B2C marketing insights to help you stay ahead!

Netflix announced a new partnership with tech behemoth Microsoft in July 2022 to amplify its advertising revenue on the online streaming service. However, after a few setbacks, Netflix appears to be considering other options, including buying or building its own ad technology.

Bytedance’s successful social media platform, TikTok has come under fire in recent years after several government agencies and experts charged and convicted it of sharing user information with the Chinese government.

AB InBev wins the Cannes Lions “Creative Marketer Award” this year - and they are the first brand to have ever won the award twice!

Procter & Gamble is a major player in the packaged consumer goods industry. In spite of having multiple options to reach target audiences, the US FMCG giant has now taken radio as their prominent choice.

"Series" is a recently introduced TikTok feature. Creators can use Series to post video collections behind a paywall. TikTok users who want to watch Series videos must pay via in-video links or the creator's profile.

Main Character Energy is a huge trend right now among Millennials and Gen Z. If your TG includes these two demographic groups, then you should know what it is and include it in your marketing strategy.

It has been rated as one of the three most-watched video ads. The 60-second spot is about a car and Zeus and his wife, who have had to move to Palm Springs.

The data privacy software company Sourcepoint has recently launched a tool called Vendor Trace. It provides a simple way for publishers and brands to monitor downstream vendor behavior on their websites.

The metaverse holds immense fascination for retailers – as the possibilities are truly mind-blowing!

TikTok has recently announced a partnership with Dentsu, the Japanese advertising agency. The partnership offers an interesting alternative to web tracking for brands through Dentsu’s ‘Digital X’ process.

In some very exciting news for marketers, KERV Interactive (KERV), a leading AI-powered digital advertising platform, launched Dynamic Destination. Audi of America was the first advertiser to test-drive KERV’s Dynamic Destination, doing an OTT ad campaign with PHD Media, a global media and marketing communications agency.

Roku and Best Buy announced a new partnership under which the streaming platform and device company will gain access to first-party data from the electronics retailer. According to the announcement, Best Buy is now the sole seller of Roku-branded televisions.

As the NCAA 'March Madness' Tournament is around the corner, Twitter has released some new insights to assist marketers. It helps them tap into the surrounding conversation and maximize their brand’s reach among March Madness fans.

Google Tag Manager has recently added the "Tag coverage summary" feature for users.

Salesforce recently unveiled the much-awaited generative AI tool Einstein GPT. Einstein GPT provides AI-generated content across all sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT interactions. Salesforce will use generative AI to transform every customer experience with Einstein GPT.

Last week, Hilton Hotels' 10-minute-long video went viral on TikTok. The success of the video is prompting the industry to reconsider its TikTok marketing strategy to include long-form content.

It did not happen overnight. But slowly the odd “I don’t like drinking because it made me feel sick” or the “gosh! Drinking is expensive”, was no longer a stray comment – but almost a trend.

Microsoft has recently introduced an AI assistant called “Dynamics 365 Co-pilot”. It provides interactive, AI-powered assistance across all business applications that handle tasks like sales, marketing, and customer service.

Veritonic, the most extensive audio research and analytics platform, recently announced the results of a trailblazing audio study conducted in collaboration with Audacy.

Women’s history month is here! And what better way to celebrate it than have Miller Lite turn all old sexist beer ads into fertilizer! They are calling it the changing of “bad s#*t” into “good s#&*t”!

Nissan is introducing the new TikTok feature – the TikTok Now – into its campaign for the NCAA’s March Madness Basketball tournaments. Nissan comes back as the official sponsor of the NCAA’s March Madness this year again, with its all new Nissan Ariya as the official EV.

The 2023 edition of the marketing technology landscape is underway. Scott Brinker, HubSpot's VP of platform ecosystem, and Frans Riemersma of MarTech Tribe publish the MarTech technology landscape edition every year.

Pinterest is experimenting with a new advertising product called "Premiere Spotlight Ad." It allows brands to reach customers directly through the mobile app.

Levi’s celebrates the 150th anniversary of its most iconic pair of jeans, the 501, with a cinematic campaign, “The Greatest Story Ever Worn!”

In recent weeks, a new trend known as "de-influencing" has gained momentum in social media with the massive trending of the hashtag "de-influencing."

Albertsons is unifying marketing for its two dozen grocery chains through a new campaign. Albertsons has taken this step eight years after merging with Safeway and five months after announcing a planned deal with Kroger

Liquid Death has launched a line of iced teas, in its own unique iconic way.

Tinder has always been known for hookups. Now in a big bold move forward, it is repositioning itself as a platform that goes way beyond hookups to meaningful relationships.

