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AI bots crawl retail sites 198x more than Google, new report warns

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Sourced from PPC.Land

AI bots crawl retail sites 198x more per visit than Google, bot traffic rose 5.4x in 2025, and 80% of websites are exposed to agent spoofing, per new research.

A new industry report published this week by Retail Economics, Amazon Web Services, Botify, and DataDome has put a precise number on how dramatically artificial intelligence has disrupted the underlying mechanics of retail discovery – and it is a number that should concentrate minds across search, e-commerce, and advertising alike. For every single visit OpenAI’s systems deliver to a retail website, those same systems perform 198 crawls. Google, by comparison, generates one visit for every six crawls. The disparity, drawn from analysis of approximately 200 retail and e-commerce websites, illustrates how AI platforms interact with the web in a fundamentally different way from the search engines that have shaped digital marketing for the past two decades.

The report, titled “The Future of Search and Discovery: A strategic playbook to understand agentic commerce,” is based on a consumer survey of 6,000 nationally representative respondents across the UK, US, and France, conducted in November 2025. Its conclusions range from quantitative measurements of bot traffic growth to qualitative assessments of consumer trust, and it arrives at a moment when agentic commerce infrastructure is being built at pace across every major platform.

Bot traffic has multiplied – and skewed analytics

The headline infrastructure finding is stark. According to Botify’s analysis, AI-driven bot traffic across the approximately 200 retail and e-commerce websites examined increased 5.4 times during 2025, with the index moving from a baseline of 100 in the first quarter to roughly 640 by the fourth quarter. The growth was not linear. A particularly sharp acceleration occurred in the weeks preceding September 2025, when crawl intensity rose sharply as AI systems refreshed and ingested product data. Shortly after, OpenAI expanded its commerce-related capabilities, including agent-led shopping and in-chat purchasing features. Visits from OpenAI to retail websites then increased 200% month on month in September 2025 following that rollout – a direct illustration of the relationship between platform-level capability updates and referral traffic patterns. PPC Land reported on OpenAI’s instant checkout launch on September 29, 2025, covering how the Stripe-backed Agentic Commerce Protocol enabled direct purchases within ChatGPT conversations.

The category-level picture is even more granular. According to the report, food and grocery experienced a 29-times increase in AI-driven bot traffic over the course of 2025, driven by the high volatility of prices and stock levels that make the category valuable for AI systems to monitor continuously. Home and DIY saw an 11-times increase. Electronics and appliances also crawled significantly. The divergence reflects a structural insight: AI systems treat retail categories differently based on how frequently data changes, not purely on commercial significance or retailer performance.

The scale and velocity of this automated traffic introduces a measurement problem that retailers have only begun to grapple with. According to the report, AI bot systems generate high-volume, concurrent requests that are not always distinguishable from human browsing in traditional analytics. The consequences are concrete. When Google removed a technical shortcut – the &num=100 parameter – that many tracking tools relied on in early September 2025, Botify’s enterprise retail clients reported search impressions fell by approximately 67%, while clicks stayed largely flat and average position appeared to improve. Click-through rate growth then increased by approximately 150%, not because performance had genuinely changed, but because the data was no longer contaminated by synthetic bot impressions. Much of the apparent growth in impressions had been driven by AI bots capable of making 100 or more simultaneous requests, not by real consumers.

Nearly 80% of websites exposed to agent spoofing

Perhaps the most operationally urgent finding in the report concerns security. DataDome, the bot and agent trust management company that co-produced the research, analysed 698,214 live websites using a spoofed “ChatGPT AI assistant” user-agent. The result: 79.7% did not block or challenge the impersonation attempt. Of those, 79.2% returned a “200 OK” response code, meaning the spoofed agent was admitted without challenge. Only 17.2% returned a “403 Forbidden” response.

This is not an abstract vulnerability. According to the report, spoofable user agents and incomplete IP lists make it difficult for retailers to distinguish legitimate AI agents from stealth or human-driven automation using shared infrastructure. The practical effect is that malicious actors can clone weakly declared AI agents to exploit pricing, inventory, or checkout flows. The report notes that DataDome’s threat research team, Galileo, recently identified that 80% of AI agents do not declare themselves properly when visiting websites. That figure underpins a broader argument that retailers face “skewed performance metrics that undermine commercial decisions and expose them to fraud.”

The risk is asymmetric. Blocking all AI traffic to protect against spoofing carries a different cost: if brands do not allow AI bots to find and use content on their websites, according to the report, those systems may find data elsewhere – from third-party review sites, forums, or competitors. PPC Land has tracked how Amazon chose the restrictive path, blocking AI bots from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and Huawei in August 2025, a strategy that runs in parallel with Amazon’s development of its own proprietary AI shopping tools.

The 1-in-198 ratio and what it means for discovery

The visit-to-crawl ratio is worth dwelling on. It signals that for OpenAI’s systems, the primary purpose of engaging with retail websites is not delivering visitors but rather ingesting, validating, and comparing information within their own interfaces. Discovery and evaluation increasingly happen inside AI interfaces before a consumer ever reaches a retailer’s site. This challenges the foundational assumption of SEO: that being crawled translates, over time, into being visited.

The report frames this as a shift in where influence operates. According to Botify’s data, Google drives one visit per six crawls, compared with one per 198 for OpenAI. In practical terms, a product that ranks highly in Google search still generates traffic directly. A product evaluated by an OpenAI agent may shape a recommendation without ever producing a referral visit. Conversion attribution, session metrics, and bounce rate become less meaningful as a result. Brainlabs reported earlier in 2025 that AI search visitors can be worth 4.4 times more than traditional organic traffic, but that premium depends entirely on the visitor arriving at a website in the first place – an outcome the 1-in-198 ratio suggests is far from guaranteed.

The report introduces a taxonomy of AI-led traffic that distinguishes between training crawlers (such as GPTBot from OpenAI and ClaudeBot from Anthropic), live retrieval crawlers (such as ChatGPT-user and Perplexity-user, which fetch fresh content in real time), index-building crawlers (such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot), AI assistants and shopping agents (such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, and Amazon Rufus), agentic browsers (such as Perplexity Comet, ChatGPT Atlas, and Gemini integrated into Chrome), and malicious or exploitative bots(unauthorised scrapers, competitive intelligence bots, and automated fraud traffic). Each category carries different implications for governance and access policy. PPC Land reported on OpenAI’s revised ChatGPT crawler documentation in December 2025, which created different compliance standards for different crawler types.

