Blueprint | The Gradient

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

Studio Select’s brand identity for perfumery Serviette is steeped in sophistication

“To witness how Ben and Alicia play off of each other’s creativity, with references to old type foundries and obscure print magazines, foreign cinema or underground artists, was such a joy to witness,” says Trey. This union of kindred spirits is evident in the cleanliness of Serviette’s identity. Each idea coalesces into the next, a

Stop Paying the Google Ads Tax Without Realizing It [Webinar]

Most brands don’t know they’re wasting money on branded ads. Are you one of them? What if your Google Ads strategy is quietly draining your budget? In this data-backed session, you’ll learn: Why CPCs rise even without competitor bidding How to detect branded ad waste in your own account What this hidden flaw is costing

How brands are navigating culture war risks, political polarization

In the midst of escalating culture wars, brands seem more careful than ever to avoid political pitfalls and anything that could be considered a PR crisis. But it’s a monumental task: The lines are increasingly blurring between culture and politics. Marketing messages are taking longer to craft as they wait for approval from corporate comms

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7 is what happens when PC hardware wears its software like a glove

One of the biggest advantages Apple has in the laptop market is that it controls both its hardware and software. It could be one reason why its MacBooks ride so high as the best laptops for graphic design, and it’s not something that any other major player can claim apart from Microsoft. In the Surface

Google Confirms CSS Class Names Don’t Influence SEO

In a recent episode of Google’s Search Off the Record podcast, Martin Splitt and John Mueller clarified how CSS affects SEO. While some aspects of CSS have no bearing on SEO, others can directly influence how search engines interpret and rank content. Here’s what matters and what doesn’t. Class Names Don’t Matter For Rankings One

Meta to Stop Serving Political Ads in the EU in October

Political, electoral, and social issue ads will no longer be served on Meta-owned platforms in the European Union, starting in October. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram is complying with the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation that is set to take effect Oct. 10, requiring tech companies to clearly label political advertising

Ard Su’s editorial illustrations are simple yet unique

No one has quite a style like the New York based illustrator Ard Su, who’s been commissioned by the likes of Apple and Adidas, and has graced the pages of The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Washington Post and The Hollywood Reporter with brilliant images that strike an unique blend of

Google Search Central APAC 2025: Everything From Day 3

Google Search Central Asia Pacific 2025 focused on three pillars over the three days. The theme for day one was crawling, and day two of the event focused on indexing, with a big announcement about the new Google Trends API entering alpha. Day three picked up from there, diving into how Google actually returns search

Engineering discoverability in a multimodal world

AI is now your silent brand manager. Marketing leaders face a new imperative: engineer a brand identity that machines can read, context they can understand, and presence they can discover across every customer journey. Your brand must maintain consistency across human and artificial intelligence ecosystems. This playbook distills the chaos into clear, actionable steps. Each

Avoid being late to class and bag $100 off the Galaxy Watch 7

Samsung may have just announced its latest Galaxy Watch 8 series, but that only means that its current Watch 7 model is even more affordable – with $100 off right now over at Amazon. This is great news for students who don’t need the latest-edition tech, and as a graduate myself, I can tell you

Validity Of Pew Research On Google AI Search Results Challenged

Questions about the methodology used by the Pew Research Center suggest that its conclusions about Google’s AI summaries may be flawed. Facts about how AI summaries are created, the sample size, and statistical reliability challenge the validity of the results. Google’s Official Statement A spokesperson for Google reached out with an official statement and a

Is digital in-flight advertising missing from marketers’ media mix?

Marketers and agencies strive to reach captive audiences in ways that enhance, not harm, their experience, but that’s often difficult to achieve. In its modern form, in-flight advertising has emerged as an ideal environment for reaching audiences that are already receptive to messaging. While in-flight advertising isn’t new, the digital nature of watching an ad

Welcome to the overstimulating 3D world of Iosif Abaab

Iosif Abaab is inspired by all things colourful, shiny, plastic and artificial. Not really a proponent of the rather stale ‘less is more’ theory, the 3D designer spends hours decking out his weird and wonderful creations, “obsessively adding more and more details”, he shares, “I like creating overstimulating visuals.” A lot of the hyperreal glossy

Google’s New AI Search Experiment

Google has launched Web Guide, an experimental feature in Search Labs that uses AI to reorganize search results pages. The goal is to help you find information by grouping related links together based on the intent behind your query. What Is Web Guide? Web Guide replaces the traditional list of search results with AI-generated clusters.

TikTok Could Go Dark If US Doesn’t Get Control

TikTok, which is currently operating in the U.S. courtesy of a third 90-day deadline extension, is still facing an uncertain operational future. The social media application’s availability beyond the Sept. 17 deadline extension was thrown into more doubt after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s latest remarks Thursday. In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk on the Street,

“Chasing trends gets you nowhere”: the secret to standout branding with BUCK’s Ben Langsfeld

Ben Langsfeld is chief design officer at BUCK, a global creative company merging art, design, and technology to bring brands to life. Shaped by visual storytelling, Ben works in a variety of disciplines to push the boundaries of creative innovation. Across his career, he has worked with iconic brands such as BBC, Pepsi, Apple and

Google Search Central APAC 2025: Everything From Day 2

The second day of the Google Search Central Live APAC 2025 kicked off with a brief tie‑in to the previous day’s deep dive into crawling, before moving squarely into indexing. Cherry Prommawin opened by walking us through how Google parses HTML and highlights the key stages in indexing: HTML parsing Rendering and JavaScript execution Deduplication Feature

Outsmarting entropy: Shipping beyond the playbook

In this episode of Playbook Broken, we delve into the shifting landscape of business marketing and sales playbooks. We welcome Will Allen, VP of media and AI privacy products at Cloudflare, to discuss the evolution of content creation and AI in today’s dynamic environment. We explore the critical role of playbooks in navigating change, the

Hanneke Rozemuller’s editorial illustrations delve into daydreams and everyday anxieties

“I see philosophy and psychology as a way to curb the utter absurdity that is life,” says Hanneke Rozemuller, an illustrator from a rural village in the north of the Netherlands who creates textural images that make sense of life. Each of Hanneke’s illustrations features the detachment of selves, allowing her figures to float through

Everything You Need To Know

When Performance Max launched in 2021, many advertisers weren’t sure what to expect. It promised access to all of Google’s inventory in a single paid search campaign, but gave us very few levers to actually influence performance. For brands used to having more control, that was frustrating. Since then, a lot has changed. Google has

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