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The GRADIENT: Why Taste Is the New Moat

14 Things Executives And SEOs Need To Focus On In 2026

So many people spent 2025 arguing about whether SEO was dying. It was never dying. It was shifting into a new layer. Discovery continues to move from search boxes to AI systems. Answers now come from models that rewrite your work, summarize competitors, blend sources, and shape decisions before a browser window loads. In 2026,

Why programmatic buying alone isn’t enough to win on CTV

Connected TV ad spend is projected to reach $51 billion globally by 2029, accounting for nearly half of traditional broadcast TV advertising revenue. That shift reflects how quickly the marketplace is maturing and how aggressively advertisers are reallocating budgets to streaming environments. But as money moves, so do advertisers’ assumptions. Many brands are approaching CTV

Danae Gosset animates visuals for the tenth anniversary of Mac Miller’s Go:od AM

Danae founded the animation studio Pencil TV in 2021, the same year Miller McCormick, Mac Miller’s brother, reached out about a collaboration for the Mac Miller estate. Danae was already a fan, first encountering Miller’s back in 2010 with the release of his mixtape K.i.d.s. “His sensitivity and the emotion in his work really resonates

Google Releases December 2025 Core Update

Google has released the December 2025 core update, the company confirmed through its Search Status Dashboard. The rollout began at 9:25 a.m. Pacific Time on December 11, 2025. This marks Google’s third core update of 2025, following the March and June core updates earlier this year. What’s New Google lists the update as an “incident

Disney Invests $1B in OpenAI, Will Bring Its Characters to Sora

Disney is bringing storytelling to uncharted territory. The media giant announced Thursday that it will acquire a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and license its characters for Sora, OpenAI’s short-form video platform launched in September. As part of the three-year deal, some videos made with Sora will appear on the Disney+ platform, the companies said.

What Taylor Swift’s new Disney+ series teaches us about creative honesty

I’ll be honest: when I paid £12 at the cinema to watch Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl in October – essentially a three-minute music video shown twice, plus the equivalent of DVD extras – I didn’t expect to enjoy it all that much. But in the event, I actually loved every second

White-Labeled Tool For AI-Made Sites

This post was sponsored by 10Web. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Not long ago, building a website meant a discovery call, a proposal, a sitemap, and a few weeks of back and forth. Today, we go from “I need a website” to “Why isn’t it live yet?” People are getting

Why AI content strategies need to focus on tasks not transactions

AI chat assistants are not being used the way many marketers expect. Instead of acting as shopping tools or search engines, they function primarily as support systems for cognitive tasks — writing, planning, analyzing and learning, according to a report by AI SEO agency Dejan. In 2026, optimizing for AI means understanding how users actually

Year of the Horse :: Behance

Celebrate the vibrance of Tết with this special collection of money envelope illustrations. Each design features one of six majestic horses, illustrated in a Vietnamese traditional art style that symbolizes strength, progress, and good fortune. Complementing the horses are six iconic symbols of spring and fortune: peach blossom, golden apple, watermelon, starfruit, bamboo, and banana.

YouTube Adds Comments To Shorts Ads, Expands To Mobile Web

YouTube adds comment sections to eligible Shorts ads, lets creators link to brand websites, and expands Shorts ads to mobile web browsers. Eligible Shorts ads can now display comment sections, matching the experience of organic Shorts content. Shorts creators can link directly to brand websites when producing branded content. Shorts ads now serve on mobile

The Marketing Week Podcast: Inside British Heart Foundation’s record-breaking year

In the latest episode, we dig into British Heart Foundation’s growth and marketing strategy with CMO Claire Sadler. Source

An exhibition of Palestinian photographers visualises the lasting significance of ‘land’

Another that resonates with Dalia is a photograph of Maen Hammad’s grandmother’s hands lying across a bed of walnuts, not only because it’s a beautiful image, but because of its multi-layered resonance; how it evokes “nostalgic feelings” of mothers and grandmothers with beloved ingredients across the SWANA region, but simultaneously the current reality of how

Google Expands Preferred Sources & Publisher AI Partnerships

Google is expanding its Preferred Sources feature to English-language users worldwide and launching a pilot program to test AI-powered features with major news publishers. The announcement includes updates to how links appear in AI Mode and a new feature that will highlight content from users’ news subscriptions. Preferred Sources Goes Global Preferred Sources in Search

Why scalable agency growth relies on ad tech built for CFOs

Amol Waishampayan, co-founder, fullthrottle.ai Agency leaders love to talk about attribution, outcomes and optimization. But when sitting with an agency CFO, the conversation shifts fast. It’s not about campaigns, it’s about capital. Most CFOs, whether at a holding company or an indie shop, quietly wake up thinking about the following: profit erosion hidden in daily

Mysterious KPop Demon Hunters clue found on Netflix

Along with news that KPop Demon Hunters has bagged three Golden Globe nominations, we’re also hearing that people have spotted a telling clue that some bonus content could be on the way soon. Excited fans have posted on X with screenshots of their Netflix accounts showing a mysterious box titled ‘KPop Demon Hunters Bonus Content’,

Google Hit By EU Probe Into Unfair Use Of Online Content

The European Commission has launched an antitrust inquiry into Google to determine whether the company has violated EU competition rules, partly focusing on whether Google has used creator and publisher content in ways that leave publishers unable to refuse such use without risking their search traffic. It is also looking into whether Google is granting

Etsy Makes Meaning the Message

As a small business owner who’s been at it for more than three decades, I see Etsy’s holiday campaign as a smart reminder of what independent brands can uniquely win on—meaning and personalization, not just merchandise. The campaign is emotionally grounded and strategically consistent with Etsy’s “I get you/feel seen” platform. In a season where

The unique design strategies shaping solo living in Seoul

Yet, the realities of living in Local Stitch connect to a darker side of Korean single household living, the 고시원. Unlike studio apartments, the 고시원 is a sort of temporary living space available to labourers for short-term stays. The provenance of the name connects to the ‘고시’ (civil service) exam and was originally meant for

Google Confirms Smaller Core Updates Happen Continuously

Google updated its core updates documentation to say smaller core updates happen on an ongoing basis, so sites can improve without waiting for named updates. Google explicitly confirms it makes “smaller core updates” beyond the named updates announced several times per year. Sites that improve their content can see ranking gains without waiting for the

New Salesforce engine aims to make enterprise AI trustworthy

Salesforce today announced a significant update to its foundational data platform, unveiling a unified data engine that brings together Data 360, Informatica, and MuleSoft. The goal? To give enterprise AI systems the trusted context they need to stop hallucinating and start reasoning — a shift with significant implications for marketers. AI hallucinations are a significant

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