, found there is unequivocally no difference in key brand reputational metrics - like purchase intent, favorability, and trustworthiness - between ads placed adjacent to supposedly "not brand safe" content and "brand safe" content.
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.