Blueprint — page 82 | The Gradient

Skydance Owns the Pipeline. What Happens to the People?

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Skydance Owns the Pipeline. What Happens to the People?

Starbucks claims ‘broad’ appeal driving ‘customer connection’

Focusing on loyalty members at the expense of infrequent customers is “never healthy” in a business, says Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol. Source

Should game avoid “predatory and opportunistic” indie publishers?

Getting started in game development is challenging at the best of times, and it can become even more daunting when you factor in the need for promotion and marketing. There are so many games out there that it can be a constant battle to get visibility. Hooking up with a publisher can help. These days,

The New Rules of Modern Earned Media

The White House’s communications challenges prove one thing: earned media success requires omnipresence. Gini Dietrich dissects what their former comms director learned working with Biden in the past year The post The New Rules of Modern Earned Media first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Information Retrieval Part 1: Disambiguation

TL;DR Disambiguation is the process of resolving ambiguity and uncertainty in data. It’s crucial in modern-day SEO and information retrieval. Search engines and LLMs reward content that is easy to “understand,” not content that is necessarily best. The clearer and better structured your content, the harder it is to replace. You have to reinforce how your brand

Goalhanger is rewiring its podcasts for the video economy

On YouTube, The Rest is History podcast draws roughly around 500,000 viewers, who stick around for an average of about 48 minutes. That’s close to the length of a traditional hour-long show and even longer than the podcast’s strong audio average of around 40 minutes.. For the production team, seeing that level of engagement, especially

Why Are Brands Still Struggling With Storytelling?

Storytelling transcends time and culture yet most brands still struggle with it. Meg Crumbine breaks down why storytelling matters and how to close the gap. The post Why Are Brands Still Struggling With Storytelling? first appeared on Spin Sucks.

How Do You Compete In Agentic Commerce?

Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe for free! Agentic commerce transforms organic search from a source of cheap traffic into the mandatory gatekeeper of AI verification. Marketing arbitrage dies; product truth wins. Image Credit: Kevin Indig This week, we’re covering: Why agentic commerce filters out marketing-first brands and rewards granular product

Rocket’s Super Bowl 60 Teaser Finds Lady Gaga Next Door

Lady Gaga is lending her voice to Rocket and Redfin’s Super Bowl 60 campaign. The pop star appears in a teaser spot, released Tuesday, that offers an early look at the brands’ upcoming Big Game commercial. The black-and-white, nearly four-minute video features Lady Gaga singing a reimagined version of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”—the iconic

A career retrospective with the graphic design legend, educator and role model, Michael Bierut

Last September at Nicer Tuesdays in New York, our US editor-at-large Elizabeth Goodspeed sat down for a chat with legendary designer Michael Bierut. In this insightful Q&A, Michael told the audience about his experiences working with a variety of clients, the responsibility that designers have to service “beauty” and how he has shaped his practice

How Communicators Must Adapt to AI Search Results

How are you adapting your content strategy for AI search? GIni Dietrich has put together a comprehensive guide on evolving the PESO Model© for the age of AI-powered search engines. The post How Communicators Must Adapt to AI Search Results first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Google AI Overviews Now Powered By Gemini 3

Google is making Gemini 3 the default model for AI Overviews in markets where the feature is available and adding a direct path into AI Mode conversations. The updates, shared in a Google blog post, bring Gemini 3’s reasoning capabilities to AI Overviews. Google says the feature now reaches over one billion users. What’s New

Smart marketers set the rules before AI makes the calls

With all the hype around AI, it should be no surprise that I’ve run into many less tech-savvy marketing team members who think AI does everything now. However, there are limitations to its capabilities, and wise marketers will combine AI’s capabilities with their existing technology to — as the mechanic’s motto dictates — use the

How Highguard’s game art failed by trying to please everyone

We’re used to seeing game art divide opinion, but few recent releases have been as controversial as Highguard. Wildlight Entertainment’s new PvP raid shooter is looking set to become the most criticised game since Concord. Two thirds of reviews on Steam are negative, and the art style carries a lot of the responsibility. Developed by

AI Comments Don’t Build Relationships

TL; DR AI-generated comments on social media aren’t building relationships—they’re creating distrust. When “comment a lot” became the go-to growth advice, busy professionals reached for the easy button and handed their voice to AI, but buyers and peers can smell performative engagement a mile away. The result isn’t networking or new business; it’s credibility leakage

Unlocking Meta’s Product-Level Ad Data

Ecommerce and Meta often go hand in hand. You can give Meta a 20,000-item catalog and a budget, and with its AI-powered Advantage+ campaigns, it’ll try to pair the right person with the right product, whether that’s a new customer or someone who’s already viewed those products before. But what’s actually happening inside that ad?

Meta to trial premium subscriptions across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp

The technology giant reportedly plans to introduce paid subscriptions offering exclusive features and expanded AI capabilities, while keeping core experiences free across its social media platforms. Source

Gabriel Amzallag (aka MC Blue Matter) is a hip-hop illustrator who balances the grind and the goof

Gabriel Amzallag loves hip-hop music, so much so that he has his own alter ego: MC Blue Matter. For nearly a decade, he’s been shaping visual identities through album art, animation and illustrations for streetwear brands to labels like Sony Music. Whereas his art work – which has spanned over 200 single and album covers

The Guide to Creating and Protecting Your Intellectual Property

The PESO Model® took 10 years to become an “overnight success.” Gini Dietrich has the step-by-step process to protect and monetize your intellectual property. The post The Guide to Creating and Protecting Your Intellectual Property first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Why CFOs Are Cutting AI Budgets (And The 3 Metrics That Save Them)

Every AI vendor pitch follows the same script: “Our tool saves your team 40% of their time on X task.” The demo looks impressive. The return on investment (ROI) calculator backs it up, showing millions in labor cost savings. You get budget approval. You deploy. Six months later, your CFO asks: “Where’s the 40% productivity

Cloudflare Ai licensing

Cloudflare’s move to bring AI startup Human Native into its stack signals a turning point: licensed, structured content could become a foundation for a more sustainable AI economy. While the ink is pretty fresh on the acquisition, announced on Jan. 15, several media experts and publishers regard it as a signal for how Cloudflare plans

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