Advertisers are looking again at the use of probabilistic data for audience targeting, and, in some cases, are seeing it as a potential solution to addressability concerns.

It’s the latest installment in marketing’s tug of war between precise targeting and broad reach — and an indirect consequence of third-party cookie deprecation.

“It’s not an either-or scenario. There’s no favorite child,” said Kumar Amrendra, head of digital marketing at U.K.-based pay-TV broadcaster Sky.

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Marketers’ calls for more granular insights from retail media networks have reached a fever pitch as of late. Last January, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Media Rating Council (MRC) finalized retail media measurement standards, to which retailers like Instacart and others have aligned themselves with. Still, marketers question measurement, specifically: Would that sale have happened regardless of the ad?

In response, The Home Depot is pitching a new acronym: ROMO, or return on marketing objectives, in addition to return on ad spend (ROAS) to help marketers paint a more holistic picture of their campaign efficacy. 

Zach Darkow, senior director of marketing measurement at The Home Depot, floated the idea of ROMO to a room full of 350 suppliers, marketers and The Home Depot associates in Atlanta at its second annual InFronts presentation. InFronts is the retailer’s annual event to tout its retail media offering, Orange Apron Media, similar to upfront negotiations or digital media affairs the NewFronts that will kick off late this month and in May.

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Brands that are closely tied to public figures are tricky. If a public figure does something that changes the public’s perception of them, be it positive or negative, perception of their brand often follows. This looks to be the case for Tesla: Elon Musk has become a polarizing figure given his role in President Donald Trump’s administration and it looks like the ripple effects of that polarization are affecting the Tesla brand.

On Wednesday, Tesla’s first-quarter results showed a 13% drop in vehicle deliveries year over year, with the carmaker delivering almost 337,000 cars, down from roughly 387,000 cars during the same time period last year. While Tesla stock reportedly hit its “worst performance for any period since 2022” earlier this week, the stock has since rebounded following reports that Musk might be leaving his role in the government.

With that said, signs do point to brand sentiment dipping for Tesla. As of this week, some 15% of U.S. adults were considering purchasing a Tesla, down from 20% the week of March 24-30, according to data from Morning Consult. The data firm also noted that “negative buzz” around the brand has been growing since the first week of January, when 25% of respondents to a survey said they had heard or read mainly negative things about Tesla, to now, when 42% said the same.

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• At the World Federation of Advertisers conference, it was clear marketers are under pressure.
• Tariffs, DEI rollbacks, the potential for ad budget cuts — it's a lot.
• But CMOs are a creative bunch. They told me they're hopeful marketing can steer brands through.

"Snafu: Situation normal, all f—d up."

Stephan Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers, dropped this f-bomb — part of an acronym coined by the US military during the Second World War — onstage at the ING Arena at the trade body's recent flagship event in Brussels. He said it was an apt way to describe how marketers feel three months into 2025.

Yet marketers will often say they're at their most creative when they're under pressure. (Just don't mention cutting their budgets.)

The duality was on full display at the glitzy conflab, replete with snazzy onstage graphics and a house band playing electropop in between sessions. Speakers from brands like Mastercard, L'Oréal, and Kraft Heinz painted an optimistic vision to the 2,000-strong audience about how marketers could position their companies for growth, despite the tectonic shifts happening around them.

Between the prospects of tariffs, inflation, the rising cost of living, global conflicts, political polarization, and the disruptive impact of AI, there's a lot for a CMO to keep on top of.

Almost all (99%) of the roughly 600 marketers polled in a recent survey from the WFA and the consultancy firm Oxford said economic and geopolitical uncertainty — and the need to quickly adjust priorities and budgets — would be important or more important in the next five years. Roughly two-thirds (68%) said they'd anticipate these pressures would grow.

One knock-on effect of that is ad budgets are likely to take a hit. Marketing is often the first department to feel the impact of cost cuts. In separate reports last month, analysts from Madison and Wall, as well as Magna Global, trimmed their US ad market forecasts for 2025.

Backstage, Loerke told me that many marketers felt the uncertainty was at an inflection point, which was driving conversations about how to prove marketing's value as CMOs prepare for a tough year.

"Usually, when that conversation starts, it means that actually there's a recession coming," said Loerke, a former marketer at L'Oréal in the 1990s.

I interviewed six top global CMOs and spoke with other marketing execs attending the Brussels event to get a sense of what's top of mind for marketers as they navigate the turbulence.

Marketers are scenario planning while trying to keep on track with their long-term strategies

Many marketers are spending a significant portion of their time locked in scenario-planning meetings with their CEOs, chief finance officers, and other members of the C-suite.

"Back in the day, when I started in the business, it was an A plan and a B plan," said Diana Frost, global chief growth officer at Kraft Heinz. "Well, that's a C plan and a D plan now."

With the costs of raw materials going up, marketers in sectors like consumer goods and food are having to make rapid-fire decisions about prices, packaging, and product formulations. Consumers' willingness to pay more at the checkout is often partly determined by years of brand-building designed to make them choose one product over another.