JavaScript invisibility and the structured data imperative

A separate technical finding deserves attention among search and e-commerce professionals. According to the report, most AI bots cannot read content rendered in JavaScript. If a brand’s product data – pricing, availability, specifications, reviews – sits behind JavaScript, AI systems will see only a stripped-down version of the page. The report illustrates this with a comparison: a shoe product page viewed by a consumer shows size, colour options, materials, price, and promotional details; the same page seen by most AI bots shows only a handful of visible text labels and a stripped visual shell.

The consequence is direct. If AI systems cannot access or interpret a retailer’s data, that retailer may never appear in AI-mediated discovery. The report places structured, authenticated, and accessible data at the centre of its five identified forces of disruption, alongside discovery shifts, infrastructure requirements, LLM evolution, and measurement change. Poor metadata or inconsistent taxonomies can make products invisible to AI crawlers entirely. PPC Land reported in December 2025 on Google’s documentation clarifications around JavaScript rendering for error pages, reinforcing the same underlying technical vulnerability.

The report identifies Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) as the growth layer built on top of traditional SEO. Traditional keyword rankings, organic impressions, click-through rate, domain authority, and bounce rate – the standard dashboard of digital marketing performance – were built for a world of links and human clicks. They do not show how AI agents see, interpret, and act on content. The report proposes a new generation of performance metrics: agent inclusion rate (what proportion of products or pages are recognised and surfaced by AI agents), discovery visibility (presence rate across multimodal environments), engagement confidence index (how often consumers act on AI-surfaced results), structured-data coverage, trust signal strength, visibility-to-sale ratio, and discovery ROI index. These are emerging standards, not yet widely deployed, but the report argues they are necessary to understand commercial impact in an AI-mediated environment. An SEO expert released a related AI search content optimisation checklist in June 2025 that addressed similar requirements around server-side rendering and structured data coverage.

Consumer adoption: 73%, but trust lags

The consumer survey component of the report draws from 6,000 respondents across the UK, US, and France surveyed in November 2025, with 2,000 per country. According to Retail Economics, 73% of consumers across the three markets have consciously used AI in some form over the past twelve months. Of those, 38% have used AI assistants specifically for shopping tasks including product ideas, suggestions, or comparisons. A further 34% have used AI features on retailer websites or apps. Twenty-one percent have used AI tools to make decisions or support purchases.

The US records the highest adoption rate at 73%, with France at 69% and the UK at 68% – closer to each other than might be expected given differences in digital culture. Among 18-to-24-year-olds, approximately one in four use AI assistants regularly and one in five use them day-to-day. Among those aged 55 and older, fewer than one in ten report day-to-day use. The gap widens further when examining AI use relative to other discovery channels: among 18-to-24-year-olds, AI assistants and social discovery channels exert influence that matches or exceeds traditional search engines in the discovery phase.

Trust, however, tells a different story. Thirty-two percent of consumers across the surveyed regions say they do not trust AI-enabled search and discovery. Whereas 38% feel comfortable with recommendations from tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Gemini, far fewer are willing to let those systems act on their behalf. Nearly half – 49% – say discovery is something they want to do themselves, not something to outsource. The report describes this as a “key tension in the shift towards agentic commerce: people value the benefits afforded by AI, but don’t yet feel fully confident to delegate decisions.”

The trust gap is structured by age and income. Higher-income consumers exhibit greater confidence in AI systems, likely reflecting greater familiarity from work settings. Middle-aged, high-affluence consumers emerge as the most AI-trusting segment. Least affluent consumers show the lowest trust, where concerns about risk, accuracy, and control are most acute.

Which categories and missions face the earliest exposure

The report maps retail categories by consumer trust in AI-led discovery and willingness to use AI, weighted by typical spend. Electronics and appliances consistently lead across all three markets. Purchases in this category involve technical specifications, rapid product cycles, and meaningful price differences – exactly the conditions where AI assistance in comparison and shortlisting is most valued. Travel and leisure sits close behind. Clothing and footwear shows rising exposure, with large online ranges and frequent browsing creating fertile ground for AI-led personalisation.

Categories sitting lower on both axes include jewellery, beauty, and homewares – purchases that involve emotional, tactile, and personal judgements where consumers still seek human reassurance. Food and grocery shows strong regional variation: the US shows higher openness to AI assistance in grocery discovery, while France reflects a stronger food culture centred on freshness and physical inspection.

Shopping missions follow a parallel gradient. According to the survey, consumers show the highest willingness to delegate to AI for “considered or technical purchases” and for “buying gifts for others” – both missions involving uncertainty, high information load, and benefit from structured comparison. Routine replenishment sits at the bottom of the willingness scale across all three markets. The pattern is consistent: AI assistance is welcomed where decisions feel cognitively demanding, and resisted where habitual or emotional judgement dominates.

Amazon Rufus provides a commercial datapoint that anchors these projections. According to the report, more than 250 million customers used Rufus during 2025, with interactions up 210% year on year. Customers who use Rufus while shopping are over 60% more likely to make a purchase during that session. Amazon’s full-year financial results subsequently confirmed that Rufus generated nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales during 2025, with more than 300 million customers using the tool throughout the year.

Four consumer personas and three readiness workstreams

The report identifies four distinct shopper personas in relation to AI-assisted discovery. AI-first optimisers (10% of the total, skewing younger at an average age of 38) use AI assistants as their primary discovery tool and show 47% complete trust in AI for research and comparison. Assisted explorers (55%, average age 42) welcome AI as a practical co-pilot for shortlisting and comparison but want to remain in the approval loop. Guarded adopters (16%, average age 53) use AI in controlled, low-risk ways but scrutinise results and hesitate before delegating meaningful decisions. Human loyalists(19%, average age 62) rarely use AI for shopping and require concrete evidence of benefit before adopting more meaningfully.

