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The Economist shades AI in sharp new billboard ads

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Stripped-back visuals become a powerful storytelling tool.

The Economist has launched a powerful new billboard campaign challenging the rise of AI in media. Wonderfully simple in its execution, the back-to-basics campaign is a prime example of how stripped-back visuals can be a powerful storytelling tool.

Paired with ingenious copy, the striking billboard ads demonstrate the enduring value of thoughtful copywriting in the branding sphere. In a world of loud, social-led design, The Economist’s latest campaign is a refreshing respite from the noise of the branding sphere.

Cocogun's campaign for The Economist(Image credit: The Economist/Cocogun)

Made in collaboration with independent creative agency Cocogun, The Economist’s latest campaign features minimalist red billboards with snappy copy such as “Think outside the bot” and “actual intelligence”. Unmistakably on brand thanks to the stripped-back colour palette and signature serif font, the campaign radiates authority and confidence without feeling sanctimonious.

Cocogun's campaign for The Economist(Image credit: The Economist/Cocogun)

The OOH campaign will appear around the World Trade Centre, key New York City and Chicago subway stations, alongside UK placements in Leicester Square, Carnaby Street and Canary Wharf.

On the project, Cocogun creative partner, Ant Melder, says: “To follow in the wake of some of the greatest advertising the world has ever seen is no small task. I like to think/am utterly terrified by the idea that a certain Mr Abbott is somewhere in the ether looking down on everything we do with a judicious, firm yet encouraging eye. We’re beyond proud to have been entrusted with this, and look forward to continued collaboration.”

Cocogun's campaign for The Economist(Image credit: The Economist/Cocogun)

For more advertising inspiration, check out Polaroid’s refreshing anti-AI campaign or take a look at McDonald’s painfully relatable new billboard ads.

Feature image credit: The Economist/Cocogun

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Natalie Fear is Creative Bloq’s staff writer. With an eye for trending topics and a passion for internet culture, she brings you the latest in art and design news. Natalie also runs Creative Bloq’s 5 Questions series, spotlighting diverse talent across the creative industries. Outside of work, she loves all things literature and music (although she’s partial to a spot of TikTok brain rot).

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

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The Fastest Way To Get In Front Of A New Audience (No Ads Needed)

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By Lyn Wildwood

Want to grow your social media audience without posting more content?

Collaborating with other creators might be the fastest way to do it.

Most people avoid it because they think it’s awkward, complicated, or only for bigger accounts.

But here’s the truth:

A lot of creators are actively looking for people to collaborate with right now, especially within their niche or adjacent ones.

In this post, you’ll learn how to master social media collaborations and turn them into real audience growth.

Let’s get into it.

What is a social media collaboration?

A social media collaboration, also known as a collab, refers to content a social media creator makes with another creator.

It’s an engagement strategy creators have been using long before the internet was even invented. Back in the old days, TV shows, musical artists and even film franchises would collaborate with one another by appearing in each other’s projects.

In modern times, collaborations are used to combine social media audiences on one or more videos.

It can be a huge growth strategy for both creators but particularly for the collaborator with fewer subscribers.

What are the benefits of collaborating with other creators?

Like I said, engagement is the biggest benefit of collaborating with other creators, especially if the creator you collaborate with has a larger audience.

Most social media collaborations have at least two videos: one that’s posted on your account and another that’s posted on your collaborator’s account.

By appearing in one of their videos, your brand awareness skyrockets.

If they put your username in the caption so that it’s clickable, or use the collaboration feature available on a platform like Instagram, their audience will be able to click through to your profile very easily to follow you.

If their audience likes your personality enough, they may even watch and like a few of your videos.

Working with another creator is also an effective way to revamp a dead timeline.

Maybe your videos were popular at one point, but now you struggle to receive a few thousand likes and views. Working with the right creator might just be the thing your account needs.

Combining your content creation budget with another creator’s budget can also help the both of you film a higher-quality, more ambitious video.

Maybe there’s somewhere in the world you want to explore. Maybe you have a project you want to build.

You can easily cover these expenses by combining your marketing budget with another’s.

Social media collaborations are also abundant sources of inspiration. Some of your best ideas will come from the collaborative content you make.

Switching up filming processes and editing styles can also do a lot to reset your brain and keep you from using the same process over and over again with little to no improvement.

A collaboration may even open doors for you.

Maybe the creator you collaborate with is friends with quite a few other creators. Maybe they have important friends in the industry.

Finally, social media collaborations also help you put the “social” back in social media. Many social media creators work alone, and it can get pretty isolating as they spend all of their time filming and editing videos while they grow their followings.

All of these are considerations to make when you’re deciding whether you want to collaborate with another creator.

Examples of social media collaborations

KallMeKris and CelinaSpookyBoo

KallMeKris and CelinaSpookyBoo are two very popular TikTok creators.

KallMeKris has 50.6 million followers and 2.4 billion likes on the platform while CelinaSpookyBoo has 28.6 million followers and 1.2 billion likes.

The two are friends and are, therefore, able to collaborate with one another quite casually.

One of their most popular collaborations included a Try Not to Cringe challenge that earned 54.2 million views, 8.3 million likes, 55,000 comments, 929,900 favourites and 409,200 shares.

