New consumer research reveals a growing divide between AI-powered discovery and purchasing decisions, suggesting that brand recognition may become even more valuable as algorithms reshape how people shop.
Read MoreCreator marketing has become a permanent fixture in brand strategy, but the industry is still treating campaigns as temporary investments. The real value may come from what happens after the campaign ends.
The holiday shopping season is shaping up to be bigger, more competitive and more complicated than ever. Consumers are spending, but they’re also scrutinizing every purchase. Here’s what marketers need to understand before the year’s biggest shopping event.
As AI reshapes how consumers find and evaluate products, marketers are racing to improve visibility in AI-generated recommendations. But the real competitive advantage may have less to do with search optimization and more to do with the people willing to recommend a brand. For years, brands have invested heavily in…
Consumers are discovering apps through personal recommendations, questioning subscription value, and approaching AI-driven discovery with skepticism. For marketers, the next phase of app growth will depend less on acquiring downloads and more on earning a permanent place in people’s lives.
As financial anxiety reshapes holiday shopping behavior, marketers face a fundamental challenge: generating demand is no longer enough when consumers are increasingly uncertain about their ability to spend.
NordVPN’s new partnership with the Los Angeles Lakers is the latest example of a growing relationship between technology brands and professional sports.
As AI agents take control of product discovery, comparison and purchasing, marketers face a fundamental challenge to how brands create value. The real threat isn’t that consumers will stop caring about brands, but that brands may lose the opportunity to influence the decisions consumers increasingly delegate to machines.
Read MoreThe most important question surrounding AI is what survives the hype cycle, because the next five years will change marketing profoundly, just not necessarily in the ways Silicon Valley has been selling it.
Viral TikTok commerce works because it collapses discovery, demonstration, social proof and purchase into the same stream of attention. For marketers, understanding why people buy may now matter considerably more than understanding where they clicked.
As the World Cup demonstrated and LA28 will reinforce, the biggest opportunity in sports marketing is no longer simply attaching a brand to an audience. It is finding a credible role inside the culture surrounding the sport, then investing enough to make that role useful, memorable and difficult to ignore.
Gianni Infantino’s relationship with Donald Trump, the bizarre FIFA Peace Prize and an aborted attempt to sell a stake in World Cup commercial rights illustrate what happens when institutional stewardship starts looking like personal empire building.
The loudest rebrand failures rarely happen because a logo changes. They happen because companies misunderstand what customers believe they’re defending when they fight to keep it.
Most brands are using AI to make advertising more efficient. Japan Airlines is demonstrating something far more important by showing how AI can become part of the customer experience itself.
