Years after Paul Newman's passing, the brand’s new Chief Marketing Officer is focusing on highlighting its commitment to quality ingredients and charitable contributions as a way to engage millennial consumers.

Steve Kennedy, CMO at Marco's Pizza, explains that the sheer volume of data available to marketers today can be overwhelming and potentially harmful if not harnessed correctly. Instead of being just a valuable resource like oil, today’s marketing data is more like uranium—powerful and potentially dangerous. The key challenge for marketers is to transform this data overload into smarter, more effective decisions.

With new laws emerging rapidly, creating a complex legal landscape, the IAB is working to set a clear industry standard for AI disclosures in advertising. However, the practical aspects of applying these standards are still unclear.

Creator marketing, where brands collaborate with creators to enhance credibility, reach new audiences, and drive action, often cycles through phases of excitement and disappointment. Frequently, the failure is not about the marketing tactic but rather a lack of understanding of when, why, and how it effectively works. For instance, simply reacting quickly to memes isn't enough; brands must ensure the approach aligns with their audience, brand identity, and community engagement style.

Successful creator programs thrive on continuous evaluation — questioning what works, what changes, and why — applying these insights to improve strategies over time. Without detailed analysis, campaigns become isolated efforts instead of part of a smarter, evolving system.

Creator marketing impacts brand awareness, advocacy, and sales simultaneously, making it inherently complex. Success depends on factors like creator selection, content type, timing, audience fit, and active management of campaign performance. Yet, many teams only review results after campaigns end, missing opportunities to refine and improve in real-time.

The operational aspect is critical: understanding which creators and content formats are gaining traction, what signals indicate momentum, and deciding in real-time what to scale, stop, or adjust. Execution defines strategy by turning real-time insights into decisions about resource allocation and relationship-building, rather than relying on theoretical plans.

A case example is Pierre Fabre Laboratories US, which transformed its creator marketing by shifting from intuition to data-driven strategies. Using tools to continuously assess engagement, reach, and brand affinity, they built a structured expert network, formalized top Dermfluencers, and nurtured emerging advocates, resulting in stronger community trust, improved performance, and a scalable system.

In summary, sweating the details transforms creator marketing from disconnected campaigns into a continuously improving system. With AI and automation scaling patterns — regardless of quality — the brands that deeply understand what drives success gain a real competitive advantage in today’s landscape.

Brand marketers are rewriting the DTC playbook to align with the dynamic capabilities of agentic AI, enabling startups to scale operations more effectively.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is cautioning marketers against relying too heavily on retail media data. Following the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the organization is working to develop standardized metrics and a common vocabulary to bring clarity to this rapidly growing but still fragmented and opaque marketing channel.

The era when investors focused solely on ad networks, demand-side platforms, and supply-side platforms is over. Today's marketing landscape demands a deeper understanding beyond these components, signaling a shift in how digital advertising strategies will evolve in the future.

Starting August 24th, YouTube will count a view as soon as a video begins playing, similar to how Instagram and TikTok track views. This change is expected to help creators see quicker increases in their total view counts. Instagram and TikTok add a view as soon as a video plays or replays, while X requires viewers to watch for at least two seconds. YouTube already uses this counting approach for Shorts and will now apply it to all videos. The platform will maintain its original view-counting system as a separate 'engaged views' metric.

Since the rise of the internet, brands have fiercely competed to rank high on search engine results, aiming for prime visibility on Google pages. However, in the age of AI, traditional search engines are becoming secondary, and over 25% of brands are reportedly becoming invisible, according to a recent study.

The 2026 AI Visibility Index, the first report from strategic communications firm Lucie Content, analyzed how often AI chatbots recommend businesses. Appearing in AI recommendations is now critical since 45% of consumers turn to AI for business suggestions, a steep increase from 6% in 2025.

What exactly is AI visibility? It measures how frequently AI chatbots mention or recommend a business and how accurately they describe it. Lucie Content tested this by simulating customer questions and tracking business mentions and the accuracy of descriptions in AI responses.

Lucie Content's analysis of 94 businesses revealed that 26.6% never appeared in AI chatbot recommendations, and companies tended to either consistently appear or not at all. There was little overlap between high rankings on Google and AI visibility.

To check your brand's AI presence, Lucie offers a free tool to scan AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini for visibility scores focused on technical readiness. Businesses can mimic Lucie's method by running customer-like queries to gauge their AI visibility.

Lucie Content stresses that improving AI visibility boils down to clear, consistent, and factual information, supported by strong visuals to help both AI and humans understand the business. The firm successfully enhanced its own AI presence by applying these strategies, proving the issue can be addressed.

"The encouraging takeaway from our study is that visibility problems are fixable," said Craig Lucie, CEO of Lucie Content. "We saw measurable improvements in our own company before assisting others."

You've probably noticed it in everyday brands—hand-drawn typography, rough scanned textures, and imperfect designs aimed at evoking a sense of the past or craftsmanship. Cleaning product labels might echo a simpler era with hand-painted signs and retro illustrations, while new bakeries often opt for identities that feel purposely "imperfect." This handmade aesthetic has long been a topic of discussion, but recently it feels increasingly forced. For instance, Panera Bread's polished swash typography recalls local hand-painted signs but contrasts with its mass-produced branding. St. Regis luxury properties now include hand-drawn elements, which conflict with their polished image. Claude’s branding tries to appear as the more "human AI" through hand-drawn illustrations.

This trend stems largely from designers' unease with AI technology, pushing them to reject anything digital. Similar to past design fads like skeuomorphism or the 90s grunge style, this movement reflects a tension with technology rather than genuine brand needs.

While genuine hand-crafted design has value, overuse of this aesthetic dilutes its impact and fails to differentiate brands authentically in an AI-driven world.

To avoid pitfalls, designers should root handmade elements in meaningful project context, rethink what it means to be "human," collaborate with AI through iterative dialogue, and embrace brand complexity with varied logos and tones. The goal is to create distinction rather than blend in, ensuring brands convey authentic human qualities beyond surface trends.