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Marketing Brew

Ryan Barwick

marketingbrew.com

A gif of an illustrated computer showing an automated message. 

Publishers’ group warns that generative AI content could violate copyright law

A group whose members include the New York Times and the Washington Post has advice on how to navigate concerns surrounding AI. 

Ad triopoly touts AI at industry event

All three have unveiled new AI products in the last few months.

Jasmine Sheena

WPP is building an AI-fueled ‘content engine’ with chipmaker Nvidia

The holding company said it will “enable creative teams to produce high-quality commercial content faster.”

A neon lit retail clothing store showing a rotating group of outfits on a mannequin with augmented reality

Tech

Jennimai Nguyen

Cookies and demogorgons and augmented reality, oh my!

Chips Ahoy recently partnered with Netflix’s 

 for a limited-edition cookie collab that will be seen far beyond the grocery store shelf. The special chocolate- and strawberry-flavored cookie, inspired by the show’s red-and-black Upside Down underworld aesthetic, became available for purchase in stores nationwide on August 11, and on the same day, Chips Ahoy promoted the collaboration via another one—an AR-based game powered by and promoted on Snapchat.

The whole move, according to Michele Nevitt, Snap’s head of CPG, sales and client partnerships, was tailor-made to target Gen Z, and it marked just the latest example of brands branching into games to cut through the noise and give audiences a way to immerse themselves in brand storytelling.

“It was all about building a gamified experience, something that’s new and unique, that can excite consumers,” Nevitt said, later adding that “This experience specifically is optimized for sharing, peer-to-peer engagement, tapping into the way Gen Z connects, competes, and discovers through storytelling.”

To access the game, which will be available through the end of the year, customers can scan a QR code on Chips Ahoy packaging leading to 

, where players are prompted to enter their emails before searching for the limited-edition cookies in an AR-powered set of scenes inspired by the show. After every level of the game, players are entered into a sweepstakes to win special Chips Ahoy x 

 merchandise, which includes everything from a branded lunchbox- and water-bottle set to an Eddie Munson-inspired electric guitar.

To take advantage of Snap’s software development kit that makes the AR motion detection possible, the game must be played on mobile. To encourage that mobile play, Snapchat is hosting an AR lens promoting the collaboration and directing users to play the game.

“For us, it’s a great way to be able to connect with consumers in a different way,” Nevitt said. “Our consumers want something more than traditional advertising, something that they can immerse themselves within the unit.”

Snap reaches over 75% of Gen Z in more than 25 countries, according to Nevitt, and Chips Ahoy was focused on engaging those younger customers with this campaign following other activations that sought to do the same, including a Big Chewy Cookie partnership with ComplexCon and Big Sean that involved a merch collaboration and an 18-foot cookie installation at the pop culture festival.

“Chips Ahoy over-indexes among Gen Z, and our ambition is to be 

 go-to chocolate chip sweet treat for Gen Z households,” Sabrina Sierant, senior director at US Chips Ahoy, told us in an email. “Snapchat is incredibly popular with Gen Z and one of their most-used social media apps, so it was a no-brainer to leverage the platform to bring this idea to life.”

This was the first time Chips Ahoy has delved into a gamified ad experience, according to Siernat, but interactive, gameplay-focused campaigns are only growing in popularity. Netflix recently 

, joining brands like Duracell, Heineken, and M&M’s, which have all gone gamer mode in recent years. Campaigns that take advantage of gamification can see a 48% increase in engagement levels and up to 22% more customer retention, according to 

“It continues to be a trend that Gen Z and millennials are continuing to use, so it’s been something that has been part of our creative toolkit,” Nevitt said. “It will certainly continue to be something that we’re going to partner with clients to build.”

On the IP side of things, Chips Ahoy partnered with 

 to “be at the forefront of culture and drive brand relevance and excitement with our Gen Z target,” Sierant said.

The final installment of Netflix’s beloved franchise, which last released a season in 2022, will be released in three parts, the first of which is scheduled to be released in November, and Sierat said the cookie collab is one way she’s hoping fans can engage with the show early while waiting to see how the Hawkins gang’s story will conclude.

Chips Ahoy isn’t the only brand getting in on the 

 hype early, either. The WNBA’s Indiana Fever, Dungeons & Dragons, Lego, and Palermo’s Pizza have all 

 connections to the show’s lore since late July, and there are plenty of months to go for more brands to take a trip to the Upside Down.