Lufthansa’s Ad campaign where it claimed that it was protecting the future of planet Earth, has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK advertising watchdog. ASA has ruled that Lufthansa was misleading consumers, particularly about the environmental impact of flying.

Google and Microsoft are evidently moving forward with generative AI technology.

Google recently announced new tools to improve the performance of search ads using artificial intelligence.

There is a popular notion that men’s sports are more competitive and exciting. This contributes to a larger audience at events, larger media spends and wider coverage. But that is slowly changing.

The Salesforce platform recently announced the sunset of its social media scheduling tool, Social Studio. Starting on November 18, 2024, customers will no longer be able to access the application.

Spotify, an audio streaming platform, is testing a new feature called "token-enabled playlists." It enables holders of non-fungible tokens to connect their wallets and listen to curated music.

The popularity of social commerce is gaining traction for livestream shopping. Instead of a television network, customers are now doing their shopping on social media and retail platforms ranging from Walmart to Amazon.

March Madness is around the corner and Wendy’s campaign for it is built around its old, iconic, highly-nostalgic line “where’s the beef?” with a twist – Square’s the beef!

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) businesses have become increasingly popular in recent years, offering consumers an alternative to traditional credit cards. With the rise of e-commerce and the increasing

Molson Coors’s Miller Lite ran an ad with a cyclist pouring a random generic can of light beer on her face with a voice-over that said - “Light beer shouldn’t taste like water. It should taste like beer.”

Coca-Cola, the carbonated soft drinks giant is all set to tap into the AI arena for its marketing and digital communication. And that includes ChatGPT.

The focus on the ad tech industry by legal authorities has widened a bit more. Last week, the ad tech industry saw a slew of noteworthy policy and privacy-related events. The CEOs of five major technology

That’s how the Home Page of Innocent Drinks reads, the line sitting on top of a row of little brightly colored quirky hats on bottles!

The commercial from the premium dog food company, The Farmer’s Dog, has earned USA Today’s much coveted Ad Meter title as the top audience favorite in this year’s Super Bowl.

Meta has recently launched a subscription service called Meta Verified. Through "Meta Verified," users can verify their identity and will be able to add the coveted blue checkmark to their Instagram and Facebook accounts for up to $15 per month.

It has been reported that Microsoft had a conversation with an ad agency and revealed its intention to start displaying paid links within its search results on the new generative AI-powered Bing.

TikTok has quietly launched its new in-stream commerce initiatives in the United States. It is a long-awaited in-app checkout feature for brands and marketers looking to capitalise on the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend.

Pinterest has introduced longer video clips in its Idea Pins increasing the duration from 60 seconds to five whole minutes!

After months and years of creating a buzz about it, Salesforce has announced a teaser on Twitter that EinteinGPT will be introduced at the TrailblazerDX ’23 on the 7th of March 2023.

Disney Advertising, which owns ESPN and other outlets, recently held an unusual three-hour closed-door meeting with Nielsen executives, spanning key players from across industry segments, to discuss concerns about the accuracy of live sports ratings.

Nissan’s marketing team deserves kudos! Their campaigns for Ariya, their all electric crossover SUV are truly hitting the spot and keeping with the times.

Google's Display & Video 360 platform has announced new features to assist advertisers in planning, purchasing, and measuring connected TV (CTV) campaigns.

According to a new report published by Radiocentre, commercial radio had a record year for revenue in the UK, rising by 2.8% in 2022.

Marketing agency Giant Spoon recently announced that ChatGPT will be the brains behind the agency’s Super Bowl tweets this year.

YouTube introduced the Cost-Per-Hour Masthead, allowing brands to purchase the platform's most prominent placement in a new ad format that will be on display during the Super Bowl.

Disney+’s Q1 earnings are not good.

The company reported a drop of 2.4 million subs from 164.2 million the previous quarter. This is the streamer’s first subscriber loss since their launch in 2019.

There are two main types of video ads: in-stream and out-stream. In-stream ads, also known as pre-roll and mid-roll ads, are displayed alongside a video. Whereas out-stream describes video ads that appear independent of any editorial video content.

Marketers are sceptical that TikTok will eventually dethrone Twitter as the go-to platform for real-time reactions to the nation's most widely watched events, such as the Super Bowl.

Instacart and Michelob Ultra collaborated to create shoppable television commercials to coincide with Anheuser-Busch InBev's Super Bowl LVII advertising. This is the first major CPG co-marketing campaign for Instacart, North America's leading grocery technology company.

It certainly appears that whatever can be automated with regard to how ad campaigns are planned or bought, will be.

