Case Studied

Marketing moves you might've missed

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

A cheeky close-up, a wake-up call from Hugh, and ads in the picture

This week in marketing saw an awards show leave broadcast TV, two studios merge under a new name, and ads arrive inside AI image generation.

In today's edition:

🏆 The Emmys head to Prime Video
🧼 Hard Rock Bet sells soap to fans who rooted for a rival
🖼 ChatGPT tests ads during image generation

Campaigns of the week 📺

Twix brings Zombie Claus back for a second Hallowmas.

Mars is reviving Hallowmas, the Halloween-Christmas mashup Twix introduced in 2025, for a second year. The campaign kicked off in episode 806 of Subway Takes, where Zombie Claus told host Kareem Rahma that second impressions matter more than first ones. Publicis Media secured the appearance, along with other national media and influencer partnerships. In the hero spot from adam&eve\TBWA, Zombie Claus shows up at a teenager's door shouting "Happy Hallowmas." A fan contest offers $20,000 in prizes, including $5,000 each for Most Hallowmas Spirit and Best Zombie Claus Look-Alike. On Halloween, Zombie Claus will hand out Twix on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Source: Adweek

Hard Rock Bet sells soap to fans who rooted for a rival.

Hard Rock Bet and 72andSunny New York created Rival Rinse, six limited-edition football-shaped soaps for bettors who had to cheer against their own team. Scents include the cheesesteak-inspired Brotherly Scrub and pizza-scented SuDway. A launch spot spoofs luxury fragrance ads, following a bettor who realizes his winning pick meant rooting for a team he hates. "I played for Dallas, so believe me, I know rivalries," said Pro Football Hall of Famer and Hard Rock Bet ambassador Michael Irvin. The soaps grew out of Hard Rock Bet's $2 million NFL Survivor Contest. They're available through the app's rewards store while supplies last. Source: Muse by Clios

Wet Ones turns Kyle Cooke's hand into a gossip-page scandal.

BBH USA and photographer Ale Burset shot fingers, palms, and knuckles posed to look like bare backsides. The campaign launched with a DeuxMoi post of a photo that appeared to show "Summer House" star Kyle Cooke from behind but actually showed his hand. The work follows a OnePulse study in which more than half of Americans surveyed said they had used a hand wipe on an intimate area. Wet Ones says the MTA rejected the ads for the subway, so the plan moved to 100 LinkNYC kiosks, 60 transit shelters, and a five-screen Times Square installation. An Instagram and TikTok contest invites people to make their own hand illusions for a chance to appear in Times Square. It's the brand's first major campaign in several years. Source: Morning Star

Hugh Jackman phones AG1 customers about their morning routines.

AG1 has launched the second installment of its global "Good Morning, Hugh" campaign. A new 30-second spot follows Jackman's morning routine, with AG1 as part of how he starts his day. The campaign also features unscripted conversations with figures including Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and Cleetus McFarland. Jackman also surprises real AG1 customers with calls about their own routines. The partnership began in January, when AG1 named Jackman its global ambassador with a spot showing him tap-dancing at dawn above his annoyed neighbors. Source: Ad Age

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Industry news 🤝

🏆 The Emmys leave the broadcast rotation for Prime Video.

Prime Video will be the exclusive global home of the Emmy Awards for six years, starting with the 2027 ceremony. The show will stream live and free, with no subscription required, in more than 240 countries and territories. The deal ends the "Wheel Deal" rotation that split the telecast among ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC.

Source: Amazon News

🎬 Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery now operate under one name: Skydance.

The combined company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD on Oct. 6, moving from Nasdaq. CEO David Ellison said the Skydance name was chosen so Paramount and Warner Bros. could keep their individual identities. The company now owns CBS, CNN, Paramount+, and HBO Max.

Source: PR Newswire/Skydance Corporation

▶️ YouTube cuts Shorts reach for channels that mostly repost others' videos.

In an Oct. 1 post, YouTube said channels that mainly re-upload other creators' videos without meaningful changes will likely get less distribution in the Shorts feed. Creators who use others' clips are asked to add original commentary, unique edits, or storytelling.

Source: YouTube Help Community

MarTech moves 🤖

🔒 Reddit will shut off RSS feeds and close its public API.

Reddit will end RSS support on Nov. 13 and close public API access in March 2027, citing large-scale scraping and automated abuse. Once the API closes, AI assistants that use Reddit to answer questions will need commercial data deals with the company. Reddit's "other revenue" beyond advertising, the category tied to its AI licensing deals, grew 24% year over year to $43 million in Q2.

Source: TechCrunch

🖼 OpenAI will test ads inside ChatGPT's image generator.

Later in October, OpenAI will test a visual ad format during image generation with a group of U.S. advertisers. Ads will be labeled and kept separate from the generated image. OpenAI is also piloting brand-suitability evaluations with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science.

Source: OpenAI

🤖 TikTok opens its ad network to U.S. advertisers and adds shopping agents.

TikTok Ad Network, which extends campaigns to nearly 400,000 third-party apps, is now available to U.S. advertisers for the first time. Integral Ad Science will independently measure viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety on the network. TikTok also introduced a Shopping Assistant agent, Buy Direct in-app checkout, and Agentic Leads.

Source: Marketing Dive

Editors Choice 👀

👔 VML Global CEO Jon Cook will leave WPP after three decades, and Eric Campbell will take over as Global CEO in March 2027. Source: WPP

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

A newspaper of evidence, a candy elimination, and four identical eye-patch grinders.

This week in marketing saw a $110 billion merger settlement, AI agents moving into checkout and ad buying, and a legal AI company's first commercial.

In today's edition:

📦 Amazon's AI takes over planning for a nearly $20 billion ad business
🏈 Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed appear in NFL Network's Bills stadium series
📱 Instagram publishes its own 2026 guide to Reels

Campaigns of the week 📺

The Washington Post turns its Flock camera investigation into a full print edition.

The Post launched "Relentless," a brand platform from Uncommon Creative Studio, with a special edition about its reporting on police misuse of Flock license-plate-reader cameras. The edition features much of the material behind that story, including interviews, documents, and other reporting. Five Indianapolis officers now face fraud and official misconduct charges following the Post's story. Uncommon also made a sturdier version of the journalist's press pass that reads "To honor the relentless and courageous pursuit of truth." The Post is sending the edition to subscribers and the White House. It is also sending physical packages to policymakers, media executives, and influencers. Source: LBB online

M&M's parodies telenovelas, crime thrillers, and "Survivor".

M&M's and BBDO Chicago created "Screentime," a campaign that drops the spokescandies into three TV genres. In "Unanimous," contestants vote the red and yellow M&M's off the island and onto the menu. In "Telenovela," the green M&M misses that the lead actor's words of passion are about eating her. Rami Hachache of Prettybird directed the spots, and Omnicom handled production. The campaign runs across broadcast, full-episode player video, programmatic, and social. It supports "It's More Fun Together," the creative platform M&M's introduced last year. Source: Marketing Dive

Legal AI company Harvey builds its first commercial around a handshake.

Harvey and Better Half created the 60-second spot, using the handshake as a symbol of the agreements lawyers turn into contracts. Harvey develops AI software for law firms and corporate legal departments, with tools for contract review, due diligence, compliance, and litigation. Smuggler handled production, with Rubberband directing. CMO Rachel Hepworth said the team wanted the spot grounded in "the broader impact lawyers have on society." Source: Ad Age

NFL Network's "Building Buffalo" follows the workers behind the Bills' new stadium.

The two-part series tells the story of the laborers, tradespeople, architects, and contractors who built Highmark Stadium. Five-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Dion Dawkins, founder of Shnow Vision Films, is an executive producer. Former Bills players Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, and Steve Tasker appear alongside current players, including Damar Hamlin. Dawkins called the laborers "the offensive line of the job site." Source: Buffalo Bills

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Industry news 🤝

👁 Fenty's "first of its kind" eye patches meet three lookalikes.

Fenty's PR agency pitched hydrogel eye patches in a twist-to-dispense grinder package on Sept. 17. Within five days, Glow Recipe, Huda Beauty, and Vitamasques previewed patches in the same packaging. Korean brand Wonder Bath launched the format in Korea in July. None of the brands paid for exclusivity on the package.

Source: BeautyMatter

🛒 NYC stocks up on four agencies for its grocery stores.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans five city-supported grocery stores under N.Y.C. Groceries, one in each borough. Design firm Gander will lead the brand identity with brand consultancy Librarie, creative studio Noble Signs, and grocery design firm Seven Roots. The city has allocated $70 million and plans to open the first store in the Bronx in 2027. Two lawsuits from grocery business groups challenge the initiative.

Source: Ad Age

🎬 Paramount's $110 billion merger comes with a 30-film-a-year price tag.

A coalition of states led by California sued over Paramount Skydance's merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, raising concerns that it would limit competition in film and television. To settle, Paramount agreed to terms that include releasing at least 30 films a year. The settlement removes a major hurdle for the deal.

Source: BBC

MarTech moves 🤖

🏢 Meta takes Muse to work with a new enterprise AI unit.

Meta launched Meta Enterprise Platform on Sept. 28 to offer its AI stack, including the Muse agent, to businesses and developers. Former MongoDB CEO CJ Desai will lead the unit, reporting to Mark Zuckerberg. A day later, Meta added Muse for Small Business, which connects the agent to tools like Shopify, Slack, Stripe, and Intuit QuickBooks.

Source: Meta Newsroom

🛍 Shopify opens the checkout lane to AI agents.

Starting Sept. 28, browser-based AI agents can read, update, and submit checkouts on eligible Shopify merchants' sites, including Shop Pay. Before, agents could only search products and add items to carts. Each order still requires the buyer's authorization. Amazon and Adidas block AI agents from purchasing on their sites.

Source: TechCrunch

📦 Amazon's new Ads Agent takes the planning off advertisers' plates.

On Sept. 29, Amazon renamed the platform that combines its demand-side platform and ads console Amazon Ads Agent. In full-funnel campaigns, now available to all U.S. advertisers, Amazon's AI handles planning, execution, and optimization. Advertisers supply the budget, products, and creative. Amazon's ad business generated nearly $20 billion in Q2 2026.

Source: Marketing Dive

Editors Choice 👀

📱 Instagram published a 2026 guide to making Reels, covering recording, editing, sharing, and effects. Source: Instagram

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

175 years of NYT ads, two bent Lexuses, and one Hard Button

This week spans creative launches, changing media inventory, and new questions about how people discover and buy products.

In today's edition:

🌀 MSCHF bends two Lexus vehicles into sculptures
🍔 McDonald's tests other brands' ads on its menu boards
🛒 Amazon blocks Meta's new Muse AI agent

Campaigns of the week 📺

Beats fills a café with Kendall Jenners.

Beats says the new Beats 360 is its first over-ear headphone with swappable ear and headband cushions. In the launch spot from Uncommon Creative Studio, Jenner plays the customers, the barista, and the people in the photos at a café named Kendalls. Each version wears a different color combination under the tagline “One headphone. Every version of you”. CMO Chris Thorne said the team chose multiple Kendalls over casting other actors. The headphones are scheduled to reach stores September 24. Source: Verge

The New York Times turns 175 years of ads into a campaign.

New York Times Advertising launched "175 Years of Advertising," built around a nine-page print spread of seven archive ads from 1851 to 2026. Featured brands include Tiffany & Co., Ford, Heinz, IBM, Delta Air Lines, E*TRADE, and L'Oréal. The earliest is a Tiffany & Co. holiday ad that ran three months after the paper's first issue. Tusar Barik, SVP of marketing at NYTA, said the archive showed that advertising "often foreshadows significant cultural moments." None of the featured brands paid to be included. The in-house campaign also includes a digital timeline and audio spots, with media running through Sept. 30. Source: The New York Times Advertising

Lexus lets MSCHF bend two cars into sculptures.

Lexus commissioned the Brooklyn art collective to create "MOTOMORPHOSIS," on view Sept. 24-26 at Chelsea Industrial during New York's Armory Week. The electric RZ 450e was looped nose-to-tail into "Circle Car." The plug-in hybrid RX 450h+ was twisted into a spiral for “Twisted Car.” Each sculpture is displayed next to the unaltered production model it came from. Lexus marketing senior manager Lisa McQueen framed the project as asking what electricity can power “in our imagination”. Source: Lexus Newsroom

Ben Stiller crashes Katz's in a catsuit.

Katz's Delicatessen is adding Stiller's Soda, the brand Stiller co-founded with Alex Doman, to its menu. It's the deli's first new soda in decades and the first Shirley Temple in its history. In a video directed by New York creator Nicolas Heller, Stiller arrives in a “Cats” costume believing he's there to film the musical. “Severance” costume designer Sarah Edwards created the outfit and helped source a wig from the original Broadway production. Stiller's launched in New York about a year ago, with 30 calories and 7 grams of sugar per can. Source: Roastbrief

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Industry news 🤝

📏 Comscore, iSpot, and VideoAmp win another term as national TV currencies.

The U.S. Joint Industry Committee recertified all three measurement providers for the 2026-2028 term. Each met the JIC's baseline for transactability across total households, advanced audiences, and personified demographics. The evaluation ran 39 data questions and 672 tests across more than 150 million telecast observations from 680+ networks.

Source: Mediapost

🛵 DoorDash taps WPP Media as its first-ever global media partner.

DoorDash selected WPP Media after a competitive review. The assignment covers DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Wolt across more than 40 markets and takes effect in early 2027. It extends an eight-year relationship in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Source: WPP Media

🍔 McDonald's tests turning its digital menu boards into ad space for other brands.

McDonald's is piloting third-party ads on digital menu boards at select company-owned U.S. restaurants. The ads run after customers order, while they wait for food. McDonald’s has more than 13,700 U.S. restaurants.

Source: Bloomberg

MarTech moves 🤖

🛒 Amazon cuts off Meta's shopping agent.

Amazon blocked Meta's Muse agent from shopping on Amazon.com. According to Amazon, the agent did not identify itself while browsing and appeared to capture and store customer credentials. Meta maintains that Muse keeps credentials in secure storage and checks with users before sensitive actions. The companies remained in talks when the block was reported.

Source: GeekWire

🔎 Pinterest puts ads inside visual search.