A photo composite of Chips Ahoy and Stranger Things campaign images, a dark chocolate chip cookie filled with red frosting.

How Chips Ahoy gamified the Upside Down

The cookie brand partnered with “Stranger Things” for a special-edition flavor that it is promoting through an AR game made possible by Snapchat. 

Like it or not, GenAI is coming to digital video ad creation.

Almost 9 in 10 digital video buyers are using or plan to use gen AI to aid in the creation of digital video ads, according to a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). According to the report, which is based on a survey of 368 advertisers fielded between February 17 and March 7, around 30% of digital video ads will be made with or enhanced by GenAI tools this year, up eight percentage points from 2024; that number is expected to grow to 39% next year.

Small- and mid-tier brands are expected to adapt the tech quicker than larger companies, according to the IAB: “Small spenders,” which the report defines as companies spending less than $10 million annually, expect 45% of their ads to be created with GenAI by 2026, while 36% of “large spenders” (those who spend $50+ million annually) said the same.

Of the respondents who said they were using or planned to use GenAI to create multiple versions of ads, the largest share (42%) said they were doing so to create “versions for different audiences,” while a slightly smaller percentage (38%) said they were using the tech to make “visual and style changes.”

The responses “suggest that the other GenAI capabilities become more valuable when buyers have already solved for reaching the right audience first,” the report read.

The effects on digital video could be considerable. Overall, digital video (defined in the report as CTV, social video, and online video) is expected to make up 58% of total TV and video ad spend in 2025, according to the report. In 2025, digital video spend is expected to grow 14% to $72 billion, while CTV spend is expected to grow 13% to $26.6 billion.

 As advertisers continue to spend on digital video, content quality (43%) and targeting capabilities (39%) ranked as the top two most important criteria when deciding where exactly to put that spend. Targeting capabilities were important to 56% of small spenders, while only 39% of mid-tier and 35% of large brands said the same.

Advertisers of all kinds are looking for more options in the CTV video space, the IAB found, and more than half of buyers reported seeking out more capabilities and options when advertising against live programming on streaming compared to on linear TV, according to the report.

“Although streaming is still an emerging channel for live content...buyers are holding their streaming partners to a higher standard than linear TV,” the report read.

Brand safety and incremental audiences polled highest in terms of expectations buyers have when looking to spend on live content on both streaming platforms and linear TV.

Excluding insertion order transactions, 75% of CTV buys were done programmatically in 2024. This year, that number is projected to grow to 85%.

 When it comes to reasons to buy digital video ads, buyers surveyed were most interested in achieving bottom-funnel outcomes such as store visits (both online and off) and sales (both clocked in at 44%). In terms of measurement preference, 55% said campaign and placement-level KPIs were most important, while 47% said “basic data regarding the adjacent content” was crucial.

But measurement continues to pose some challenges, especially among small spenders: 38% said that “measurement complexity” presents a challenge to activating in digital video programmatically, while “standardization issues” and “leveraging cross-channel data” both were a concern for 36% of small spenders.

A robot arm reaching out and touching a screen displaying a web browser

GenAI is officially coming for digital video ad creation

Nearly 90% of digital video buyers are using or plan to use generative AI for ads, according to a new report from the IAB.

Amazon Ads rolled out a beta version of its AI-powered video generator in September. Now, ahead of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week, the company is rolling out a more advanced version of the tool.

This updated video generator is designed to create high-motion, realistic video, as opposed to the low-motion clips it could previously spit out; it can also, according to a blog post, generate pets and humans.

There are additional features in the works, including a function where users will also be able to incorporate brand guidelines and other guardrails. That functionality is set to be available later this year, although the exact timing has yet to be determined.

The tool is one of several from tech platforms that are aimed at putting generative AI tools in the hands of advertisers, especially those without the budgets typically required to make large swaths of creative assets the old-fashioned way. By the end of next year, Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, plans to allow advertisers to create and target ad campaigns entirely using AI tools, the Wall Street Journal 

Amazon Ads is building out its video generator with a particular focus on attracting small business advertisers, Jay Richman, VP of product and tech at Amazon Ads, told Marketing Brew, with the aim of “democratizing access to rich media.”

 Amazon Ads’s video generator is trained on open-source data, Amazon proprietary data, and data licensed from Amazon partners, Richman said. After an advertiser selects a product that they would like to create an ad for, the generator analyzes information about it, like product details and customer reviews, before spitting out six videos for the advertiser to choose from.