The strategic section of the report organises its recommendations into three readiness workstreams. The first concerns traffic policy for AI bots and agents – establishing which systems should be allowed, blocked, limited, or monetised, with continuous trust assessment and dynamic behaviour-based security. The second concerns data readiness and product information management – standardising product attributes, metadata, and taxonomy to create a single machine-readable source of product truth, and testing how AI crawlers actually extract and interpret that data. The third concerns on-site AI experiences – building conversational, voice, and embedded-agent user experiences that complete the discovery-to-purchase loop without losing the customer to a competitor’s AI interface.

Cloudflare’s launch of pay-per-crawl in July 2025 and its subsequent Markdown for Agents service in early 2026represent infrastructure-level responses to exactly these workstreams, creating mechanisms for retailers to control and monetise AI access to their content while reducing the token cost of that access by approximately 80%.

The report concludes that early-mover advantages are emerging, but brands that delay action risk becoming harder to find, harder to trust, and easier to replace. The age of agentic search and discovery, it argues, will arrive gradually – but the transition is already underway, and hastening.

Timeline

  • 2010-2014 – Keyword search dominates retail discovery; consumers type exact phrases into search engines with results ranked on keywords and page relevance.
  • 2014-2017 – Behavioural and personalised search takes hold; retailers use cookies and browsing history to introduce recommendation engines.
  • 2017-2019 – Mobile, social, and voice discovery expands search beyond text through smartphones, Alexa, Siri, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
  • 2019-2021 – Visual and contextual discovery arrives with Amazon Lens, Pinterest Lens, and Google Lens enabling image-based shopping.
  • 2022-2024 – Generative discovery begins; ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews transform search into dialogue, summarising and comparing products.
  • August 7, 2023 – OpenAI announces GPTBot; major websites begin implementing blocks within two weeks. Coverage on PPC Land
  • 2024 – Bot traffic exceeds human website visitors for the first time, according to Imperva data cited in Brainlabs research. Coverage on PPC Land
  • May 2024 – Google launches GoogleOther-Image and GoogleOther-Video crawlers for research and development data gathering. Coverage on PPC Land
  • Q1 2025 – AI-driven bot traffic baseline established at index 100 across approximately 200 retail and e-commerce websites analysed by Botify.
  • April 18, 2025 – Microsoft launches Copilot Merchant Program for retail integration. Coverage on PPC Land
  • April 28, 2025 – OpenAI introduces shopping features to ChatGPT, reporting over 1 billion weekly searches. Coverage on PPC Land
  • July 1, 2025 – Cloudflare launches pay-per-crawl service in private beta. Coverage on PPC Land
  • July 16, 2025 – SEO expert warns Google’s AI could eliminate website clicks amid deteriorating crawl-to-visit ratios. Coverage on PPC Land
  • August 21, 2025 – Amazon blocks AI crawlers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and Huawei. Coverage on PPC Land
  • Early September 2025 – Surge in AI crawl intensity at retail websites precedes OpenAI’s commerce capability expansion; Google removes &num=100 tracking parameter, causing apparent 67% drop in search impressions.
  • September 29, 2025 – OpenAI launches Instant Checkout for ChatGPT with Stripe partnership and Agentic Commerce Protocol. Coverage on PPC Land
  • September 2025 – OpenAI commerce capabilities expand; visits from OpenAI to retail websites increase 200% month on month, per Botify analysis.
  • October 6, 2025 – Independent analyst questions commercial viability of agentic commerce despite ChatGPT checkout launch. Coverage on PPC Land
  • November 2025 – Retail Economics consumer survey of 6,000 respondents conducted across UK, US, and France.
  • November 13, 2025 – Google launches agentic checkout and AI shopping tools for the holiday season. Coverage on PPC Land
  • November 17, 2025 – Google Search Console adds annotations; Google’s AI Mode gains agentic features including table reservations. Coverage on PPC Land
  • November 25, 2025 – UK research shows 85% of consumers planning AI-assisted holiday shopping would trust agents to place orders and pay. Coverage on PPC Land
  • Q4 2025 – AI-driven bot traffic reaches 5.4x the Q1 2025 baseline across retail websites analysed by Botify.
  • December 9, 2025 – OpenAI revises ChatGPT crawler documentation with significant policy changes. Coverage on PPC Land
  • December 18, 2025 – Google clarifies JavaScript rendering behaviour for error pages. Coverage on PPC Land
  • January 8, 2026 – Microsoft launches Copilot Checkout with PayPal, Shopify, and Stripe integration. Coverage on PPC Land
  • Early 2026 – Cloudflare launches Markdown for Agents, reducing AI token costs by 80%. Coverage on PPC Land
  • February 2026 – Amazon confirms Rufus generated nearly $12 billion in incremental annualised sales during 2025, with over 300 million users. Coverage on PPC Land
  • March 5, 2026 – Greenough Agency pitches the Retail Economics/AWS/Botify/DataDome report to PPC Land.
  • March 7, 2026 – “The Future of Search and Discovery: A strategic playbook to understand agentic commerce” published by Retail Economics, AWS, Botify, and DataDome.

Summary

Who: Retail Economics, Amazon Web Services, Botify, and DataDome published the report. The consumer research covers 6,000 nationally representative consumers in the UK, US, and France. Key data contributors include Botify’s analysis of approximately 200 retail and e-commerce websites, and DataDome’s security test of 698,214 live websites. AJ Ghergich, Global VP of AI at Botify, is available for comment on the findings.

What: A 35-page strategic report measuring the scale and commercial implications of AI-driven crawling and agentic discovery in retail. Core quantitative findings include: AI bot traffic grew 5.4 times during 2025; OpenAI generates 1 visit per 198 crawls compared to Google’s 1 visit per 6 crawls; 79.7% of websites are unprotected against AI agent spoofing; 73% of consumers have used AI in some form; and 38% have used AI specifically for shopping tasks. The report introduces a new taxonomy of AI traffic types and a set of next-generation performance metrics for the agentic era.

When: The consumer survey was conducted in November 2025. The bot traffic analysis covers the full calendar year 2025. The report was published today, March 7, 2026.

