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Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

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The GRADIENT

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

The quiet positioning mistakes that kill growth

Many teams position around what sounds compelling instead of what’s true. It works for a moment — demos spike and early reactions look positive. However, the gap between the pitch and the product is always evident during onboarding. That gap is where credibility breaks. A chocolate ad struck me as funny — and not in

Retro-inspired shooter Birdcage feels like it’s 1998 again, right down to purposeful slowdown

One look at Birdcage and you might mistake it for an arcade shoot ’em up (or shmup, as it’s also known for short) from the late ’90s, in particular Treasure’s Radiant Silvergun. If you’re keen, check out the Evercade consoles for a lineup of classic shooters of the era, from SNK and Toaplan. It’s an

The Quid Pro No Method Of Link Building

Expressly paying for links has been out for awhile. Quid Pro No is in. These are some things you can do when a website asks for money in exchange for a link. During the course of building links, whether it’s free links, publishing an article or getting a brand mention, it’s not unusual to get

How Tesco combined emotion and practicality in its back-to-school print campaign

A newspaper ad for the retailer landed in the top 6% of all UK ads for “branding”, making it the most effective ad in the latest edition of Kantar’s ‘The Works’ study. While the halcyon days of print are behind it, the channel still holds relevance and trust with those consumers who still use it,

Snotmotion’s squidgy stop-motion shorts reenact the slapstick qualities of sport

On Snotmotions subject matter Kate says: “The aesthetics of sport, the motion and movements in sport, and the fact that there isn’t much talking is very interesting from an animation point of view.” Tennis is known for powered pitches and anime-fight-scene-like grunting; a ripe playground for Snotmotion’s N° 02 short. “Animating a tennis serve was

Google Sharpens Suspension Accuracy and Speeds Up Appeals for Advertisers

Google account suspensions have long been one of the most stressful issues advertisers face. A single notification can pause revenue, disrupt campaigns, and leave teams scrambling to understand what went wrong, often at no fault of their own. Over the past several months, Google has heard that feedback and is now rolling out measurable improvements

Identity is finally within reach for challenger brands

Ask the marketing leader of a typical challenger brand about identity and they’ll likely say more about aspirations than applications. Brand teams know that identity is fundamental to everything they care about, from finding new customers and lowering acquisition costs to accurately measuring campaign effectiveness and deeply understanding customer behavior. Yet despite a clear grasp

This Black Friday the iPad Pro is the only tablet to get for digital artists

I’ve been a bit of a critic of the over-powerful iPad Pro in recent years. Not because I don’t like it. It’s just I don’t like it for the majority of people. It’s total overkill for most people, and as Apple continue to blow us away with a new M chip every year, the iPad

Google Reminds Websites To Use One Review Target

Google updated its review snippet documentation to clarify that each review or rating in structured data should point to one clear target, reducing ambiguity. Google updated its review snippet docs to clarify how review targets should be specified You should avoid attaching the same review or rating to multiple different entities A quick audit of

Beehiiv Taps New Markets With Creator Platform Expansion

Beehiiv is no longer just a newsletter platform. On Thursday, the company released a sweeping slate of 10 new products at its Winter Release event, repositioning itself as a “creator-content operating system,” according to cofounder and chief executive Tyler Denk. The new suite includes an AI-powered website builder, digital product sales, podcast landing pages, web

Liang-Jung Chen’s latest project shows what happens when financial survival becomes the artwork

A large part of what keeps artists and the wider creative economy going is, in reality, a host of adjacent jobs. When you hang out with other creatives, conversations are always around “visas, rent, side jobs, funding, and survival strategies”, Liang shares. “Moonlighting is one of the most common topics; so many artists have so

Why Web Hosting Is A Critical Factor To Maximize SEO Results

Most SEO professionals obsess over content, links, and technical implementations. We track algorithm updates and audit on-page elements with precision. But there’s one factor that determines whether all that work can deliver results. Your web hosting controls every user’s first interaction with your site. It determines load speeds, uptime consistency, and Core Web Vitals scores

Where to start with AI-powered performance monitoring and optimization

At the November MarTech Conference, Sara Owens, SVP, analytics and data science at ARS X Machina convened a pragmatic panel on AI-powered performance with Anthony Tedesco, global search and programmatic lead, Cisco; Christina Inge, CEO of Thoughtlight; and Reza Moalandin, co-founder, SALT Agency. The conversation stayed refreshingly grounded: less hype, more playbooks. Perfect data vs.

Nab $750 off an M2 MacBook Pro with this early Black Friday deal

If you’re after a MacBook Pro that’s relatively affordable with a hefty 1TB storage, then I’ve found a deal over at Best Buy that knocks $750 off the 13-inch M2 model, bringing the price down to $1,349 from $2,099. I know this can still feel like a lot to spend on a MacBook that launched

OpenAI Releases GPT-5.1 With Improved Instruction Following

OpenAI released GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking with updates to conversational style and reasoning capabilities. The updates begin rolling out today to paid users before expanding to free accounts. OpenAI says this release addresses feedback from users who want AI that feels more natural to interact with, while also improving intelligence. What’s New GPT-5.1 Instant

Unilever on mixing creators with ‘marketing science’

Unilever is shifting its approach to how it builds brands, with influencers becoming a central aspect of its media strategy. Upon assuming control of the consumer goods company in March, CEO Fernando Fernandez made influencer investment a priority for the business. He pledged the company would spend half its brand and marketing investment on social

Love is Resistance sews together 77 posters for a free Palestine from creatives around the globe

This incredible lineup of creative contributors began as a call-out to friends and colleagues of Aya’s amongst her work as a cultural strategist, producer and curator for grassroots initiatives and non-profits, before it snowballed into something with a much wider remit. It was important to the book’s editor to have a range of figures to

Google Launches Ads Advisor & Analytics Advisor Globally

Google is introducing two AI-powered tools built on Gemini: Ads Advisor in Google Ads and Analytics Advisor in Google Analytics. Availability starts in early December for English-language accounts globally. What’s New Ads Advisor Ads Advisor works inside your Google Ads account to surface optimization recommendations and, with your review and approval, apply the selected changes.

Why rethinking syndication will help publishers succeed in the AI era

With the rapid decline in search and social referrals, publishers have never faced a more challenging environment. Even Google admits the open web is “in rapid decline.” Syndication is an answer Smart publishers are re-emphasizing content syndication to reach customers where they spend time — news aggregators, AI agents, CTV channels and mobile apps. Hundreds

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