Pinterest announced Visual Search Ads, which place sponsored products in visual search results and enlarged Pin views, with a beta rolling out in markets worldwide. The company also added Performance+ features, including manual A/B testing, customer-reach controls, and holiday product prioritization.

Source: Digiday

🛍️ Kroger sees larger baskets among AI assistant users.

Kroger says customers using its AI shopping assistant are adding more items to their carts. Launched across its sites and apps in July, the assistant suggests products, helps plan meals, and turns recipes and shopping lists into carts.

Source: MarketingTech News

Editors Choice 👀

🔴 Staples launches a "Hard Button" to sell its B2B services. Source: Marketing Dive

📺 Trade Desk study finds CTV spans every stage of sports fandom. Source: The Current

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Vol. 143: La Poste: Marketing with Tetris 🎮

Case Studied — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:45:36 +0000

Case Studied
Playing Tetris with parcels

Most sustainability changes inside a supply chain don’t make compelling marketing stories. Route optimization, fuller trucks, and better warehouse layouts are the mechanics that move emissions numbers, but they rarely give a brand something to talk about.

La Poste, France's national postal service, found a way to go against that norm in a playful way.

This week, Case Studied explores how La Poste tripled truck capacity and cut emissions by operating like Tetris.

The Brief

La Poste Groupe is France's national postal service and one of the country's oldest institutions. It employs 227,000 people across more than 60 countries and operates roughly 40,500 service points.

The company became a mission-driven business in 2021, committing to reach net zero emissions by 2040. That target landed just as parcel volume kept climbing: La Poste delivered roughly 490 million parcels in France in 2024 alone, up 4.9% year-over-year, with global shipments projected to reach 256 billion annually by 2027.

Delivery transport already accounts for close to 3% of global CO2 emissions. So La Poste's challenge was to grow parcel capacity without growing emissions, and without slowing deliveries down.

The answer came from an unlikely source: the loading logic of a video game.

The Execution

La Poste launched "Delivered by Tetris," a campaign built around how trucks are loaded. At its core was software modeled on Tetris's central rule: never leave an empty space.

It calculates each parcel's optimal position in a truck based on its volume, weight, and unloading order.The software was rolled out across La Poste's 35 national hubs and more than 30 sorting centers. Roughly 12,000 employees were trained to use it on about 20,000 trucks a year. La Poste then partnered with The Tetris Company itself to turn the change into a public story, unveiled on stage at VivaTech Paris in June 2025. La Poste CEO Philippe Wahl and Tetris Company CEO Maya Rogers presented the software together.

From there, the campaign expanded into a hero film, social and digital activations, and influencer content, complete with co-branded trucks. La Poste also released limited-edition Tetris-themed stamps and a merchandise line of sweatshirts, T-shirts, socks, tote bags, and pens, which were sold online and at the Musée de La Poste store.

The Results

The Tetris optimization tripled how many parcels a single La Poste truck could carry, rising from 1,500 to 4,500. That gain meantLa Poste cut more than 15,000 tons of CO2 a year and dropped fule consumption by 66%. Meanwhile, on-time delivery held at 99.1%.

The public-facing campaign also drove attention beyond the logistics community. It generated over 26 million impressions and 13 million video views. La Poste saw a 20% increase in web traffic from the U.S. and a fourfold increase in Google searches for "French Post."

According to Ipsos data cited by the companies, 78% of viewers reported an improved impression of the La Poste brand, 25 points above benchmark. The approach has since been studied externally by organizations including PostEurop, EPOS, and think tanks such as The Shift Project as a model for cutting transport emissions through optimization rather than automation.

The Takeaways

1) Turn a quiet operational win into a visible story.

La Poste's loading approach wasn't built for this campaign. According to the company's own materials, a version of it had been running for roughly a decade before "Delivered by Tetris" launched. The opportunity La Poste identified was noticing that an existing, unglamorous result had a story worth telling.

Before building a campaign around something new, look at what's already working quietly inside the operation. A result that's been running for years without a public narrative can be a more concrete starting point than an idea built from scratch, and it arrives with real numbers already attached.

2) Pair the announcement with the people who built it.

La Poste didn't just issue a press release about the Tetris-inspired software; it had its own CEO share the stage with the CEO of The Tetris Company at a major tech event to jointly explain the partnership. That joint appearance lent the story credibility beyond marketing copy.

When a partnership or announcement has real substance behind it, consider having the executives or teams actually responsible for the work present it together, rather than routing the story exclusively through press materials or social content.

3) Let merchandise carry your message.

The limited-edition Tetris-themed stamps gave the public a small, tangible, collectible artifact tied to the campaign. It was something a press release or hero film alone couldn't offer. And as a bonus, it was something usable in the ordinary act of mailing something.

If your campaign has a strong visual or conceptual hook, look for a physical or digital extension that lets your audience hold onto or use it directly. Even if your industry isn’t the typical market for merchandise (like a postal service), it can be an effective tactic depending on your campaign.

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This week's spiciest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

Savage X Fenty, Sydney Sweeney, and OpenAI

This week in marketing paired splashy OOH stunts with a betting ad that drew swift pushback from Olympic athletes.

In today's edition:

🩱 Savage X Fenty casts giant lingerie shadows over Manhattan
🏃‍♀️ Female athletes push back on a Sydney Sweeney betting ad
🤖 OpenAI ads now open a chat instead of a website

Campaigns of the week 📺

Savage X Fenty projects giant lingerie shadows over Manhattan.

The brand rigged oversized bra-and-underwear structures above the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Fashion Avenue in New York's Garment District, using sunlight to cast the pieces' shadows across the street throughout the day. Banners spelling out "SAVAGE X FENTY" hang between nearby buildings, and the installation coincided with New York Fashion Week foot traffic. The stunt drew some online criticism over whether the imagery, visible to passersby including children, was appropriate for a public street. Source: Famous Campaigns

Dunkin' reunites two Spice Girls to introduce a fictional sixth member.

Dunkin's new fall campaign features Geri Halliwell-Horner (Ginger Spice) and Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) in a mock-documentary interview that reveals a previously unmentioned bandmate, Pumpkin Spice, played by comedian Rachel Dratch. The spot, which premiered Sept. 8, ties into the return of Dunkin's pumpkin spice, pie, and patch latte flavors. Dratch's character says she left the group to focus on lattes, and Halliwell-Horner jokes the other Spice Girls still won't speak to her. Source: Billboard

Columbia Sportswear makes customers fax in for a free fleece.

To mark the 35th anniversary of its 1991 Helvetia fleece, Columbia is giving the pullover away to anyone who faxes an order to a dedicated line, 503-208-8580.. In partnership with adam&eveDDB and creator Ken Eurich, the stunt is part of the "Engineered for Whatever" platform, which also produced a "flat Earth" challenge that won a Grand Prix at this year's Cannes Lions. Columbia's parent company reported net sales up 2% to $614.4 million last quarter, with a double-digit increase in new North American customers. Source: Marketing Dive

Apothic Wine and Heidi Klum sell a wine-branded "blood bag.".

The limited-edition Apothic Type 'A' Blood Bag, co-created with Klum and signed by her, is packaged to resemble a blood transfusion bag and ships in a custom red cooler. The first release goes on sale Sept. 17 at 10:31 p.m. ET for $10.31 per two-pack at ApothicBloodTypeA.com. Apothic is also running a sweepstakes through Sept. 27 for one winner and a guest to attend Klum's invite-only Halloween party on Oct. 30. Source: All Hallows Geek

Industry news 🤝

⚖️ Female athletes criticize a Sydney Sweeney betting ad for sexualizing women's sports.

The ad for sports-prediction platform Novig shows Sweeney with little to no clothing, posing with sports equipment including a basketball hoop. British sprinter Amy Hunt told the BBC, "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like." Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus and a former gymnast also criticized the ad.

Source: The Guardian

🎯 Target hires former Hilton marketing chief as CMO and guest experience officer.

Target named Mark Weinstein to the newly created role of chief marketing and guest experience officer. He reports to CEO Michael Fiddelke and will also oversee Roundel and Target+. Weinstein joins from Hilton, where he was global chief marketing officer across its 28 brands and Hilton Honors. Source: Marketing Dive

Source: Marketing Dive

📱 Ad executives say Apple's foldable iPhone could open up a new ad format.

Ad leaders are comparing the iPhone Duo to how early smartphones and apps like Snapchat gave rise to vertical video as a creative format. Netflix has already redesigned its iOS app for what a spokesperson called an "immersive, big-screen feeling" on the unfolded screen.

Source: Adweek

📱 Amazon adds short-form news clips to Prime Video to compete for younger viewers.

The on-demand local and national clips will appear in Prime Video's News destination, first on TVs before expanding to web and mobile. Prime Video joins Peacock, HBO Max, Netflix, and Disney+, which have each added short-form video feeds this year.

Source: TechCrunch

MarTech moves 🤖

💬 OpenAI tests an ad format that opens a chat instead of a website.

OpenAI introduced select advertisers to a new ChatGPT ad type: clicking the ad's call-to-action button, such as an invitation to chat, opens a branded conversation with the brand's AI agent instead of an external website. CFO Sarah Friar called the format a step toward something more "AI-native."

Source: Digiday

💳 Meta launches a paid subscription tier of marketing tools across its apps.

"Meta One" bundles paid AI, analytics, scheduling, and customer-service tools for creators and brands across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.Plans range from $14.99 to $499 monthly. Meta says subscribing doesn't itself boost organic reach.

Source: LBBOnline

🛍 Snapchat launches a holiday ad suite as its ad chief steps down.

The launch follows the departure of Chief Business Officer Ajit Mohan, Snapchat's top ad executive. The new "Commerce Power Pack" adds Dynamic Product Ads inside Snapchat's Chat and cross-channel optimization tools, and the company cited TransUnion data showing it converts shoppers a half-day faster than other major platforms.

Source: Marketing Dive

📈 Google upgrades Meridian with agentic AI and brand tracking.

Meridian is Google's open-source marketing mix model. The update adds agentic AI to help marketers audit data quality and resolve errors, plus new brand-signal tracking for upper-funnel channels like TV.

Source: Marketing Dive

Editors Choice 👀

📊 Reddit shared new data on how users research gift ideas on the platform. Source: Social Media Today

⚽ MLS CMO Radhika Duggal ties a lift in viewership and ticketing to a World Cup campaign. Source: Marketing Brew

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Vol. 142: Cinemark & Lowe's: Bucket list-worthy 🪣

Case Studied — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Spotting it before anyone else does

Some campaigns start in a conference room. Others start when brands notice what its customers are doing and decide to lean into it.

That’s how a movie theater and a hardware chain ended up partnering on a National Popcorn Day activation.

This week, Case Studied explores how Cinemark and Lowe's turned real-time social listening into an unlikely cross-category partnership.

The Brief

Cinemark, founded in Texas in 1977, is one of the largest movie theater chains in the U.S. with close to 500 locations across the US and Latin America. Lowe's, the home improvement retailer founded in North Carolina in 1921, is one of the largest chains in its category, with more than 1,700 stores nationwide.

Until 2025, the two brands had no existing relationship and no obvious overlap in customer base or category.

But that year Cinemark ran a "Bring Your Own Bucket" promotion for National Popcorn Day. It invited fans to show up with their own containers and fill them with discounted popcorn.

The promotion spread quickly online, with fans posting all kinds of creative containers. But one particular vessel kept showing up consistently: the Lowe’s blue bucket. Fans were organically choosing the brand’s longtime staple on their own. And that behavior gave the two companies an opportunity heading into 2026.

The Execution

For the next National Popcorn Day promotion, Cinemark and Lowe's built a collaboration directly on top of the organic behavior their social teams spotted in 2025.

The new 2026 promotion stayed close to what fans were already doing, but added some extra value and incentive. Any bucket brought to a Cinemark theater could still be filled with up to 400 ounces of popcorn $5 (which was the deal in 2025). But with the new deal, a Lowe's five-gallon bucket specifically unlocked 640 ounces for the same price, plus a coupon toward a future visit.

From there, the brands leaned on organic sharing: fans posted their buckets and tagged both brands. The content generated spread across platforms largely on its own, with paid amplification layered on top. In their submission for the 18th Annual Shorty Awards, the brands summarized the approach saying, "We didn't force a brand moment. We followed one."

The Results

The 2026 National Popcorn Day promotion reached 41 million-plus people, up 673.6% year-over-year. It generated 1.5 million-plus engagements, marking a 373.2% increase.

Lowe's reported a 58% month-over-month increase in bucket sales in January, alongside a 63% net-positive sentiment lift tied to the promotion. National coverage included USA Today, Fast Company, and HGTV. he campaign also won a Bronze Honor in User-Generated Content at the 18th Annual Shorty Awards.

The Takeaways

1) Treat social listening as a valid source of ideas.

The Lowe's bucket collaboration didn't originate from a creative brief. It came from Lowe's social team noticing the same product show up repeatedly in Cinemark's user-generated content. That pattern became the entire basis for the campaign.

Most brands use social listening to track sentiment or catch complaints, but it can also surface product-market connections that wouldn't otherwise be obvious. Reviewing what your audience is already doing with or around your product (outside of any campaign you've launched) can point toward valuable opportunities .

2) Reward existing behavior instead of asking for new behavior.

Cinemark and Lowe's didn't ask fans to adopt a new habit, they simply built an incentive around a habit that was already formed. The offer structure—more popcorn for the same price with a Lowe's bucket—made participation feel like a valuable bonus.

Look at the areas where your audience has already established a pattern of action. How can you design an incentive that sits on top of it? Keep the lift low and the pattern disruption minimal, and you could end up with a repeatable, winning campaign.

3) Find partnerships that mutually expand audience reach.

The collaboration introduced Lowe's five-gallon bucket to moviegoers who may never have shopped a hardware retailer for that product. It also gave Cinemark a reason to draw in Lowe's shoppers who hadn't been to a theater recently.

Cross-category partnerships work best when each brand brings an audience the other doesn't engage with. Before pursuing a partner, it's worth analyzing who audiences actually are and how you can connect with each.

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The marketing moves that defined the week

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

Nike's exit, Poshmark's bet, and Sephora's TikTok Shop debut

This week in marketing saw a major index shakeup, two big retail bets on new channels, and a leadership change atop one of the industry's largest agency networks.

