Weekly Marketing News Digest August 9th 2025

👀 Google’s Traffic PR Spin

• Google released a questionable statement regarding sending traffic since the AI overviews feature went live. Google failed to share any data or insights into how they are still driving traffic to sites, and they suggest they are now sending higher-quality traffic since AI overviews went live. When you are shareholder-driven, you have to put out these sorts of statements, but the issue here is that Google is misdirecting advertisers again.

• This has had me thinking back to the old Traffic vs Audience debate. Google’s deal was sending traffic in exchange for using your content to rank sites; the value exchanged seemed almost fair until they started capping traffic. Our job was always to convert traffic into our audience. When there’s no traffic coming through, how do you convert to audience (away from their ads, of course)?

📺 Airbnb Ads Shifting From TV To Social

• Performance Marketing Impact: Airbnb’s CFO Ellie Mertz described performance marketing as a “surgical topper” this week, used strategically to enhance and target specific campaigns, rather than as the main driver like TV

• Airbnb will be going up and down the Marketing funnel to understand how powerful their brand is and leverage performance when certain segments underperform. One thing that Airbnb does well is leveraging PR to promote its brand - and it never needed to run performance ads just brand ;-)

🍗 Yum Brands Goes Deeper With AI Communications

• Yum Brands (owners of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) has suggested that AI “is driving up to five times incrementality”

• A lot of brands that have low direct touch with their customers will be leaning into AI driven communications; it’s an easier, low-touch way to connect with customers. In the near future when personalisation is more than a buzzword, we will see brands like this build out direct communications and look for first-party relationships

🤖 Smart AI Marketing Features 

Google took shots at Apple’s AI misfires - does this tactic work for a giant brand like Google? Yes, Gemini has been a success, but I’d suggest Google should be doing better than cheap shots… 

🕵️‍♂️ Instagram Released New Growth Features

Including Map, Reposts, and a Friends tab features aim to enhance discovery and sharing, probably not privacy…

• Map Feature

• Users+: Let’s users explore trending locations and content geographically.

• Brands+: can target local audiences more effectively, but it’s already raised privacy concerns about location sharing.

• Reposts

• Users can share others’ posts to their own feed or stories.

• Boosts content reach and engagement.

• Will lead to feed saturation and likely less originality.

• Friends Tab in Reels

• Prioritises content from your friends, making Reels more personal again.

• Encourages closer social connections - it’s likely many creators will see less exposure unless they understand how to game it.

💬 Ads Coming To A Grok Near You

• Grok (X’s AI) is going to enable ads within Grok answers (similar to how Google’s ads work within AI answers)

• Grok’s problem is the low-quality and uncertain answers and outputs. If you are a brand that wants brand protection, Grok might not be the one who ensures you won’t appear next to a weird set of answers or output

🎾 Is YouTube The New Home For Sports Stars (& Their Sponsors)

• Women’s world number one tennis player and star Aryna Sabalenka has started her journey on YouTube (enjoy her latest show below). Aryna is known for her quirky TikTok dances and social media personality. Are we seeing a new way for sponsor integration with tennis viewership down? I suspect so.

• Sponsors like Nike and Wilson feature heavily (indirectly) - nice bonus for brands in this landscape. Why is this important? Many will follow this trend as it:

  • Reduces the need to create numerous social media posts,

  • Takes away the need to fly to be on long-form TV interviews

  • Control how people write about them (like podcast write-ups, it is journalism fodder)

  • Provides behind-the-scenes access

  • This style of content is created for the superfans - so many will follow this approach (unfortunately, I can see this creating deeper parasocial relationships, and tennis has had a long history of fans who do not know where the line is)

  • It’s worth noting the agency behind Aryna’s evolution in front of the camera is “this is Evolve”, fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka co-venture

• Fellow Nike athlete and Men’s number 1 Jannik Sinner has also started “vlogging” and was produced by the same production company.