Where: The report covers retail and e-commerce markets across the UK, US, and France for consumer data. The bot traffic analysis draws from approximately 200 retail and e-commerce websites globally. The security analysis of agent spoofing covers 698,214 live websites internationally.

Why: AI systems now function as gatekeepers between brands and consumers, shaping consideration sets before shoppers ever visit a retailer’s site. The combination of rapidly escalating bot traffic, widespread vulnerability to agent spoofing, and the invisibility of JavaScript-rendered content to most AI crawlers creates material commercial risk for retailers who have not yet adapted their data infrastructure, traffic governance, and measurement frameworks to the agentic era. The report argues that early-mover advantages are already emerging and that delay increases the risk of being excluded from AI-mediated discovery entirely.

Sourced from PPC.Land

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A Website Alone Isn’t Enough For Today’s Digital Shoppers

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By Karan Sharma

If you think that just having a good website for your business can bring in customers, it’s time to rethink. Yes, a website plays an important role: It showcases your products, shares essential information and introduces your brand to potential customers. But times have changed, and today’s digital shoppers expect more than just an online presence. What matters now is the experience customers have before, during and after visiting your site.

What Today’s Digital Shoppers Really Expect

An Omnichannel Experience

Let’s say a customer sees an ad for sneaker boots on Instagram while watching a video on an over-the-top (OTT) platform. They click the ad, browse the boots in the brand’s mobile app, add them to their wish list and then later read reviews and complete the purchase via an email link, the app or in-store. For a shopper, this is a single shopping experience, even though it spans multiple platforms.

To create this kind of experience for your customers, focus on how you can connect with them across channels. For example, you could use a customer data platform, enable cart synchronization across devices and include product links in ads. Also, integrating your customer relationship management (CRM) platform with sales and marketing data can give you a complete view of customer behaviour.

Mobile-Friendly Apps And Websites

A lot of customers’ browsing, product comparing and purchasing takes place on mobile now. Yet there’s still a noticeable gap between what shoppers expect and what the mobile experience delivers. Many mobile journeys still feel slow or disconnected due to issues like slow loading, incomplete product details or complex checkout. Customers might not complain; they’ll simply leave or avoid revisiting the app. To retain them, focus on fast-loading pages, clear menus, smooth navigation and organized inventory.

Retargeting

Retargeting is a highly effective way to reengage shoppers after they leave your website. But this strategy performs best only when ads are relevant. Make sure your ads recommend products based on customers’ interests and that they’re shown with limited frequency.

To implement this strategy, start by using dynamic pixels, which are tracking tools embedded on a website or app, that collect real-time data about customers’ actions, such as what they browse, what they add to their cart and what they’ve bought before. Using this data, you can group audiences and automatically deliver personalized retargeting ads.

Push Notifications

Push notifications about order status, price drops, new offers, fresh stock or saved items are a smart way to keep shoppers informed and engaged without being an interruption. But make sure the notifications you send are relevant and personalized to customer preferences. For example, instead of sending a “New stock is here” alert, you could notify a customer that an item saved to their wish list has dropped in price.

A Quick Checkout

One thing I always recommend is providing a smooth checkout experience for your customers. Nobody wants to deal with complicated forms, forced account creation or other unnecessary steps during checkout. When checkout is simple and hassle-free, with multiple payment options, it increases the chances of quick purchases. Plus, it leaves customers with a positive impression of your brand.

Real-Time Support When It Matters

Customers frequently ask questions about a product, pricing, order status or delivery. But if they don’t get immediate answers, they often leave. Therefore, assisting with live chat, messaging, chatbots or in-app support features is essential.

When customers get real-time support, they are more likely to continue their shopping rather than leaving it incomplete. Also, it helps your brand stay ahead of competitors who do not provide timely support.

AI Shopping Assistants

I have observed that brands that ignore AI-driven shopping are not losing customers; they’re becoming invisible over time. Today, in the digital age, many customers use AI assistants to find products, compare prices and make informed decisions. For example, instead of navigating multiple stores, a customer might simply ask the AI, “Find me the best-rated boots under $100 that can be delivered by tomorrow.”

To stay visible in this landscape, focus on the updates that help AI systems find and recommend your products. For example, structure your product data using clear schemas and consistent attributes, update inventory in real time, improve titles and descriptions, and clearly display pricing. AI looks for accuracy, clarity and freshness when deciding what to surface to customers.

Community Engagement

Today, many shoppers check product reviews or learn about the brand through real customer experiences before purchasing. They visit platforms like YouTube, Reddit and social media communities. To win over this audience, provide real customer experiences, authentic reviews and transparent feedback that shoppers can trust. In my experience, brands that are real to their customers are the ones that earn respect, loyalty and long-term trust.

Simple Returns

I’ve noticed that customers often abandon their carts just because they are not sure about the return process. They think that if they have issues with the item and they want to return it, the process will be too complicated, time-consuming or frustrating. Brands that make returns simple, clear and with timely updates encourage customers to make their purchase more confidently.

Final Thoughts

In today’s digital marketing era, just building a good website and following trends aren’t enough. You need to consider what customers expect and what touchpoints make their shopping journey enjoyable and convenient. When you align these digital touchpoints, you can deliver a strong, consistent experience that supports sustainable growth and repeat purchases.

Feature image credit: getty

By Karan Sharma

Find Karan Sharma on LinkedIn and X. Visit Karan’s website.

COUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based). Karan Sharma is a digital commerce expert and the co-founder at Kinex Media Inc, a creative digital agency in Toronto. Read Karan Sharma’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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The Creepy Uncanny Valley Of Targeted Online Marketing

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By Hank Campbell

Personalized online ads must work for the same reason advertising must work; it wouldn’t be a trillion-dollar industry if it didn’t work. Even supplements and organic food are only $140 billion, and those are really popular things that don’t work. Advertising is not popular at all but good luck succeeding without it.

Yet there are limits for what people accept without being uncomfortable. In robots and animation, that has long been termed the ‘uncanny valley’ – where something is not lifelike enough to look real but too lifelike to be acceptable. Some digital marketing has its own uncanny valley; where it becomes unsettling. Examples are people who say they mentioned something in the presence of their Amazon Echo and then ads on Facebook began to target them.