Patrik Hansson, EVP of marketing and innovation at the dairy company Arla Foods, said that while companies may encounter a year with disappointing growth, it's important for CMOs to stick to their plans — a five-year horizon rather than a six-month horizon, say — to ensure their marketing has a long-term impact.

"If you have a way forward, then a bit of noise, a bit of turbulence doesn't distract you from the long term, and that's what we're trying to focus on because otherwise, you get lost in this," Hansson told me.

It all adds up for marketing measurement

Over coffees, canapés, and cocktails, job security was a hot topic at the event.

A February survey published Tuesday from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business found that 63% of the 281 US marketing leaders polled felt increased pressure from their chief finance officers, up from 52% in 2023.

"One of the big problems is that the advertisers themselves are shedding people in an attempt to cut costs, so CMOs are risk-averse and look for signs of success that are supposedly measurable," Nick Manning, founder of the media consultancy Encyclomedia, who was in attendance, told me after the event.

"Saying 'trust me, it'll work' doesn't play in a world where short-term is the only term," Manning added.

Diageo is often seen across the industry as a poster child for demonstrating marketing effectiveness.

In 2023, it began working with a tech company called CreativeX. CreativeX uses artificial intelligence to generate a "creative quality score" that predicts whether digital marketing assets will be effective.

The drinks giant is also using an AI listening tool, developed with its partners Share Creative and Kantar, to predict consumer trends. One insight: 2025 is the year of "zebra striping," in which consumers cut down on their alcohol consumption by alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.

Diageo's marketers also use an internal tool called Catalyst to get immediate access to data to help them make planning decisions.

"I want our marketers to have a business mindset and delve into the insights we can now access to plan spend, design campaigns, create content, and collaborate with partners based on what scenario best delivers the brand-building outcome that drives growth," said Cristina Diezhandino, Diageo's chief marketing officer.

At Kraft Heinz, Frost wants to instill a sense of swagger and pride within the marketing department — and she's got the receipts to back it up. The Heinz brand, in particular, has marked compound annual revenue growth of 6% over the past two years, adding around $600 million in top-line growth to the broader Kraft Heinz business, Frost said. She credits the creation of its internal digital ad agency, "The Kitchen," and also the repeatable frameworks it's put in place for Heinz marketers around the world to help grow the brand further.

"When you have these proof points of growth, then you can build the pride, then you can build the momentum of how it's actually possible as you roll it out to the rest of the portfolio, " Frost said.

Jitters over brand safety and DEI rollbacks loomed large

"Brand safety" was the elephant in the room at the event.

Unspoken but present were lawsuits filed by Elon Musk's X and the video platform Rumble, plus a Jim Jordan-led House Judiciary Committee investigation. These took aim at the WFA's now-shuttered voluntary initiative, the Global Alliance of Responsible Media, and more than a dozen of its advertiser members. The lawsuits and the probe, which are ongoing, allege GARM's members illegally colluded to boycott platforms like X and Rumble. While GARM closed, which the WFA said was due to its limited resources, the WFA has said it adhered to competition rules and would prove so in court. The WFA told me in Brussels it didn't want to discuss the matter.

(Side note: For all its glamour, the WFA's event had been originally due to take place at the far-flung locale of Mumbai, India, but after the legal troubles arose, it was shifted to Brussels, where the WFA is headquartered. The WFA partnered with the local advertising trade body, the UBA, to run the main show.)

While GARM was off limits, marketers did open up about another topic that's become newly contentious, particularly in corporate America: the anti-woke movement and the vocal backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Gael de Talhouet, VP of brand building at the Swedish hygiene company Essity, said marketers should be mindful that "a brand is not a political stage."

"It's something where you tell people about the good you bring to the world," he added.

Rupen Desai, CMO and venture partner of the Una Terra Early Growth Fund, said the recent DEI rollbacks had revealed two types of companies: those where DEI was hard-coded into the company's economic model and those that were investing in these sorts of programs just because everyone else was.

For the second type of company, Desai said the recent movements are a "huge sigh of relief."

"When you're grappling with growth, or the lack of it, and this investment isn't really yet showing results, it's probably easier to take a step back," Desai said.

But he added: "The companies who continue on this journey will be bigger winners than the ones who took a step forward, took a step back."

As the sun set over the Palais de la Bourse, the former Brussels stock exchange, where the event's gala dinner was held, the mood was buoyant, despite the complexities the people in the vast dining room were having to navigate this year. (And sure, perhaps the frequently topped-up wine, exquisitely cooked duck, and performance from the French comedy TikTok creators Supermassive helped a tiny bit.)

CMOs are complex creatures, after all, as David Wheldon, the new WFA president and chief brand officer of the lottery group Allwyn, summed up.

"A marketer has to have this strange combination of optimism and belief in what you're doing personally, and belief in what you're doing for your company and your customers — and you have to be aware of the context you're in," Wheldon said. "If you flip-flop because the context is changing rapidly, then you cause yourself a problem."

Unilever may be investing billions of dollars into influencer marketing, but marketers aren’t necessarily copying their playbook just yet.