It was a simple yet effective collaboration.

Peter Hollens and Whitney Avalon

Peter Hollens is a YouTuber who creates acapella covers for popular songs and musicals.

He often collaborates with other YouTubers. In fact, his most popular video is a collab.

It’s a medley he created of Disney villain songs with fellow YouTuber Whitney Avalon, who’s known for creating the Princess Rap Battle series on YouTube.

Peter has 3.29 million subscribers on YouTube while Whitney has 2.04 million.

Their collaboration, published in June of 2017, has received over 43.7 million views on YouTube.

Alex and Jon and Kat

Alex and Jon are a married couple who make content together, and they often make content with friend and fellow TikTok creator Kat.

Alex and Jon have 2.6 million followers and 210 million likes while Kat has 10.4 million followers and 678.8 million likes.

One of their most popular collabs is a video in which Alex blames Jon’s hispanic “cousin” Kat for getting her a bit tipsy off tequila at Christmas.

This particular collab earned 4.6 million views, 653,900 likes, 1,770 comments, 8,435 favourites and 17,700 shares.

How to find other creators to collaborate with

Create a list of creators you want to collaborate with

This will be your master list.

You can add dream collabs to this list, but know that you should probably stick with creators who are closer to you in follower count.

You should probably stick to creators in your niche and creators in adjacent niches as well to ensure your audiences don’t clash.

Pick creators from every social media platform you have a presence on.

Then, organize your master list in a few different ways. First, separate everyone by niche. Then, arrange those niche groups by follower count.

Focus on creators who have fewer followers, the same followers or a little more followers than you. However, creators with less than 100,000 followers may not receive as many direct messages as you think, so don’t be afraid to reach out to them as well.

You should also consider each creator’s personality and how well you think you’d get along with them.

Choose a minimum of three creators to contact initially. Just be mindful that each creator you reach out to could potentially say yes.

Come up with unique ideas for each creator

Like I said, there’s a potential for each creator you contact to say yes to your collab request.

To avoid creating the same type of content with every creator you collab with (even though this is a valid social media strategy many creators use), come up with unique ideas to pitch to each creator.

The ideas should incorporate their content style. You should also come up with at least one idea for your account and one for theirs so you can each have the collab on your respective accounts.

Reach out to each creator

This is by far the scariest part of this whole process. So, let’s break down a simple outreach template:

“Hi [creator’s name],

I’m [insert the name you want the creator to address you as, usually your first name]. I run [account name], a [channel/page] that covers [your niche as well as topics that you cover].

I’m reaching out in hopes that you’d like to collab with me on a couple of videos. I noticed your [channel/page] covers [niche/topic], which is closely related to my own channels’ niche, so I think our audiences would get along pretty well.

I have a few content ideas we can get started with if you’re interested:

  • Idea 1
  • Idea 2
  • Idea 3

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,

[your name]”

It’s a simple template, but it does a few things:

  • It humanizes you by introducing yourself as the name your personal friends address you as.
  • It lets the creator know that you’ve done your research on their content.
  • It lets the creator know that you have an idea of what kind of content you two should get started with.

The ideas you propose to the creator should take the creator’s content into consideration. In other words, make sure your ideas align with the creator’s content.

As far as where you should reach out to them at, try DMing them on whatever social media platforms you both have a presence on.

You can also resort to email if they have a dedicated email address for business inquiries.

Planning content with your collaborators

Share ideas

Once you find a creator to collab with, brainstorm ideas with one another, or refine the ones you already came up with.

You can go to lunch if you live in the same area. Otherwise, you’ll need to FaceTime, Zoom, text or stick to DMs to brainstorm content ideas.

Keep it casual

Working with other people isn’t always easy.

Sometimes you have two very different working styles as well as completely different approaches to the way you create social media content.

If this is the case, try to keep the planning stage as casual as possible by keeping it in DMs and planning content that’s as simple as possible to create.

Get technical with a project management app

If you and your collaborator want to create more sophisticated videos, or more than two videos, consider moving things to a project management app.

Unfortunately, there are a lot to pick from including Trello, Google Docs, Notion, Monday, Asana, ClickUp and more.

They all work differently, but they all allow you to break your project down into individual tasks then assign those tasks to you or your collaborator.

Use a file sharing app

Consider sharing each other’s footage with one another by uploading it to a file sharing app, like Dropbox or Google Drive.

This will allow each collaborator to access all of the footage you two shot for your project so you can each work on editing videos separately but collaboratively.

Decide where content will get published

As you get to work on planning, recording and editing your content, determine where each post will get published.

Will you each post a tiktok? Will you share images to Instagram? Will you appear on each other’s podcasts posted to YouTube?

Work all of this out before you start publishing so you can each be prepared for each piece of content’s premiere.

Credit your collaborators

When you publish the video, do not forget to credit your collaborators.

Include your collaborator’s username in the caption at the very least.

Instagram has a dedicated feature for collaborations now which you should definitely take advantage of.

Shoot behind the scenes content

Keep the camera rolling even if you aren’t currently filming a shot for your planned content.

You should also take images regularly throughout the filming process of the collaboration.

This will give you plenty of behind the scenes footage to tease your audience with.

