Cyclical events to boost 2026 ad spend, but recession, tariff concerns remain: IAB

Marketing 6 Min Read

The economy isn’t exactly humming along, but marketers in the US are set to keep spending.US marketers are expected to spend 9.5% more in 2026 than in 2025, according to projections from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The growth, which is projected through polling domestic buy-side ad investment decision-makers primarily at agencies and brands, is in part due to “major

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Startups 5 Min Read

Salesforce Workers Circulate Open Letter Urging CEO Marc Benioff to Denounce ICE

Employees at Salesforce are circulating an internal letter to chief executive Marc Benioff calling on him to denounce recent actions by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prohibit the use of Salesforce software by immigration agents,

Marketing 7 Min Read

Getting in the game for a ‘bargain’: How brands hacked the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is a high-stakes gamble for attention.For marketers, typical buy-in requires a media buy to the tune of at least $7 million, creative production costs, talent fees, and the faith that, in spite

Startups 5 Min Read

More Than 800 Google Workers Urge Company to Cancel Any Contracts With ICE and CBP

More Than 880 employees and contractors working for Google signed a petition this week calling on the company to disclose and cancel any contracts it may have with US immigration authorities. In the letter unveiled

Marketing 7 Min Read

Inside Vita Coco’s ‘super fluid,’ organic-first social strategy

Affiliate marketing has grown up. The new report from impact.com breaks down the five pillars of partner sophistication, shows how top teams measure creator performance with precision, and explains what actually drives revenue beyond the

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How iPhones Made a Surprising Comeback in China

After a prolonged slump, Apple’s business is suddenly thriving again in China. The tech giant said in its latest earnings

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

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

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

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Marketing 7 Min Read

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, is releasing its car livery this weekend on marketing’s biggest stage: the Super Bowl.Standing up

Startups 6 Min Read

After Minneapolis, Tech CEOs Are Struggling to Stay Silent

It was November 12, 2016, four days after Donald Trump won his first presidential election. Aside from a few outliers (looking at you, Peter Thiel), almost everyone in the tech world was shocked and appalled. At a conference I attended that Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was “a

Marketing 7 Min Read

How Deloitte went from behind the scenes to front and center with McLaren

McLaren has been on a hot streak in Formula 1, winning back-to-back Constructor’ Championships and a Drivers’ Championship this year. Through it all, brand partner Deloitte has had a seat in the car.The consultancy’s yearslong relationship with McLaren dates back to 2017, when McLaren was a Deloitte client and the

Startups 5 Min Read

The Tech Elites in the Epstein Files

“I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express,’ but was well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name,” Musk said in a post on X

Marketing 7 Min Read

‘He Gets Us’ wants to be more than ‘the Super Bowl ad about Jesus’

Every Super Bowl there are a few advertiser wild cards—the ads or brands that make you go, “Huh, why’d they do that?” And then there are the Super Bowl staples—often the beer, beverage, and snack brands that show up every year without fail.Sometimes, though, an advertiser makes the jump from

Startups 5 Min Read

A Yann LeCun–Linked Startup Charts a New Path to AGI

If you ask Yann LeCun, Silicon Valley has a groupthink problem. Since leaving Meta in November, the researcher and AI luminary has taken aim at the orthodox view that large language models (LLMs) will get us to artificial general intelligence (AGI), the threshold where computers match or exceed human smarts.

Marketing 6 Min Read

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 been involved with the Games since 1988, when it served as a local partner the year the event was hosted in Seoul, South Korea. A decade later, the tech giant

Marketing 6 Min Read

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 Freeze is the chief marketing officer of Anaplan, a scenario planning and analysis software platform. Prior to joining Anaplan, he was the chief commercial officer of Vetro FiberMap, and he’s

Startups 5 Min Read

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 would “directly support investigations activities,” according to a request for information posted on Friday in the Federal Register, the US government’s official journal for agency notices, rulemaking, and other public

Marketing 4 Min Read

‘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 between campaigns when the brand in question is already a household name. That’s the case for Hershey’s, which is rolling out its first new brand campaign since 2018 this month,

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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

Behind Instacart’s ‘bananas’ Super Bowl ad

Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer. Case in point: If you’re making an

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

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

Moltbot Is Taking Over Silicon Valley

Dan Peguine, a tech entrepreneur and marketing consultant based in Lisbon, lets a precocious, lobster-themed