Blueprint — page 139 | The Gradient

Paramount, Warner, and the Price of Consolidation

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Paramount, Warner, and the Price of Consolidation

“You can begin to call out any moments that make you feel less than”

There is a school of thought (perhaps an outdated one) that believes women need to act like men in order to progress. To be louder, more assertive, more masculine in your energy. But that’s pretty damaging. Both to the women who have to be inauthentic at work (it’s exhausting) and to the women coming up

The Impact Of AI Overviews & How Publishers Need To Adapt

Google rolled out AI Overviews to all U.S. users in May 2024. Since then, publishers have reported significant traffic losses, with some seeing click-through rates drop by as much as 89%. The question isn’t whether AI Overviews impact traffic, but how much damage they’re doing to specific content types. Search (including Google Discover and traditional

TikTok Announces New Ad Solution for Travel Industry

TikTok knows its platform is a popular destination for travel-related content. To help brands connect to potential travelers during both the discovery and booking phases, the app is introducing Travel Ads powered by Smart+. This new ad solution offers advertisers the ability to automatically promote their hotels, flights, and destinations at scale using personalized, catalog-integrated

The older I get, the more I realise designing for seniors is better for young people too

So I’m lying in bed, squinting at my novel, holding it at arm’s length like some sort of demented scarecrow. The text size that seemed perfectly readable two years ago now appears to have been written by ants. Welcome to your fifties, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. I have to be honest; this

SEO For Paws Live Stream Conference: Free Tickets Out Now

The next SEO For Paws will be held on Sept. 25, 2025. The live stream features a stellar speaker list that includes some of the industry’s best SEO professionals and personalities, including Andrey Lipattsev, David Carrasco, Judith Lewis, and Jamie Indigo. SEO for Paws, is a live-streamed fundraiser founded by Anton Shulke, an expert at

CLV is the growth metric that marketing can’t fake

In recent years, companies have turned to marketing as a shortcut to growth, pouring millions into campaigns, cultural plays, and acquisition tactics. But this focus often comes at the expense of what truly drives loyalty: better products and services. Consumers see the gap between glossy promises and lived experience — and their patience is wearing

Anthony Burrill on why music, protest and being nice are important to design

At September’s Nicer Tuesdays event in London, our associate editor Olivia Hingley interviewed the legendary typographic artist Anthony Burrill, delving into topics such as how music intersects with his design ethos, how his work is grounded in the language of protest and what it’s like to be copied. Anthony also revealed the backstory to his

Are AI Search Summaries Making Evergreen Articles Obsolete?

Ahrefs’ Tim Soulo recently posted that AI is making publishing evergreen content obsolete and no longer worth the investment because AI summaries leave fewer clicks for publishers. He posits that it may be more profitable to focus on trending topics, calling it Fast SEO. Is publishing evergreen content no longer a viable content strategy? Table

OpenAI launches ChatGPT’s first major brand campaign

The campaign marks a shift in OpenAI’s marketing to long-term brand building. Source

People aren’t buying Apple’s iPhone 17 ‘scratchgate’ explanation

It wouldn’t be a proper Apple release without a design controversy. After antennagate, bendgate and butterfly keyboardgate (OK, that doesn’t quite have the ring to it), Apple now faces iPhone 17 scratchgate, and its attempts to dismiss the problem aren’t convincing people. On the very same day that the new iPhone was released, there were

And The Truth? This Writing Style Screams AI

Six months ago, you could spot AI-generated text by its polished grammar, rigid essay structure, suspicious fondness for em dashes – and, of course, the inevitable emoji bullets (🔥🚀✨). The real giveaway, at least to my eye and ear, isn’t the emojis or the punctuation. It’s the cadence. AI writing has a rhythm problem. The

Workers report being left to teach themselves how to use AI

Tech disruptions are costing companies with 2,000 or more employees nearly $4 million annually in lost productivity, according to the latest research — something that should get the attention of every HR leader as their organizations pour more resources into AI and digital transformation. The numbers reveal a troubling disconnect. While 92% of companies plan

Elizabeth Goodspeed on what happens when design becomes prefab

The idea of a brand marketplace may feel novel, even radical, but it consolidates practices already happening informally in the industry. In 2006, long before BLT was a twinkle in Lyon & Lyon’s eyes, British ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty launched Zag, a brand-invention arm that developed concepts to license or sell for revenue shares.

Google App Adds Search Live For Real-Time Visual Search

Google has rolled out Search Live in English in the United States, bringing real-time, camera-aware conversations to the Google app on Android and iOS. You can tap the new Live icon under the search bar, or open Google Lens and choose Live to start an interactive voice conversation that can also see what your camera

FTC Locks In Omnicom–IPG Deal With Stricter Ad Rules

The FTC has approved a revised final consent order tied to Omnicom’s $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG), explicitly preventing the company from denying ad dollars to publishers based on political or ideological viewpoints—unless a client expressly directs it. In June, the FTC conditionally cleared the deal with a proposed consent decree barring politically

This ‘3D’ optical illusion is the most divisive I’ve ever seen

A supposedly 3D optical illusion has been posted online and is possibly the most divisive I’ve ever seen on the optical illusion. Comments are either steadfastly denying any effect whatsoever, with others saying it’s one of the best illusions they’ve seen. The illusion consists of a patterned set of blue and red circles, set out

SEO Starter Stack: Get Found Without Paying for Ads

All businesses, large or small, must establish a level of authority for the products and/or services they offer in the minds and hearts of their target audience if they expect to convince them to engage and buy. This universal marketing truth plays out daily for small businesses looking to capture the attention of local customers

OpenAI is staffing up to turn ChatGPT into an ad platform

OpenAI is hiring a Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer to help develop tools for ad platform integration, campaign management and real-time attribution. The role is part of a new ChatGPT growth team tasked with building the backbone of OpenAI’s in-house paid marketing platform. OpenAI wants to monetize free users via ChatGPT ads by 2026, according

Remembering Nathaniel Russell’s charming and economical illustrated columns for The Smudge

The Smudge is a pretty cool magazine – run by interviewers, writers, comic book creators and advice columnists, their description stresses that they are ‘not activists, not editors, but we have a printer and we know how to use it’. It sounds like a threat, but in the spirit of underground and alternative presses of

How People Use ChatGPT & What It Means For The C-Suite

ChatGPT adoption is accelerating at a scale rarely seen in technology. By mid-2025, around 700 million people worldwide were using it every week, sending 18 billion messages, which is roughly 10% of the global adult population. For a new technology, this speed of adoption has no precedent. Yet if you look at your analytics dashboards,

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