The advertiser can take a clip and further edit it—like, for example, adjusting the copy the generator auto-created for that clip.

“We’re giving basic, almost consumer-grade controls for these small advertisers to get the video just the way that they like,” Richman said.

 The video generator is designed to help small businesses brand-build, as opposed to simply running product ads that they may “typically default to” on Amazon’s platforms, Richman said.

Over 50% of the products advertisers promoted using the video generator since it debuted in November hadn’t been advertised before. Video ads can be a big selling point for brands: Sponsored brand campaigns with video saw, on average, a 30% higher clickthrough rate than those that didn’t have video, Richman said.

At Cannes Lions next week, Amazon execs will be on the ground speaking to clients about the tool and showcasing it at Amazon Port, the company’s Cannes activation.

 Amazon isn’t the only company looking to build out ad capabilities designed for small businesses. Comcast’s 

 platform enables small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to not only buy ads, but also use AI to create TV ads. In September of last year, Roku rolled out its Ads Manager product, a self-serve ad buying platform, which is also aimed at SMBs.

A robot moving around video clips in a stylized illustration

Amazon soups up its GenAI video generator

The tool is aimed at “democratizing access” to video-creation tools for small businesses, Amazon Ads product and tech VP, Jay Richman, said.

Amazon soups up its GenAI video generator ahead of Cannes Lions 

Automated clips and trailers powering content recommendation on a streaming service? Stranger things have happened.

Netflix has received a patent for technology that automatically extracts “compelling portions” of shows and movies and collates clips designed to encourage viewers to check out more programming, according to a patent published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office last month.

The application notes something that is probably obvious to most TV and movie fans, which is that clips can be a useful way to entice viewers to check out additional programming. Typically, a member of an editorial team at a streamer works on compiling clips that showcase the most eye-catching scenes, according to the application, but it notes that such work can be laborious and time-consuming, especially as a platform’s content library grows.

Beyond that, the humans tasked with identifying clips could bring their subjective viewpoints to the task, a “drawback” that could muddle the selection process, the application reads.

“If the editorial assistant watching the media content item has an aversion to the main actor in the media content item, then the editorial assistant may subconsciously avoid selecting compelling sequences of events that feature the main actor,” the patent notes. “As a result, the resulting clips can have sub-optimal effectiveness.”

Netflix’s patented tech is designed to automate that work. The tool is a “clip application” that seeks to identify “compelling” content based on certain criteria (like when specific characters appear onscreen) and cluster shot sequences from that content to build clips, according to the patent.

Basically, Netflix “is trying to automate it so they can plug more stuff…so they can get more people to watch, so they can make more money,” Shane Hunter, a patent attorney, partner, and post grant co-chair at Sunstein LLP who reviewed the filing for Marketing Brew, said.

It’s worth noting that patenting a technology does not mean that a company has plans to use it. A spokesperson for Netflix declined to comment.

 The new patent comes as Netflix has put a lot of firepower into making its shows and movies more discoverable on its platform. Last month, it held an 

 event, unveiling plans for a new home-screen interface designed to offer improved programming suggestions, as well as features like a flexible canvas that better showcases limited-time programming like live sports or Netflix games updates. It’s also adding more descriptive blurbs that include information like when a show is an Emmy award-winner. It’s also testing a vertical video feed on its mobile app that viewers can swipe through, TikTok-style, to discover content.

“We’ve always been about constant improvement,” Netflix’s president of advertising, Amy Reinhard, said last month at the streamer’s 

 to advertisers. “It’s why we keep improving our products, including our TV homepage, launching in a couple days, that is making it even easier for people to find the right title at the right moment.”

Netflix patent could automate content-clipping as streamer aims to boost discoverability

The company is seeking to automate clip creation featuring “compelling” imagery, according to a patent application.

 rolled out in October and gave its members the ability to share clips from its shows and movies for social, its user base of more than 300 million wasted no time earmarking their favorite scenes. The most-saved scene on Moments so far is from the animated League of Legends series 

that features a kiss between two characters, and five of the top 10 most-saved scenes are from the breakout Korean drama 

Netflix is exploring developing additional features designed to drive discoverability and shareability, it announced Tuesday at its inaugural virtual product event. That includes a considerable overhaul to its home screen that aims to change the way users interact with the platform’s voluminous library of programming.