Stay in touch

Once every piece of content you planned gets published and the collab wraps up, ask the creator you worked with if they’d like to stay in touch.

As you see from some of the examples of above, some of the collaborations you do have the potential to spark lifelong friendships.

Plus, if you befriend your collaborators, you’ll always have another creator to collaborate with.

Alternatives to partnering with other creators

Join a digital community

If you’re having trouble partnering with a creator by reaching out to them yourself, consider finding a digital community to join.

Look for forums, Discord servers and Facebook groups in your niche that might have fellow creators you can converse with.

Stitch and duet other creators’ videos

You can also stitch another creator’s videos if you’d like to respond to something they said in their video.

This is a technique many TikTok creators use, including Hank Green who often uses the feature to answer science-related questions.

You can also use the duet feature to react to other creators’ videos.

Instagram has these features as well. They’re called remix and sequence.

Request a podcast interview

Podcasts are an integral part of social media. In fact, most podcasts post clips to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

If there are a few podcasts in your niche or related to your niche, consider asking them if they’d be willing to allow you to join an episode for an email.

Final thoughts

Teaming up with other content creators is one of the best ways to grow your audience (and theirs).

If you have existing relationships with other creators, those will usually be a good point to start.

Just remember that collaborations need to be a mutual win-win for both of you.

So stick to collabs with creators that have a similar sized audience at first and then work your way up as your audience grows.

By Lyn Wildwood

Lyn Wildwood is a member of the Blogging Wizard content team and a freelance writer for hire with over a decade of experience in the marketing space. She’s an expert when it comes to blogging and WordPress. She also has a strong background in testing social media software.

Sourced from bloggingwizard

 

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How To Build A Scalable Social Media AI Infrastructure

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By Tanmay Ratnaparkhe

Every few months, a new AI tool lands in a social media manager’s inbox with a promise to “10x your content output.”

In my role building generative AI software for brands, and from working with social teams at companies from lean startups to enterprise brands to improve their AI adoption, I have seen the same pattern repeat when teams adopt these tools.

First, they become excited about the product and start producing content. Then, they hit a wall when engagement plateaus because either the content feels off-brand or the results don’t follow from the increase in volume.

Almost always, these teams have the same structural problem: They are treating AI as a single tool dropped into their workflow rather than thinking about where in the workflow it actually needs to live.

To solve this, social media teams should look at the way they are implementing these tools holistically. Here are three layers to examine to understand what’s going wrong and how to fix it.

Layer 1: Intelligence

​​The first layer is about context.​​​

​Before a single word is generated, your AI stack needs to be doing the analytical work that used to take a human analyst half a day: What conversations is your audience already having? Which content formats are gaining traction on which platforms? What’s the competitive white space your brand can credibly own?

Skipping this step is where most teams go wrong. The most common pattern I’ve seen is teams coming back after a few weeks of heavy AI-assisted posting, frustrated that engagement had flatlined or dropped. They were producing more content than ever, but it wasn’t landing.​

Often, the content was technically fine but pointed in the wrong direction. Nobody had checked what their audience actually wanted to hear, which formats were gaining traction or what angles competitors had already exhausted.

This intelligence layer belongs to AI-powered social listening, trend detection and audience analysis tools. Think of this layer as the briefing room. These tools matter not because they make the AI smarter, but because they make the brief smarter.

Generative AI produces output based entirely on what you feed it. Without real audience signals, it defaults to the most generic version of your prompt. By feeding it live data—what your audience is engaging with this week, which formats are outperforming on which platforms, what your competitors haven’t touched yet— the quality of what comes out can change dramatically. With AI, context changes everything.

​In my experience, teams that skip the intelligence layer end up using generative AI to produce more content faster, but not necessarily better content. Volume without direction is just noise. The intelligence layer turns the question from “What should we post today?” to “What does our audience most need to hear right now, and where?”​​​

Layer 2: Creation

​​Once you have the intelligence, the creation layer is where most teams are already experimenting. According to SurveyMonkey research, the top two use cases for AI in marketing were optimizing and creating content.

But using AI for creation and using it effectively are two very different things.

The teams I’ve seen struggle most are the ones with no documented voice guidelines. They generate content that is technically fine but completely interchangeable. It could have belonged to any brand in their category, and nothing about the content is distinctly theirs. The volume went up but the differentiation went down, and that’s a problem no amount of posting frequency can fix.​

Generic prompts produce generic content. On the other hand, by investing time building what I call a “voice architecture” before they ever generate a single post, teams can make sure the content is unique to their brand.

This isn’t necessarily a technical setup, but a reference system fed into every prompt that includes tone guidelines, examples of best performing posts, audience personas and platform-specific formatting rules, allowing the AI model to be briefed consistently every time it’s used. ​

Layer 3: Optimization

​​The third layer is where most social teams leave significant performance on the table.

AI-assisted optimization means more than A/B testing two headline variations and calling it a day. Instead, it requires feeding performance data back into the intelligence and creation layers continuously and deliberately.

At the end of every 30-day cycle, identify your top performing posts, and not just by likes, but by saves, shares and click-throughs. What did they have in common? Was it the format, the hook, the topic, the posting window? Those answers go back into your voice architecture brief before the next round of content generation.

