The Human Brand – Drive Loyalty as a Trusted Brand by Understanding Consumer Perception

In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind boast, Cox Media Group claimed in marketing materials that it can use microphones in smartphones and other web connected devices to listen in on people's conversations, and then target ads to people based on those conversations. “It's True. Your Devices Are Listening to You,” the Cox Media Group (CMG) Local Solutions division wrote on a website (now archived) touting “active listening” technology. “With Active Listening, CMG can now use voice data to target your advertising to the EXACT people you are looking for.”

At Adobe Summit – the world’s largest Digital Experience Conference – Adobe announced major product innovations that will empower brands to optimize their entire content supply chain with generative AI. For most organizations, their content supply chain – the end-to-end business process that every company needs to deliver the content required for marketing campaigns and personalized customer experiences – is a web of disconnected workflows, teams and systems that often break down. At the same time, the demand for content that is personalized and engaging is exploding. Adobe has an integrated set of best-in-class products to help companies automate and optimize their content supply chain. With Adobe GenStudio, Adobe will be releasing a new generative AI-first offering that lets marketing teams quickly plan, create, manage, activate and measure on-brand content.

For the generations that grew up on Blue’s Clues, mail time is pretty few and far between these days. As a Gen Z/millennial “cusper,” Emily Loof, development and marketing manager at education nonprofit Colorado Youth for a Change (CYC), said she’s pushed for an increased use of direct mail in her current and past roles. Since last year, she said CYC has “about doubled” its direct-mail marketing budget. In addition to seeing increased donations, Loof said she’s also received feedback that indicates younger people may be itching for more things in their mailbox. One person “tagged our organization on Facebook and said, ‘This is so cool. Like, I never get letters from people that I donate to,’” she told us. Given growing data-privacy concerns, clutter in online advertising, and demand for brand authenticity, some marketers we spoke to said the best way to reach younger consumers could be through some good ol’ fashioned snail mail.