INSIGHTS
Joanne Davis: Walk in the Other Guy’s Shoes
Why seeing the marketing, procurement, and agency triangle from all three sides matters. For decades, the marketing industry has talked about improving the client-agency relationship. Joanne Davis thinks we may have been leaving someone out. In her new book, Walk in the Other Guy’s Shoes: 25 Lessons for the Marketing, Procurement, and Agency Triangle, Davis […]
When Time Is No Longer the Measure of Agency Value
New research from the World Federation of Advertisers and Agency Mania Solutions reveals how agency compensation is changing, why AI is accelerating the transition, and what marketers are increasingly willing to pay for. For decades, time has been one of the most familiar currencies of the advertising business. Agencies assembled teams, estimated hours, negotiated staffing […]
When Efficiency Becomes Easy, Difference Becomes Scarce
After 17 years of studying what makes brands meaningful, Havas’ Mark Sinnock is asking a different question: What makes them worth choosing… and, in an age of AI abundance, worth choosing again? Marketing has never had more ability to make more things. More content. More personalization. More optimization. More precise targeting. More interactions across more […]
Why Are We Still Trying to Fix the Client-Agency Relationship?
Marketing, procurement and agencies agree on more than you might think. So why do the same problems persist? For an industry obsessed with change, marketing has a remarkable ability to keep returning to the same relationship problems. Briefing. Communication. Compensation. Trust. Transparency. Respect. The meaning of partnership. None of these are new concerns. Yet they […]
Why More Marketing Data Isn’t Producing Better Decisions
Marketers have more data, more sophisticated measurement tools and more AI-powered analytics than ever. Ebiquity Global CEO Ruben Schreurs believes the next challenge isn’t measuring more. It’s building organizations capable of acting on what they already know. Marketers have never known more. They have more data, more dashboards, more attribution tools, more sophisticated modeling and, […]
AI Is Changing How Consumers Find Brands. Not Necessarily How They Trust Them.
New research from Net Conversion reveals an emerging divide between how consumers choose to use AI—and how they respond when brands use it. Consumers are watching their spending. They are reconsidering what earns their loyalty. They are tuning out advertising more aggressively. And they are adopting artificial intelligence as a shopping tool at remarkable speed. […]
How Marketing Makes a Meaningful Difference
The 2026 Marketing Makes a World of Difference™ winners suggest that marketing’s contribution may be expanding—from communicating value to helping create it. Each year, The Internationalist’s Marketing Makes a World of Difference™ Awards look for work that meets a deceptively simple test: Something meaningful happened because marketing got involved. That means looking beyond awareness, engagement, […]
Why Some of Advertising’s Oldest Real Estate Suddenly Feels Surprisingly New
Out-of-home advertising has been refusing to stay politely inside the rectangle for a very long time. In mid-century Times Square, the famous Camel billboard blew actual smoke over Manhattan. Maxwell House poured an endless cup of coffee. Signs flashed, moved, and became part of New York City’s visual identity. So spectacle isn’t new. Neither is […]
Global Marketing Fails Operationally Before It Fails Publicly
Kevin Freedman on AI, brand drift—and the growing risk of “international marketing debt.” Great global marketing tends to be celebrated for the things we can see: the idea, the creative, the media, the results. Kevin Freedman thinks we should pay considerably more attention to what happens underneath. “Creative often gets the credit for campaigns and […]
The Audience Marketing Forgot to Put in the Brief
New global research on “aging well” reveals a striking disconnect between enormous consumer power—and how little attention marketers give it. Ask more than 30 creative directors and advertising experts around the world to name memorable wellness advertising aimed at people over 60, and something unusual happens. They struggle. Some can’t think of an example at […]