Weekly Marketing News Digest August 16th 2025
🔎 Reddit’s AI Search Play Make Money While Becoming A Search Engine
Reddit is positioning itself as a valuable data source for AI companies and search engines, as it seeks to grow its advertising revenue while becoming a destination for search. Will Reddit’s 20-year history and fanatical base create new behaviour in the upcoming AI web era?
🤖 Google AI Overviews Kills Traffic Referral
Google AI Overviews are linked to a significant drop (up to 25%) in publisher referral traffic, news brands have been hit hardest
Pew survey of U.S. consumers supports fewer clicks when AI Overviews is shown
Google’s play is to rely on pay-to-play (aka advertising) search in the AI world
Will the DoJ antitrust case help change this? Highly unlikely
💪 Swift Power
New Heights podcast saw its YouTube podcast with Taylor hit 16 million views. It’s her first podcast appearance promoting her new album “The Life of a Showgirl”
The power of Taylor is incredible. This tie makes perfect sense, but as a power brand anyone would work with, she is at the top
According to Mondo Metrics, this week’s episode generated more than half a billion video views across YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok and Threads within 48 hours.
Coachable Moment: While more brands are relying on cultural collaborations to make their brand relevant, others are breaking out of the box to create their own mascot and connective experiences.
In this world, you’re safer (and more creative) to create your mascot than to face the wrath of upset fans and outraged consumers.
🍸 Ralph Lauren’s 007?
The Polo Bear Chronicles: Operation Black Tie is going beyond the standard ad and creating something longer-form content that people connect to
💬 Threads Closes in on X in User Count
Meta's Threads has reportedly reached 400 million users, steadily closing the gap on X. Threads has the Instagram growth engine behind it, but will it become as sticky as X, with many users returning to X
👀 When Comedy Misses The Mark: E.l.f. Beauty's Controversial Campaign Misses the Mark:
E.l.f. Cosmetics is facing backlash for a campaign featuring “comedian” Matt Rife, with the brand admitting the use of the controversial figure "missed the mark." - Using any celebrity or going against the grain with endorsement is becoming thin ice for a lot of brands, especially those who cannot relate to non-typical celebs
Rage bait marketing might get attention, but often it’s for poor taste and annoys the most loyal customers
🥤 Coca-Cola Doubles Down In Premier League Partnerships
Taking over from Prime at Arsenal and partnering with Man Utd
Coca-Cola’s connection with the Premier League has been extended. In a commercialised game, partners will take opportunities to partner with the league(s) and then the clubs to connect to the fans.
☕️ Coca-Cola’s Costa Coffee Goes Deeper Into US Marketing
With automated coffee kiosks and ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages
British favourite Costa has had a small rollout to date in the US market. Can RTD have an impact on such a huge, saturated industry? If anyone can make RTD work, it's Coca-Cola
I joined Label Session podcast(s) this week and talked about luxury, AI and wellbeing.
My podcasts that went live this week
Sneak Peek: The future of Product Marketing & the importance of PMM role 👇
