New data from creator marketing platform Billo illustrates just how quickly the economics of digital advertising shift as the holiday shopping season approaches.
Retail
Economic uncertainty has turned Halloween, Back-to-School, and the holiday shopping season into exercises in consumer confidence rather than consumer demand. For marketers, the biggest challenge isn’t convincing people to shop. It’s convincing them that your brand deserves a place in increasingly scrutinized budgets.
Consumers haven’t stopped spending, despite years of inflation and economic uncertainty. They’ve simply become far more selective about what deserves their money, leaving brands stuck in the middle with fewer places to hide.
New research suggests consumers are ready to reward brands that recognize them, yet most marketing still feels generic. The loyalty gap may not be about points or perks, but about the growing disconnect between customer data and customer experience.
Brands have spent decades optimizing how they interrupt consumers. Creator-led commerce is succeeding because it eliminates the interruption altogether, turning trusted voices into the new point of sale and collapsing the distance between discovery, recommendation and purchase.
As In-N-Out Burger expands far beyond its West Coast roots, the company risks discovering a lesson that extends well beyond fast food: growth can increase revenue while quietly diminishing the very uniqueness that created demand in the first place.
Before co-founding California Pizza Kitchen, Rick Rosenfield built his career prosecuting organized crime. He says the habits that won cases in federal court became the same habits that helped build one of America’s most successful restaurant brands—and they’re lessons today’s entrepreneurs shouldn’t ignore.
For years, marketers have searched for a way to connect storytelling, targeting, measurement, and sales into a single framework. Retail media is beginning to make that possible.
Despite being the most digitally connected generation in history, Gen Z continues to seek out experiences that feel tangible, participatory, and human.
As AI, automation, and agentic media buying reshape commerce media, the platforms with the strongest infrastructure—not necessarily the flashiest AI tools—will be best positioned to win.