It’s technically impressive, but even more creepy. You feel like you’re walking around London and being monitored all of the time, except on your phone.

It doesn’t backfire on the technology backbone, it backfires on the companies in the ads, making you less likely to buy that brand even if you expressed interest in the general product. We all recognize we are under constant surveillance but resent when it becomes too obvious, according to a recent paper.

With over 1,800 online participants across three studies, the authors targeted some with advertisements for things like Nike sneakers and fabricated headphones after those were mentioned. The control groups were not digitally targeted. Then people rated how uncomfortable they felt and the authors created a Component Process Model of Creepiness.

It is pretty on-the-nose, even for the humanities, this was an online experiment using people paid through Amazon Mechanical Turk, not the normal population, but 75 percent who expressed discomfort were concerned about the manipulation and surveillance aspects of the technology. These are surveys, not behavior, and therefore only EXPLORATORY, but on a 7-point scale for intent to purchase, the authors said a 1-point increase in discomfort meant willingness to purchase the product by half a point.

Like people who declared they are boycotting Paramount Plus because the company is buying Warner Brothers Discovery but never subscribed to either, their opinions mean little. Bud Light, on the other hand, had a very real, very dramatic turn in revenue when they sought to use advertising to do more than sell beer.

That is what needs to be considered. If someone is searching for a product, they probably want to buy it, and for most people price/value overrules the fact that they got a targeted ad after searching for it on another device. Some of us even game the system; if I see something I might like but it is from weird name in a Facebook ad, I click on it and then click back, knowing a few minutes later a company that isn’t some Chinese drop-shipper will advertise it to me.

So companies are probably still smart to target people digitally, even considering blowback. Because advertising is about, as car executives in the 1960s said, “moving the iron”, not being worried about whether or not someone is annoyed. If your recents are decent and your price is competitive, you are winning just the same.

By Hank Campbell

Sourced from Science 2.0

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Tactile Design: Texture and Touch in Modern Branding

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By Jeff

Tactile design is reshaping branding, packaging, and digital UI with texture, embossing, and material surfaces that make design feel as good as it looks.

Screens have flattened everything. Swipe, tap, scroll — interaction is mostly frictionless now. But a countermovement is gaining ground. Designers across branding, print, packaging, and even digital interfaces are leaning into texture. They are making surfaces that suggest weight, grain, and resistance. They are designing things that feel like something.

This is tactile design. It is not a single aesthetic. It is an approach — a commitment to material honesty and sensory depth. When a brand prints its identity on uncoated stock with debossed letterforms, the paper’s tooth becomes part of the message. When a package uses kraft board with a blind-embossed logo, the roughness and the relief tell a story about craft and care before the product is even opened.

Tactile Design in Branding and Packaging

The most effective tactile design in branding starts with material selection. Studios working across print and packaging consistently reach for surfaces that have presence: cotton rag stock, duplex boards, textured uncoated papers, and natural materials like linen and wood pulp. These choices carry meaning. An uncoated cream paper reads handmade. A heavy coated board reads luxury. Kraft reads honest and sustainable.

tactile design brown paper tag with twine

Finishing techniques add the next layer. Debossing presses type or imagery into the surface, creating a recessed impression that readers touch without thinking. Embossing does the opposite, raising forms above the sheet. Foil stamping adds metallic contrast while still referencing physical material. Letterpress printing, with its characteristic ink bite and impression, turns the act of reading into a physical encounter with the page.

Tactile Design in Digital and UI

UI designers have long experimented with material metaphors — subtle noise overlays, paper-grain backgrounds, and linen-pattern interfaces that recall physical surfaces. The goal is not skeuomorphism for its own sake. It is warmth. A slight texture on a background removes the sterile coldness of a pure flat surface. It grounds the interface in the physical world.

tactile design sustainable packaging cardboard

Haptic feedback in mobile design extends this logic. A well-timed vibration when a button activates does not just confirm the action — it adds a moment of physicality that flat audio feedback cannot replicate. As displays improve and surface materials evolve, tactile design will bridge the screen and the hand more precisely.

The best tactile work understands that texture is not decoration. It is communication. Every grain, every impression, every surface choice sends a signal about quality, intent, and care. The studios and designers pushing this work are not chasing a trend. They are recovering something that flat digital design left behind.

By Jeff

Sourced from abdz-do

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Real talk, real people: why Creative Boom IRL is the community you’ve been waiting for

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By Tom May

From Belfast to Brighton, creatives are swapping algorithm feeds for real conversation… and loving every minute of it.

If you’ve ever felt invisible in your own industry (heads down, working solo, scrolling through feeds and wondering where all the energy went), Creative Boom IRL might be what you’ve been looking for.

Creative Boom IRL is a series of free, informal gatherings for creative professionals happening in cities across Britain. There are no talks, no panels, no sponsors and no agenda. Just a relaxed venue, a drink in hand, and a room full of designers, illustrators, photographers, writers, strategists and other creatives who actually want to talk to each other, face to face.

Events are hosted by local volunteers from The Studio, Creative Boom’s private online community. And they’re open to all creatives, whether you’re freelance, in-house or running your own studio.

Manchester
Manchester
Durham. Photographer: Steve Atkinson
Durham. Photographer: Steve Atkinson
Natty Harris (Bristol)
Natty Harris (Bristol)
Leeds. Photographer: Michael Godsall
Leeds. Photographer: Michael Godsall
Sheffield
Sheffield

In a moment, we’ll share what’s been going on around the country in more detail. But first, for the uninitiated, how did this all come about?

How it began

Creative Boom was founded in 2009 as an online magazine celebrating creative work and the people behind it. Over the years, it has built a loyal following among designers and other creative professionals. But by the mid-2020s, that audience was increasingly telling us that algorithm-driven social platforms were letting them down.

Carefully crafted posts were vanishing into the void. Engagement had become performative. The genuine sense of connection that had once made the internet feel exciting was harder and harder to find. So in early 2025, we launched The Studio: a private, distraction-free space with no likes, no algorithms and no self-promotional noise. Just real conversations among people who are serious about their craft.