It’s the streamer’s first major home-screen design change in 12 years and is aimed at reflecting the changing ways that viewers watch TV and the kinds of programming Netflix is investing in, executives said onstage.

“We’re entertaining our members in even more ways, which means the TV experience needs to evolve,” Eunice Kim, chief product officer at Netflix, said during the presentation.

The changes are set to be instituted globally in the coming weeks for users watching on TV.

embracing a “more flexible canvas,” which in practice will look like a background that can change and highlight limited-time programming like 

 and specials. It can also be used to spotlight games, which often add new challenges and characters, Kim said.

“We need better ways to feature these updates on the home page,” she said onstage. “That requires us to do more than just tell you when something is new on Netflix. It needs to pull you into the thrill of watching or playing at exactly the right time.”

Netflix is also changing the placement of key info related to shows and movies so it’s more prominent. To help viewers make decisions about what to watch, it’s adding blurbs describing content, like noting that a show is an Emmy award–winner or if it is one of the top titles on the platform that day. By doing so, Kim said, Netflix is aiming to help its members avoid doing the “eye gymnastics” they often end up doing when scrolling through the existing catalog.

Also aiming to alleviate “eye gymnastics” are motion techniques that are designed to make animation on the home screen look more fluid, as well as efforts to unify artwork across its series and movie tiles and its home screen so its visual design looks more connected.

The platform is also testing a vertical video feed on its mobile app that will show snippets of Netflix content in an effort to drive discoverability. And while the streamer has long used AI across its discovery experience, it’s testing generative AI tools that are designed to surface content in more languages and regions, Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief technology officer, said.

generative AI search functionality on Netflix's revamped app

The updates come at a crucial time for Netflix, which is looking to increase its hold on viewers amid fierce competition, both from traditional media companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery and from tech giants like YouTube, which is the No. 1 streaming service on connected TVs, according to 

Stone compared her own TV viewing interests to Kim’s interests when explaining the importance of customized recommendations

“We’re both tech nerds living in Silicon Valley and working at the same company, so you might think we’d like the same things,” she said. “But if you recommended the same titles to both of us, you’d miss out on the fact that we’re different people with different tastes, and eventually we’d be frustrated with the options and go somewhere else,” Stone said.

Netflix overhauls its home screen so users don’t have to do ‘eye gymnastics’

The first major change in more than a decade comes as the streamer aims to make its programming more discoverable and its app easier to navigate.

First, consumers downloaded plenty of apps. Now, they’re spending billions in them.

Revenue from in-app purchases (IAP) grew 12.5% YoY to $150 billion in 2024. Excluding IAPs from games, mobile apps brought in about $14 billion in IAP revenue in 2024 compared to about $9 billion in 2023, according to the report, which analyzed Apple App Store and Google Play download and revenue estimate data from January 2014 to December 2024. Games make up the majority of overall IAP spend, though, bringing in more than $80 billion in revenue last year.

Outside of gaming, IAP revenue has skyrocketed over the past decade. In 2014, it was $3.5 billion, according to the report, and by 2024, that figure jumped to more than $69 billion.

Overall, new mobile app downloads are slowing slightly, with 136 billion total downloads (or 258,000 per minute) in 2024, a 1% decline YoY, the report found.

 Worldwide downloads of generative AI apps (chatbots and art generators) hit almost 1.5 billion last year, according to Sensor Tower, and IAP revenue from those apps has grown considerably, from $9 million in 2021 to $1.27 billion in 2024. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and ByteDance’s Doubao were the most downloaded apps in the category last year, per the report.

 Video streaming apps may still be racking up revenue and downloads, but there are headwinds, including “digital fatigue” on the part of users and economic pressures that stand to affect consumer spend, the report found. While impressions and ad spend on Disney+ and Netflix’s ad-supported tiers are growing, the largest OTT ad platform is still Hulu, per the report. Netflix, India’s JioCinema, and Prime Video were the most downloaded streaming apps last year, Sensor Tower found. In the US, the top three were 

 Android and iOS users spent 3 trillion hours on social media and messaging apps in 2024, a 6% increase from 2023, Sensor Tower found, and worldwide, Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp were the most downloaded apps in the category. Some new key players have emerged, too: Text-based social apps like 

 are becoming bigger players as X continues to 

 having 100 million daily active users as of December.