In today's edition:

Nike drops out of the S&P 100 after 18 years 📉
Sephora debuts a "Drop Shop" on TikTok Shop 🛍️
Suno rebuilds its AI models on licensed music 🎤

Campaigns of the week 📺

Hoka turns Strava mileage into a borough-vs-borough battle.

Hoka's "Run Your City" challenge is underway throughout September on Strava. It pits New York's five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island) against each other in a race to log the most running miles. Weekly results appear on digital out-of-home screens in Times Square, Tribeca, SoHo, and Williamsburg, alongside six creators representing the boroughs on paid social and TikTok. The challenge extends Hoka's existing global Strava partnership and its "Together We Fly Higher" platform. Source: Marketing Dive

Häagen-Dazs and Stella Artois's billboard flirtation heats up.

We covered the opening exchange last week, when Häagen-Dazs put up a Toronto billboard reading "Let's grab a pint" and Stella Artois replied on an adjacent billboard, "Are you asking us out?" Häagen-Dazs took it a step further with a mobile billboard truck reading "Depends. You into spooning?" and Stella answered with a truck of its own: "Only if you're into six-packs." There was no coordination between the two brands. Häagen-Dazs also posted an Instagram photo of its ice cream next to a Stella Artois beer captioned "9 months later," a callback joke to the billboard banter rather than an actual product collaboration. Source: Ad Age

Poshmark launches its largest campaign to date during New York Fashion Week.

Poshmark introduced "Try Yourself On," with agency nice&frank,. The campaign launched September 8th and spans film, out-of-home, social, and an in-person "Poshmark Dry Cleaners" activation in SoHo on September 13th. Out-of-home placements run across New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, including subway takeovers at Union Square, Broadway-Lafayette, and Toronto's St. George Station. Source: LBBOnline

A men's sunscreen brand makes its case with a 90-year-old's backside.

Pasty Man, a brand positioned "for men who love the sun but hate to die," released a film called "The 90 Year Old Butt Theory." It focuses on an elderly man's backside as he dances in bright orange shorts. The ad's copy reads "Why an old butt ages better than your face" and points out that skin hidden from the sun ages differently than areas regularly exposed to UV. The in-house campaign is aimed at men who are resistant to using skincare products. Source: Ad Age

Industry news 🤝

📱 Sephora will pilot a "Drop Shop" on TikTok Shop.

Sephora will launch exclusive monthly product drops through a new TikTok Shop pilot starting September 19th. The Sephora Drop Shop combines creator content with a TikTok Live to unveil each drop. Global Chief Digital Officer Anca Marola said the pilot is meant to scale Sephora's "retailtainment" model in the US with a "test-and-learn mindset" ahead of a broader global rollout.

Source: Retail Dive

📉 Nike and Simon Property Group are dropped from the S&P 100.

Both companies will be removed from the index effective before trading on September 21st, per S&P Dow Jones Indices, with the incoming additions concentrated in tech. Both remain on the broader S&P 500. For Nike, the change lands amid an ongoing turnaround. A separate Wells Fargo note this week found the brand's social media mentions down 10% in the second quarter.

Source: Retail Dive

🔄 Andrew Robertson to lead Omnicom Advertising Group as Troy Ruhanen retires.

Troy Ruhanen is retiring as president and CEO of Omnicom Advertising Group, the unit housing BBDO, TBWA\Worldwide, and McCann. His retirement comes after he served more than 20 years in leadership roles across Omnicom. Andrew Robertson, currently chairman of BBDO Worldwide, will become CEO, effective immediately. Ruhanen previously spent a decade as president and CEO of TBWA\Worldwide.

Source: Ad Age

🍺 Samsung's US marketing chief jumps to Boston Beer as CMO.

Boston Beer hired Samsung Electronics America's VP and CMO Allison Stransky as its new CMO, effective October 12th. The role had been vacant since March, when longtime CMO Lesya Lysyj departed. Stransky steps in as two of the company's largest brands, Twisted Tea and Truly Hard Seltzer, face growing competition from spirits-based hard teas and canned cocktails.

Source: Adweek

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MarTech moves 🤖

🎵 Suno rebuilds its AI music models on licensed data amid lawsuits.

Suno released Suno v6, a new AI music model family it says was trained on licensed catalogs from Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe. The launch follows a settlement with Warner and a licensing deal with BMG, though Suno still faces suits from Sony, Universal, and artist Jason Isbell. The company is also planning an opt-in remix feature that lets artists license their songs for AI-generated derivative works.

Source: TechCrunch

📊 NIQ and Similarweb build a measurement system for AI shopping.

NIQ and Similarweb are building a joint measurement system, with an initial version due in the fourth quarter of 2026. It will track five metrics (consumer intent, shelf visibility, product content readiness, AI-driven traffic, and conversion) across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and Claude. The system is meant to close the attribution gap where AI-assisted product research doesn't generate traceable referral traffic back to brands.

Source: Marketing Tech News

🛠️ Home Depot expands its Magic Apron AI assistant to all US stores.

Home Depot's AI shopping assistant, Magic Apron, is now live in all 2,000+ US stores, accessible via the app's Store Mode or in-store QR codes. Magic Apron can answer text-, voice-, and photo-based questions about product location, availability, and project guidance. The assistant currently fields millions of questions per month and Home Depot positioned it as a complement to in-store associates.

Source: Marketing Tech News

Editors Choice 👀

🎗 Comic Relief satirizes indifference toward childhood poverty with a fake "do-nothing" nonprofit. Source: Ads of the World

🏆 Apple's "I'm Not Remarkable" wins the 2026 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. Source: LBBOnline

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The marketing moves that defined the week

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

A million-dollar treasure hunt, a scripted rom-com, and Amazon's ad auction lawsuit

This week in marketing, a billboard got a cheeky reply, two major accounts changed agency hands, and a social platform tightened their policy on AI-generated content.

In today's edition:

The UPS Store gets its first brand character 📦
Publicis and Travis Kelce launch a joint venture for NIL marketing 🏈
ChatGPT's ad business crosses $1 billion in annualized revenue 💰

Campaigns of the week 📺

Dr. Squatch hides $1 million for IShowSpeed's fans to find.

Dr. Squatch and streamer IShowSpeed launched "SPEEDRUN: Million Dollar Mission," a nine-week event across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia featuring 25 real-world challenges tied to a $1 million prize pool. Developed with production company Applied MSCHF, the mission asks fans to compete, travel, and create content together in pursuit of the prize. The campaign ties Dr. Squatch's marketing directly to IShowSpeed's existing audience of fans who create and share content around his challenges. Source: Yahoo Finance

Chicago Cubs release a scripted rom-com on TikTok.

The Chicago Cubs' in-house creative arm, Cubs Productions, released a trailer for "Nine Innings to Love." The 17-episode scripted series follows two fictional fans who meet in the Wrigley Field bleachers. The series spans the nine innings of a single Cubs game and debuts September 4 exclusively on the team's TikTok account. Source: Variety

The UPS Store gets its first brand character.

The UPS Store introduced Blu, a female brand character appearing in a national, multiyear campaign from Paramount Media Labs. Aimed at small business owners, the spots show Blu appearing through a portal to help franchisees with tasks like printing, shredding and setting up business mailboxes. The campaign also features NFL player and small business owner Aidan Hutchinson. It arrives as parent company UPS has cut tens of thousands of jobs amid a pullback from Amazon delivery volume. Source: Marketing Dive

Stella Artois answers a neighboring billboard with one of its own.

When Häagen-Dazs put up a Toronto billboard reading "Let's grab a pint"—referring to a pint of ice cream—Stella Artois booked an adjacent ad space. The beer company’s ad read, "Are you asking us out?" There was no coordination between the two brands. Stella's in-house creative shop, draftLine, spotted the opportunity and got the response live within a week. Source: LBBOnline

Industry news 🤝

🏈 Publicis and Travis Kelce launch a joint venture for NIL marketing.

Publicis Sports partnered with NFL player Travis Kelce and Lionsgate-owned 3 Arts Sports to launch Tekta. The new consulting venture is focused on Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals for college athletes. The NIL market is valued at roughly $4.5 billion, according to NIL platform Opendorse, and Tekta says it can offer 50-70% faster speed to market and unified measurement across 68 Power Four universities.

Source: Marketing Dive

⚖️ Amazon faces an FTC lawsuit over hidden ad-auction surcharges.

The FTC and 22 state attorneys general sued Amazon, alleging the company secretly inflated prices in its search ad auctions for more than seven years. The agency says Amazon did this through a hidden “soft reserve price” and the practice affected over 1 million advertisers. Amazon disputes the claims, pointing to flat inflation-adjusted cost-per-click and a 24% rise in conversion rates between 2019 and 2024.

Source: Marketing Dive

🔀 CVS Health wraps its agency review, adding Dentsu and retaining Omnicom.

CVS Health concluded its agency review, hiring Dentsu Creative as a new creative partner while retaining Omnicom as its media agency, a role Omnicom (via UM) has held since 2019. Publicis Groupe, which has handled CVS Health's U.S. creative and CRM since 2022, wasn't confirmed to retain any business going forward. CVS Health's full-year U.S. measured media spend fell to $369.8 million in 2025 from $380.1 million in 2024, per MediaRadar.

Source: Ad Age

🎬 BetMGM names CAPE its agency of record behind a new Jon Hamm campaign.

Independent agency CAPE was named BetMGM's agency of record, expanding a relationship that began in 2024. The appointment coincides with a new NFL-season campaign, "It Happens Here," starring Jon Hamm inside a fictional setting called "The Legends Lounge." BetMGM says it plans to extend the setting into future activations.

Source: AdWeek

MarTech moves 🤖

💰 ChatGPT's ad business crosses $1 billion in annualized revenue.

OpenAI said ChatGPT's advertising business reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate. The figure comes roughly 200 days after its February launch. The company is expanding self-serve ad buying to India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, bringing ChatGPT Ads to more than 40 countries.

Source: Adweek

🎨 Google launches an AI design tool aimed at Canva's territory.

Google introduced Google Pics, an AI tool for creating posters, social posts and other visuals through text prompts. It will oll out first within Google Docs and Slides. Unlike Canva, which lets outside artists publish templates and earn royalties, Google Pics generates content using AI trained on existing artists' work.

Source: TechCrunch

🛒 Albertsons says AI-assisted shopping is lifting basket sizes.

Grocery chain Albertsons reported that customers using its AI-powered conversational search see a 10% lift in average order value. That figure rises to 26% for those using its more comprehensive shopping assistant to plan recipes or dietary needs, according to figures shared with the Wall Street Journal. The retailer's tools are built on Google Cloud's Conversational Commerce agent and OpenAI models.

Source: Marketing Tech News

🏷️ Instagram will limit reach for undisclosed AI-generated profiles.

Instagram is renaming its "AI creator" label to "AI-generated profile." It will also limit the reach of accounts that feature AI-generated people but don't disclose it. Creators who only use AI tools within their content-creation process don't need the label.

Source: Instagram For Creators

Editors Choice 👀

🍫 Hershey's taps Katseye for its Creme Bars launch aimed at “accessible premium” spending. Source: Ad Age

🎥 Chipotle’s latest national campaign is built entirely from creator footage. Source: Marketing Dive

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Vol. 141: Vaseline: Paying the OGs 🧴

Case Studied — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Finding the original hacker

Viral hacks rarely come with a clear author. When one happens to involve a specific product, the brand attached to it often gets to claim the moment anyway: by the time a trick has been reposted, stitched, and duetted a few thousand times, the person who actually came up with it is usually long gone from the conversation.

Some brands reward this kind of activity after the fact, paying out to whoever posts the best UGC once a trend is already peaking—we covered GoPro's Million Dollar Challenge, which does exactly that with user-submitted footage each year. Vaseline did something narrower.

This week, Case Studied explores how Vaseline turned two 2008 beauty hacks into a sold-out, creator-credited product line.

The Brief

Vaseline, a Unilever brand, has been sold in its familiar tin and jar form for well over a century, originally marketed as a healing balm for minor cuts, burns, and dry skin. Beyond that original use, the product has picked up a long list of unofficial applications over the decades—people have used it to condition leather, prevent chafing during sports, and, more recently, as part of "slugging," a skincare trend where a layer of Vaseline Jelly is applied to the face overnight. More than 3.5 million Vaseline hack-related posts exist online today.

In 2025, Vaseline launched Vaseline Verified, a campaign built around testing viral Vaseline hacks with Unilever scientists and awarding a seal of approval to the ones that actually worked. The campaign drove double-digit growth for the brand, won a Titanium Lion at Cannes, and became one of the most awarded campaigns in Unilever's history. Vaseline then turned its attention to the creators behind those viral hacks.

The Execution

Vaseline worked with Ogilvy Singapore on Vaseline Originals, a product line built by tracing its most popular hacks back to source.

"We started with a simple creative provocation: what if the best ideas were never in the boardroom, but already in people's bedrooms and everyday routines?" said Nicolas Courant, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy Singapore. "We traced how Vaseline was being used in culture back to its origins and found the OG creators who had been shaping these hacks long before they became mainstream."

That search led to two creators. In 2008, beauty creator Jen Chae shared a Vaseline brow-taming trick on her blog. That same year,Lauren Luke, one of YouTube's earliest beauty creators, posted her own hack for using Vaseline Jelly as a makeup primer.

Nearly two decades later, Vaseline turned each hack into an actual product: the Vaseline Originals Brow Tamer Jelly credited to Chae and the Vaseline Originals All-In-One Primer & Highlighter Jelly credited to Luke. The brand named both creators "Vaseline OGs," and gave them a share of the resulting sales. Both products debuted via a TikTok Live event hosted with Chae and Luke, and launched exclusively on TikTok Shop in Thailand.

"For years, creators have been reimagining what Vaseline jelly can do, often without recognition," said Nathalia Amadeu, Global Brand Director at Vaseline. "This campaign is about giving credit where it's due: acknowledging, celebrating and rewarding the people behind those ideas."

The Results

Both Vaseline Originals products sold out twice over, first within minutes of the TikTok Live debut and again when a second batch of stock was released in April. At the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Vaseline Originals won six Lions (one Gold, three Silver and two Lions) and Vaseline Verified won six Lions of its own.

Vaseline says the search for further hack originators is ongoing, with more creators expected to be certified as Vaseline OGs.

