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The GRADIENT: Why Taste Is the New Moat

A Checklist For Essential Year-Round Tasks

Planning is not an exciting topic, I admit. Yet, I wrote a book recently on the topic of planning, introducing a framework for doing it for digital marketing. Over the two decades of my career, I have found that the best and quickest positive outcomes nearly always came from a strong plan and a planned

How AI agents will reshape every part of marketing in 2026

Think about the last time you shopped online. Now imagine that entire process — searching, comparing, buying — handled not by you, but by your AI assistant. Welcome to 2026, where agentic artificial intelligence isn’t just a tool. It’s your customer. These AI agents work on behalf of people. They scan catalogs, compare options, initiate

James Junk on why his graphic design “won’t save the world” – but it can centre emotion and humanity

The graphic designer and content creator James Junk took to the stage at November’s Nicer Tuesdays in LA to share the process behind multiple areas of his creative work with brands, sustainability, fashion design and social media work. Discussing how his “graphic design won’t save the world”, James tucks into how that’s besides the point

Why Pharma Needs the PESO Model© Now

TL; DR Trump’s new memo cracks down on pharma DTC ads—TV, digital, social, influencers, and online pharmacies are all in scope. By the end of this year, some brands will lose up to 40% of their patient acquisition pipeline. Activist investors and proxy advisors are already scrutinizing marketing ROI; your board will follow. Brands with

AI Overviews Show Less When Users Don’t Engage

AI Overviews don’t show up consistently across Google Search because the system learns where they’re useful and pulls them back when people don’t engage. Robby Stein, Vice President of Product at Google Search, described in a CNN interview how Google tests the summaries, measures interaction, and reduces their appearance for certain kinds of searches where

Asda pledges to beat rivals loyalty prices

Asda has pledged to cut prices on “thousands” of everyday products to undercut loyalty card prices offered by rivals Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. This extension of the ‘Asda Price’ promise spans over 2,300 products across a range of categories, including fresh meat, fresh produce, chilled, core grocery and bakery lines. Asda has pledged to cut

One of the nerdiest things on my collector shelf is now 49% off

It brings me great pleasure to report that one of the best things I’ve ever purchased – the Hasbro talking Deadpool Head – is now a whopping 49% off over at Amazon, bringing the price to just £54.99 from the usual $154.99 / £120 RRP that we saw at launch. I cannot stress enough how

How Retirement Led to the PESO Model®

TL;DR Retirement became reinvention: Instead of slowing down, diving into Spin Sucks, applying the PESO Model, and the Visibility Engineer’s Manifesto to build systems that are both practical and joyful. Systems = freedom and trust: From wrangling triplets with cart rules and “hands on tummies” to mapping out kitchen moves in Excel, a lifelong instinct

Can AI Systems & LLMs Render JavaScript To Read ‘Hidden’ Content?

For this week’s Ask An SEO, a reader asked: “Is there any difference between how AI systems handle JavaScript-rendered or interactively hidden content compared to traditional Google indexing? What technical checks can SEOs do to confirm that all page critical information is available to machines?” This is a great question because beyond the hype of

Omnicom Media wraps CES deals with a Pinterest collaboration that includes shoppable boards

Pinterest is considered by many to be one of the OGs of the creator economy, but it has for years kept a lower profile when harnessing monetization opportunities. Could that be changing in 2026? Digiday has learned that Omnicom Media is partnering with Pinterest to let the former’s Creo influencer agency reach the latter’s access

Clay Hickson on why drafting and practice are key

Illustrator, designer and co-publisher behind Caboose Books, Clay Hickson joined us in Los Angeles to talk about finding self expression through chosen sketchbooks and pens, both of which are key to his own creative practice and illustration process. He also sheds light on how a “self-reference library” helps him out in professional settings and allows

The PESO Model© Is the Framework for Trust

61% of Americans want to see brands taking a stand. Travis Claytor shows why neutrality isn’t safe and why the PESO Model© is your framework for credibility. The post The PESO Model© Is the Framework for Trust first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Most Major News Publishers Block AI Training & Retrieval Bots

Most top news publishers block AI training bots via robots.txt, but they’re also blocking the retrieval bots that determine whether sites appear in AI-generated answers. BuzzStream analyzed the robots.txt files of 100 top news sites across the US and UK and found 79% block at least one training bot. More notably, 71% also block at

Disney’s Biggest Adtech Updates From CES

The Mouse House is getting some adtech upgrades, with Disney revealing several updates during its annual Tech and Data Showcase from CES on Wednesday. Overall, the company’s event, which also helps kick off its upfront conversations, focused on making things more seamless and efficient for advertisers, including utilizing AI, self-service tools, and new metrics to

Start your 2026 art journey with a £1 subscription to ImagineFX!

You don’t get much for £1 these days but we are here to change that. ImagineFX, the magazine for digital artists looking for practical inspiration, has a special deal for you. ImagineFX comes, 13 times a year, to your doorstep, brimming with inspirational art, world class training, interviews and insights, as well as reviews of

TL; DR Gartner just dropped generative AI into the “Trough of Disappointment,” and The Atlantic is calling an AI bubble. The problem isn’t the tech—it’s bad strategy: too many disconnected pilots, no discipline, no outcomes. The PESO Model© isn’t a checklist—it’s an operating system that makes AI purposeful, measurable, and tied to business outcomes. Use

Google’s Mueller Weighs In On SEO vs GEO Debate

Google Search Advocate John Mueller says businesses that rely on referral traffic should think about how AI tools fit into the picture. Mueller responded to a Reddit thread asking whether SEO is still enough or whether practitioners need to start considering GEO, a term some in the industry use for optimizing visibility in AI-powered answer

Registration is open for the March 2026 MarTech Conference

TL;DR: You can check out the agenda for the March 4, 2026, installment of the virtual MarTech Conference and register for free. Registration is now open for the March 4, 2026, installment of The MarTech Conference, which will be available online and is free to attend. The March event will follow a similar format to

As if! A whimsigoth teenage witch from the mind of animator Bree O’Donnell is taking the internet by storm

Since 2022 the Brooklyn-based filmmaker and animator Bree O’Donnell has been creating short clips of Mary, a teenage witch from the fictional town of Portsmith. With an ever-increasing fanbase across Bree’s Instagram and TikTok channels, Bree tells us that Mary’s inspiration is close to home. “She’s is inspired by all the girls that I hung

History Repeats: Leadership Lessons in Crisis

Throughout everybody’s life, we all encounter one absolute constant—crisis. The old adage, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” holds true. This universal law predates us, eradicating species through extinction events before we walked the Earth. Crises and how we respond to them were first depicted in cave drawings and stone etchings. With the

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