Trends and Technology

Zoe Oz, CMO at Bilt, talks about how the financial services brand's new sitcom, Roomies, has been critical to the four-year-old company's effort to create an emotional bond with customers, and how building that relationship is at the core of its marketing strategy.

Laura Correnti, founder and CEO of Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment, says the Women's Sports Audio Network could be a boon for the growing number of partnerships between brands and women's sports.

Despite the dizzying number of media channels — or maybe because of them — radio continues to provide advertisers with effective reach at lower cost per thousand than linear or streaming programming. At the same time, the industry is trying to address some gaps in measurement when it comes to ad buys.

While immensely popular with consumers, gaming commands less than 5 percent of global media spending. That's starting to change, as brands like Jack in the Box, Jägermeister, and Lowe's ramp up their investments in the sector either by creating their own online venue or partnering with big gaming platforms.

Successful rebrands are rarely about aesthetics. They're about connecting multiple dots throughout an organization and making sure that any rebranding efforts align with the company's goals and objectives, get buy-in from employees, and don't alienate core customers.

Search engines fueled by artificial intelligence, or zero-click search, are starting to eclipse traditional search. That's leading marketers to reevaluate their search engine optimization strategy from keyword-stuffing to context-crafting.

Generative engine optimization (GEO), a digital marketing strategy centered on ensuring a brand's name is featured in the top answers provided by platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and other large language models, is starting to accelerate throughout the marketing and ad sector.

After several years of CMOs and senior marketers being implored to focus on their company's financial goals and speak the language that upper management understands, the situation is getting worse. According to a recent report from McKinsey & Co., just 31 percent of CMOs thought their bosses understood their role, and a paltry 30 percent say their organizations have a clear view of marketing ROI.

Justin Thomas-Copeland, who was recently named CEO of the 4As, says the ad agencies best positioned to thrive in the current climate are flexible, fast, and have a large window into their clients' business.

Kimberly Faver, SVP of brand partnerships and marketing at NBCUniversal Advertising and Partnerships, talks about the two-year effort to put together the ad programming for the 50th anniversary of "SNL" and why it was crucial for brands taking part in the festivities to be a little less risk averse.

Advertisers of almost every stripe are scrambling to sign college athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL). But as the market has surged in the last few years, new regulations are starting to emerge, and marketers are on the hook to make sure their collegiate partners have the kind of values that aligns with their brand.

Alt casts, or alternative versions of sports broadcasts, are growing at a rapid clip, offering advertisers a more relaxed atmosphere than traditional play-by-play coverage.

The ongoing wave of consolidation among the big ad holding companies stems from legacy ad agencies trying to adapt to a brand-new media environment, as artificial intelligence and other technological and economic forces upend traditional ad models and roil client-agency relations.

The path to brand redemption is rarely a straight line. Reputational setbacks, product missteps, and marketing blunders that blow up on social media can erode consumer confidence, destabilize internal teams, and distress the company's financials.

Soyoung Kang, chief marketing and innovation officer at eos Products, puts a premium on listening to what consumers are saying on their social channels about the company and flipping those conversations into cheeky ad campaigns.

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to affect virtually every aspect of marketing and advertising. However, the boost comes at a significant environmental cost, as AI applications require a seemingly endless supply of electricity to keep all those data centers percolating. How can marketers help curb AI-driven emissions and reduce their environmental footprint?

The dizzying number of influencers, creators, and media channels now available to marketers — combined with the rise of generative artificial intelligence — is altering not only how branded ads are produced, but also how many.

Once-straightforward paths to consumers have splintered into a web of platforms, personalities, and algorithms. For marketers, it's both a challenge and an opportunity.

Marcelo Kertész, CMO at MANSCAPED, says SMB marketers need to create content for venues in which their customers want to engage, not just convert.

Andrea Brimmer, chief marketing and PR officer at Ally Financial, talks about how the financial services brand has integrated its proprietary AI platform with commercially available large language models and other AI capabilities.