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The Daily Carnage

august 19, 2026

Worth Mentioning šŸ’”

Evaluating creator campaigns.

Be in The Know

ā–¶ļø YouTube is changing how it counts views.

šŸ¤– OpenAI debuts ChatGPT for Teens.

🧓 Hayden Panettiere’s death sparks renewed backlash against Neutrogena.

🧵 From Uniqlo to Zara, clothing brands try to win over Gen Z with a needle and thread.

āœˆļø Google just bought a bunch of Spirit Airlines data for AI training.

Platform Engagement ≠ Brand Impact

If you’re judging creator campaigns by likes and comments, you might be measuring the wrong thing.

A new Kantar report analyzed more than 15,000 sponsored creator posts across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and found that platform engagement aligned with brand-building potential only about one-third of the time.

Among highly engaged posts, fewer than 1 in 5 showed strong potential to build a brand, while only about 1 in 8 showed strong potential for short-term sales.

So what should we be looking for?

  • Brand mentions: Creators saying the brand name produced a 22-point lift in brand impact.
  • Product interaction: Showing or using the product lifted both brand and sales power.
  • Product benefits: Explaining why the product matters can be more valuable than simply generating engagement.
  • Creative fit: The best creator strategy depends on the campaign goal, not just the creator’s audience size.

Essentially, viral doesn’t necessarily mean valuable.

Get the full scoop at Net Influencer.

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Q for You

What’s the #1 metric you use to judge whether a creator campaign worked?

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P*ss on It

Who better to address the increasing power consumption of AI data centers than… Jason Kelce?

He’s teamed up with Garage Beer for a ridiculous pitch involving beer, electricity, and urine.

Data centers need enormous amounts of water for cooling, and instead of treating that as another dry sustainability statistic, Garage Beer suggests that Americans ā€œdonateā€ their pee to help cool AI infrastructure.

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Ads From the Past

Ads from The Past

Heinz, 1935

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