The Takeaways

1) Trace a hack back to whoever actually started it.

Vaseline didn't build Vaseline Originals off a recent viral clip. It went back to a 2008 blog post and an early YouTube tutorial to find the people who actually started the brow tamer and primer hacks, and both resulting products sold out within minutes of launch.

Crediting whoever posted an idea most recently, rather than whoever started it, risks a less specific and less credible story. Tracing an idea to its real source can also become part of what an audience responds to, not just a footnote.

2) Make credit tangible, not just symbolic.

Vaseline named Chae and Luke "Vaseline OGs," featured both directly in its own launch marketing, and gave them a share of the resulting product sales instead of a flat fee.

A title signals credit; pairing it with a financial stake gives that credit real weight, and together they sustain advocacy longer than either would alone. It's one of many ways to structure a creator collaboration, and the right format still depends on what the campaign is actually trying to do.

3) Limited availability does more work than the product itself.

Vaseline Originals launched exclusively on TikTok Shop in a single market, in stock small enough to sell out within minutes, twice.

Scarcity tends to increase how much people want something independent of the product's actual features, since the fear of missing out weighs more heavily than the reward of getting it easily. A wider, unrestricted launch would have removed that pressure entirely, even with the same creator story behind it.

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

Cake purses, a prison sentence for equal pay, and Target's costume regret

This week in marketing, an early-2000s sitcom got a second act, two major brands reshuffled their marketing leadership, and the FTC set its sights on persoanlized pricing.

In today's edition:

Starbucks pairs Martha Stewart with an "Off Campus" star for pumpkin spice season ☕
The FTC cracks down on personalized pricing 🏷️
Salesforce data shows how fast AI agents are multiplying inside companies 🤖

Campaigns of the week 📺

Betty Crocker turns a packaging refresh into a handbag drop.

Betty Crocker is refreshing its packaging with bolder colors and new photography, calling it the 'Bettier Than Ever' era. The brand marked the launch with The Betty Ate Collection: three $89 vegan-leather handbags shaped like slices of cake. The first drop launched ahead of New York Fashion Week, with a second round scheduled for September 10. It’s the brand's second limited-edition accessory tie-in in less than a year, following a "SuperMoist" apparel line in November 2025. Source: People

ZIJkant sends women to prison to make its equal pay point.

Belgian women's rights group ZIJkant and agency mortierbrigade built its Equal Pay Day film around one fact: prisoners who work in Belgium earn a fixed, gender-equal wage, while women outside earn roughly 20% less. The film follows women going to increasing lengths—shoplifting, announcing a heist, joining a bank robbery—to get themselves arrested. Source: Famous Campaigns

Starbucks pairs Martha Stewart with an "Off Campus" star for PSL season.

Starbucks marked the August 25 return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte with a video pairing Martha Stewart with "Off Campus" actor Belmont Cameli. The collaboration puts Stewart's decades-long "queen of fall" persona alongside Cameli's younger, streaming-native fan base in a single short spot. Source: Starbucks

Michaels names a "The Office" star director of party planning.

Michaels tapped Angela Kinsey, who played Angela Martin on "The Office," as its Director of the Party Planning Committee. On the TV show, Angela was both head of accounting and head of the Party Planning Committee, giving the casting a built-in wink for anyone familiar with the character. The campaign targets Millennials, following a 2026 IHA survey that found 62% of the generation hosted celebrations this year, up 13 points. Source: Michaels Newsroom

Industry news 🤝

🏷️ The FTC tells retailers to come clean on personalized pricing.

The FTC is seeking public comment on a policy requiring businesses to disclose when they use personal data to set individualized prices. It can't ban the practice outright, but undisclosed use could violate federal law. One investigation found Instacart prices varied by as much as 23% for the same item.

Source: Grocery Dive

👋 Dentsu's chief marketing officer departs.

Jeremy Miller, Dentsu's global chief communications and marketing officer for the Americas, has exited after joining in 2022 from McCann Worldgroup. His duties will split between chief of staff Manus Wheeler and brand chief Jean Lin.

Source: Campaign

🤡 Target pulls offensive Halloween costume, admits "we got this wrong."

Target removed a $25 clown costume from its Hyde & EEK! Boutique line after critics said it evoked blackface and minstrel-era imagery. Actress Viola Davis rejected the apology on Threads, and Target shares fell roughly 5% the next day. It's the latest flashpoint for a retailer still recovering from its 2025 DEI-related boycott.

Source: Newsweek

🍔 Wendy's hires ex-McDonald's CMO as chief marketing, customer growth officer.

Wendy's named Tariq Hassan, formerly McDonald's U.S. marketing chief, to a newly created role succeeding CMO Lindsay Radkoski. The hire follows six straight quarters of same-store sales declines, including a 7% drop last quarter.

Source: Marketing Dive

MarTech moves 🤖

🏢 Travelers built its own LLM to stop overpaying for AI.

The insurer Travelers built TravelersLLM, a model trained on company documents to handle insurance-specific queries more cheaply than routing through frontier models. Chief Technology and Operations Officer Mojgan Lefebvre said it gives the company more flexibility and less vendor dependence.

Source: CIO Dive

📡 Verizon taps Google for enterprise AI, infrastructure deployment.

Verizon is expanding its Google Cloud partnership to deploy Gemini Enterprise and data infrastructure across customer service, network operations, marketing and internal workflows. Gemini already handles most of Verizon's inbound consumer calls and chats.

Source: CIO Dive

🤖 AI agent headcount triples in 15 months, Salesforce finds.

Salesforce's Agentic Enterprise Index found average AI agent deployment nearly tripled between February 2025 and April 2026, with setup time falling to under two days. Retail agents now account for 22% of total agentic work output, though under half of organizations call AI essential to their core work.

Source: CX Dive

Editors Choice 👀

💼 Estee Lauder claims it has a "winning playbook" as 10,000 jobs are cut. Source: Marketing Week

⛳ Callaway pulled a product amid backlash over an ad showing a woman shoved to the ground. Source: Inc

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Vol. 140: Mentos Freshmaker, refreshed 🍬

Case Studied — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:19:31 +0000

Case Studied
An old jingle's second act

Every brand with a long history eventually runs into the same problem: the assets that helped make it famous start to feel dated to the audience it needs next. A jingle, a mascot, a tagline, these things build recognition over decades, but recognition alone doesn't guarantee relevance with an audience that wasn't around when the asset was created.

Legacy brands have tried all kinds of fixes for this. Some retire the old asset altogether and start fresh. Others hand it to an agency to update with a modern remix. Mentos took a different approach.

This week, Case Studied explores how Mentos boosted Gen Z consideration by reintroducing its 1990s Freshmaker jingle.

The Brief

Mentos mints were invented in 1932 by brothers Michael and Pierre van Melle. The two owned the Dutch confectionary company van Melle and later combined with Italy's Perfetti in 2001, forming Perfetti Van Melle. Today, Mentos sells in more than 160 countries.

In the 1990s, Mentos introduced its "Freshmaker" jingle, a melody that became deeply recognizable and stuck around in culture for years.

As the years passed, Mentos began looking for ways to make the Freshmaker story resonate with the new generation. But rather than leaning solely on nostalgia, the brand set out to tell the story in a format that felt native to their target audience.

The Execution

Mentos partnered with The Goat Agency built a creator-led social campaign centered on keeping the original Freshmaker jingle intact while changing its delivery. The brand partnered with five comedy and music creators - Adam Waheed, That's a Bad Idea (Cooper & Curry), Aubrey Gavello, Carter Vail, and Kyle Gordon. They were each chosen for their ability to reach Gen Z at scale through their own established comedic and musical styles.

Instead of asking the creators to replicate a traditional ad, Mentos had them weave the jingle into their own existing content formats, using humor-forward storytelling, music-driven bits, and exaggerated visuals. The creators effectively served as translators, carrying the jingle into TikTok and Instagram feeds in a way that matched the platforms' native tone.

Once the organic content was live, Mentos identified the strongest-performing creator assets and layered paid media behind them across TikTok and Instagram, with platform-specific optimizations meant to maximize engagement and cost efficiency on each channel. The main strategy behind the campaign was to keep the jingle recognizable, and let the creators determine how it showed up.

The Results

Over three months, the campaign generated 39.9 million total impressions, reaching 166.8% of its projected goal. Organic content alone drove a 5.15% engagement rate, more than 60% above Goat’s benchmark. Total engagements across the campaign topped 7.2 million, good for 130% above forecast.

On the paid side, media spend behind the top-performing creator content delivered 34.9 million impressions, 8% above benchmark, with a paid engagement rate of 19.87% that also exceeded the U.S. benchmark for the category.

Beyond social metrics, Mentos reported a 4.7% lift in purchase intent and a 3% lift in association with its "Refresh Your Everyday" brand attribute, and said its mint business is growing faster than the overall mint category.

The Takeaways

1) Let audience behavior set the strategy.

Mentos grounded its approach to this campaign around the insight that Gen Z doesn't experience brands through traditional advertising. Instead, they discover culture through the creators they already trust. That insight led the brand to influencer-led storytelling as the vehicle for evolving the Freshmaker narrative.

Before locking in a campaign format, look at how your specific audience actually consumes information and where they place their trust. Letting that behavior shape the strategy, rather than defaulting to the format that worked for a previous audience, makes it more likely the execution will land as authentic.

2) Let creators keep their own voice.

Mentos selected five creators for their existing comedic and musical styles. And rather than perform a script written for a traditional ad, the brand had creators integrate Freshmaker into their own formats. That decision is likely why the content reads as entertainment more than a sponsored ad.

When working with creators, resist the urge to over-direct the execution. Of course, cover your necessary bases by briefing them on the required brand element that needs to appear. But after that, give creators room to produce content that fits their audience's expectations.

3) Use organic performance to guide paid spend.

Rather than committing media dollars upfront, Mentos let the organic creator content run first and then put paid media behind the assets that were resonating strongly. This sequencing meant paid spend was reinforcing proven content instead of guessing at what would work.

Consider structuring your campaigns in a way where organic testing informs paid allocation, rather than launching both simultaneously. It can be a more capital-efficient way to find out what's actually connecting with an audience before scaling spend behind it.

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

A GTA heist, an AI disclosure rulebook, and a $2 billion measurement grab

This week in marketing had an eye-catching video from the Chicago Bulls, a couple of notable acquisitions reshaping who controls ad measurement, and a couple of brands responding publicly to moments they didn't fully control.

In today's edition:

The Chicago Bulls turn their schedule release into a crime spree 🚔
Nielsen and Publicis both go shopping for measurement orgs 📊
IAB draws the line on AI disclosure 🏷️

Campaigns of the week 📺

The Chicago Bulls send Benny the Bull on a Grand Theft Auto-style heist.

The Chicago Bulls built their 2026-27 schedule release around a GTA-inspired short film starring longtime mascot Benny the Bull. The story opens with Bulls forward Matas Buzelis contacting Benny with an assignment: retrieve the team's schedule. From there, Benny navigates a stylized, open-world version of Chicago that's packed with references to Bulls history. The schedule itself doesn't appear until the end-credits after Benny completes his mission. The release landed alongside all 30 NBA teams' schedule drops - a crowded, same-day news cycle that's increasingly pushed teams toward high-concept formats to stand out. Source: Clutch Points

Seeburger brings the humor to SaaS.

German-based integration software company Seeburger launched its first-ever U.S. brand-awareness campaign, created with agency of record The MX Group. The spot features an office worker who finally notices a coworker has been bringing his pet falcon, "Robert," to work every Tuesday. The bird of prey went unnoticed until the team adopted Seeburger's platform, giving them the bandwidth to "notice things." It's a rare bet on humor in a B2B category built on feature lists and credibility signals. Source: Roast Brief

LG puts AI in the background.

LG launched its 2026 "Life's Good" campaign under the message "Free up your mind." The hero film follows a real UK family stepping away from the mental load of daily life, while LG's AI-powered appliances quietly handle routine tasks in the background. There's no direct AI messaging anywhere in the spot. The campaign is informed by a global survey that found more than half (53%) of respondents said their mental load had increased substantially over the past year. The approach stands in contrast to a broader industry trend of brands putting AI capabilities front and center in their marketing. Source: Reel 360

Maple Leaf Foods turns one bite into a billboard blitz.

Hilary Duff was presented with a Schneiders Loonie Dog on stage at Toronto's RBC Amphitheatre and ate it live in front of the crowd. Schneiders' parent company, Maple Leaf Foods, and agency No Fixed Address turned the moment into a digital out-of-home campaign around the venue ahead of Duff's second show the next night, pairing lyrics from her song "What Dreams Are Made Of" with the $1 hot dog, a price point the brand has long been known for. No celebrity deal was paid, and the entire campaign was conceptualized, approved and deployed in under 24 hours. Source: BM Outdoor

Industry news 🤝

🤖 Artios built an LLM. They understand them more than most.

Andreas built an LLM from scratch in 2018, four years before ChatGPT existed. Artios turned that deep knowledge into a system that gets businesses AI visible in 90 days, guaranteed.

Client results: They took Infrascale from zero to the 3rd most visible disaster recovery SaaS brand in the U.S.

Get your free minibook "Winning the AI Search Game"

📰 Neutrogena's lighthearted clapback lands amid separate, more serious scrutiny.

Tate McRae shared a sponsored "post show routine" on TikTok using three Neutrogena products, and some viewers questioned whether she'd actually used them after noticing her makeup appeared untouched. Neutrogena responded on Instagram with a lighthearted joke.

Source: People

🚪 OpenAI's chief revenue officer steps down after less than a year.

CRO Denise Dresser is leaving after roughly eight months, and will be replaced by Dali Rajic, the former president and COO of Wiz. It's the second major executive exit at OpenAI within a week, following COO Brad Lightcap's departure. It also landed just two days after OpenAI announced international expansion of its ChatGPT advertising business.

Source: Adweek

📊 Nielsen buys ad verification company DoubleVerify for $2.15 billion.

The all-cash deal combines Nielsen's audience measurement with DoubleVerify's ad verification and brand-safety tools. DoubleVerify will go private under Nielsen once the deal closes, which is expected in early 2027.

Source: Mediabistro

🤝 Publicis' $2.2 billion LiveRamp acquisition clears shareholder vote.

