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The GRADIENT: Why Taste Is the New Moat

WPP is no longer a holdco. What that means for advertisers

For all the headlines, LinkedIn posts and hot takes generated by WPP’s Elevate28 plan, the most consequential audience has been largely absent from the conversation: the CMOs and senior marketers at the world’s biggest advertisers. Most have no idea it’s even happened. They don’t read the trades. They hear about this stuff through consultants, or

Jakub Zasada’s geometric works are a thing of beauty

Jakub Zasada’s posters feel like they’re from a different era – specifically, the midcentury era of design that was ruled by the likes of Saul Bass and Paul Rand. But, what sets Jakub’s works apart, is the fact that they’re made digitally, with the humble mouse and keyboard. Jakub never learnt how to draw, and

Google’s Liz Reid Says LLMs Unlock Audio And Video Indexing

In a podcast interview, Google VP of Search Liz Reid described two ways LLMs are changing what Google can index and how it ranks results for individual users. Reid told the Access Podcast that multimodal AI models now allow Google to understand audio and video content at a deeper level than was previously possible. She

The Role of Purpose in Marketing Strategy with Yoobi’s Sarah Leinberger

Staying authentic and mission-driven while scaling aggressively may be the toughest problem in marketing to solve. But Sarah Leinberger, VP and head of marketing at educational supply brand Yoobi, has a pretty solid take on how to do it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, recorded during Brandweek in Atlanta, Sarah reveals how CMOs can

Hear me out, Comic Sans is actually perfect

Comic Sans was once the king of Y2K graphic design – a fun and characterful font among a sea of stuffy serifs. Today, it is the post-ironic child of a bygone era, but its origins spread far beyond its whimsical aura. Consider this my plea to think twice before you judge Comic Sans. While it’s

AI Max Brand Controls Expand, VRC Non-Skip Ads Go Global – PPC Pulse

Welcome to PPC Pulse: this week’s updates focus on creative controls and video delivery across Google Ads. Google expanded beta access to text guidelines in AI Max, allowing advertisers to set guardrails for AI-generated ad copy across Search and Performance Max campaigns. At the same time, VRC non-skip ads are now generally available globally, expanding

Why organic search is becoming a brand trust channel

If you’re an organic search marketer, you know the industry has been fundamentally disrupted over the last two years. As a community, we continue to debate short-term tactics rather than pivot toward a holistic strategy aligned with general marketing principles. Despite the frustrating landscape, we must stop focusing on outdated hacks and shift our thinking

陈粒十年音乐作品集 :: Behance

《陈粒十年音乐作品集》被设计成一份可以“陈列”的声音档案盒，是一次把“时间”变回“物”的工作。“十年”在流媒体里往往只是一个滚动列表，但当它落在实体黑胶上，它会突然拥有体积、重量与需要被安放的秩序。这份作品集将 11 张专辑汇编为15 张黑胶，并配套一本收录影集与歌词的画册及一张超过 1 米长的歌曲清单。它并非一份简单的纪念周边，而是把陈粒十年的创作从散落的播放历史，收拢为一套可翻阅、可抽取、可归位的系统。

Google AI Mode Cites Itself More Often, With More Organic Links

Google’s self-referencing in AI Mode has risen to more than three times its level nine months ago, according to a new SE Ranking report analyzing 1.3 million citations. Google now accounts for 17% of all AI Mode citations, more than YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Indeed, and Zillow combined. When YouTube is included, Google-owned properties make

Why Gen Alpha–focused brand is giving equity to teen creators

As influencer marketing evolves beyond one-off paid posts, brands are finding new ways to build relationships that last and go deeper than a hashtag-sponsored post. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by Kimberly Ho, founder and CEO of Evereden, to discuss why her $100 million Gen

How Lily Kong’s series Sweet Escape reignited her intuitive approach to illustration

At the mid-point of 2024, illustrator and graphic designer Lily Kong made a conscious decision to slow down – to rekindle parts of her practice that were more intuitive and iterative. She began to revisit drawing as a tool to mark personal memories and interpret her innermost feelings, and from this came her series Sweet

The 10 Best PPC Ad Networks

Choosing the right pay-per-click (PPC) ad network is a core strategy impacting the success of your advertising program. Each network reaches distinct audiences, offers different ad formats, and suits different campaign objectives, from capturing high-intent search demand to driving awareness through video and social feeds. With AI-powered automation now embedded across most major platforms, understanding

The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green Dropped $148M on Company Stock

Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, purchased roughly $148 million worth of the company’s stock earlier this week, according to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The purchases, made between March 2 and March 4 at prices ranging from about $23 to $25 a share, represent a rare open-market

Cinema 4D is coming to iPad – and it’s bringing an AI 3D generator with it

After AI image and video generators, 3D model generators appear to be the next battleground for creative software. A day after the launch of Autodesk’s Wonder 3D with text-to-3D and image-to-3D tools, major rival Maxon has announced that it’s adding 3D model generation to Cinema 4D, one of our picks at the best 3D modelling

AIO Citations Diverge From Rankings, Bing Rewrites Rules – SEO Pulse

Welcome to SEO Pulse: this week’s updates affect how AI Overviews select sources, how far AI search has expanded across industries, and what two search engines now say about optimizing for AI. Here’s what matters for you and your work. AI Overview Citations From Top-Ranking Pages Drop To 38% Ranking in Google’s top 10 is

Why your outreach fails before prospects even read it

I sit and stare at the screen, a blank page and a blinking cursor, trying to figure out the best way to word-smith my message to a target account. I stare and think about what I can say that will cut through the noise, disrupt the pattern and get him to respond. My go-to strategy

ONCE Magazine :: Behance

ONCE As a true football fan, I genuinely enjoyed designing this project. ONCE is a magazine built around eleven articles exploring football culture through aesthetics, fashion and visual narratives. The identity takes direct inspiration from the geometric construction of the ball, specifically the pentagons and hexagons that from its surface. These angular shapes were translated into

What SMEC’s Data Reveals About AI Max Performance

Since Google introduced AI Max for Search campaigns, most of the discussion has focused on Google’s own benchmarks. Those benchmarks suggest advertisers can expect meaningful conversion growth without major efficiency changes. But like many platform statistics, they leave open questions about how the feature behaves inside mature accounts. To get a clearer view, Mike Ryan,

The future, according Epsilon, will be an orchestrated ecosystem

No one AI model class will do the best advertising for marketers without the skills of others. The future, according to Publicis Group-owned Epsilon, will be a carefully orchestrated ecosystem – a team of specialists not a single genius. Steve Nowlan, svp of decision sciences at Epsilon whose PhD is from Carnegie Mellon and whose

Heated Rivalry’s cinematographer shares the visual secrets behind the hit series

It’s Nice That (INT): How did you first hear about the Heated Rivalry gig, and why was it one you personally wanted to work on? Jackson Parrell (JP): I first heard about it from Jacob. We’re both Canadian, and it’s a small-ish scene. I didn’t know the name at that point, he just said it

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