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Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

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Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

inside the corporate scramble to understand meme culture

Last month, a U.S. Special Forces soldier was indicted for insider trading — not on stocks, but on a prediction market. He had detailed knowledge of a military operation. He bet on it. The platform where he placed those bets responded to the indictment with something close to a shrug. That shrug tells you everything

4Creative cuts out visuals from the UK’s most iconic TV shows to make its new identity

Designed to be buildable and perpetually ‘unfinished’, the new logo can evolve as “new team members add their bespoke 4C into the mix”, says 4Creative producer Jazz Stradling. Alongside this idea of a large scale collaboration, it was rmportant that each design was done with a humorous, sideways approach: “4Creative isn’t one thing, and it

How Keyword Research Gets Local Businesses Into AI Search

Keyword research has an expanded purpose in the world of local SEO. The keyword intent you’re already building for clients can now feed the trust signal layer that drives local AI recommendations, but only if it’s deployed in the right places. When AI tools recommend a local business, they’re not just reading the website. They’re

Trade Desk Growth Slows to Lowest Rate Since Covid; Publicis Talks Ongoing

The numbers $689 million: Revenue, up 12% year-over-year from $616 million, and beating Wall Street estimates. $206 million: Adjusted EBITDA, representing a 30% margin. The watercooler talk Despite the fact that revenue beat analyst projections, the 12% year-over-year increase represents The Trade Desk’s slowest revenue growth since the Covid-19-era ad downturn in 2020. Revenue rose

Sorry to anyone who preordered the Anycubic Kobra X – It’s now $100/£100 less

For anyone familiar with Anycubic 3D printers, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we might have a new model on the way, in the form of the Anycubic Kobra 4, but the bad news? The Anycubic Kobra X is currently $100 / £100 off for a limited time on

How To Control AI Answer Accuracy

About a year ago, your job description changed without your permission. This on-demand session helps you catch up and take the lead. Suddenly need to track both SERP rankings and AI accuracy? How do you make sure AI is saying the right things about your brand? What’s the best way to transition from SEO to

How to earn customer trust in the age of AI

Without your customer’s deep and abiding trust, a long-term relationship simply isn’t possible. It builds confidence in your technology’s ability to deliver. It’s trust in you, the people behind your company, that sets the direction and creates the value. That kind of trust exists only between humans. This level of trust can only be earned.

Integrated Marketing Is Like the Perfect Iced Coffee Order

Key Insights A well-integrated PESO Model® marketing operating system is like the perfect latte Even with paid, earned, shared, and owned present at once, it won’t work unless they’re working together as an integrated marketing system To move from coordinated to integrated marketing, you need all of the teams to be on the same page

Google Answers If Preferred Sources Overrides Low Quality Signals

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about whether Google’s Preferred Sources feature can override standard ranking signals in Top Stories. His answer offers some clarity about how user preference can influence visibility without giving preferred sites a free pass around Google’s quality systems. Google’s Preferred Sources Google Preferred Sources is a Search feature that enables

Omnicom quietly moves Flywheel and Omni into the media group

Even though Omnicom’s commerce media unit Flywheel has been operating in close proximity to Omnicom Media since the parent company acquired it in 2023, the holdco quietly acknowledged on Monday that Flywheel has formally been moved under control of Omnicom Media global CEO Florian Adamski. Alongside Flywheel, Omni — the holdco’s operating system that connects

Ollie Babajide Tikare on immersing himself in the cultures he photographs

Ollie Babajide Tikare is a multi-hypenate in the very definition of the word: he’s a photographer, writer, music curator and DJ who touches topics from socio-political essays to fashion, but Ollie maintains that it’s quite exhausting! The artist took to April’s Nicer Tuesdays to take us through his rollercoaster of a personal portfolio of photographic

Google Says AI Creative Should Help Brands Differentiate, Not Blend In

One of the more interesting moments in Google’s latest Ads Decoded podcast centered around a growing advertiser concern about AI-generated creative. As more brands gain access to the same AI tools, will advertising eventually start feeling repetitive? Ginny Marvin, Ads Liaison at Google, raised that question directly during the discussion, asking whether the industry was

Vox Media Welcomes a Bidding War

This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here. On Wednesday, media scion James Murdoch joined the bidding war for Vox Media, which has in recent months signaled its openness to selling parts of

The promise and panic of Unity AI’s open beta rollout explained

Unity AI, for use in Unity 6, launched in beta yesterday, and I’ve been mulling over what it all means, and on paper, in fact I’ve been curious ever since the Unity AI announcement back in February, but now it’s here it feels like a turning point, with the editor becoming your collaborator, your coder,

Google Adds More Links & Link Context To AI Search

Google is rolling out five updates to how links appear in its generative AI Search experiences, including AI Mode and AI Overviews. The changes add subscription labels and inline links within responses, among other features. Here’s an example of how the changes will appear: Image Credit: Google Hema Budaraju, VP of Product Management, wrote about

Twilio launches conversation layer to unify AI and human interactions

Twilio is rolling out a new set of platform capabilities to address one of the most persistent problems in customer experience: conversations that don’t carry over from one interaction to the next. Announced today at SIGNAL 2026, the three new components are a new “conversation layer” designed to connect data, channels, and both human and

Is Your Small Business Showing Up in Local Search? How To See

Most small business owners have a Google Business Profile. Few have optimized it for how customers are actually searching today. Local search has split across multiple surfaces. Customers are using Google Maps, asking voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, checking Yelp and Facebook reviews, and getting answers straight from AI tools like ChatGPT, often before

Google’s AI Max has pushed up search budgets – and costs

In the 12 months since Google debuted AI Max for Search, brands have increased their search budgets and seen cost-per-clicks (CPCs) rise, while compounding search’s transition into a media channel ruled by automation. For some clients, search costs increased by as much as 15% in the last year, according to four media buyers who spoke

The acclaimed Marina Willer on her stacked design career

Brazilian graphic designer, filmmaker, Pentagram partner and D&AD jury judge Marina Willer, who has worked on major brand identity projects for clients such as Rolls Royce, Tate and Southbank Centre, joined the Nicer Tuesdays stage in April to deliver a talk on her expansive design career, the importance of human insight and creative experimentation in

OpenAI Launches Self-Serve Ads Manager for ChatGPT

OpenAI has officially launched the next phase of advertising inside ChatGPT, introducing a beta self-serve Ads Manager alongside new CPC bidding and expanded measurement tools. The update moves ChatGPT advertising further beyond its original pilot phase. Advertisers can now create and manage campaigns directly through OpenAI instead of relying only on managed partnerships and agency

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