It grew fast, reaching over 4,500 members within months. Online events with industry leaders followed: intimate sessions on positioning, brand building, goal-setting and more. But members kept asking the same thing. When do we get to actually meet in real life?

Enter Creative Boom IRL.

Getting out there

The inaugural event in Manchester in April 2025 set the tone perfectly. Hosted at Common on Edge Street, photographer Pip Rustage welcomed 27 members for an evening that felt more like bumping into old friends than networking. No talks, no agenda, no awkward elevator pitches; just good people in a good space.

Durham. Photographer: Steve Atkinson
Durham. Photographer: Steve Atkinson
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Belfast
Belfast
Leeds. Photographer: Michael Godsall
Leeds. Photographer: Michael Godsall
Emily and Kirsty (Sheffield)
Emily and Kirsty (Sheffield)

It worked. Conversations sparked, details were swapped, and everyone asked the same question on the way out: when’s the next one? From there, the momentum was unstoppable. Events rolled out across Britain, and the appetite was real.

In Sheffield, co-hosts Emily O’Brien and Kirsty Grafton took things into their own hands. Based at the newly opened Leah’s Yard in the city centre, they found a willing venue in Hop Hideout, whose owner, Jules, agreed to open exclusively for their events, for free. “There wasn’t much opportunity for creatives to meet each other that weren’t too industry-specific, expensive or cliquey,” says Emily. “So many people came to the first event as their very first creative industry event.”

The Sheffield events have since grown into a genuine community, with one particularly lovely outcome. Laura Poole, creative academy coordinator at Sheffield College, used her connections from the meetups to bring local creatives into the college to deliver lectures, set live briefs and run workshops; directly inspiring the next generation.

Kirsty sees the in-person element as the crucial ingredient. “Getting together in real life adds something extra,” she says. “We have the kind of chats you just wouldn’t have with a new connection on LinkedIn.”

Further north in Durham, Clare Lavelle of Aniseed Creative was determined to put her region on the map. “Durham is not particularly known as a creative hub, even though there’s plenty of creativity here,” she says. Her first event drew around 15 creatives on a rare boiling-hot summer’s day in the North East. Weirdly, many of them had already worked with the same people or in the same places.

Now regularly attracting 20–25 attendees, the Durham events have led to real connections. “I wouldn’t probably be co-hosting Billy No Mates alongside another local designer, Laura, without it,” says Clare. “A couple of local artists have connected up, and designers and marketers have been exchanging details for possible collaborations. It’s become a lovely community in a short space of time.”

Clare Lavelle (Durham)
Clare Lavelle (Durham)
Manchester
Manchester
Manchester
Manchester
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Belfast
Belfast

In Leeds, designer Brett Kellett—who freely admits he hates networking—was talked into hosting by his relentlessly optimistic co-hosts Vicky Zaremba and Kate Campbell. “What matters is building community,” he says. “As someone who recently moved back to Leeds, it starts to turn something that can feel impenetrable and forbidding into something human.” At one event, he bumped into a former London colleague, now one of the founders of acclaimed Leeds studio Edna.

Meanwhile, in Birmingham, brand and packaging designer Louise O’Kane of LULACREATES has been quietly building something special at Kilder Bar near Moor Street Station. Her third event was the turning point: a buzzing room of design graduates, creative directors, photographers, videographers, illustrators, fashion designers and sound engineers. “A genuine cross-section of the creative community,” she recalls. “I felt utter delight.”

The need for each other

Brighton, famed as a creative hub, delivered from the start. Co-hosts Emily Penny of Becolourful and Michelle Mariathasan Holland of Make More Happen drew over 60 people to the Projects co-working space, complete with a beautiful sunset from the roof terrace. “I was slightly nervous we weren’t offering formal talks or structured entertainment,” says Michelle. But it turns out creatives don’t need programming; they need each other.”

One attendee travelled from Portsmouth and ended up meeting other Portsmouth creatives at the event. They all got the train home together. That’s exactly what it’s about. As Emily says, “Chance meetings can and do change futures.”

Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Emily Penny (Brighton)
Emily Penny (Brighton)
Leeds: Photo by Jemma Mickleburgh
Leeds: Photo by Jemma Mickleburgh
Gregg Reid (Belfast)
Gregg Reid (Belfast)
Louise O'Kane (Birmingham)
Louise O’Kane (Birmingham)

In Bristol, senior designer Natty Harris has created a space where there’s genuinely no pressure to impress. “The last ones were still here at 11pm, and I had to kindly nudge them to leave!” she laughs. “Numbers and social handles were swapped, which is really lovely.” The response has been one of overwhelming gratitude from a freelance and remote-worker community that had been longing for exactly this kind of no-agenda gathering.

Over in Belfast, meanwhile, creative director Gregg Reid of Hundred Studio put £250 behind the bar at the Ulster Sports Club taproom and welcomed 50 people through the door. In the process, he was struck by the realisation of just how much creative talent the city contains: people working on blockbuster films, boutique hotels and global brands, often without knowing they were just down the road from each other. “It was killer to get loads of people in one room and not only realise how similar we all are, but to understand the real scope of our work,” he reflects.

In London, motion designer Michela Bruno and Benji Wiedemann, ECD and co-founder of brand consultancy Wiedemann Lampe, co-hosted the capital’s first event. Michela, who moved from Italy in 2011 and has worked remotely ever since, says Creative Boom IRL has filled a long-felt gap. “I work from home, always alone, but my creativity is fuelled by collaboration,” she explains. “I badly wanted to meet other creative people in person.”

Leeds. Photo by Jemma Mickleburgh
Leeds. Photo by Jemma Mickleburgh
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Birmingham. Photographer: Dray-Darnell Gonzales
Belfast
Belfast
Sheffield
Sheffield
Durham. Photographer: Steve Atkinson
Durham. Photographer: Steve Atkinson

Benji, in turn, was struck by how faithfully The Studio’s warmth translated into the physical world. “The vibe was genuine,” he reports. “It was all about openness, kindness, compassion and above all fun.” Benji and Michela run London’s event along with senior designer Arianna Cerroni and creative coach Ivy Malik.