Shareholders approved the acquisition with 92% in favor, but separately voted 6-to-1 against an $82.6 million executive payout tied to the merger. LiveRamp has long operated as neutral infrastructure used across the industry, including by rival agencies - Omnicom has already started moving away from the platform, while Havas says it'll keep using it.

Source: Adweek

MarTech moves 🤖

🗣️ InMobi adds a conversational AI agent to its ad-buying platform, opens it to agencies.

The new agent lets media buyers describe inventory and deal parameters in natural language instead of negotiating with a seller through email threads. Buyer Hub, InMobi's self-serve deal platform, is now open to agencies for the first time, though a human trader still approves every deal.

Source: Businesswire

💰 Stripe reportedly nearing $7B+ deal to acquire AI model marketplace OpenRouter.

The price is more than 5 times OpenRouter's $1.3 billion valuation from its Series B round just three months earlier. OpenRouter gives developers a single access point to switch between more than 400 AI models.

Source: TechCrunch

🏷️ IAB updates its standard for disclosing AI use in ads.

The Version 2 framework calls for disclosure only when AI materially affects authenticity, identity or representation - think realistic synthetic video or digital twins. Routine uses like copy drafting or standard audio touch-ups remain exempt.

Source: Martech

Editors Choice 👀

📐 ANA warns marketers not to trust retail media platform metrics. Source: Marketing Dive

💸 Meta's self-reported AI spend doesn't match Wall Street's math. Source: Social Media Today

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Vol 139: Sephora: Delivering humans, not packages 🚗

Case Studied — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
From web traffic to foot traffic

Amazon Prime Day is built on convenience. Shoppers expect steep discounts and boxes that arrive on their doorstep at uncanny speeds.

Plenty of brands have tried competing with Amazon on Prime Day. But recently, we saw Sephora take a unique approach to steal the spotlight: instead of trying to out-discount Amazon, it aimed to get people to shop IRL instead.

This week, Case Studied explores how Sephora used Lyft rides to steal attention during Amazon Prime Day.

The Brief

Sephora launched in 1969 as a single perfume shop in Limoges, France. LVMH acquired it in 1997, and the first U.S. store opened in New York a year later. Today, it’s one of the largest specialty beauty retailers in the world, with more than 2,700 stores across 35 countries.

Sephora was built around an in-store model of sampling, expert advice, and hands-on product discovery. That model is part of what differentiates it from mass retailers and marketplaces, but it's also the exact experience that a two-day online discount event like Prime Day doesn't reward.

Ahead of Amazon Prime Day 2025, Sephora's internal research team found a telling gap in enthusiasm: only 30% of beauty buyers feel excited about their Amazon deliveries compared to 70% say the same about deliveries from Sephora.

The brand saw that insight as an opportunity. It set out several ambitious goals: gain 150 million media impressions, lift brand love by at least 5 points, and increase foot traffic to the stores, all during a window when consumer attention is locked on Amazon. To make it happen, Sephora reimagined what “delivery” could mean.

The Execution

Sephora partnered with Lyft and Digitas on an integrated campaign titled “Delivered to Beauty.” It paired in-app digital ads with a real-world rideshare activation. The main idea? Instead of delivering a package to a customer, the campaign delivered a customer to Sephora.

The campaign kicked off inside the Lyft app with video content and map takeovers introducing the "Get Delivered" concept, alongside promo codes for discounted rides to Sephora locations. On the ground, Sephora-branded vehicles, wrapped in the retailer's signature black and white stripes, drove through five major U.S. cities: Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

In a pointed bit of stunt marketing, the cars also made appearances outside Amazon's own headquarters. Riders who used the promo were greeted at Sephora stores with samples, exclusive offers, and added in-store attention as part of the "Get Delivered" experience. Creators and influencers documented the rides and the store visits alongside the paid activation.

The two brands split responsibilities across the partnership: Sephora led the creative concept and campaign direction, while Lyft Ads handled execution across local markets. Beyond the rides themselves, Sephora layered in social and influencer activity, with creators sharing their own "delivered to beauty" moments, which helped extend the campaign beyond the five cities where the physical activation actually took place.

The Results

The Delivered to Beauty campaign achieved over 400 million total impressions, 325 million of which were press impressions from 73 publications. That figure was more than double Sephora’s goal of 150 million impressions.

The brand sentiment increased by 13 points, exceeding the 5 points target, with even stronger lifts among 18-34 year-olds. That demographic saw a 13-point increase in buzz, a 13-point increase in brand love, and a 9-point increase in respondents who said Sephora "sets trends" in the beauty category.

On social, the campaign drove 19.2 million impressions and engagement rates 3,175% above Sephora's typical benchmarks, with 94% positive sentiment. On the foot traffic side, Lyft rides to Sephora increased 4 times during the campaign window. The number of first-time Sephora visits increased 5 times.

The Takeaways

1) Let customer insights define the strategy.

Sephora's entire campaign concept traced back to a single data point: only 30% of beauty buyers felt excited about deliveries from other retailers, compared to 70% for Sephora. That gap informed nearly every aspect of the resulting campaign.

Insights are often used to validate a creative idea that's already been decided on. Treating a specific, well-defined data point as the starting point (rather than a supporting stat) can lead to a stronger campaign concept.

2) Choose a partner with key capabilities.

A beauty retailer and a rideshare service make odd pairing on the surface. But the key insight behind Sephora's campaign required physically moving individuals from one place to another, which Lyft’s functionality offered. Plus, Lyft's stated mission around connection paired naturally with Sephora's "We Belong to Something Beautiful" positioning.

A partnership works best when both organizations bring something the other can't easily produce alone, whether that's reach, infrastructure, or audience trust. Before pursuing a co-branded campaign, look for a partner whose values and customer base complement yours rather than simply overlap. A clear division of responsibilities can also help each side contribute what it does best.

3) Use a competitor's moment as your own platform.

With this campaign, Sephora took a new approach to competing for attention during Prime Day. The timing meant Sephora's message reached consumers at the exact moment their attention was already on shopping. Plus, sending branded vehicles past Amazon's headquarters was a cheeky cherry on top.

Timing a campaign around an existing high-attention event can sometimes generate more visibility than launching in a vacuum. Consider which moments already command your audience's attention throughout the year, including ones tied to other brands. From there, look for ways your product or service fits naturally into that conversation.

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief 💼

A hairball, a billboard stunt, and a ketchup upgrade

This week in marketing saw some head-turning OOH stunts, an AEO upgrade for marketers, and more shuffling in the agency world.

In today's edition:

K18 rolls a giant hairball through NYC 🎗️
Appeals court lets social media "addiction" suits proceed ⚖️
Google gears up to flip the switch on AI Max 🤖

Campaigns of the week 📺

Netflix moves a man into a billboard, then slowly evicts him.

Netflix installed a performer inside a fully furnished billboard 30 feet above the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Selma Avenue in Los Angeles. The stunt was made to promote the platform’s sci-fi thriller "The Last House." Over three days, the performer went about daily routines, including eating cereal and using binoculars, and communicating with people below via a dry-erase whiteboard. The stunt drew live coverage from CBS Los Angeles, NBC4 and KTLA. Meanwhile the film hit No. 1 in 89 countries despite a 27% critics' score. Source: Deadline

Heinz finally lets fans choose their own ketchup destiny.

Heinz and Wieden+Kennedy London designed the "Love Lid," a ketchup bottle cap with three squeeze settings: Like, Love and Crazy Love. This cap allows fans to control how much ketchup dispenses per portion. The idea grew out of years-long online debate over the "correct" amount of ketchup per serving. This bottle and cap is sold with a squeeze guide and is available exclusively through Walmart.com in the US via TheLoveLid.com, and through HeinzToHome.co.uk in the UK. Source: Famous Campaigns

Hinge trades swipes for short stories.

As the third installment of its "No Ordinary Love" platform, Hinge is turning real couples' early dating conversations into an audiobook. It pairs five couples who met on the app with five authors who wrote and narrated stories based on the couples’ moments of emotional risk. The free audiobook is available on Spotify and Libby. This latest installment of the brand’s platform follows a printed zine in 2024 and a limited-edition hardback distributed to book clubs in New York and London in 2025. Source: Inc.

K18 gives New York's hair loss its own parade float.

The haircare brand K18 rolled a 10-foot ball of real human hair through Midtown, the West Village, Chinatown and the Seaport. Dubbed the "Tumblehair," the stunt promotes the brand’s new FutureIQ hair longevity serum. The rolling installation, Created by Uncommon Creative Studio, is meant to represent the scale of everyday hair shedding among New Yorkers. LBBOnline reported the figure at 167 billion hairs. The stunt follows K18's history of turning offbeat activations into major earned-media wins. Source: LBBOnline

Industry news 🤝

⚖️ Appeals court lets thousands of social media "addiction" lawsuits proceed.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a bid by Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap to reverse a lower court ruling forcing them to face roughly 2,400 federal lawsuits alleging their platforms were designed to be addictive to young users, finding the appeal premature.

Source: Yahoo Finance

🎯 Dollar Tree taps Tombras as its first-ever creative agency of record.

Dollar Tree named Tombras as its first creative agency of record ahead of its first national brand campaign, expected to launch in September. The retailer has roughly 94% consumer awareness but is looking to convert infrequent shoppers into more frequent visits, a shift CMO Brian Messerschmitt says represents a $1 billion annual sales opportunity.

Source: Ad Age

📊 WPP's streamlined strategy secures new business as revenue declines narrow.

WPP's like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs declined 2.8% in Q2. It marks an improvement from a 6.7% drop in Q1, as CEO Cindy Rose's turnaround plan shows early signs of progress. Recent account wins include Estée Lauder, Jaguar Land Rover, Heineken and Wendy's.

Source: Marketing Dive

💊 Omnicom wins the U.S. media account for Ozempic and Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk.

Omnicom won Novo Nordisk's U.S. media planning and buying business, valued at $520 million domestically and $618 million globally according to COMvergence. It beat out the incumbent, WPP's Wavemaker, which had held the account since 2020.

Source: Adweek

MarTech moves 🤖

🔍 Google is about to turn AI Max on for more search campaigns automatically.

Starting September 2026, Google will automatically migrate eligible Search campaigns into its AI Max system without requiring advertisers to opt in first, expanding its control over query matching and ad creative.

Source: TechWyse

📡 Cloudflare adds an AEO Visibility Dashboard to its AEO Suite.

Cloudflare launched a dashboard showing brands whether AI assistants cite, mention or rank them. It network-layer crawl and referral data rather than just sampled test prompts.

Source: Cloudflare

🏷️ Spotify will label 'AI Persona' profiles and exclude their music from recommendations.

Starting in September, Spotify will badge AI-generated artist profiles and exclude them from algorithmic and editorial recommendations by default. The feature will be based on self-disclosure and internal review.

Source: TechCrunch

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Vol 138: Unstopables: Luxe-ing up laundry day 🧺

Case Studied — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Chore, meet luxury

Marketing for laundry care products tends to revolve around one core promise: clean clothes, fresh smell, and done.

It's a category built mostly around utility and function, not experience, so the marketing often focuses on “fresh” and “clean” narratives. But what happens when a brand deviates from that playbook?

This week, Case Studied explores how Unstopables became a No. 1 Walmart seller by borrowing fine fragrance's playbook.

The Brief

Unstopables is a scent booster line of Procter & Gamble's Downy. It first entered the market in 2011 as a fragrance-intensive alternative to conventional liquid softeners.

Within the category, Unstopables has previously won a Nielsen Breakthrough Innovation award on the basis of a two year revenue range of $145-155 million.

Ahead of the brand's 2025 Unlimited Collection launch, P&G's team zeroed in on two shifts in consumer behavior. First, most Americans now count small daily indulgences (like a fragrance spritz) as part of their self-care routine. Second, short-form video -not in-store discovery- had become the main driver of fragrance purchases.

Based on those insights, P&G planned a campaign to promote its upcoming scent booster line like it would promote a fine fragrance brand.

The Execution

P&G worked with Woven Collaborative, M Booth, and Saatchi & Saatchi New York on the Unstopables Unlimited Collection. The goal was to invite consumers to "Luxe Up Laundry" and treat the category like a fine fragrance rather than a household chore.

The integrated campaign spanned influencer partnerships, experiential activations, national advertising, and PR. To establish credibility with fragrance enthusiasts before going mainstream, the brand skipped traditional press outreach and partnered directly with Paul Fino (@PaulReacts), a prominent voice in the #FragranceTok community.

From there, Unstopables designed high-concept mailers modeled after fine fragrance unboxing, dubbed the "Unlimited Vault." Rather than showing the product upfront, the mailers required creators to unlock a velvet-wrapped package, so the scent registered before the branding did.

The brand also tapped Jasmine Tookes as its face for the campaign, using her as a bridge between high fashion and the laundry aisle to unlock coverage in lifestyle outlets that don't typically cover the category.

On the experiential side, Unstopables took the collection into spaces associated with luxury and lifestyle rather than retail: Essence Festival, One Music Festival, and New York Fashion Week. At NYFW specifically, the brand replaced a standard product display with an immersive experience for over 2,800 guests, designed to walk attendees from viewing laundry as a routine task to experiencing it as a sensory indulgence.

The Results

The Unlimited Collection launch drove Unstopables to the #1 sales position at Walmart within 30 days. The brand attributed the launch to over 50% of category growth in fabric enhancers, and 40% of total fabric care category growth in the US.

On social, the Paul Fino-led creator program generated over 23 million views, including 17.6 million on TikTok, with a 3.4% engagement rate. That momentum translated into 59 million e-commerce searches at launch and a 42% jump in branded search interest. The campaign's media push also landed placements in outlets like Marie Claire and Essence, earning 1.7 billion impressions across 56 articles between June and November, all with positive sentiment.

The campaign also saw notable organic pickup: a sweepstakes drew over 15,000 entries without any paid support, and the "Vault" mailers were reposted by 28% of the tastemakers who received them, reaching a combined 2.14 billion. At New York Fashion Week, the brand's activation drew 2,800 guests and 57 creators, resulting in 137 organic posts. Across NYFW, Essence, and One Music Festival combined, Unstopables reached roughly 10,000 attendees in person, generating 25.5 million in social reach and 38 million searches.

