Blueprint | The Gradient

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

Featured Stories

The GRADIENT

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

NFL team Minnesota Vikings on how it fosters a lifelong customer journey

CMO Martin Nance explains what brands can learn from the way sports teams interact with their fans. Source

The new lavender Cricut Joy Xtra is already on sale ahead of Prime Day

Prime Day is fast approaching, and we’re already seeing some Cricut Prime Day deals on retailers including Cricut itself and Very (in the UK). The best of these offers are on the beautiful new Cricut Joy Xtra, which we saw when visiting Cricut recently. We can attest that it is really, really good-looking. And right

A New Layer Of Technical SEO

For years, technical SEO has been about crawlability, structured data, canonical tags, sitemaps, and speed. All the plumbing that makes pages accessible and indexable. That work still matters. But in the retrieval era, there’s another layer you can’t ignore: vector index hygiene. And while I’d like to claim my usage of vector index hygiene is unique,

AI is having its branding moment

Welcome back to the Digiday+ Future of Marketing Briefing. We’re only three editions in (not that anyone’s keeping score), and in that experimental phase — call it beta but with better font choices. Some weeks we’ll drop a scoop, others we’ll offer a sharper take on the obvious. And then there are weeks like this

Melina K draws the beauty of nature into her tactile design

Melina K is a freelance designer from Singapore and now based in Brisbane, Australia. She’s focused on visuals for the music community, having designed for cult indie-rock band Peach Pit as well as dance musician Brothertiger’s 2024 tour. Tailoring her design for musical expression, it comes as no surprise Melina loves to experiment. “I’m drawn

Reddit Marketing Veteran Shares What Works On The Platform

Part of our work at OGS Media with Reddit is making it easier for brands to get on the platform the right way: transparent, authentic, and really connecting with your audience. Some of that happens through our partnership, working with various teams at Reddit, testing new features, and sharing insights from the brands we’re currently

The Real Edge in AI Marketing is Human Thinking

AI is everywhere. Boards are asking for AI roadmaps. Marketers are testing prompts, automating campaigns, and generating content at scale. The tools are dazzling. The promises are intoxicating. But amid all the excitement, one thing is becoming painfully clear: tools alone do not create strategy. We have entered what I call the AI plateau. After

KPop Demon Hunters trend sparks health warning

KPop Demon Hunters has been a huge surprise hit for Netflix, becoming the most-streamed film or series on the platform. And to think that Sony Animations turned it down – a mistake animation fans think the studio should avoid repeating with Genndy Tartakovsky’s The Black Knight. Such popularity comes with risks, however, and KPop Demon

Microsoft Launches New Bing Places For Business

Microsoft has rolled out a redesigned Bing Places for Business platform, moving business listing management to bing.com/forbusiness and introducing a new recommendation tool with streamlined import workflows. The platform lets businesses create and manage listings across Bing Search and Bing Maps at no cost. Consolidating the experience under the Bing.com domain is meant to make

Salesforce announces new initiatives to build trust in AI agents

Salesforce announced this week it is expanding its data, governance, security and semantics capabilities across its platform as it continues to build trust in AI and agentic AI in particular. It’s no secret Salesforce bet big on AI agents with its Agentforce product, but before agents can go mainstream, there’s a level of trust that

Rui Wang’s ambient take on holiday photography is about moments just out of reach

Based in Tampa, Florida, Rui Wang is a China born cross-disciplinary artist exploring memory through analog photography – particularly, those memories that escape from us, whispering away into obscurity. In his new book Not Everything Was Seen, the “almost seen is an invitation” – when an image holds back, the viewer steps forward. “A reflection

Maximize Your AI Visibility Before Your Competitors Do

AI-driven search is rewriting the rules of discovery. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews are changing how customers find brands. Traditional rankings no longer guarantee visibility. Are you appearing where it matters most? Discover proven strategies to boost your AI mentions and citations. What You’ll Learn in This Session Pat Reinhart, VP of Services &

Celebrating success and never settling: Your Marketing Week

At the end of every week, we look at the key stories, offering our view on what they mean for you and the industry. From celebrating the UK’s top marketers to Coca-Cola’s effectiveness evolution and Pret reviving the CMO role, it’s been a busy week. Here is my take. Source

This stylish ASUS Chromebook means business and has a generous discount at Best Buy

You might not usually think of a Chromebook as a laptop for professionals, but this model from ASUS seems to have it all. The 14-inch ExpertBook CX54 is a luxury-looking Chromebook Plus, and it’s $150 off right now over at Best Buy, down to only $679. For this price, you get a 2K display, Google

Google Search Experiencing Ongoing Service Disruption

Google reports a data center issue is causing a partial Search disruption, affecting some pages in certain locales. Google confirms a data center issue causing a partial Search disruption. Check the official Search Status Dashboard for updates. Avoid reactive site changes.

ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout signals the start of AI-led commerce

Ironically, commerce and marketing experts are less interested in what Instant Checkout means for OpenAI’s ad roadmap, and more interested in what it signals about agentic commerce, product discovery and zero-click search, six marketers told Digiday. Consider it a sign of the times: product discovery is moving from traditional search engines and marketplaces and toward

Ruslan Abasov says designing typefaces is like “dancing” with his arm

Ruslan Abasov’s first foray into typefaces was during his enrollment in design schools in Istanbul – and it was a revelation. Intersecting with his interests in geometric forms, photography and design theory, he was particularly struck by an IsType conference, which inspired him to study type design at ECAL. Now based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Ruslan

New Report Reveals An 8% Mobile Landing Page Conversion Gap

A report from Unbounce shows that unoptimized mobile landing pages are costly, finding 83% of visits come from mobile devices, yet desktop pages convert 8% better. Based on over 57 million conversions and 41,000 pages, the study highlights the need for the industry to adapt as mobile traffic increases but underperforms. Highlights From The Report

CNN Live News Leaving HBO Max Ahead of Streamer Launch

CNN is maxed out. Today, the news network announced that its 24/7 live news stream is ending on HBO Max on Nov. 17. The move comes ahead of CNN launching a new streaming platform in the fall. “CNN has benefitted tremendously from its two years of offering a live 24/7 feed of news to HBO

How to use an iPad as a drawing tablet with a PC

It’s likely that Apple is going to release the iPad Pro with an M5 chip before the year is done. Not only has a Russian YouTuber apparently got his hands on a boxed model, but the not-so mysteriously titled ‘iPad17, 3’ recently cropped up on a Geekbench scorecard, showing some next-level specs. And all this

Join Our Newsletter

For more professional opportunities join our newsletter.