The single most important metric to understand if your stack is getting smarter: engagement rate trends upward over 60 to 90 days, and time spent editing AI output trends downward.​

The Underlying Point​

For social teams, implementing generative AI correctly means building intelligence and production infrastructure where each layer makes the others more effective.​

In practice, this shift happens in stages. Content production gets faster because the brief is sharper. Engagement trends upward consistently because the content is informed by real audience signals rather than guesswork. And the team’s time shifts: fewer hours producing and editing, more hours on strategy.

The internal sign that tells you’re succeeding is simple: Your team has stopped asking, “What should we post today?” because the intelligence layer is already answering that question.​​

Feature image credit: Getty

By Tanmay Ratnaparkhe

COUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based)

Tanmay Ratnaparkhe, Co-Founder, Predis.ai, which uses AI to help brands scale ads, ad videos and social content without losing their voice. Read Tanmay Ratnaparkhe’s full executive profile here.

Find Tanmay Ratnaparkhe on LinkedIn. Visit Tanmay’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

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What Makes a Killer Meta Ad, According to Experts

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By Liz Brody

Do you run ads on Meta? Have the results been unpredictable lately? There’s a good reason for that.

Late last year, Meta added an update called Andromeda. It’s a major shift in how ads are delivered. In the past, Meta ads were all about targeting: You refined the audience you wanted to serve, and then hit them with ads. But in Meta’s new system, targeting is automated — and Meta is now watching closely for performance. If your ad doesn’t immediately resonate with people, it’ll get filtered out. As a result, brands need to produce a lot more creative. You’ll win by constantly testing new ideas and comparing them. And these ads must look and feel very different from each other — because if Meta thinks they’re too similar, it won’t test them individually.

What does that look like, and what can you learn from these tests? We put together this case study.

Nove8 makes consumer-facing apps, and relies heavily on digital advertising. “Ninety-five percent of our success is performance marketing,” says cofounder Natalia Shahmetova. It has helped grow the company to $35 million in annual revenue. “We’ve run thousands of tests with different creative, and thanks to Meta algorithms, we know whether the ad is good or not within the first hour of a campaign.”

Shahmetova shared with us the results of some of those tests from Nove8’s dog-training app Woofz and fashion app Stylio. Then we asked the performance marketing agency Pilothouse Digital (which was not involved in making the ads, and could look at them with fresh eyes) to weigh in on why the winners succeeded. By understanding what worked for Nove8, you can improve your ads too.

The first ad shared potty training tips. The second ad spoke more personally to dog owners. “Instead of focusing on the pet’s behaviors with complex guides, we focused on the owner’s emotions, reassuring them that the tough moments are normal and easily overcome,” says Nove8.

The result: The second ad drove a 400% increase in click-through rate (CTR).

WHY IT WORKED: Pilothouse says: The weaker ad makes puppy ownership feel like a lot of work, with overwhelming details (take the puppy out every two to three hours, add a play session, etc.). The winning ad immediately reframes the chaos as containable: “Potty train in 3 days.”

But the real breakthrough is the line: “Regretting bringing a puppy home?” That names the taboo emotion most pet brands refuse to touch. It recognizes that the deeper job to be done here is not really “teach my dog where to pee.” It is instead “help me stop feeling overwhelmed, guilty, and incompetent.” The first ad explains the product, but the second markets relief.

Consumers often search at the symptom layer but buy at the identity layer. In other words, while they type in potty training questions, they are really asking: Is this normal? Did I screw up my life? 

THE BIG LESSON: Stop answering only the problem customers are willing to ask out loud. The strongest performing creative names the private crisis beneath it.

The first ad promised information on “how to dress like a rich woman.” The second was a quiz, asking users what kind of rich woman they dress like. “Most potential customers don’t click through to learn what you offer, so instead of relying on a short call to action to hook them, we demonstrated the expertise Stylio offers directly in the ad,” explains Nove8.

The result: The second ad drove a 20% decrease in customer acquisition cost.

WHY IT WORKED: Pilothouse says: The better ad also succeeds because as soon as a user reads “Old-Money Classic” or “Modern Minimal,” she is sorting herself. Categorization creates powerful psychological buy-in and makes the brand feel like an interpreter of identity. The smartest move is language like a “50+ body,” “skim, not squeeze,” and “nice, but hiding my body”—which proves that the brand understands not just style, but also the user’s lived experience, while helping Meta classify who should receive the ad.

THE BIG LESSON: Stop asking people to click for value you could have demonstrated in-feed.

The first ad promised to stop puppies from biting. The second explained why dogs bite in the first place. “Instead of focusing on correcting behaviors, we focused on explaining the behaviors—because there are countless videos, websites, and products promising to stop negative behaviors, but few address the underlying cause,” says Nove8.

The result: The second ad drove a 34% decrease in customer acquisition cost (CAC).

WHY IT WORKED: Pilothouse says: In-feed, diagnosis beats instruction. Also, that first ad risks sounding like another hack. (Teach your dog not to bite in one day? Really?) On Meta and TikTok, it casts a broad, noisy net around urgency. The second ad’s instructional visual format feels measured, expert, and low-threat. It prequalifies the right user before the click and gives the platform cleaner data about who finds this relevant.