Google has reportedly begun testing a new desktop search page design that incorporates chat technology. Following the launch of and reaction to ChatGPT in December, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly issued a "code red," recognising that the technology posed an immediate and significant threat to Google's search business.

Marketers seek longer-term relationships with influencers as well as influencer marketing agencies as influencer marketing matures. The change comes as marketers shift away from project-based approaches toward a longer-term vision. Nowadays, influencer marketing agencies have started to participate in strategy meetings alongside other agencies.

HCL announced the release and availability of the latest update for their Unica 12.1.15 marketing cloud platform. With this new release, Unica has launched an assortment of new features and UI improvements.

With businesses being deluged by customer data of all sorts (whether transactional, demographic or the whole range of behavioral – or impressions from ads, purchases, service history and product usage), the need to have a platform that ties it all together, is imperative.

The Yandex source code repository that was allegedly stolen by a former employee of the Russian technology firm has been leaked as a torrent on a popular hacking forum.

CPG giant Unilever is the first brand to strategically test the integration of Disney’s Audience Graph with the Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 identity framework. The deal is one of several developments announced as part of the Disney Tech & Data Showcase that took place on January 25, 2023.

TikTok has added a new analytics feature, in its Reporting Section of the TikTok Ads Manager so the creators will now be able to track the performance of their creations. According to TikTok, you can “click any video to open up deeper insights, including frame-by-frame engagement, ad spending over time, audience breakdown, and even comment analysis by sentiment and theme”.

The potential of AI-generated content has journalists and artists concerned. But as of now, marketers have expressed little anxiety about the advent of AI-generated content. In fact, many brands have embraced AI-generated ad copy and creative to power their ad campaigns.

Social media app Snapchat has launched a new promotional campaign that capitalises on the uniqueness of its viral AR developments. The new ad campaign shows how its AR technology can alter reality in real time-and how much fun it can be.

Apple is soon going to launch its much anticipated mixed-reality headset in an attempt to create a 3D version of the iPhone’s operating system. Apple’s long-awaited mixed reality headset could be announced in spring at the earliest, top Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said on Twitter.

The United States Department of Justice has just filed its second antitrust lawsuit against Google. It accuses Google of illegally abusing its monopoly over the technology that underpins online advertising. This new lawsuit, which seeks to force Google to divest parts of its online advertising business, is the first filed under the Biden Administration against the company.

Disney Advertising president Rita Ferro said in an interview ahead of the company's annual Tech & Data Showcase event for advertisers that Hulu's "full suite of ad products and services" will become available by July across Disney's streaming portfolio.

Meta app users will now be able to manage all their account settings – including advertising controls and preferences – in one centralized hub. The changes are part of the company’s strategy to regain dominance in the ad market.

Google recently announced that Google Optimize will be phased out on September 30, 2023. Optimize will no longer be available in any form after this date. It includes all versions (360 and Standard) as well as all integrations (browser and server-side, Universal Analytics, and Google Analytics 4).

TikTok has captivated the interest of brands and advertisers with over 850 million global users. Beyond brand awareness and engagement, TikTok's immersive full-screen, sound-on formats, as well as its diverse video content and community, offer massive potential for brands.

Treasure Data, an enterprise customer data platform (CDP) provider, has recently released the findings of a survey of MarTech decision-makers. It emphasizes the current state of CDPs, including common trends, best practises, and potential future applications.

Horizon Media’s e-commerce consultancy, Night Market, is launching an artificial intelligence tool, Neon, that plans and optimizes campaign investments across retail media networks such as Amazon, Walmart, and more. Neon enables in-campaign changes to shift investments among networks, products, and tactics based on predicted results.

In the forthcoming months, companies in the US will have to adapt to five new state-level privacy laws. This includes CCPA, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA, already in effect as of January 2023), and all the others going into effect in 2023; the Colorado Privacy Act (CoPA), the Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CDPA), the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), and Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA).

Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform for modern enterprises, has announced a new partnership with Samsung, an industry leader in the global display market.

Google recently released new Core Web Vitals recommendations that help users determine what to prioritize when time is limited.

Online publishing forum Medium, has now announced that it’s embracing the open source Mastodon platform. It will launch its own Mastodon community, named "me.dm," to support its authors and publications.

Google has confirmed that the "December 2022 useful content update" is now complete.

Alchemer, a global leader in experience management and enterprise feedback technology, recently announced its acquisition of Apptentive, the industry leader in mobile feedback technology.

In its first Creator Insider update of the year, YouTube announced a number of new analytics and display options.

Google and Meta's advertising market share fell below 50% for the first time since 2014, to 48.4% in 2022. That figure is expected to fall to 44.9% by the end of 2023.

