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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

One-third of consumers turn to AI when shopping

MarTechCharts regularly highlights data of interest to marketers and marketing operations professionals. One-third of consumers now regularly use AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude throughout their shopping journey, according to a report by Cordial. The report, “Brands Battle for Attention as AI Redefines the Funnel,” (registration required) found Millennials (33%) and Gen Z (11%)

Pizza Hut’s new logo is a masterclass in nostalgia

Restaurant chain Pizza Hut has announced a new logo design for its branches in the UK, Canada and some other markets. The new look moves away from the round background (below) – presumably meant to evoke a pizza – and has echoes of an older design originally introduced in the 1970s, which is still used

Google Confirms New Google Verified Badge for Local Services Ads

Google just announced a new unifying identity for its Local Services Ads (LSAs) verification badges. Called Google Verified, the badge will replace several different trust signals that advertisers and consumers have been seeing over the years. This includes the Google Guaranteed, Google Screened, License Verified by Google, and the Money Back Guarantee program. Starting in

As Trump’s tariffs squeeze margins, Walmart turns to ads

Walmart has a plan to stay profitable as President Donald Trump’s tariffs push up costs. It’s called advertising. In the second quarter, Walmart’s ad revenue jumped 46% year over year, a number padded by the addition of Vizio, the smart TV maker it picked up last year. Strip that out, and the U.S. business still

A new exhibition gets to the creative core of Newcastle United

Alongside Joonho’s work sits a collaboration between Jimmy Turrell and Ewan Spencer, the former bringing a pop arty, rave flyer ethos and the latter bringing a photographic eye to the project. Working with collage aesthetics, combining photography, screen printing, painting and combining hand-drawn elements with modern digital tools, nothing represents the breadth of Newcastle’s potential

Why Lazy Loading Can Delay Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

In a recent episode of Google’s Search Off the Record podcast, Martin Splitt and John Mueller discussed when lazy loading helps and when it can slow pages. Splitt used a real-world example on developers.google.com to illustrate a common pattern: making every image lazy by default can delay Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) if it includes above-the-fold

Leaked Doc Shows How Much Walmart, Best Buy, and DoorDash Charge For Retail Media Ads on The Trade Desk

For advertisers, retail media’s biggest selling point is the customer data to get ads in front of the right people and determine whether an ad led to sales. Through demand-side platforms like The Trade Desk, advertisers can use that data to target shoppers from retailers like Walmart, Albertsons, Best Buy, and Instacart. The Trade Desk

Resident Evil Requiem had me drenched with terror like the series never has before

If you’ve been thrilled by Resident Evil’s leaning more into its horror element compared to its more actiony iterations, then I think you’re going to love Resident Evil Requiem based on the terrifying demo I got to play at Gamescom 2025. Leaving behind the faceless and not especially sympathetic Ethan Winters from the last two

Finding The Balance That Wins Retrieval

Marketers today spend their time on keyword research to uncover opportunities, closing content gaps, making sure pages are crawlable, and aligning content with E-E-A-T principles. Those things still matter. But in a world where generative AI increasingly mediates information, they are not enough. The difference now is retrieval. It doesn’t matter how polished or authoritative

A strategic framework for turning small-scale events into ABM wins

Trade shows and virtual conferences still dominate marketing calendars, especially for field marketing teams. But more sophisticated ABM programs are discovering that privately hosted events beat scale for driving qualified pipeline. These intimate gatherings create something that large-scale events simply cannot: meaningful, relationship-building conversations with the decision-makers who matter most to your revenue goals. For

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree on photographing the rollercoaster ride of the band pre-fame

It’s Nice That (INT): In the book’s intro you mention that a lot of your memories of Blur’s early days are quite foggy. I’d love to know what has the process of returning to all these images and writing the book been like? Dave Rowntree (DR): It’s been interesting, seeing what I do and don’t

Google Quietly Announces Search Partner Network Placement Visibility

Google quietly rolled out a change advertisers have wanted for years: site-level reporting for the Search Partner Network. Until now, advertisers could only opt in or out, with little understanding of where their ads actually showed. This update finally gives visibility into where budgets are spent outside of Google. Google lists this as an August

Media agencies scrutinize paid search amid zero-click signal noise

As consumers shift the way they seek out information on the web thanks to AI, marketers and media agencies are beginning to rethink the role paid search plays in their media plans. With that rethinking, they’re monitoring a small set of dashboard indicators for signs that ad performance is slipping, or that their competitors are

How we made the character designs for Netflix’s Sakamoto Days

Over his career, Yo Moriyama has mainly been known for producing concept artwork and prop designs for shows such as Bubble and Lupin the Third: Goemon’s Blood Spray, but he has also been developing a reputation for crafting character designs. That was the skill set he required for the Netflix anime series Sakamoto Days. Based

Why Lower Traffic Might Be Better

There once was a time when digital marketers chased traffic. The more traffic a website attracted, the more marketers felt satisfied and closer to attaining their goals. But, this once golden metric is no longer a tell-tale sign of success. Gone are the days of forecasting growth solely on the number of visitors coming to

Fox News and CNN Have Week-to-Week Growth

This is TVNewser’s basic cable network ranker and cable news report for the week of August 11, 2025. The week that featured a high-profile summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted both Fox News and CNN, as they saw week-to-week gains across the board during primetime and total day. During

Templo use typography to evoke the geology of Kenya in its Venice Biennale identity

Anoushka Rodda and Pali Palavathanan, co-founders of Templo, have worked on the British Pavilion’s visual identity for the past three editions of the Venice Architecture and Arts Biennales, so they know exactly what it takes to bring culture to the forefront. This year’s, titled Geology Of Britannic Repair, Kenya’s pastoral scenes are brought to the

Why High-Intent Visibility Can Still Underperform

In B2B SEO, typically, the ultimate goal is to attract high-intent searchers who convert into qualified leads. But, not all high-intent visibility translates to sales-ready traffic, especially in long sales cycles or complex buying journeys. As we get deeper into an era of diminishing importance of keywords that translate directly into attributable clicks, a focus

How to make email automations work as hard as you do

I just came back from a journey. I adopted Luca, a 100-pound standard poodle, in Palm Springs, California, and drove him back to my home in Dallas. The trip took my co-driver and me 20 hours over two days. But we didn’t just jump into the car with Luca and all his belongings and food

Are Football Club Logos Facing a Design Crisis?

Once upon a time, football crests were sacred. They weren’t “logos” at all. They were heirlooms, passed down like pocket watches, stitched into kits, carved into memory, it’s safe to say for many it was as if it was tattooed into the skin (both figuratively and literally). Juventus had its ornate oval with black-and-white stripes.

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