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‘Uncanny Valley’: Tech Elites in the Epstein Files, Musk’s Mega Merger, and a Crypto Scam Compound
Leah Feiger: Talking about him. Yeah. Absolutely.Brian Barrett: Yeah. It's just this web. It fills out this web.Leah Feiger: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, these are the tech titans.Brian Barrett: Yeah. Up until as recently as 2019, I think some of these people were actively in touch.Leah Feiger: Wow. So speaking of Elon, he was also in…
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Double duty: How a filmmaking company made a Super Bowl ad while shooting a feature film
Film producer Andrew Panay is currently shooting Somedays, a feature film about an unusual friendship between a delivery driver and a teenage girl starring Billy Bob Thornton, Pamela Anderson, and Ariana Greenblatt. At the same…
Loyalty Is Dead in Silicon Valley
Since the middle of last year, there have been at least three major AI “acqui-hires” in Silicon Valley. Meta invested more than $14 billion in Scale AI and brought on its CEO, Alexandr Wang; Google…
This Super Bowl, the ads are in the toilet. Literally
During the Super Bowl, advertisers aim to leave a lasting impression with viewers. This year, some hope to do it by grossing them out.During the commercial breaks of this year’s game between the New England…
Why the Cadillac F1 team is unveiling its race-car livery in a Super Bowl ad
Crossover Formula 1 and NFL fans, fasten your seatbelts.The Cadillac F1 team, which is set to make its debut on the grid when the 2026 F1 season gets up and running in Australia in March,…
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How longtime Olympic sponsor Samsung keeps its campaigns fresh
How do you keep a relationship exciting after almost four decades? Just ask Samsung Electronics and the Olympic Games.Samsung has…
Coworking with Jim Freeze
Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.Jim…
ICE Asks Companies About ‘Ad Tech and Big Data’ Tools It Could Use in Investigations
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is asking companies to provide information about “commercial Big Data and Ad Tech” products that…
‘The year of Hershey’s’: Inside the confectioner’s first brand platform in 8 years
Some brands refresh campaigns annually. Others take a little more time off.It’s much easier, of course, to take a pause…
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TikTok Data Center Outage Triggers Trust Crisis for New US Owners
TikTok is currently experiencing a widespread service outage in the US, causing disruptions for millions of users only a few days after the company officially transferred control of its American business to a group of majority-US investors.The technical issues led many TikTok users to speculate about whether the app’s new…
Behind Instacart’s ‘bananas’ Super Bowl ad
Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer. Case in point: If you’re making an ad about bananas, that ad should probably be, well, bananas.That’s what the team behind Instacart’s second consecutive Super Bowl ad was thinking when they cooked up a 30-second spot that will air during the first…
No Phone, No Social Safety Net: Welcome to the ‘Offline Club’
On cue, the room fell silent. A man seated to my left at a long wooden table began to scratch at a piece of paper with a coloring pencil. To my right, another guy picked up a book. Across the way, someone buried themselves in a puzzle. We had gathered…
Some ad-tech companies are pivoting amid open web ‘contraction’
Is ad-tech still committed to the open web, or anticipating its so-called demise? It all depends on who you ask.As AI tools continue to drive declines in search traffic to brand and publisher sites, ad-tech executives have indicated publicly that bolstering business is top of mind, even if that means…
Moltbot Is Taking Over Silicon Valley
Dan Peguine, a tech entrepreneur and marketing consultant based in Lisbon, lets a precocious, lobster-themed AI assistant called Moltbot run much of his life.Peguine, a self-professed early adopter and trendspotter, discovered Moltbot several weeks ago—back then it was Clawdbot—after discussing a vibe-coding side project with friends on WhatsApp. He installed…
Meta’s ad revenue climbs amid immense AI push
Advertisers just won’t quit Meta.The company’s ad revenue increased 24% year over year to $58.1 billion in the company’s most recent quarter, Meta CFO Susan Li told investors Wednesday during the company’s earnings call.That includes an 18% increase YoY in ad impressions delivered across Meta’s family of apps in Q4,…
Brands are using generative AI to make fun of generative AI
Have your slop and eat it, too. At least, that seems to be the strategy for some brands using generative AI.In recent months, brands like Dollar Shave Club, Almond Breeze, and Equinox have all used AI-generated content while also making fun of AI “slop” in creative campaigns. Almond Breeze and…
China’s Renewable Energy Revolution Is a Huge Mess That Might Save the World
Indeed, the greatest beneficiaries of China’s renewables revolution may, in fact, be consumers, both inside and outside of China. In sun-blessed Australia, where rooftop solar panels sit atop nearly a third of all households, the country’s energy minister, Chris Bowen, proposed a “solar sharer program” to offer three hours of…
How a trade org is using a conservation icon to promote battery recycling
The year is 1971. John Lennon’s “Imagine” was taking over the airwaves and NPR had just started broadcasting when Secretary of Agriculture Clifford Hardin introduced Woodsy Owl, a new conservation mascot aimed at encouraging Americans to curb pollution. Hardin hoped that Woodsy would educate the masses about the consequences of…
Meta Seeks to Bar Mentions of Mental Health—and Zuckerberg’s Harvard Past—From Child Safety Trial
As Meta heads to trial in the state of New Mexico for allegedly failing to protect minors from sexual exploitation, the company is making an aggressive push to have certain information excluded from the court proceedings.The company has petitioned the judge to exclude certain research studies and articles around social…
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New York Road Runners rebrands amid a swelling interest in running
New York Road Runners, the nonprofit that puts on the TCS New York City Marathon…
How Claude Code Is Reshaping Software—and Anthropic
Engineers in Silicon Valley have been raving about Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude Code, for…
Netflix crosses 325 million paid subscribers as it closes in on Warner Bros.
Hollywood has been in a frenzy about the potential demise of the theatrical business if…
As Sundance takes its last bow in Utah, marketer interest in the festival continues to grow
Sundance is taking over Park City, Utah, for the last time.The film festival, which kicked…
Chinese EV Batteries Are Eating the World
THE symbolism was clear last June when Emmanuel Macron, surrounded by factory workers, held up…