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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

AI-powered campaign creation without the creative logjam

At the November MarTech Conference, Molly St. Louis, co-founder of Mosaic Group Media, led a session on building and scaling AI-assisted content operations — without losing control of brand, process, or risk. The panelists for the discussion were A. Lee Judge, co-founder and CMO, Content Monsta; Angela Vega, director of capabilities and operations, Expedia Group;

Sydney Sweeney finally addresses the backlash to that jeans ad

Remember when the president deemed it necessary to tell the world he was a big fan of a jeans ad? Yep, August 2025 was a strange era for advertising, with Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad provoking controversy for its supposed promoting of eugenics. The whole thing was all anyone could talk about for a moment

Was It Better Then Or Now?

Twenty-five years ago, Google launched a modest advertising product that would evolve into one of the most influential tools in digital marketing. Back then, it was called Google AdWords; today, it is Google Ads. Over that quarter-century, the platform has transformed in format, scope, and ambition. While the technology behind Google Ads has evolved dramatically,

B2B marketers on shifting lead gen from ‘conversion to influence’

Source: Shutterstock It might be a hazy memory, if a memory at all, but not too long ago B2B lead generation was defined by cold calling, fax machines and trade shows. The arrival of the internet in the 90s was a revolution, giving rise to email marketing, CRM and SEO, paving the way for the

Various Illustrations :: Behance

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Google Performance Max Adds Waze Ads And Channel Reporting

Google adds Waze ads to Performance Max for store goals in the U.S. and rolls out channel performance reporting, with search partner reporting coming soon. Waze ads are now available in PMax for store goals. Channel performance reporting is rolling out across PMax, with search partner reporting and MCC access coming soon. No extra setup

Future of Marketing briefing: The agent era on training wheels

A clear theme at last week’s Digiday Publishing Summit Europe was skepticism about agents. Executives see the upside but fully autonomous systems still feel distant. For now, many say they’re relying on more human judgement in their organizations, not less. It was a useful check on where things actually stand. The industry may be calling

Ten of the decade’s best designed magazines, chosen by magCulture’s Jeremy Leslie

It’s Nice That: What are your key reflections on the past ten years of the magCulture bricks and mortar store? Any big successes or high-points? Jeremy Leslie: I can’t believe it’s been ten years. It felt like the shop was new for ages, and suddenly we’re something else… not old, but established, maybe? There’s a

Google Warns Against Relying On SEO Audit Tool Scores

Google warned against relying on tool-generated scores for technical SEO audits. Search Relations team member Martin Splitt outlined a three-step framework in a Search Central Lightning Talk that emphasizes site-specific context over standardized metrics. The Three-Step Framework Splitt outlined the core objective in the video: “A technical audit, in my opinion, should make sure no

[Test] Nov 06

Studio Ghibli politely declares war on Sora’s AI slop

Just as one front in the battle between AI vs art closes, another opens. This week, the UK High Court ruled against Getty Images’ claim that Stable Diffusion’s training on images from its stock photo library constituted copyright infringement. But meanwhile, Studio Ghibli and other Japanese companies have finally had enough. The Japanese animation studio’s

Google Finance Gets AI Deep Search & Prediction Market Data

Google Finance is rolling out Deep Search capabilities, prediction markets data, and enhanced earnings tracking features across its AI-powered platform. The updates expand Google Finance beyond basic market data into multi-step research workflows and crowd-sourced probability forecasting. Google announced the changes today, with features rolling out over the coming weeks, starting with Labs users. Deep

AI is your key to better market research and planning

Marketers are learning to turn AI into a tireless research partner — and a faster path to insight. At the November MarTech Conference, experts from Citrix, Randstad Digital and Qualified Digital joined Susan Ferrari, senior director at EmotionTrac, for a discussion on how AI is transforming market research and planning. Panelists for the session included

Totems by losdibujitosdepablo :: Behance

Why AI Content All Sounds the Same & How SEO Pros Can Fix It

This post was sponsored by Market Brew. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. If your AI-generated articles don’t rank but sound fine, you’re not alone. AI has made it effortless to produce content, but not to stand out in SERPs. Across nearly every industry, brands are using generative AI tools like

Fintech Moneybox on striving to be in ‘lockstep’ with customers

Wealth management platform Moneybox wants to become a “household name” in the UK, as the fintech firm looks to build on its “exponential growth”. The platform, currently supporting a community of more than 1.5 million customers nationwide, has over £16bn in assets under administration helping people to save, invest, buy their first home and prepare

Christine Furuya-Gössler’s photographs are a powerful memento of a life cut short

As well as reflecting their shared family life, for Seiichi, many of the photographs reveal Christine’s inner-self, her personality and demeanour, even the way she held her camera. “She never aggressively imposed herself on her subjects. Instead, she always maintained a position of quiet restraint, observing from a slight distance,” says Seiichi. “She held the

Perplexity Bets $400M On Snapchat To Scale AI Search Adoption

Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million to integrate its AI answer engine into Snapchat’s chat interface, with rollout starting next year. Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million over one year to integrate its AI answer engine into Snapchat. Snap calls this its first large-scale integration of an external AI partner directly in the app.

Recentering creative and relevance in a precision-driven industry

For over a decade, “the right person, the right message, the right time” has been a guiding principle in digital advertising. It has been cited in decks, planning documents and strategy sessions across the industry. Even so, it rarely happens in reality. In practice, the industry focus has gone toward refining targeting and timing. The

They made Trump a gangster, but there’s more to The Dor Brothers than viral AI filmmaking

For Yonathan Dor, one half of The Dor Brothers, AI filmmaking isn’t about speed or savings, but it’s about spirit. “I think fear is the mind killer,” he says, referencing Dune. The pop cultural references keep coming as I try to unearth what makes one half of AI filmmaking’s most popular teams work. Echoing a

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