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

Amazon’s Gaming Week 2026 sale is a goldmine for retro game remake deals

Amazon’s Gaming Week sale has just begun (April 27 to May 4) and isn’t packed with obvious headline deals, but if you’re into retro game remakes, there’s still plenty worth digging out, especially if you’ve been browsing the best retro game consoles and still need more classic games, renewed with current-gen graphics. Square Enix is

The AI Skills Salary Premium

Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free! I normally write about strategy and search behavior, not labor markets. But the SEO job market is the clearest leading indicator I’ve seen of how companies are actually valuing AI skills, so I followed the data off the usual map. 946 SEO job

IAB Tech Lab updates OpenRTB to better define live content

IAB Tech Lab is rolling out updates to OpenRTB aimed at a problem that’s been growing in programmatic: How to clearly define what live content means in the bidstream. The standards body announced new attributes for describing live content, along with an update to substitution macros that improves how pricing and discounts are communicated between

Gu Gabe :: Behance

div:not(.PrimaryNav-siteSearch-yuO) :focus-visible{outline:1px solid var(–be-one-off-custom-outline-color, var(–be-accessibility-outline-color));outline-offset:3px}.PrimaryNav-hamburgerMenu-iBG :focus-visible{outline:1px solid var(–be-one-off-custom-outline-color, var(–be-accessibility-outline-color));outline-offset:3px}.PrimaryNav-transparentStrip-u4D :focus-visible{outline:1px solid #fff;outline-offset:3px}.PrimaryNav-transparentStrip-u4D .PrimaryNav-skipContent-y_5,.PrimaryNav-transparentStri

The PESO Model® Diagnostic: The Budweiser Super Bowl Ad

TL; DR Budweiser won Ad Meter for the 10th time with “American Icons,” the anchor of its “Made of America” 150th/250th anniversary program. It’s the best-coordinated Super Bowl LX campaign—and still not a fully integrated PESO Model® system. In the first episode of our new monthly PESO Diagnostic series, we show exactly where coordination ends

Which Content Formats Earn AI Citation

AI-generated answers are capturing intent before the click, and that changes where to invest, what to measure, and which formats to prioritize. The question isn’t whether to adapt, it’s knowing exactly what to do first. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) Is A Core Discipline AEO sits alongside SEO as a primary driver of how brands get

Walmart’s expanded data offering to agencies and advertisers gets closer to self-serve

As an industry, marketers and agencies are inching closer to solving the riddle on what ads made consumers buy products or services — and retail media networks seem to be offering the best brainpower. Digiday has learned that Walmart Data Ventures is rolling out Scintilla Media Data Feed, a new API that empowers advertisers and

“Junior talent will always be necessary in business”

You’re also right to observe that the industry and day to day work is changing rapidly, so the fact you have a front row seat to the real workings and demands of working in design today should be seen as a huge plus – even if you don’t necessarily like what you see. The more

How to Turn Webinars Into Your Best Lead Gen Channel in 5 Phases

A few weeks ago, we sat down with marketers running webinar programs at agencies and in-house teams, all B2B. We asked them what was working, what wasn’t, and where they felt stuck. Three pain points came up in nearly every conversation: “Webinars are a heavy lift with little proven ROI.”“We’re not generating enough qualified leads.”“Without

5 Questions For… the CNN Team in the Control Room During the WHCD Shooting

On Saturday, a gunman attempted to gain entry into the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which featured the presence of President Donald Trump and members of his administration. The ensuing fracas inside and outside the ballroom prompted journalists at the gala to ditch whatever they were eating and drinking and start capturing the unfolding events in

“People were getting lost”: how The Backrooms’ director used Blender to build a 30k-square-foot set

Since its internet folklore origins, the story of the backrooms has become much more than a niche urban legend, so when the film adaptation was announced, fan expectations were understandably high. Thankfully, my anxieties were recently cast aside thanks to creator Kane Parsons’ recent interview, which revealed the meticulous detail behind the film’s creation. From

Google’s AI Overviews Cut Clicks Without Satisfaction Gain: Report

A randomized field experiment finds Google’s AI Overviews reduce organic clicks to external websites by 38% on queries where they appear, while self-reported search satisfaction stays nearly unchanged when the summaries are removed. The working paper by researchers at the Indian School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University was posted to SSRN this month. Authors

Confident marketing starts with better data

Personalization is no longer optional. B2B buyers expect seamless, relevant experiences at every touchpoint. For most marketers, however, that ambition collides with fragmented data, decaying contact records, and an increasingly complex privacy landscape that makes the data you do have harder to collect and maintain. The shift happening right now isn’t just technical. It’s structural.

Freedom Finance — Money, Simplified :: Behance

Money, made for real life Managing money is now part of everyday interaction. People expect to share expenses, make payments on the spot and access their money wherever they are. Freedom Finance brings banking, payments and investing together in one place. Built for everyday financial decisions – from managing money with others to staying in

The Real Reason Your SEO Team Hasn’t Made The AI Transition Yet

This series has spent five articles mapping what the AI search transition requires of your team, your content, your technical infrastructure, and your strategic framing. This piece addresses the question those five articles don’t answer: How do you actually make the organizational shift happen? Most teams won’t fail here because they lack vision. The failure

Creators have found themselves at the forefront of media channels

Creators, whether they meant to or not, have found themselves at the forefront of media channels and marketing execution — all of it in remarkably little time. They’ve also helped to make social media a far more valuable channel than it had been, certainly since the pandemic made all of us pay far more attention

Ben Rayner’s Mud, Sweat & Tears is a photographic tribute to long distance running

Mud, Sweat & Tears features a mix of black-and-white and colour shots – swarms of bare legs, mud between toes, crying, exhaustion and embraces. The photos are intimate and alive, helped by film grain and contact sheets that give the vibe of a photographer’s journal. But most of all, it’s the colours of all of

Google Adds View-Through Conversion Optimization To Demand Gen

Google announced two updates to Demand Gen ahead of Google Marketing Live. View-through conversion (VTC) optimization is now available for Demand Gen campaigns in Google Ads. This setting lets campaigns optimize toward view-through conversions on YouTube. Google is also expanding Commerce Media Suite to support Demand Gen inventory in Google Ads. This adds Google Ads

CBS Has Only Morning Show to Grow

CBS News was the recipient of good news, with CBS Mornings becoming the only morning show to finish with viewership growth in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo for the week of April 13. Today remained the most-watched morning show in both measured categories. This was the week that saw the Hoda Kotb and

Getting married? Here are all the products you need for a home-crafted wedding

If you’re getting married soon, or even not so soon, you can save a lot of money by creating crafty items for your big day rather than buying them new. With that in mind, I’ve gathered a collection of craft kit that will help you prepare for your wedding. Whether you’re planning to go wild

Join Our Newsletter

For more professional opportunities join our newsletter.