After two years in a row with dips in attendance, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was held in full fervor from January 5 to 8, 2023, in Las Vegas. The show floor in Las Vegas was filled with buzzy, headline-grabbing products, gizmos, and gadgets. But the real value of this world’s largest show is how it lays out the vision for where marketing and technology trends may go in the future.

Instagram recently announced that it would remove the Shop tab from its main navigation bar. Technically, Instagram is making a few minor tweaks to the app layout and thereby updating its UI.

Recur, the premier Web3 platform known for assisting major enterprises in launching innovative, multi-chain digital collectible experiences, recently announced the launch of RECUR Builder. Recur Builder is a new end-to-end, low-code, enterprise-grade Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.

Pinterest has announced its partnership with LiveRamp, a leading data enablement platform. With this partnership, it will implement data clean rooms for selected ad partners and enable brands to utilize their first-party data for ad targeting in a safe and secure manner.

ChatGPT as we know it has become the talk of the town, with several users engaging in conversational searches on this platform. The popularity of this chatbot has fueled the growth of AI-generative platforms.

Reddit has already announced its "Future Tellers" marketing insights event for CES 2023. Now, following that, at the CES 2023 event in Las Vegas, Reddit released a special report with insights for brands.

Meta Platforms and IRI, a data analytics and market research company, are collaborating to offer shopper marketers a new solution. It bridges the gap between campaigns running on Meta's social media platforms and in-store CPG sales at leading U.S. retailers.

Vidizmo, an enterprise video platform, now offers an "advanced user analytics report dashboard" to measure the effectiveness of the content. It allows users to identify the interactive elements of the video content and analyze the depth of their concepts through quiz and survey results.

Audiences are fragmented across channels. Between linear TV, connected TV, mobile, and desktop, it’s hard to get a single view of audiences.

As the world enters 2023, brands and marketers must stay on top of MarTech trends in order to keep their marketing priorities on track.

Amid persistent economic woes, an ongoing war, and a series of controversies, social media remains a top digital marketing channel. Over half (58%) of marketers increased their spending on social media in the last quarter of 2022, as per new Advertiser Perceptions findings shared with Marketing Dive.

Appier, a conversational marketing platform, recently launched its next-generation AI-powered CDP (customer data platform) called AIRIS. Appier's real-time CDP helps brands and marketers make smarter decisions by leveraging advanced AI and machine learning technologies.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) recently added a new feature for its users. The new landing page report has been added to the dashboard. The landing page report will assist users in evaluating and optimising the effectiveness of their landing pages.

Mailchain, the developer of the Web3 communication layer, has recently partnered with Unstoppable Domains, the leading provider of NFT domains. Mailchain users, new and old, can now send and receive messages using wallets with Web3 domains such as crypto, nft, x, wallet, bitcoin, and dao.

Mounting data privacy concerns have led to the rise of laws such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which are constantly being updated.

Instagram recently added several new features to its app. Of all the other features, Instagram notes is the centre of attraction. It serves as a new way to communicate with followers. With Notes, users can post a status, share thoughts, or ask questions to keep up with their group or community.

Google has recently added four new features to the Google Insights page.

Salesforce recently announced the general availability of Salesforce DevOps Center, a much awaited product for Salesforce professionals around the world.

According to Google, visual elements are the building blocks of the Google search results page that a user can perceive or interact with. But for a long time now, SEO analysts and marketers have found it challenging to focus on the core visual elements that will help them improve their site rankings and visibility.

There are two main types of video ads: in-stream and out-stream. In-stream ads, also known as pre-roll and mid-roll ads, are displayed alongside a video. Whereas out-stream describes video ads that appear independent of any editorial video content.

When it comes to digital innovation, Starbucks has remained a pioneer. Its latest Web3 Loyalty Program, named Starbucks Odyssey is one such novel attempt in integrating NFTs and blockchain technology into its existing rewards facility. With this move, Starbucks has officially set off on its Web3 Journey.

As influencer marketing is expanding rapidly, several businesses are experimenting with new ways to leverage creator content.

It’s not just the most awaited movie of the year – Avatar – Part 2 that is trending. But also magic avatars generated from AI-art apps such as Lensa AI are going viral on social media. Powered by the open-source Stable Diffusion platform, this app allows users to turn their selfies into magic avatars.

Amidst concerns over the looming recession and uncertainty, both publishers and advertisers are facing a rapidly challenging ad landscape. The economy’s turn has only made the rocky relationship between Big Tech and advertisers worse.

Amazon is planning to roll out a new TikTok-like shopping experience to its app for US customers. The new feature is aptly named Inspire. This will include a curated feed of short-form videos and photos to make it easier for users to discover and buy products.