Why this matters

Right now, the creative industry is having a tough time. Budgets are tighter, timelines are shorter, freelance work is drying up, and the AI conversation is impossible to ignore. Against that backdrop, Creative Boom IRL offers something both simple and badly needed: the reminder that you are not alone. As Emily O’Brien puts it: “Work right now is hard. Having this space to share that ‘it’s not just you’ really helped everyone feel reassured.”

Most importantly, Creative Boom IRL events are free, welcoming and deliberately low-key. There’s no agenda and no need for a pitch. Clare Lavelle in Durham puts it best: “It’s not your typical networking. It’s just making creative pals.” Come join us!

Bristol
Bristol
Brighton. Photography by Alex Bamford
Brighton. Photography by Alex Bamford
Emily Penny and Michelle Mariathasan Holland at IRL Brighton
Emily Penny and Michelle Mariathasan Holland at IRL Brighton

Feature image credit: Jemma Mickleburgh

By Tom May

Sourced from CREATIVE BOOM

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GB News whines that brands are ‘scared’ of advertising with them

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By Amelia Hansford

GB News is being urged to ‘reflect’ on the type of content it produces after a host complained about an advertising boycott yet again.

Presenter Nana Akua claimed during an episode of The Interview that potential advertisers were being “scared off” by human rights groups that argue the news and opinion channel is pushing division in the UK.

During an interview with former professional football coach, Steve Harrison, the 54-year-old said: “We’ve been through the whole thing where, you know, there was this [call], ‘Well, they’re horrible, don’t advertise with them’. Some were scared off from advertising on the channel.”

GB News has reportedly lost over £131 million since its launch in 2021 as major brands join a boycott started by the political pressure group Stop Funding Hate, which argued the channel uses “fear and division” to gain viewers.

The broadcaster has routinely come under fire for airing anti-LGBTQ+ views. Most notably was GB News host Josh Howie’s remark that the LGBTQ+ acronym includes “paedos,” as well as is on-air apology that denied the existence of trans people.

GB News host Josh Howie in the studio.
GB News host Josh Howie. (GB News/Instagram)

Stop Funding Hatemade a call to boycott the right-wing broadcaster in February 2021 – four months before the broadcaster officially launched – calling for prospective advertisers to pull support in the lead-up to its first broadcast.

Major brands including Ikea, Nivea and OVO Energy pulled advertising almost immediately following the channel’s launch, with many more pulling their sponsorships over the next few years.

During the broadcast, Harrison claimed that advertisers were “complicit” in the channel’s losses for “not standing up to Stop Funding Hate.”

Responding in a post on social media, the political pressure group called on GB News to “reflect on whether the content of GB News might explain this reluctance” for brands to advertise on the channel.

GB News
L-R: Former GB News hosts Laurence Fox, Dan Wootton and Calvin Robinson. (GB News)

“We’ve seen time and time again that when enough of us speak out & urge advertisers to avoid GB News, companies will respond,” they added. “This only works because it’s also very clear how toxic an environment GB News is – advertisers can see that the public has a point and is right to be concerned.”

Akua’s comments came just a week after fellow GB News host Charlie Downes claimed she was not truly British, despite being born in Newcastle.

During a heated debate, Downes claimed that Akua was not truly British because, in his view, “there’s a difference between someone who has come here within the last five years and gotten themselves a passport and somebody like me whose family have been in this country for thousands of years.”

The pair clashed after Downes claimed that Britishness is not defined by a “set of abstract, corporate values like democracy,” claiming instead that it was defined by what he called the “ancient peoples” of Britain.

Akua responded by citing Cheddar Man – a Mesolithic human male whose skeleton was found in Cheddar Gorge and is believed to be the oldest complete skeleton of a human found in Britain. In 2018, DNA analysis found that Cheddar Man was Black.

After Downes said he disagreed because of his Christian beliefs, Akua responded: “You might believe that, but science says otherwise.”

Feature image credit: GB News host Nana Akua (left) spoke with Steve Harrison (right) on the channel’s issues with advertisers. (screenshot/Facebook)

By Amelia Hansford

Sourced from PinkNews

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Why brands can become emotional lifelines in times of crisis

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By and

The rain hasn’t stopped for hours. Wind rattles the shelter’s windows as the storm outside swells, flooding the streets they used to call home. In a crowded gym, a family of four sit huddled together on makeshift beds pushed side by side each other. The parents wrap donated blankets around their shoulders; the teenagers lean against each other. Someone suggests a movie: something light, something old. They settle on a childhood favourite, a worn-out Pixar film, its colours flickering softly on the phone screen. Familiar voices, the opening music, the brand logo before the title… For a few minutes, it feels like the flood damage caused to their home no longer matters because they are together.

This is not just nostalgia. Research shows it is a form of collective coping. When the world feels unstable, why do we cling to familiar household brands and family rituals?

A study in everyday survival

In our recent research published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, we explored how families use everyday brands and consumer rituals to restore a shared sense of identity after major life-changing disruptions.

Drawing on interviews and the diaries of 22 French families during the Covid-19 lockdowns, we found that major life disruptions, sudden collective shocks like pandemics, wars, or natural disasters, destabilise shared identities. When crisis strikes, family units don’t merely adapt their routines; they rebuild who they are together through consumption.

Brands act as scaffolding for reconstructing “who we are together”. Products, platforms, and rituals, from Netflix series to board games to family meals, become tools for resilience and belonging.

And this pattern extends well beyond Covid. In an era of growing environmental volatility, it matters more than ever. According to global risk reports, the number of natural disasters causing major economic losses is at record highs. As more and more communities around the world face upheaval, these small, mundane gestures of consumption are likely to become even more vital.

How we make sense when the world stops making sense

The study identifies three-way people use shared consumption to soothe anxiety and reclaim a sense of belonging.

1) Ritualised structuring: re-creating routine

When time feels suspended, people rebuild daily habits through familiar brands. This can involve watching the same show every night at eight to mark family time or deciding that Tuesday night is reserved for a sisterly chat over WhatsApp while watching a cooking show. Even a simple coffee in a beloved mug every morning can signal the start of “normal” life again.