 Mobile gaming IAP revenue increased 4% YoY to $80.9 billion in 2024, even though downloads declined 6%, according to the report, which it attributed to “market stabilization amid industry consolidation and broader tech sector pressures.” Simulation and puzzle games saw the most growth in the mobile game category, and Free Fire, Roblox, and Block Blast Adventure Master were the most downloaded games in 2024 worldwide.

 As consumers worldwide continue to increasingly shop online, Chinese “e-tailers” Shein and Temu have driven up the number of downloads and the amount of time spent in retail apps, according to the report. That being said, downloads and time spent decreased in the US last year, which the report attributed to consumers reining in discretionary spending, and both Shein and Temu could face additional business pressures in the form of 

In 2024, Temu led the pack in downloads, per Sensor Tower, along with Shein and Meesho.

Apps for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Poe, and Gemini on a mobile phone screen

Artificial Intelligence AI Assistant Apps - ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Poe

Don't Hit "Remind Me Tomorrow" for WhatsApp

AI app growth pushes mobile app revenue to $150 billion in 2024: research

Gaming continues to make up the majority of mobile spend, but e-tailers and streaming services are making inroads, according to new data from Sensor Tower.

The Menendez brothers, the subject of Netflix’s 

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story

, are having a moment. From steamy edits of the actor who plays Lyle Menendez to Kim Kardashian publicly 

 the real Menendez brothers’s bid for resentencing and California Governor Gavin Newsom 

 their clemency petition, they’re everywhere.

Could Netflix’s new tool, Moments, drive further conversation around the show?

The new feature, which Netflix announced late last month, allows viewers to clip scenes from Netflix shows and share them on social media platforms. Viewers can tap Moments on their screens to save a clip to their My Netflix tab.

Moments is the latest effort from Netflix to boost fan-driven marketing as it looks to drive awareness of its titles and continue growing its subscriber base.

“It’s just one more way that Netflix can have a role in conversations that are happening online and offline,” Ashley Shaffer, CMO of Stagwell’s Redscout, said.

 Netflix isn’t the only streamer that has tried to make its content more shareable. Paramount 

on TikTok in 23 parts last year, and NBCU uploaded an episode of the Peacock show 

 in five parts on the platform last year.

Shaffer said the tool can help support community cross-promotion of Netflix shows. “Even in streaming, there’s still appointment viewing, meaning we’re all going home to watch something,” she said. “We just don’t know what everyone else is watching. There’s not an easy way to spy on your friends’ and your neighbors’ viewing behavior. [Moments] is a way for people to say, ‘This is what I’m into.’”

, which posts skits from the program on YouTube after each week’s episode airs. The 

 clips are easy to share in people’s feeds and are “made for conversation,” she said, because not everyone is watching 

Netflix in the past hasn’t allowed clip-sharing, and viewers have sometimes resorted to finding surreptitious ways to screen record in order to grab content. Even with Moments, though, screenshots are still not allowed.

Moments is the latest example of Netflix capitalizing on fandom. In June, it announced an 

 venture called Netflix House. The permanent retail installations, set to open in malls in Pennsylvania and Dallas, Texas, next year, are set to include consumer experiences tied to Netflix content like 

. Netflix also debuted the real-life Squid Game: The Experience in New York last month; people can compete in games, some of which are similar to those featured in 

“Netflix has put such a big effort into driving conversation around its titles and talent, meaning giving fans these really beloved, bespoke events around the shows that they love,” Shaffer said. “I see this as a compliment to that: a digital way for fans to mimic the fan behavior that already exists.”

As Moments rolled out, Netflix also debuted a new celebrity-filled global brand campaign called “

.” In a minute-long spot, Netflix shows celebrities like Simone Biles and actor Giancarlo Esposito raving about moments in Netflix shows they’ve enjoyed. It also features other people in a variety of social situations talking excitedly about Netflix content they’re passionate about.

Shaffer told us she thinks Moments could help support the brand campaign’s message.

“The campaign did a good job of acknowledging that human truth that we all want someone to talk to about the things that we love watching, and on Netflix, it can be especially challenging given that there’s just so much content,” she said. “I really saw it as a campaign to kind of acknowledge that truth, and then the feature was a great way to support that truth.”

A depiction of Netflix's Moments, which shows a clip from Bridgerton on a mobile screen and the prompt "Share this Moment" with options for the clip to be shared on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or other messaging apps