Instagram announced today that it’s expanding its account status hub with new transparency tools for professional users to manage and distribute their social content.

A day after Google announced its continuous scrolling feature on Desktop, the search giant is now rolling out an all-new Topic filter for mobile.

In 2020, OpenAI announced GPT-3, an AI-based language model trained on trillions of words from the Internet that can coherently generate improvised text. Recently, the company has launched ChatGPT a conversational bot that produces intelligent text based on audience prompts.

Retailers and e-commerce marketers were rejoicing at record sales during the Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday seasons. Although the growth has been promising for bottom lines, some researchers suggest that all the holiday shopping traffic might not be coming from humans.

As part of Amazon’s new AWS for Advertising and Marketing initiative, it has launched a new service of Data Clean Rooms.

Yahoo is all set to acquire a 25% stake in Taboola, an online native advertising platform. With this partnership, Taboola will become Yahoo’s exclusive partner for native advertising through a 30-year commercial agreement.

With Thanksgiving dinner served, and Black Friday Shopping done, what’s next?

The Holiday Season is in full swing and so is the marketing that goes with it.

Elon Musk's tumultuous Twitter takeover has prompted millions of users to flee the app into the warm, welcoming arms of alternatives. The search for the next big social media app is now on.

Apple’s indefinite move to do away with IDFA or Identifier for Advertisers tracking threw a wrench in every marketer’s plan for 2021. Now Google is planning to roll out privacy sandbox in Android and phase out cookies, albeit gradually.

HCL Unica Interact recently released its Unica version 12.1.3 and introduced the personalization Playback feature. With this feature, users can access retrospective views of the activities that occurred in any date range. They can also drill down to individual sessions and obtain specific details such as Audience Profile, Audience Context, Interaction History (API Trace), Event Pattern State, Presented Offers, Suppressed Offers, etc.

Augment Social Intelligence to Create Unique Customer Experiences

Apple has advertised, for a senior manager to work in its ad platforms business. The ideal candidate is to “steer the design of a privacy-forward, sophisticated Demand-Side Platform.” This is the first indication that Apple is building a demand-side advertising platform (DSP)..

Optimizely, the digital experience platform (DXP) provider introduced Real-time Segmentation. This allows marketers to segment customers in the moment of engagement. And provide more relevant, personalized digital experiences.

Salesforce, the global CRM provider, and Whatsapp, the popular messaging service in the world, recently announced a new strategic partnership. It will enable Salesforce customers to connect with their customers and create new messaging experiences on WhatsApp.

In a recent announcement, Adobe said it would acquire Figma, the design software firm. For $20 billion in cash and stock. Adobe is reportedly letting Figma operate autonomously for now, and Figma is to run the same as before.

Google – announces the launch of the search Console Video Index Report.

Google rolled out new updates to the Consent Mode. These are visible on the Google Ads conversion page. The new features will assist advertisers in configuring and troubleshooting Consent Mode.

An Ethereum based virtual reality platform with 200,000+ monthly active users, Decentraland is a place to create, share, and monetize content and apps.

Acquia is a cloud-based provider of digital experience management solutions. Acquia announced the integration of its Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution with Drupal - an open source content management platform.

Decentraland, a 3D virtual reality platform, tweeted (@decentraland) on developing the Decentraland’s SDK 7, the next iteration. The goal of the Decentraland Software Development Kit (SDK) is to have an open protocol platform for creating Metaverse content—3D objects and scenes—by anyone, not just developers. Also, make it portable to any platform that adopts it.

Google added several new features for the Performance Max campaign.

Sprinklr is a unified customer experience management platform for modern enterprises. Sprinklr has expanded its ongoing partnership with TikTok. It is now an official partner in TikTok’s all-new Content Marketing Specialty, part of the TikTok Marketing Partner Program.

Adobe announced a new service in Adobe Analytics offering a single common workspace to unify data and insights from all media types. Now championing metaverse and streaming media. This is billed as the true new generation omnichannel analytics product.

Adobe recently announced major updates to Substance 3D allowing developers to improve the immersive experience.

Salesforce, the global CRM leader, announced "Customer 360 innovations". This aims to connect marketing, sales, commerce, service and IT team data on a single customer focused platform. For a unified view of the customer.

Hootsuite, a social media management platform, adds video entertainment app TikTok to its suite of social media management capabilities. Marketers can now use Hootsuite's tools to manage, execute, and optimize TikTok content along with their other social media platforms.

HCL Unica marketing automation platform released its spring 2022 update to Unica 12.1.3. According to Unica, this update enables delivery of personalised engagements, that are easily built, customized, and executed.