THE BIG LESSON: In modern performance creative, the winning ad often interprets the customer more accurately, rather than explain the product more aggressively.

The first ad shared a fact: You only need 10 pieces to create the perfect wardrobe. The second ad was specifically for moms. Why? “If you try to speak to all customers, most won’t feel spoken to at all.  So instead, we focused on a specific person,” says Nove8.

The result: CAC was down by 80%.

WHY IT WORKED: Pilothouse says: The underperforming ad sold a fashion framework, but the winning ad sold relief for a very specific kind of woman living a very specific kind of day. And when consumers feel uniquely seen, they’re much more interested.

On Meta, the first ad might have reached more people. But that’s expensive, because Stylio would be paying for all that reach. By defining a cleaner pool of high-intent customers, they’re reaching fewer people but converting more, and saving money.

THE BIG LESSON: It’s not that brands should blindly niche down. The specificity only becomes powerful when it captures a real tension in a human problem and makes the customer feel understood.

By Liz Brody

Liz Brody is a contributing editor at Entrepreneur magazine.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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As Google sits back and watches, terrible ads are ruining Android’s free app ecosystem

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By Jerry Hildenbrand

The enshittification of the Play Store.

Remember the early days of Android? It felt like the Wild West in the best way possible. You could hop onto the Play Store, type in a random app or game you wanted — like a flashlight, a simple unit converter, or a quirky indie puzzle game — and download a completely free app that did exactly what it promised.

Sure, there might have been a tiny, unobtrusive banner ad at the bottom of the screen, but it was a fair trade. You got a great tool, the developer made a few pennies, and everyone went home happy. Fast forward to today, and that beautiful, open ecosystem is actively suffocating.

If you download a free app on Android right now, you probably aren’t getting something free and useful (or fun); you’re getting an obstacle course. The free app ecosystem has degenerated into an absolute minefield of user-hostile advertising. And while developers and the ad networks themselves implement these nightmare tactics, the ultimate blame lies squarely at Google’s feet, which seems perfectly content to sit back, count its billions, and watch the platform burn.

Do you think ads are ruining free Android apps?

487 votes
Yes, I can’t stand them.
90%
The ads are annoying, but not the end of the world.
9%
No, I think they’re fine.
0%

The anatomy of a modern mobile ad night-terror

Android app with a pop-up about watching video ads.

We aren’t talking about simple banner ads anymore. The monetization strategies allowed on Android today feel less like business and more like psychological warfare. Some developers and advertisers even try to skirt the rules and go a step further.

Our top deals of the day

If you’ve used a free app recently, you’ve definitely run into these “greatest hits” of spammy ads:

  • The un-X-able interstitial: You open something like a basic calculator app, and boom — a full-screen video ad for a mobile strategy game slaps you in the face. You look for the “X” to close it, but it’s deliberately hidden, microscopic, or delayed by a fake countdown timer. Accidentally tap anywhere else? Congratulations, you’ve just been redirected to a sketchy landing page.
  • The psychological trap (playable ads): These are interactive mini-games that present a completely fake gameplay scenario (usually a puzzle that involves pulling pins to save someone from lava). They are intentionally designed to look easy, so you tap the screen, only for the ad to register that tap as a click-through to the Play Store.
  • The notification hijack: Some apps have the absolute audacity to push spam straight to your Android notification shade when the app isn’t even open, buzzing your pocket just to tell you there’s a “special bonus” waiting for you in a game you haven’t played in three weeks.

It’s exhausting. It turns a quick, two-second digital task into a multi-step battle against dark UI patterns designed to trick you into doing things you didn’t intend.

The death of the casual indie dev

Screenshot from Unity about data collection in an app.

The tragic irony here is that these toxic ads aren’t even saving the independent developers they were supposed to support.

Because the mobile ad market is dominated by massive, predatory ad networks, the payout per impression for normal, non-intrusive banner ads has tanked. To make any real money, small-time developers are practically forced to use aggressive ad SDKs (Software Development Kits) from major ad brokers. These SDKs are essentially black boxes that inject these horrible, flashing, high-volume video ads into the software.

If a developer refuses to ruin their app with these practices, they can’t compete. They get buried by the algorithm. The result? Talented indie creators are leaving the ecosystem entirely, leaving behind a vacuum filled by low-effort, template-based “copycat” apps designed solely to harvest user data and force-feed ads.

Where is Google? (Spoiler — it’s counting the money)

Google logo on smartphone stock photo 2

This brings us to the core of the problem: Google is the landlord of this digital slum.

Google owns Android. Google dictates the Play Store policies. More importantly, Google owns Google Ads and AdMob, the massive infrastructure powering a huge chunk of this very inventory. It possesses all the data, all the engineering power, and all the financial leverage required to fix this overnight.

Instead, Google treats the issue with a massive, corporate shrug. “Fixing” it is a conflict of interest: Every single time an intrusive, annoying ad successfully tricks a user into clicking it, money changes hands. And because Google is a dominant player in the mobile advertising space, a slice of that ad spend inevitably finds its way into Google’s pockets.

The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding tastes like malware.

