🎟️ Brand marketers are heading to Austin for SXSW 2025.

🤖 Google is adding more AI Overviews and a new AI Mode to Search.

🛑 Microsoft announces Skype will close in May.

💸 Tens of thousands in ad revenue lost in Google Ads’ weekend outage.

• 💡 According to our poll, over half of our subscribers were affected by the issue. Check your account!

🥚 Inside the great egg branding crisis.

📈  Check out Google’s updates to Display Ads to boost reach.

🚫 TikTok’s Creator Marketplace will be no more after April 1.

📊 Infographic: X shares latest data on Gen Z users.

📌 Google offers QR codes to get reviews from customers.

🎭 This was the biggest multi-brand advertising stunt in Oscars history.

❌ Hulu apologizes for Oscars tech glitches.

🏆 Adrien Brody’s Oscar-win speech was a master class in how not to act at work.

🎁 Take a look inside the glamorous gift packages designed by Distinctive Assets for Oscar nominees.

🍟 Sweetgreen adds fries to the menu at restaurants nationwide.

🍹 And Kraft Heinz takes Crystal Light into the alcohol category.

🗣️ Amazon launches Alexa+, and marketers want ads.

🤖 Pretty soon, we’ll be advertising and marketing to AI agents.

📉 Is Chegg the first victim of the AIO-pocalypse?

Monday: Nonprofit marketers! Implement these straightforward changes to your nonprofit website to keep fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and mission awareness on track.

• 💡 And while we have you, tell us about your unique challenges—and the tactics and tools you use to meet them—in a brief, three-question survey.

Tuesday: Real thought leaders don’t chase engagement—they create value. It’s not all about social activity and algorithms; it’s about guiding your audience toward better decisions. You need depth and visibility. To be successful, your thought leadership content must do three things.

Wednesday: Data shows that while Google Organic drives more traffic, ChatGPT generates significantly higher conversion rates—6.8 times higher for free trial sign-ups. This suggests that ChatGPT traffic brings higher-intent users. Here’s how to leverage that traffic.

Thursday: In crowded markets, where new brands face stiff competition from established names, creating a conflict between consumer goals and brand options can make them more likely to try unfamiliar brands. Research by UConn Marketing Professor Danielle Brick highlights how context affects brand selection.

On this week’s episode of The Daily Carnage Show, Shannon breaks down Oscars cringe, Bratz dolls’ cultural influence, AI shoppers, Taco Bell’s new menu, the end of Skype, the Google Ads outage, Play-Doh’s rebrand, boutique eggs, and a lot more.

Stream it now:

Spotify
YouTube
Amazon Music
Apple Podcasts

Can you solve this puzzle? 🎣

…Looking for a cocktail?

Our Subscriber Survey revealed that our Happy Hour segment just isn’t hitting the spot anymore.

So, we’re removing it to make room for more relevant content.

We understand some of you have enjoyed the drinks we’ve shared now and again. One subscriber has even made our recipes a weekly ritual.

That’s why we’re going to keep sending her a cocktail recipe every week.

Why not? Personalization is critical to success.

If you also want a plain-text email with a URL to a cocktail recipe every week, drop us a line. Cheers!

Answer: Clean wallpaper.

In the late 1920s, Cleo and Noah McVicker invented the then off-white dough to be rolled across wallpaper to collect soot.

Now you have something to laugh about the next time your kid stains your walls with Play-Doh.