The Takeaways

1) Build trust with a niche community before going broad.

Rather than starting with mainstream press, Unstopables partnered with a single, established voice in the #FragranceTok community to build initial legitimacy with fragrance enthusiasts. That endorsement served as a credentialing step before the brand pursued wider lifestyle and fashion media placements. The sequencing meant enthusiast approval came first and broader cultural relevance came after.

Identify the smaller, more skeptical community closest to your product category, and consider whether earning their trust first could make broader marketing pushes land better later. This often means working with fewer, more credible partners rather than a wide roster of influencers. A credibility foundation with the toughest audience can make it easier to win over more general audiences down the line.

2) Place your product in unexpected physical or cultural contexts.

Unstopables activated at Essence Festival, One Music Festival, and New York Fashion Week, all environments where a laundry product wouldn't typically appear. The NYFW activation in particular replaced a standard product display with an immersive experience for attendees. This placement strategy was central to the campaign's attempt to dismantle assumptions about the category and reframe the collection as a lifestyle item.

Look for events or spaces associated with values you want your brand to borrow, even if they aren't an obvious category fit. The mismatch between product and setting can itself generate attention and conversation. Just be mindful that this approach tends to work best when the connection between your product and the setting is made explicit, rather than left for audiences to guess at.

3) Track organic sharing as a signal of genuine interest.

Unstopables measured how often recipients of its "Vault" mailers chose to post about the product without being asked or compensated. That also ran alongside a sweepstakes that drew entries with no paid promotion. These organic-only metrics were tracked separately from paid and earned media results. Isolating this data allowed the campaign to point to interest that wasn't purchased or incentivized.

When running influencer or PR-driven campaigns, consider separating organic engagement from paid and earned placements in your reporting. This distinction can help you understand which parts of a campaign are generating authentic interest versus interest that requires a financial incentive. Over time, tracking this separately can also inform which formats or partners are worth repeating in future campaigns.

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Creator collabs, courtroom drama, and a $1.4B ad-tech buyout

This week in marketing has a viral flavor mashup, some AI infrastructure moves, and a look at the person behind your favorite brand names.

In today's edition:

Liquid Death and MrBeast joined forces 🥤
Google's UK ad case clears a big hurdle 🔍
Walmart adds another TV ad company to its cart 📺

Campaigns of the week 📺

Liquid Death and Feastables cook up a peanut butter cup surprise.

Liquid Death partnered with MrBeast's Feastables to launch a peanut butter cup-flavored sparkling water. The partnership is backed by a chaotic 60-second spot styled after a typical MrBeast video. The ad rolls out across both brands' social channels, MrBeast's YouTube, and paid social and retail media. The limited-edition drink will be sold on Amazon and in stores at 7-Eleven and Five Below. Source: Ad Age

Why it stood out: The partnership reads less like a standard brand-creator sponsorship and more like a joint venture between two entertainment brands, from the product concept through the content itself.

Spider-Man swings into McDonald's with new collectibles.

McDonald's and agency tms launched the "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" meal, a limited-time promotion tied to the film's release. The toys show Spider-Man "clocking off" and relaxing, alongside a separate kids' Happy Meal version. Source: LBBOnline

Why it stood out: This collaboration follows a familiar fast-food playbook of pairing limited-time menu items and collectible toys with franchise releases. McDonald's also made sure to add a thin layer of Gen Z-targeted messaging by playing into the film's "adulthood" theme.

Minus 196 builds an ice-cold refuge from London heat

The vodka seltzer brand built a physical cold-relief structure in London to offer relief from the summer heat wave while reinforcing its "ice-cold" branding. In direct response to the heat wave facing the UK, it was experiential activation that let passersby step inside to cool down. Source: Famous Campaigns

Why it stood out: Tying an activation directly to a live heat wave gave people a real-world reason to engage with Minus 196. It's a straightforward example of a brand building physical proof of its core promise.

Domino's pays customers to do its quality testing.

Domino's is offering a $5 discount to customers who test its revamped website and app, framing early users as "beta testers." The discount applies to a purchase made the following week after testing, and the effort is part of a broader push to drive adoption of the updated site and app. Source: Domino's IR

Why it stood out: Rather than announcing the redesign and waiting for customers to notice, Domino’s turned adoption into an incentive structure. The discount acts as a functional testing tool to catch bugs and encourage usage before a full rollout.

Industry news 🤝

📱 Disney and TikTok are building a bridge between the two platforms.

A global deal is bringing TikTok creator content into Disney+ through a new feature called Verts. Opt-in creators fan videos using Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars footage will appear on both platforms, alongside a jointly-run Disney Creator Ambassador Program.

Source: The Walt Disney Company

🔍 Google's UK ad case cleared a big hurdle.

A British tribunal ruling cleared the way for a class action lawsuit over alleged ad and search dominance abuse, seeking up to £5 billion in damages. The ruling doesn't determine whether Google broke any law but it does allow the case to proceed to trial.

Source: Bloomberg

🤖 Zapier's CMO just got a second job title.

Dan Slagen now holds both CMO and chief AI transformation officer titles after Zapier combined the roles. He said the move reflects marketing's cross-functional reach across departments like sales and product, pointing to how CMOs can help drive company-wide AI adoption.

Source: Ad Age

📺 Walmart completes its acquisition of TV advertising company Vibe.co.

First announced in June, this deal brings Vibe.co's self-service streaming TV advertising platform into Walmart Connect, the retailer's connected TV ad business. The Wall Street Journal previously reported the price at $1.4 billion, though Walmart hasn't officially disclosed terms.

Source: TechCrunch

MarTech moves 🤖

🚫 LinkedIn adds a button to report AI-generated "slop"

The new "Seems like AI slop" button lets users flag posts suspected of being AI-written, feeding a classifier that’s meant to reduce low-quality AI content in feed recommendations on the platform.

Source: TechCrunch

🔧 Anthropic is building its own AI chips

Anthropic confirmed it's building an in-house silicon team to design custom chips for Claude, while continuing to use hardware from AWS, Google, Nvidia, and AMD alongside its own designs.

Source: Business Insider

📈 Snapchat shores up lead gen ads with new HubSpot integration

The new integration lets advertisers connect Snapchat's lead-generation ads directly to HubSpot, syncing captured leads into advertisers' CRM workflows for easier follow-up, tracking, and reporting across campaigns.

Source: Marketing Dive

🚁 Walmart, Wing launch drone delivery service in Florida

Over 50,000 homes, businesses, and apartment buildings in Central Florida can now get drone deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes, launching from two Walmart locations in Apopka and Clermont.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Editors Choice 👀

🤖 A side-by-side look at how Meta and Anthropic market their AI products. Source: Business Insider

🏷️ Meet the naming wizard behind BlackBerry, Swiffer, and Azure. Source: The Hustle

🔎 IAB's new guide to measuring brand visibility in AI-powered search. Source: PR Newswire

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Vol 137: Wise: Starting a movement 💸

Case Studied — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Turning a customer complaint into a policy fight

Successful campaigns aren’t always measured by purchases, sign-ups, or views. Sometimes, brands develop platforms for causes, and ask customers to use their voice rather than their wallets.

Patagonia is known for rallying customers around environmental causes. Ben & Jerry’s built countless campaigns around social justice issues and integrated activism directly into their business model. And Wise recently took a similar approach to tackle the issue of hidden fees.

This week, Case Studied explores how Wise built a 13,000-person movement to fight hidden fees in international payments.

The Brief

Wise, formerly TransferWise, was founded in 2010 on the idea that moving money internationally should be cheaper, faster, and more transparent.

Beyond its transfer product, the company built out a dedicated Government Relations and Policy team focused on driving legislative change around payment transparency.

The team was aware that banks and other transfer providers were routinely advertising "no fee" transfers while quietly setting their own exchange rate and keeping the difference. According to the World Bank, the average cost of sending remittances abroad sits at 6.04%, more than double the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of under 3% by 2030.

Wise estimated that hidden, inflated exchange rates cost people and businesses around the world $187 billion in a single year. So it built a campaign to try and change that.

The Execution

Wise worked with NationBuilder and its partner New/Mode to build “Nothing To Hide.” It’s a standalone advocacy campaign and website that’s separate from Wise's core product pages.

The campaign asks “business, government and civil society to demand an end to the lack of transparency that keeps remittance prices artificially high.” It calls on policymakers to close loopholes that let providers advertise "no fee" transfers while hiding costs in the exchange rate. Visitors are invited to sign a petition and join a mailing list.

The campaign focuses on three demands: stop misleading consumers, make hiding charges illegal, and require providers to show the true cost of sending money abroad. Wise framed the effort around the UN's Sustainable Development Goal of reducing remittance costs below 3% by 2030.

That infrastructure came from Wise's earlier advocacy work, namely a price transparency petition, "Know What You Pay," and a campaign against IBAN discrimination called "Accept My IBAN."

Using NationBuilder's tools, the Government Relations team was able to segment supporters, identify top campaigners by location, and coordinate targeted actions (think: pre-written emails that supporters could send to bodies such as the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).

Joshua Contreras, Wise's Global Community and Digital Campaigns Manager, said the platform let the team "gather insights, make sure everything is anonymous, and really create the movement around this."

The Results

Nothing To Hide's supporter base grew to over 13,000 people across 82 countries. That included 7,700 petition signatures across 14 campaign sites. The campaign is still ongoing as of this writing.

As for Wise’s previous efforts, Know What You Pay's petition drew 47,000 signatures. It also contributed to the UK's Cross-Border Payments Regulation, a law that now requires providers to disclose their fees more clearly.

Meanwhile, Accept My IBAN logged 2,000 discrimination complaints in its first year. The European Commission now cites the site as a trusted source for tracking the issue.

The Takeaways

1) Anchor the campaign to an external, measurable goal.

Rather than framing the campaign around Wise's own business metrics, the team tied Nothing To Hide to the UN Sustainable Development Goal of reducing remittance costs below 3% by 2030. This gave the campaign a benchmark that existed independent of Wise and made it easier for outside organizations, regulators, and other companies to rally around.

Consider whether your cause-driven campaigns can be tied to an existing, externally recognized standard rather than an internal target. A third-party benchmark lends credibility to the campaign and makes it easier for others to join.

2) Give supporters something concrete to do.

Wise's campaigns consistently asked people to take a specific action: sign a petition, file an anonymous report, send a pre-written email to a regulator. That specificity helped campaigns like Accept My IBAN generate thousands of individual reports instead of just passive engagement.

When building an advocacy or cause campaign, define the smallest possible action a supporter can take. Make it fast and low-friction. A clear, specific ask tends to convert into participation and make the audience feel more connected to the cause.

3) Build coalitions with companies facing the same problem.

Accept My IBAN wasn't built for Wise's customers alone. It recruited other companies whose customers ran into the same discrimination and featured them as partners on the site. It even gave them reports and toolkits to share with their own audiences.

If your company is campaigning on an issue that affects other businesses in your space, look for opportunities to bring them in as partners. A shared coalition can extend a campaign's reach and lend it more legitimacy than a single company advocating alone.

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Luxury brands, AI, and search shifts

This week in marketing has some interesting OOH, some surprising statistics, and some AI developments.

In today's edition:

A Google paradox between clicks and revenue 🔍
Ogilvy's CEO, gone in under a year 🚪
FIFA sponsors lost the spotlight ⚽

Campaigns of the week 📺

Etsy x Olivia Rodrigo's "Daisy Chain Fields" merch collection.

Etsy partnered with Olivia Rodrigo and 10 female-owned Etsy shops ahead of the pop star’s debut music festival, Daisy Chain Fields. They launched a limited handmade collection that includes journal kits, embroidered patches, and beaded jewelry designed by the sellers. The collection is exclusive to Etsy and fans can meet the makers in person on-site at the festival. Source: Ads of the World

Why it stood out: This partnership puts small sellers at the center of a major celebrity tie-in and reinforced the value proposition that differentiates Etsy from larger marketplaces: handmade, small-batch goods from independent sellers.

Rimowa's $7,100 dartboard case with Winmau.

The luxury luggage house teamed up with professional darts brand Winmau on a limited-edition case. It's finished in Rimowa's signature grooved aluminum and priced at $7,100. The July 30 launch comes with a hero film shot inside Rimowa's Cologne factory in Germany, directed by Grégoire Dyer. Walton Goggins stars as a security guard who turns a solo game of darts into pre-match superstitions. Source: Hypebeast

Why it stood out: Rimowa used the same aluminum and hardware as its suitcases, priced it like one, and filmed the launch inside its actual factory. That level of consistency signals design continuity in a way a licensed logo alone would not.

Prada's "Simple Stories" campaign, directed by Barry Jenkins.

Prada tapped the Academy Award-winning director of "Moonlight" to helm its Fall/Winter 2026 campaign. Actors Chen Haoyu, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Hunter Schafer, and Troye Sivan star in a series of quiet, cinematic vignettes by Jenkins. Instead of posed product shots, the imagery leans into ordinary, almost private moments. Source: Prada

Why it stood out: Bringing in a filmmaker known for intimate, character-driven storytelling marks a departure from the posed, aspirational imagery standard in luxury fashion campaigns. Plus, leaning into quiet, ordinary moments over overt product presentation asks viewers to sit with mood and atmosphere rather than scan for the clothes.

Modelo's billboard you can barely see.

To launch Modelito, a smaller 210ml bottle, Modelo and agency GUT Mexico City built a massive billboard in Mexico City. The twist? The product itself is barely visible against the huge format, paired only with the line "Great taste in a small size." Source: Famous Campaigns

Why it stood out: Billboards are built to be read in a few seconds by someone driving past but this one breaks that rule on purpose. You can't actually see the product unless you stop, photograph it, and zoom in.

Industry news 🤝

📺 Streaming viewers are warming up to ads.

A new Hub Entertainment Research report finds that consumer tolerance for streaming ads is rising as ad-supported tiers become more common. Two-thirds of respondents say they mind ads less than they used to, and 69% say they'd choose an ad-supported option to save money, an 11-point increase from 2021.

Source: Marketing Dive

⚽ The World Cup final broke U.S. ratings records.

The FIFA World Cup final was the most-watched soccer telecast in U.S. television history with roughly 63 million viewers across Fox and Telemundo. Telemundo's broadcast set a record for Spanish-language sports coverage, with total tournament viewership up 143% compared to 2022. A separate report found that non-sponsor brands outperformed official paid partners in earning attention during the tournament.