These rituals restore predictability and reinforce family structure: who does what, when, and with whom?

2) Collective revalorising: rediscovering shared fun

Shared consumption becomes a new form of togetherness. Families dust off old board games like Monopoly and Cluedo. Parents can cook with kids using brands that “belong” to the household (e.g. Nutella pancakes, Lego projects). The activity is not about the brand itself; it is about reasserting family character traits: “We’re playful,” “We’re resilient,” “We do this together.”

3) Intergenerational romanticising: reviving lineage

Families can also turn to the past for comfort, rewatching classics from childhood, cooking passed down recipes, or creating family newsletters to share stories across generations. These rituals ease anxiety by reconnecting with lineage and continuity. A form of quiet resistance to the fear that the future is slipping away.

Together, these practices form a kind of psychological architecture: a way to impose meaning, order, and belonging amidst chaos.

What brands really mean in a crisis

Not all brands can play that role. The ones that endure crises often do so not because they shout louder, but because they embody stability, shared experience, and emotional legacy.

During an economic downturn or after a parent’s layoff, trusted retailers can become family anchors and symbols that life can still be rearranged. A brand like Ikea, for example, could help families adjust to smaller homes by buying back larger furniture and offering adaptable, modular pieces that transform rooms into communal areas. That kind of gesture does more than move products: it helps families reimagine togetherness and regain a sense of control.

In climate disasters, local brands can strengthen communities and become symbols of solidarity. After the 2025 Texas flash floods, Walmart offered free meals to affected families. Initiatives like that could go further, for example by creating spaces where families gather, connect, and rest. The value is not just in the food; it is in rebuilding collective morale.

Even in political upheaval, cultural and media brands provide continuity. National broadcasters, for instance, can help by reviving beloved classic films that families can watch together. A subtle act of collective reassurance, reminding people of their shared cultural heritage.

The insight is simple but powerful: during disruption, consumption is not escapism. It’s sense making.

Belonging as a Business Asset

If brands can become emotional lifelines, it is because consumption in moments of rupture is not mindless escapism. Sharing a meal, lighting the same candle, queuing up the same movie… these acts whisper, “We’re still ourselves.”

The brands that subsist are not the ones that dominate conversations, but those that quietly fit into our family coping mechanisms. Our research shows that brands become vectors of family history, creators of gathering occasions, and delineators of individual, relational, and collective times and activities. They are, in effect, identity technologies which act as everyday anchors for group belonging and continuity.

As societies face mounting major challenges, from climate anxiety to digital disconnection and geopolitical tension, the emotional dimension of the marketplace will matter more than ever. When the world falls apart, the brands we hold onto are not about consumption at all; they are about remembering who we are.

Feature image credit: Unsplash

By and

Sourced from The Conversation

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AI Is Here To Stay, But So Is Authentic Human Intelligence

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By Nancy Marshall

As artificial intelligence continues to disrupt industries from law to media to public relations, you don’t need me to sing its praises. AI is most likely here to stay, and all of us—from agency owners to entry-level employees—need to accept our new reality.

If you fail to embrace AI, you will fail to adapt to a rapidly changing workplace. The most appealing workers know how to integrate AI into their daily workflows to broaden the horizons of their productivity, and the best employers know it.

However, we can’t overestimate AI either. There is (still) much more to the modern workplace than the power of large language models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. Especially in fields like PR and marketing, many agencies are going all in to automate their processes with AI, but people are going to keep craving the human touch (yes, still). Agencies that double down on real, authentic relationships will be the ones that win because they will stand out more and more.

Countless surveys prove this. Whether we’re making a complex purchase, working with customer support or consulting a real doctor, we are human beings who want to see and speak with other people. Our need for social contact may have changed in recent years, but most people don’t want to just talk to bots all day.

Call it “the other AI,” or “authentic intelligence.” Being more human—from understanding human tendencies to communicating with personality—has emerged as a major competitive advantage for leading brands. We’re seeing companies lean into emotion as a form of brand personality, which is a key to breeding familiarity and loyalty. Remember: In order for people to know, like and trust you, they need to feel like you actually see eye to eye with them as a fellow human, like you’re on their same wavelength.

Trust is perhaps the most important currency for business leaders. You need people—from customers and clients to employees—to see you as someone who is operating in good faith, with people’s best interests at heart. When brands become overly automated with AI, they often lose their emotional resonance, and they may inevitably lose trust as their competitive advantage blends into what every other brand is doing—automating and automating some more.

In my experience, relationships always outperform algorithms. I have always placed a premium on developing real, human connections with people, whether it’s a vendor or a governmental official. When you see people you know, it’s best to smile, look them in the eye, give them a firm (but not too firm) handshake and tell them you are glad to see them. That type of personal connection will last for a long time and resonate more than any LLM response.

Empathy drives engagement. If you know what people are going through, and let people know you care, they will want to stay in touch with you. A journalist I’ve known since the 1990s recently broke her ankle, and her daughter was nearly killed while crossing the street. She was feeling very down in the dumps, so I sent her flowers with a handwritten note. That gesture will surely beat any bot telling her to feel better online. Hopefully, it keeps our relationship strong for the next 30 years.

People need to associate AI with amplification. It has the potential to make us more productive and keep us more informed, bringing out the very best of our humanity. AI amplifies human energy, but it does not replace us, and there is immense value in relying on smart humans for their brainpower to build and manage relationships.

Relationship management takes time. You have to be into networking and connecting for the long haul, and not just for instant gratification. You can’t just request a new connection on LinkedIn and expect them to become a new client or colleague overnight. And you certainly shouldn’t have a bot approach all of your LinkedIn contacts to pitch them new products and services.

Getting lazy with AI is not the right approach. Dehumanizing yourself, at the expense of others, is never the answer.

The right approach is to amplify your humanity with AI. Lean into artificial intelligence, but don’t forget authenticity along the way.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Nancy Marshall

COUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based)

Nancy Marshall, The PR Maven has been in PR for 35 years. She talks about growing your audience with media relations & personal branding. Read Nancy Marshall’s full executive profile here. Find Nancy Marshall on LinkedIn and X. Visit Nancy’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

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