To give credit where it’s due, Google claims it’s fighting the good fight. It publishes press releases highlighting how its AI defenses blocked millions of policy-violating apps or banned thousands of bad developer accounts. Google has also recently rolled out stricter developer verification programs. This is all well and good, and on the surface seems like a move in the right direction.

But anyone with an Android phone knows the truth: the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding tastes like malware. Google’s automated filters are clearly failing to catch the sheer volume of borderline-fraudulent advertising slipping through the cracks. It feels like Google only takes aggressive action when an ad is explicitly caught deploying literal spyware, while completely ignoring the ads that “merely” ruin the entire user experience. The financial gain from these spammy ads doesn’t give much incentive for change, either.

The road ahead

Samsung Galaxy S26 with its screen on, showing the app drawer.

Android’s greatest strength has always been its openness and accessibility. It allowed anyone, anywhere, to pick up a budget device and have access to a world of free, innovative software.
But “free” shouldn’t mean “toxic.” By allowing the ad ecosystem to degenerate into its current state, Google is actively training users to distrust free apps entirely. If a platform becomes so frustrating to use that people are afraid to click on a standard utility app for fear of a full-screen, un-closable pop-up, that platform is fundamentally broken.

It’s time for the tech giant to stop sitting on its hands. Clean up the Play Store, ban predatory ad networks, and give us back the Android ecosystem we actually fell in love with.

Feature image credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

By Jerry Hildenbrand

Sourced from ANDROID AUTHORITY

 

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Polaroid’s new anti-AI billboard is an important reminder to touch grass

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…Before it’s too late.

Polaroid has been on a mission to bring back the joy of analogue, embracing back-to-basics branding that reminds us to touch grass and unplug from the digital world. Continuing this trend, the brand’s latest campaign, ‘The best of Summer is Analog’ is perhaps the most provocative yet, promoting the launch of the Go Generation 3.

In an increasingly online world, Polaroid’s simple yet poignant anti-design campaign is a wonderful example of how stripped-back visuals and powerful copy can be just as effective as a gaudy ad campaign. Equal parts provocative and poignant, Polaroid’s new campaign is a refreshing voice among the digital noise.

Polaroid campaign

(Image credit: Polaroid)

Taking a stand against over-digitisation, Polaroid’s campaign centres around a large billboard situated on Coney Island beach, reading “Go jump in some water before the data centers drink it all up”. With its handwritten-style font and candid Polaroid snap, the design has a signature human warmth that counteracts its subtly foreboding message.

The campaign will continue across New York, South Korea and London, with a station overtake at King’s Cross, alongside placements across Bethnal Green and Hackney. Celebrating the joys of an unplugged existence, statements including “You can’t bask in blue light”, “Dance like nobody is recording” encourage audiences to live in the moment, while playful sarcasm comes through with billboards bearing “What a glorious day to stare into various screens for hours on end”.

Polaroid campaign

(Image credit: Polaroid)

“When we stopped asking ‘How do you make instant cameras appealing to Gen Z?’ and started asking ‘Why should Polaroid exist at all in an AI era?’ we knew we were on to something,” says Patricia Varella, creative director at Polaroid. “For Polaroid, the simple act of existing is already an act of rebellion. While our campaigns are provocative and challenge our relationship with technology, we’re not anti-digital. We know we have to live alongside it, but we’re deeply pro-human, and know what humanity gives us. And we know what we stand to lose if we don’t protect it. That’s a fight worth fighting.”

Feature image credit: Polaroid

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Natalie Fear is Creative Bloq’s staff writer. With an eye for trending topics and a passion for internet culture, she brings you the latest in art and design news. Natalie also runs Creative Bloq’s 5 Questions series, spotlighting diverse talent across the creative industries. Outside of work, she loves all things literature and music (although she’s partial to a spot of TikTok brain rot).

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

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AI Search Cites Random YouTubers More Than Your Brand. Here’s How to Build a Strategy For the AI Search Era

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BY ASHLEY COUTO

New data shows AI assistants cite independent YouTube creators more than brand-owned content. Founders who adjust their creator briefs now will get pulled into the answers that drive buying decisions.

YouTube creator content now appears in more than 25 percent of prompts answered by AI assistants, according to new research from Jellyfish shared exclusively with Adweek. In high-intent categories like consumer electronics and financial services, nearly one in two references come from Youtube.

The Jellyfish team analyzed 27 million responses across seven AI search assistants and found that independent, niche creators consistently outrank brand-owned content and celebrity influencers in AI-generated answers.

For founders, that means the customer journey is being rerouted through creators they may have never considered partnering with. While Reddit used to be the belle of the AI search ball, YouTube has overtaken it. Here are five things founders can change about their creator strategy to get pulled into AI search results.

Look beyond celebrity influencers

Jellyfish analyzed responses across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Perplexity. Smaller creators consistently came out on top, especially those with high niche authority as opposed to more generalized creators.

An OtterlyAI study of more than 100 million citations found that roughly 41 percent of cited YouTube videos had fewer than 1,000 views and 36 percent had fewer than 15 likes. The median cited channel had posted fewer than 41 total videos.