Source: Campaign US

🚪 Ogilvy's U.S. CEO is out after less than a year.

Lyndsey Corona departed from Ogilvy with no permanent replacement named. Global CEO Laurent Ezekiel is stepping in on an interim basis. It's the latest exit in a pattern of leadership churn at WPP's largest agency, happening right as the holding company works through a broader restructuring.

Source: Ad Age

MarTech moves 🤖

🔓 Anthropic clarifies where it stands on open-weights AI models.

CEO Dario Amodei said the company has never pushed for a blanket ban on open-weights models. Instead, Anthropic backs chip export controls, a crackdown on distillation, and mandatory safety testing. That distinction matters for anyone building on open models from any provider, since the policy debate is still unresolved.

Source: Anthropic

🔍 Google's ad business is booming - but AI may be undercutting its own search traffic.

Q2 ad revenue grew 14% YoY. At the same time, research shows AI Overviews cutting click-through rates by 58% and pushing publishers toward blocking Google's crawler entirely. The near-term case for AI-driven ad performance looks real, but so does the long-term risk to the publisher ecosystem that performance depends on.

Source: Marketing Dive

🧠 Meta AI can now act, not just answer.

Powered by Muse Spark 1.1, the assistant can now plan multi-step tasks, connect to email and calendar, and follow through without repeated prompting. That makes Meta AI a new brand-discovery surface, but one that sits inside Meta's own ecosystem of Marketplace, Reels, and creator content instead of the open web.

Source: Meta

🎨 Michaels launched its own AI shopping assistant, Ask Mike.

Built on Google's Gemini platform, it's driven nearly 75,000 conversations since launch. That puts Michaels in the same camp as Ulta and Macy's, while Lowe's builds on OpenAI instead. The vendor split matters, since it shapes whose platform gets trained on customer intent data.

Source: Retail Dive

Editors Choice 👀

🎬 The Scorseses become brand ambassadors. Martin Scorsese and his daughter, Francesca, star in Lavazza's new coffee miniseries.
Source: Campaign US

♻️ AI's environmental footprint goes largely unmeasured. 88% of marketers think AI is raising emissions, but only 36% have actually measured it.
Source: Marketing Dive

🎯 Ad Age graded six purpose-marketing ads in its latest roundup.
Source: Ad Age

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Vol 136: Columbia dares flat earthers 🌍

Case Studied — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Case Studied
Betting the company on a conspiracy theory

Brands tend to avoid internet conspiracy communities. After all, mocking a fringe group or appearing to take its side can carry some serious potential downsides.

Brands that do lean into conspiracy communities or online subcultures tend to play it safe. But we recently saw Columbia Sportswear go fully in the opposite direction.

This week, Case Studied explores how Columbia won 10 Cannes Lions awards by challenging flat earthers to prove their theory.

The Brief

Columbia Sportswear has made outerwear and outdoor gear for close to 90 years. The company's history was built on stories of toughness tied to founder Gert Boyle.

Back in 2023, Columbia president Joe Boyle gave the agency adam&eve\TBWA a copy of Gert Boyle's book, One Tough Mother, asking the team to reconnect the brand with what he described as its "anarchic roots." That assignment became the basis for Columbia's "Engineered for Whatever" brand platform. It launched in August 2025 with a film that leaned on humor and real outdoor hazards, rather than the scenic, aspirational imagery that’s typical of outdoor apparel advertising.

By late 2025, Columbia was looking for a way to stand out during the most competitive stretch of the year for outdoor apparel: Black Friday and the holidays. To do that, the brand's team was set out to make Columbia "the most irreverent brand in the outdoors."

With flat earth discourse being an established, ongoing presence online, Columbia's team saw an opening to make a related point about gear built for extreme conditions.

The Execution

Columbia worked with adam&eve\TBWA London and production company Smuggler on an integrated campaign called “Expedition Impossible.” It opened with a full-page open letter in The New York Times, written by CEO Tim Boyle. He challenged flat earthers to prove their theory by finding the edge of the Earth and submitting a photo as proof. If they did, he would hand over the keys to the company.

That letter was followed by a social film in which Boyle walked viewers through Columbia's headquarters, showing the company assets that would be included in the deal. In a deadpan tone, Boyle pointed to various items around the office: clothing on hangers, a stapler, an employee’s laptop, an employee’s lunchbox, and an employee’s laptop (which he pulled directly out of their hands). Both the letter and the film had an absurd premise delivered with a straight face, and noted that anyone who embarked on the journey would need Columbia Sportswear.

The campaign's more targeted piece was direct outreach into flat earth blogs, forums, and YouTube channels. In posts and comment sections, Columbia encouraged flat earthers to attempt the expedition and reiterated that they’d need Columbia gear for the trip.

Columbia said this dialogue produced a running exchange with the community. The wager was also promoted to a Wall Street audience, extending the offer to anyone drawn to the idea of acquiring a public company outright.

The Results

Nobody found the edge of the Earth, but that didn’t stop people from trying. The standout entry was a drone photo, sent in with a tongue in cheek request for instructions on how to take over the company. Columbia said letters like that kept coming in on a weekly basis, long after launch, some genuinely annoyed and some just playing along with the joke.

Beyond the ongoing letters, the Expedition Impossible campaign generated an 80 million earned audience and 10.4 million social views, with a 75% view-through rate on YouTube, plus 261 pieces of earned media coverage.

At the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the campaign won:

The Dan Wieden Titanium Award
The Grand Prix in Brand Experience and Activation
Two Gold Lions in Direct Marketing and PR
Three Silver Lions in Social and Creator and in PR & Direct
Three Bronze Lions in Social and Creator, PR, and Brand Strategy

That's 10 Lions total, the most of any campaign at that year's festival, plus a Silver Pencil at The One Show.

The Takeaways

1) Meet a community where it already gathers.

While the New York Times letter and the social film was eye-catching, the activity on flat earth blogs and forums was a crucial element of this campaign. In those spaces, the brand kept the exchange going for months through letters and follow-up posts. That kind of direct presence may be a reason why the campaign read as playful engagement rather than a brand talking down to a community from the outside.

Showing up inside a community's own spaces changes how that community experiences the message. And the closer a brand gets to the group itself, the more important tone becomes. If you’re looking to engage a specific community or niche group online, be mindful about understanding the style and tone that resonates in those spaces.

2) Leverage your execs when it makes sense.

CEO Tim Boyle fronted both the open letter and the follow-up film, giving the wager a face as well as validity. Boyle later described the brief to the agency as a call for "groundbreaking work that most would be afraid to approve."

An executive on camera can signal that a company is willing to stand behind its message (or in this case, a bet). It can also add a layer of credibility that a stunt might not otherwise have. If your executive is open to advertising exposure, consider creating a process for evaluating when it makes sense to bring them in and what guardrails to establish.

3) Build toward a platform instead of a single stunt.

Expedition Impossible ran inside Columbia's "Engineered for Whatever.” That platform already included a jacket with a legally binding inheritance label and a limited-edition beer brewed with bear droppings. Adam&eve\TBWA CEO Miranda Hipwell described the process as pulling from "the best parts" of Columbia's history for each new idea, treating each activation as part of a bigger story instead of a one-off pitch.

Consider how a brand platform could help your brand accomplish its loftiest goals. Columbia wanted to be "the most irreverent brand in the outdoors." As such, their campaigns stayed within a combination of irreverence and product durability. Look at what your brand is trying to accomplish and how a brand platform (plus subsequent campaigns) could contribute to it.

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The marketing moves that defined the week

Case Studied Brief — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:59:37 +0000

Case Studied Brief
Billion-dollar bids, blush, and broken trust

This week's Brief comes at you with a mix of heartfelt brand moments and boardroom drama, plus a fresh round of AI stories.

On the campaigns side, Rare Beauty found its first ambassador, Michelob Ultra closed out Messi's legacy, and Roku finally let fans inside the city they'd been imagining for years.

Industry news brought a crisis communications lesson, a $53 billion buyout bid, and a media mega merger's latest legal setback. Meanwhile, MarTech news reveals AI's growing footprint across markets and models.

Here's what you need to know.

Campaigns of the week 📺

Rare Beauty

The blush that outlasts every suitor

Rare Beauty named Off Campus star Ella Bright as its first-ever brand ambassador. Bright fronted a new campaign called "Made You Blush," built around the brand's best-selling Soft Pinch Liquid Blush. The campaign video features a string of men who try, and fail, to make Bright blush. They cycle through charm, jokes, and grand gestures, before she declares that only one thing actually works on her: the blush itself. Bright, who plays Hannah Wells on the Prime Video series based on Elle Kennedy's bestselling novels, said in a statement that she's been a longtime fan of the brand. She specifically called out the Rare Impact Fund, a mental health nonprofit founded alongside the brand, as part of why the partnership meant something to her personally. The rollout coincides with Bright's breakout year on the streaming series.

Why it stood out: This campaign marks an inflection point for Rare Beauty. Since its launch in 2020, the brand leaned almost entirely on founder Selena Gomez's platform, community, and personal story, so naming an outside ambassador for the first time signals a shift in how it plans to grow its reach. That shift is also well-timed: the partnership lands squarely inside Bright's breakout year on Off Campus. In doing so, Rare Beauty follows a familiar playbook of brands partnering with rising streaming talent during moments of peak cultural attention.

📖 Read more: Cosmopolitan

Michelob Ultra

This bar tab has 20 years on it

Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026, released "Tab Closed" almost immediately after Argentina's final loss to Spain. It used the moment to celebrate Lionel Messi's 20-year World Cup career and his final performance in the tournament. Created by Wieden+Kennedy New York and directed by the agency's Zak DeLange, the spot reimagines a bar tab, tallying up Messi's wins, goals scored, and records broken across two decades of tournament play. It closes on Messi walking off the field for the final time as the tagline "Superior is Worth Playing For" appears printed on the receipt. Michelob Ultra ran it across its digital and social platforms, on Telemundo immediately following the post-game broadcast, and on billboards in Times Square depicting Messi alongside his itemized tab. The brand also commissioned an artist named Andaluz to paint a mural of Messi in the Little Argentina neighborhood of Queens, extending the campaign into OOH.

Why it stood out: Messi was inescapable in the World Cup’s advertising. Per System1 data shared with Adweek, he appeared in 18 of the 80 major World Cup campaigns tested across the U.S., U.K., and Argentina. That put him in nearly a quarter of all major tournament creative, with sponsors spanning Adidas, Lay's, and more. Against that level of saturation, what helped set Michelob Ultra's approach apart was timing. The brand turned around a finished spot after Messi's final match, framing the ad as a send-off rather than a standard sponsorship placement.

📖 Read more: Adweek

Roku

The mystery of Roku City finally gets solved

Roku launched "See You in Roku," its first full brand campaign in five years. It centers on the elusive Roku City screensaver, which is shown on Roku televisions by default during moments of inactivity. After years of keeping the screensaver deliberately out of reach to viewers, the brand finally pulled back the curtain with this campaign. Developed with creative agency Preacher and directed by Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks, it includes six cinematic short films that zoom into a different corner of the animated skyline. The landmarks include a hospital where an unresponsive TV is revived and a pirate ship where the crew realizes they don't actually need to pirate anything thanks to Roku's free content library. Alongside the films, Roku built out an interactive map of the city that’s accessible directly from the home screen. The brand also created a clickable "Roku City Tour Bus" feature. The cultural equity of the screensaver is notable. Internal Roku research found that two out of three users say they'd visit Roku City if it existed as a real place, and the fictional metropolis reportedly gets mentioned on X roughly once every 11 minutes.

Why it stood out: Part of what makes this campaign interesting is the years of restraint that preceded it. Roku VP of brand Damon Van Deusen has said the team spent years watching fans theorize about Roku City online and deliberately chose not to open it up, treating the mystery as core to its charm. Van Deusen described the approach as acting like "a shepherd, not a gatekeeper," letting fan curiosity build organically over the years with small Easter eggs and cultural nods before finally rewarding it with a full campaign. That's a departure from how most brands sitting on a viral, fan-loved asset tend to operate, which is typically to capitalize on it quickly rather than let it develop untouched for years.

📖 Read more: Ad Age | Roku Newsroom

DoorDash

Bad roommates, good side income

DoorDash released a new set of Dasher recruitment spots created by agency Quality Meats alongside DoorDash's internal creative studio, Superette. It follows four characters whose everyday financial pressure points get resolved through gig work. One spot titled "Roommate" follows a Gen Z renter desperate to escape a housing situation with an eccentric, ferret-owning roommate, using Dasher income to fund an exit. Another called "You Time" centers on a millennial mom who sneaks away from the chaos of parenting for a few grocery deliveries and a well-earned slushie. "Goals" follows a hockey dad using his Dasher earnings to help fund bigger life ambitions, while "Pants" tells the story of a young job seeker who starts earning immediately through DoorDash rather than waiting through a traditional, drawn-out hiring process.

DoorDash - You Time

lbbonline.com/work/174430

Why it stood out: What elevates this campaign above most gig-work messaging is how specific the details are. Per the creative team at Quality Meats, the writers mined their own personal experiences, including a real college roommate with a pet chinchilla. That helped make the character’s motivation feel more visceral. DoorDash creative lead Yusong Zhang framed the throughline as understanding that flexibility "isn't some abstract idea." It's getting your own apartment, supporting a family, or having more breathing room in a schedule. The approach also positions Dasher income as a means to a specific end in each character's life, rather than framing the job itself as the goal.

📖 Read more: LBB

Industry news 🤝

Taco Bell's crisis response gets a mixed grade

Taco Bell is facing a test of its crisis communications as federal and state health authorities investigate a nationwide cyclosporiasis outbreak potentially linked to its restaurants. In an emailed statement to Restaurant Business, Taco Bell said "the health and safety of our guests is our top priority." It noted that public health officials have not confirmed a link to Taco Bell or any specific ingredient, supplier, restaurant, or retailer. And the brand stated it voluntarily and temporarily removed limited ingredients at select restaurants as a precaution while continuing to monitor the situation. On paper, that statement checks the boxes of textbook crisis response: state priorities, explain what's known, list the steps taken. The problem, according to crisis management experts, is that Taco Bell never surfaced this information anywhere consumers would actually see it. As of this writing, the company's own corporate website and social channels contain no visible mention of the outbreak or its response. Critics point out that customers were left to piece together what's happening from media reports and speculation rather than from the company directly.

