The most important objective for a CMO is balancing short- and long-term goals in an environment that’s pushing to demonstrate short-term success, Julie Bowerman, CMO at Kellanova North America, said at the Zeta Live ‘24 conference last week.

Duo is going to the Super Bowl. McNugget Buddies are back. Grimace never left. The most exciting brand mascots respond to and play off of existing energy, transforming display and out-of-home ads into social media conversations. Here’s how some of the biggest brand mascots are building buzz.

It’s been a complicated year for advertising, punctuated by a slow first half of the year followed by better growth in the back half. Limited budgets mean brands have had to get creative. One form of creativity has been partnerships from names both big and small. Here are five that caught our eye.

With $9.15 billion in US ad spending going to OOH advertising this year (up 7% from last year) and an increasing portion of that spending going to digital (31.4% this year, rising to 40.4% by 2027), per our forecast, advertisers should be innovating on this somewhat traditional format. Here are three unique OOH ad activations.

McDonald’s had the most downloaded app of any quick-service restaurant in the US in March, with 3.5 million downloads, about 2 million more than No. 2 Starbucks, according to Apptopia. Taco Bell, Subway, and Domino’s Pizza rounded out the top five.

eMarketer junior forecasting analyst Nazmul Islam explores our recently adjusted ad spending figures for YouTube, including how the platform has weathered brand-safety concerns.