That means a micro-creator with 2,000 subscribers and a well-structured tutorial can earn more AI citations than a high-profile partnership. AI systems prioritize reference value over popularity metrics, according to OtterlyAI’s analysis.

Prioritize long-form video over short-form

Jellyfish’s data favored videos longer than 10 minutes. OtterlyAI found AI platforms barely cited YouTube Shorts at all outside Google’s own surfaces, with 94 percent of cited YouTube videos qualifying as long-form.

That contradicts the standard creator brief at most startups, which still asks for 30-second cuts optimized for TikTok and Reels. To surface your brand in AI search assistants, fund a structured 12-minute walkthrough rather than a punchy clip.

Insist on chapters and timestamps

Only 31 percent of cited YouTube videos have chapter structure, according to OtterlyAI’s research. That gap represents an opportunity competitors haven’t closed.

Chapters turn one video into multiple citable units. When a creator adds timestamps for “unboxing,” “setup,” “first impressions” and “comparison,” each section becomes its own potential AI citation.

Make this a line item in your creator brief. Pay for the editing time required to get the structure right.

Prioritize topical authority over follower count

A detailed YouTube review from a recognized creator now carries more citation weight than a Reddit thread with mixed opinions, according to a Superlines analysis. AI systems read subscriber counts, channel history and stated credentials as authority signals.

The right questions to ask when vetting creators are whether they consistently cover the category and whether their channel has a clear topical focus. A creator who posts consistently about makeup for olive skintones is a better bet than a generalist with five times the audience for AI search.

Track AI citations as an influencer success metric

AI search traffic converts at 14.2 percent, compared with 2.8 percent for traditional Google search, according to data cited in PikaSEO’s analysis. That conversion gap is too significant to leave unmeasured.

Adding creator-sourced AI citations as a tracked metric, alongside backlinks and branded search volume, gives founders a clearer picture of which partnerships are working. Most creators aren’t well versed in the intricacies of SEO, let alone answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO), so you’ll likely need to coach on keywords and structure to maximize generative search capabilities.

AI assistants are sending searchers to video creators, and the brands those creators reference will end up with the sale. Founders who adjust their creator strategy now will get cited while their category competitors catch up.

Feature image credit: Illustration: Getty Images

BY ASHLEY COUTO

Sourced from Inc.

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The digital world disruption

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By Jim VandeHei

The way your work shows up in a digital-dominated world is changing lightning fast, starting with the total collapse of Google Search traffic.

Why it matters: Google has basically stopped sending people to websites (including our site) for answers and information. Instead, it’s using AI to answer them on its platform, in its words.

  • Chartbeat data shared with Axios shows Google Search traffic to publishers fell 34% over the past year.
  • That pain is regressive. Over the past two years, small publishers lost 60% of referrals from search overall, medium publishers 47%, large publishers 22%.
  • This is a gut punch to all of us who operate online because people who search arrive with specific needs and intent, so they tend to be more valuable than a random passer-by from X or Facebook.

At the same time, LinkedIn, Reddit and other massive platforms are getting jammed with AI-created content, making it harder to stand out — or decipher real from fake.

  • To that end, Substack announced a partnership last week with AI-detection software Pangram, specifically calling out LinkedIn while arguing that “platforms that reward fakeness will create a race to the bottom.”

Between the lines: Any smart person who primarily does business online is already anticipating the shift to an LLM, ChatGPT-like world.

  • It starts with GEO — the term for shaping how content shows up inside LLMs like Claude and ChatGPT. This is the modern version of SEO. It’s early, and it’s a black box. But there’s no time to waste.

The future: My theory is all of us will need to rethink and reformat our content to meet human AND AI needs.

  • Turns out, our Smart Brevity format — most important point first, context second, information stacked in order of importance, often in bullet form — works wonders with AI.
  • We’re among the top publishers surfaced by the leading LLMs, so we’re working with companies to see if they can achieve similar results.

It’s crucial to get ahead of this problem. At Axios, we’re already figuring out how we can:

  • Show up inside LLMs now.
  • Improve that standing.
  • Offset reliance on search and open web.
  • Connect with audiences in a post-open-web world. (Direct relationships via things like newsletters and events are a good start.)

What’s next: The agent wave is coming. Smart publishers have largely stopped treating AI engines as a referral source and now treat them as a distribution layer.

  • Soon, the “customer” reading a website, comparing prices and learning about a product will often be someone’s AI agent as the middleman.

Feature image credit: Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

By Jim VandeHei

Sourced from AXIOS

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‘If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Scale It’: Meta’s Helen Black On Creator Marketing’s Performance Shift

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By Mia Rogers

For years, creator partnerships have sat somewhere between PR, social and brand marketing, valuable for attention, but rarely tied to sales or ROI.

According to Meta ANZ’s head of connection planning Helen Black, that distinction between attention and outcome no longer exists.

As brands demand clearer evidence that marketing dollars are working harder, creator partnerships are increasingly being judged on the same metrics as paid advertising. It’s a shift changing where budgets are flowing.

Creator content is quickly becoming one of the more powerful performance levers available to marketers, provided brands start treating it like media.

The World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) found that brands are projected to spend US$37 billion (A$55.4 billion) on creators in 2026, up 26 per cent year on year. It also reported that 61 per cent of marketers plan to increase investment in creator marketing in 2026.