What it signals: PR practitioners are treating this as a cautionary tale about the limits of a technically sound statement. Mike Fahey, CEO of Fahey Communications, put it bluntly: "The biggest lesson for business leaders is that silence does not buy you time. It gives everyone else time to define the crisis for you." Ariane Lovell of Trifecta Media Group added that in a crisis, "the response becomes part of the story," and companies are judged not just on the underlying event but on how visibly and quickly they acknowledge it. eMarketer analyst Zak Stambor noted that perception matters as much as facts in the early stages of a food safety investigation and even an unconfirmed link can cause consumers to rethink where they eat. The throughline from these experts is that precautionary action alone needs to be paired with visible, frequent, and easy-to-find communication.

📖 Read more: Forbes

A $53 billion bid lands amidst a reorg

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have made a joint $53.4 billion offer to acquire PayPal at $60.50 per share, a roughly 28% premium. It would rank among the largest takeovers in payments industry history. Under the proposed structure, Stripe and Advent would each hold an equal stake in a newly private PayPal. The offer lands at a pivotal moment for PayPal. Its new CEO Enrique Lores, who took over in March, already reorganized PayPal into three units covering checkout, Venmo, and payments and crypto. He also announced plans to cut roughly 20% of the workforce, about 4,760 roles, as part of an effort to generate at least $1.5 billion in savings. PayPal has been working with Goldman Sachs and Evercore to evaluate its options, including a potential sale or breakup. According to Yahoo Finance, a person familiar with the matter said PayPal’s board sees the takeover bid as undervaluing the company and facing regulatory and financing hurdles.

What it signals: This bid arrives as PayPal’s stock is down more than 40% over the past 12 months. The company’s market cap slid from around $360 billion in 2021 to roughly $36 billion this year. Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev framed PayPal’s strategic bind as a choice between becoming a digital bank or staying "the world's largest button for paying." For marketers and brands, this deal would combine PayPal's network with Stripe's, one of the largest payment processors in its own right. A combination at that scale could shift how competitive dynamics in digital commerce play out beyond the deal's immediate financial terms.

📖 Read more: The Wall Street Journal

A $110 billion merger hits its most serious legal roadblock yet

A federal judge issued a 14-day restraining order halting Paramount Skydance's proposed $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The move aligns with a coalition of 12 state attorneys general who sued to block the merger on antitrust grounds. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California barred Paramount from closing the transaction. The deal would unite two movie studios, two streaming platforms, and two news organizations under David Ellison's control. The states argue the combination would concentrate too much power over cable channels and theatrical film distribution. The lawsuit, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, alleges the deal would harm movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and audiences by lessening competition in wide-release theatrical distribution and basic cable licensing. Meanwhile, Paramount argues the deal will provide necessary competition to streaming platforms like Netflix.

What it signals: This is the most serious regulatory speed bump the deal has hit yet. Paramount won't face financial repercussions from a delay until the end of September, and the company has pushed for a full hearing on the injunction with live witnesses. With EU and UK regulators also circling the deal, this ruling adds real uncertainty to a merger that would reshape the media landscape by combining CBS, MTV, CNN, and HBO under one roof. It's a reminder that antitrust risk is still very much alive for megadeals, even after they've been signed and celebrated.

📖 Read more: Washington Post

An earnings call becomes a referendum on ad-tech neutrality

Publicis Groupe grew net revenue 4.8% on an organic basis in Q2, reaching roughly $4.3 billion. On the back of that performance, it raised its full-year outlook slightly and now forecasts lower-end growth of 4.5% instead of 4%. But the more pointed conversation on the earnings call centered on Publicis's $2.2 billion acquisition of data-collaboration platform LiveRamp. The deal has unsettled industry stakeholders who long valued LiveRamp specifically for its neutrality as an independent ad-tech vendor. WPP, a major Publicis rival, already indicated it will stop using LiveRamp once the deal closes. When investors pressed executives for more detail on the acquisition's rationale, Publicis offered little beyond reassurance that client response has been positive. CEO Arthur Sadoun called the deal "a non-event" for clients, insisting "LiveRamp technology is neutral by design." LiveRamp has separately launched a brand campaign aimed at reassuring executives of its continued trustworthiness as the deal fuels scrutiny.

What it signals: This is a rare moment where the competitive fallout from an ad-tech acquisition is playing out in public, rather than quietly settling behind the scenes. Publicis views LiveRamp as central to its push into more sophisticated AI agents. It also points to it as a way to strengthen data-driven divisions like Epsilon and the consulting arm Sapient. Sapient represents about 13% of Publicis's total business and has been struggling, declining in the mid-single digits this quarter. But the willingness of a competitor as large as WPP to walk away from a platform over an ownership change underscores how fragile the trust in "neutral" ad-tech infrastructure really is. Once it's owned by a company that’s competing for the same client dollars, tension is clear.

📖 Read more: Deadline

MarTech moves 🤖

Chinese AI models rattle global markets (again)

Moonshot AI's surprise release of Kimi K3 sent a jolt through markets. Investors were pushed to reassess assumptions as the Chinese startup claimed a performance that rivaled top-tier offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic at a fraction of the cost. IG market analyst Tony Sycamore estimated that $314 billion has been wiped from valuation estimates for OpenAI and Anthropic as investors drew comparisons to last year's "DeepSeek moment." The ripple effects extended well beyond the two unlisted U.S. labs, too. Bernstein analysts noted that Alibaba and Tencent, both investors in Moonshot, stand to benefit beyond their direct stakes. Alibaba's cloud business is positioned to gain as AI models become more competitive and cloud providers gain leverage over model makers. Alibaba shares rose as much as 6% in Hong Kong following the announcement, while Tencent gained 4%. The broader Hang Seng Tech Index climbed 4% on the news.

What it signals: This story illustrates how quickly an entire competitive landscape can be repriced. The market's reaction treats a single Chinese lab's product launch as a referendum on whether the American AI labs' cost structures are as durable as their valuations assume. For marketers and brands evaluating which AI vendors to build on, this kind of volatility is a reminder that the leaderboard is being reshuffled in real time. Today's frontier-model assumptions may not hold for long and can change on a clip.

📖 Read more: Bloomberg

Google is quietly walling off the open internet

Google spent the past year rebuilding search around AI, replacing hyperlink results with conversational answers from Gemini. Most recently, it overhauled its search box for the first time in 25 years to support photo, video, and agent-run queries. The result is that people are spending far more time inside Google itself. Users are writing queries three times longer than old-style keyword searches and spending one to nine extra minutes per session in AI Mode. In roughly 75% of sessions, users left AI Mode for the open web at all, according to an October Growth Memo study. Publishers, banks, retailers, and other sites that relied on Google traffic say the effect has been unmistakable. Cloudflare data found that more than half of all web traffic is now nonhuman. Human web traffic to finance, publishing, and retail sites dropped nearly 40% between June 2025 and April 2026. Wikipedia has seen an 8% decline in human visitors over the same period and has started charging AI firms for training access to its data. It’s also promoting its own app to reduce Google dependency. Google disputes the framing, saying it sends out a "relatively stable" number of clicks and has added features like source previews to push users back into the open web.

What it signals: This is clear evidence that AI search isn't just changing how people find information, it's rewriting who profits from the internet's underlying content. Vox Media cited search traffic collapse as a direct factor in its decision to sell off half its business, including The Verge. It begs questions about how ad-supported publishing will adapt after the end of the hyperlink era. Regulators are stepping in. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority mandated that Google add clearer attribution links and opt-out options for AI summaries, with the changes rolling out globally. For marketers, this reshapes where attention and value actually live. Brand-building and content strategies that were built for search-driven traffic now have to reckon with a search engine that increasingly answers the question itself rather than sending anyone anywhere.

📖 Read more: The New York Times

The EU tells Apple and Google to quit gatekeeping AI

The European Commission is requiring Google to give competing AI assistants broader access to Android by July 2027. It’s part of continued enforcement under the Digital Markets Act, the EU's set of Big Tech regulations that took effect in 2023. The European Commission argues that Google and Apple's dominance of the smartphone market gives them an outsized advantage in the AI race. It wants rival virtual assistants to have the same prominence on devices as Google's Gemini and Apple's Siri. According to market research firm Omdia, roughly 427 million iPhones and Android phones fall under EU regulation, and ChatGPT is already installed on about 30% of EU smartphones. Apple and Google have pushed back, warning that granting third-party AI agents deeper device access creates privacy and security risks. Apple already announced in June that it would not launch its new Siri AI assistant in the EU specifically because of Digital Markets Act obligations.

What it signals: This can be seen as a test of how far regulators are willing to go to prevent AI assistants from ending up in the same walled-garden dynamics that shaped the smartphone app economy. Omdia analyst Runar Bjorhovde raised questions about what happens to Google or platform owners generally if users can complete an entire task, like booking an Uber, entirely through a rival AI assistant (aka bypassing the underlying platform altogether). For marketers, the outcome of this fight will shape whether AI assistants become a new, contestable channel for reaching consumers or whether Apple and Google's existing platform control simply gets reasserted at the AI layer.

📖 Read more: CNN

The AI ad wars move to smaller cities

OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are pulling back their ad spend in saturated hub markets and pushing harder into smaller American metros, according to Sensor Tower's latest State of AI Report. In the first five months of 2026, OpenAI shifted more ad impression share for ChatGPT toward the Midwest, Mountain West, and South rather than larger metros in states like California and Florida. It’s a pattern that Sensor Tower says "suggests a strategy focused on expanding adoption in less-saturated markets beyond major metropolitan areas." Comparing the first half of 2025 and 2026, ChatGPT's ad impression share in Seattle nearly doubled, from 2.4% to 4.6%, while Boston rose from 2.5% to 4.1%. Google's Gemini saw an even sharper jump in Seattle, from 1.5% to 3.8%, and posted the second-largest gain in Philadelphia, up from 3.1% to 4.4%. Anthropic's Claude also grew in Philadelphia (2.6% to 3.2%) and notched gains in Detroit and Chicago. Notably, Gemini and Claude actually saw decreased ad impression share in the San Francisco Bay Area, aka the

What it signals: The initial phase of national splashy campaigns from AI chatbots seems to be giving way to a more targeted growth phase. Rather than focusing on broad brand awareness, brands appear to be more focused on where adoption still has room to run. Pulling back in the Bay Area while ramping up in Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit suggests these companies view saturation in tech-forward hubs as a cue to divert resources elsewhere. However, Gartner analyst Greg Carlucci noted that consumer trust remains shaky, with many people reporting fatigue over AI-generated ads. For marketers watching where AI brand dollars are flowing, this is an early signal that the AI ad wars are entering a market-by-market land grab phase.

📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

Editors Choice 👀

🎥 Ten YouTube creators with 350M+ combined subscribers took over World Cup coverage from the stands. 📖 Read more: YouTube Blog

📢 Bobbie's creative director explains why out-of-home is where the infant formula brand "goes loud." 📖 Read more: Marketing Brew

⚽ Telemundo locked up UEFA Champions League rights for three seasons after its record World Cup run. 📖 Read more: Deadline

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Case Studied

Marketing moves you might've missed

Case Studied Brief 💼

A cheeky close-up, a wake-up call from Hugh, and ads in the picture

Campaigns of the week 📺

Twix brings Zombie Claus back for a second Hallowmas.

Hard Rock Bet sells soap to fans who rooted for a rival.

Wet Ones turns Kyle Cooke's hand into a gossip-page scandal.

Hugh Jackman phones AG1 customers about their morning routines.

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Industry news 🤝

MarTech moves 🤖

Editors Choice 👀

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief 💼

A newspaper of evidence, a candy elimination, and four identical eye-patch grinders.

Campaigns of the week 📺

The Washington Post turns its Flock camera investigation into a full print edition.

M&M's parodies telenovelas, crime thrillers, and "Survivor".

Legal AI company Harvey builds its first commercial around a handshake.

NFL Network's "Building Buffalo" follows the workers behind the Bills' new stadium.

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Industry news 🤝

MarTech moves 🤖

Editors Choice 👀

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This week's biggest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief 💼

175 years of NYT ads, two bent Lexuses, and one Hard Button

Campaigns of the week 📺

Beats fills a café with Kendall Jenners.

The New York Times turns 175 years of ads into a campaign.

Lexus lets MSCHF bend two cars into sculptures.

Ben Stiller crashes Katz's in a catsuit.

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Industry news 🤝

MarTech moves 🤖

Editors Choice 👀

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Vol. 143: La Poste: Marketing with Tetris 🎮

Case StudiedPlaying Tetris with parcels

The Brief

The Execution

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The Results

The Takeaways

1) Turn a quiet operational win into a visible story.

2) Pair the announcement with the people who built it.

3) Let merchandise carry your message.

This week's spiciest marketing moves

Case Studied Brief 💼

Savage X Fenty, Sydney Sweeney, and OpenAI

Campaigns of the week 📺

Savage X Fenty projects giant lingerie shadows over Manhattan.

Dunkin' reunites two Spice Girls to introduce a fictional sixth member.

Columbia Sportswear makes customers fax in for a free fleece.

Apothic Wine and Heidi Klum sell a wine-branded "blood bag.".

Industry news 🤝

MarTech moves 🤖

Editors Choice 👀

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Vol. 142: Cinemark & Lowe's: Bucket list-worthy 🪣

Case StudiedSpotting it before anyone else does

The Brief

The Execution

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The Results

The Takeaways

1) Treat social listening as a valid source of ideas.

2) Reward existing behavior instead of asking for new behavior.

3) Find partnerships that mutually expand audience reach.

The marketing moves that defined the week

Case Studied Brief 💼

Nike's exit, Poshmark's bet, and Sephora's TikTok Shop debut

Campaigns of the week 📺

Hoka turns Strava mileage into a borough-vs-borough battle.

Case Studied
Playing Tetris with parcels

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Case Studied
Spotting it before anyone else does

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Case Studied
Finding the original hacker

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Case Studied
An old jingle's second act

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Case Studied
From web traffic to foot traffic

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