“I think what’s changed is that creator marketing has crossed the line from being an awareness play to being a genuine performance channel,” Black told B&T.

“Brands now have the proof that it drives business outcomes and I think that’s what’s unlocking budgets.”

For example, Australian skincare brand Bondi Sands has built its creator strategy around a wide network of influencers. It reportedly works with up to 250 creators a year and allocates up 85 per cent of its media budget to social, according to a 2020 Afterpay case study.

Its approach spans different roles across the funnel, with nano creators used for product education and conversion, while larger creators support product launches and brand awareness.

 

The model reflects the broader challenge that Black outlined: brands are no longer just looking for creators to generate attention, but for a pipeline of content that can be tested, measured and deployed across campaigns.

The challenge, Black argued, is that many brands are failing to get the full value from the creator campaigns they are already running.

She believes the problem isn’t the quality of the content, but what happens after it’s published.

 

“They do all this brilliant organic creator work. They’ve got this great content, but don’t necessarily amplify it through paid,” said Black.

It’s an issue that reflects a broader challenge in the industry.

Creator marketing is often managed by social, PR or specialised influencer teams, while paid media has sat somewhere else entirely.

The result is content that generates strong engagement organically, but never receives the advertising budget needed to reach a wider audience.

One of the reasons creator marketing has traditionally struggled to attract larger budgets is measurement.

Although engagement metrics, including views, comments and shares are easy to track, proving whether creator campaigns actually changed purchasing behaviour is far more difficult thus making marketers hesitant to shift budgets into creator partnerships.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t scale it,” Black said.

Take H&M for example. Its US summer campaign diversified its traditional fashion creative by instead relying on content from local creators, amplified through Meta’s partnerships ads, delivering a 94 per cent lower cost per brand consideration lift than the broader campaign. It also doubled incremental return on ad spend both online and in store.

 

The example reflects a broader shift in how creator content is being used. Rather than sitting alongside advertising, it’s increasingly becoming the advertising itself. Black noted that around 70 per cent of what someone sees comes from accounts they don’t already follow, served on relevance rather than existing follower ties.

 

For Black, the biggest opportunity isn’t finding more creators. It’s making better use of the creator content brands are already producing.

As creator marketing becomes a bigger part of media plans, she believes the brands that succeed will be those that stop treating creator campaigns as standalone moments and instead build them into broader advertising strategies.

“Why would you have it sitting there and not be using it to the full extent that it can do?” Black said.

“Amplify it. It’s going to make your paid work harder… it’s unlocking measurable growth.”

Feature image credit: Helen Black

By Mia Rogers

Sourced from B&T

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Amazon’s Ad Sales Surges 26% On Back Of Sponsored Products, Live Sport

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By Arvind Hickman

Amazon’s advertising business is growing faster than the majority of its competitive set due to demand for sponsored product listings and broadening its inventory through Prime Video, live sports, Twitch and its wider display network.

Advertising revenue climbed 26 per cent year on year to $19.8 billion in the July quarter, outpacing Amazon’s overall revenue growth of 20 per cent. It is on track to generate annualised revenues of almost $80 billion, cementing its position behind only Alphabet and Meta among the world’s largest advertising platforms.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that although sponsored products continue to be the backbone of its advertising revenue, there have been solid gains elsewhere.

“Increasingly more shoppers are discovering products in our agentic and conversational experiences, including in Alexa+ and Alexa for Shopping. Shoppers who click a Sponsored Prompt convert to a sale 48 per cent more often and spent 21 per cent more on average than those who don’t,” he said.

He said there is also growth and engagement in Prime Video Ads and Live Sports.

Amazon introduced more than 30 new advertisers to the NBA in its first year of an 11-year streaming deal with the US basketball competition.

Inventory on Thursday Night Football, NBA, WNBA and NASCAR all sold out.

Per Jassy, “Advertisers are increasingly investing in multi-sport strategies, with brands activating across multiple sports seeing 2.3 times higher unduplicated reach compared to single-sport advertisers. And multi-sport viewers are driving 12 per cent higher spend and 17 per cent more orders on Amazon.”

A third contributor is the use of AI-powered tools such as an ads agent to help advertisers optimise campaigns across the Amazon ecosystem.

The advertising performance formed part of a standout quarter for the Seattle-based company. Total revenue rose to a record $200.6 billion, while Amazon Web Services accelerated to 37 per cent growth — its fastest expansion in more than four years — as demand for AI infrastructure continued to surge.

Last week, Meta revealed it had also posted strong Q2 growth of 27 per cent dues to increases in ad cost and volume.

Feature image credit: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

By Arvind Hickman

Arvind writes about anything to do with media, advertising and stuff. He is the former media editor of Campaign in London and has worked across several trade titles closer to home. Earlier in his career, Arvind covered business, crime, politics and sport. When he isn’t grilling media types, Arvind is a keen photographer, cook, traveller, podcast tragic and sports fanatic (in particular Liverpool FC). During his heyday as an athlete, Arvind captained the Epping Heights PS Tunnel Ball team and was widely feared on the star jumping circuit.

Sourced from B&T

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