When one of the world’s largest advertisers says it will now invest half of its ad budget (some $8.5 billion globally in 2023, per Statista) on social media with plans to work with 20 times more influencers, it can make waves — enough that small and medium-sized marketers rush to follow suit.

But before marketers consider doing so, they need to remember that the creator economy isn’t just another media channel but an ecosystem all its own with potential hazards along the way.

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Uncertainty around TikTok’s future in the U.S. led many advertisers to slam the brakes on their advertising there. Others treated the turmoil as a green light. 

Walmart, Coca-Cola, Comcast, PepsiCo, Warner Bros Discovery, Google and Amazon have increased their U.S. social media spend on the platform by two percentage points, on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter of 2025, according to Sensor Tower. 

Those seven brands were also some of TikTok’s top spending U.S. advertisers in 2024, per the market intelligence firm. However, PepsiCo and Amazon declined to comment on this, while the other five companies did not respond to Digiday’s request for comment.

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With influencer marketing budgets steadily rising, more multinational brands are partnering with influencer agencies as the industry becomes more complex.

The World Federation of Advertisers released a report today showing that some 54% of multinational brand marketers plan to boost influencer marketing spend in 2025, with 61% agreeing that influencer marketing will become more important in the future. However, due to ongoing challenges navigating the space, like issues with disclosures and transparency on creator campaigns, more brands are employing the help of agencies that play a role in influencer marketing.

“Budgets will reflect this as will the increased usage of partners with expertise in influencer marketing,” said Will Gilroy, director of communications and strategy at WFA. “But this opportunity is a double-edged sword unless we get it right through responsible practices.”

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• Another April Fools' Day means another selection of ludicrous marketing stunts coming our way.
• Announcements can range annually from "too good to be true" to "sort of believable."
• Here's a look at some of the best, worst, and weirdest corporate gags this April 1.

It's April Fools' Day, and you know what that means: Corporate pranks, faux product launches, and outlandish marketing stunts.

You may notice a number of odd, interesting, or too-good-to-be-true announcements from companies. From strange food items to an AI dog translator, corporations aren't shying away from pranking consumers.

Company gags don't always go over well. For example, German automaker Volkswagen published its April Fools' joke too soon in 2021, leading to many believing it would rebrand as "Voltswagen" in the US. However, those who keep it lighthearted, timely, and slightly outlandish can get away with laughs instead of serious repercussions.

Here's a look at some of the most noteworthy ones Business Insider saw this year:

ElevenLabs

Many pet owners would love to know what their pet is thinking. Voice cloning AI startup ElevenLabs teased a new model that would make their wish come true.

The company announced Text to Bark on Tuesday, describing it as a new era of "cross-species communication." With the technology, ElevenLabs said humans and dogs can communicate by translating their words and barks into each other's language.

ElevenLabs allows users to recreate a person's voice from a recording using its AI tools.

Lipton

Drinks brand Lipton got a head start on April Fools' Day this year, which made its announcement actually seem plausible since no one expected a prank two weeks ahead of schedule. In mid-March, the brand posted on social media that it would be discontinuing its popular peach iced tea flavor — to fans' great disappointment. Fortunately, the flavor is sticking around.

Yahoo

This one's for every chronically online person who's been told to touch grass. The Yahoo Agricultural Interface is a computer keyboard with little tufts of grass on every key.

Yahoo says they go on sale at 1 p.m. ET Tuesday in its TikTok Shop; we'll see if that pans out.

Crunch

Crunch Bar, the chocolate bar with crisped rice inside, dared to ask, "What if we cooked the rice instead so the bar was quieter to eat?" And thus was born its fictitious 75%-quieter chocolate bar.

Bluesky

Bluesky, a social media rival to X, told users that it would slash its character limit from 300 to 299 for Tuesday only.

"We're listening to your feedback and updating the character count for posts on Bluesky," the company said in its jokey announcement.

Duolingo and Carnival Cruise Line

The language-learning app and the cruise line collaborated on their prank this year. They're fake-offering the Duolingo World Cruise, a 5-year cruise across 7 continents and 195 countries that promises to give cruise-goers opportunities to learn more than 40 languages.

Olipop and Hidden Valley Ranch

Another collab, this time between buzzy prebiotic soda brand Olipop and Hidden Valley Ranch, involves a new faux lineup of various ranch-flavored soft drinks. They come in regular ranch, jalapeño ranch, garlic ranch, and hot honey ranch. While the flavors aren't real, the brands apparently sent content creators actual cans of Olipop wrapped in the fake ranch packaging to get people talking about it.

Nothing Company

Smartphone maker Nothing debuted headphones with a 50-meter, or 54-yard, cable and 3.5-millimeter jack. The product is simply called "ear."

"Beautifully Inconvenient" appears to be the tagline for the fake product. Nothing hasn't specifically said it's not happening, but one has to wonder about the logistics of carrying more than half a football field's worth of cable.

Subway

Buttermilk ranch water, anyone? That's one of the new alcoholic products that sandwich chain Subway is advertising on April 1. In an Instagram post, Subway announced "new saucy spirits" in the flavors "Buttermilk ranch water" and "Bloody Marynara."

"can't wait to get home and crack open a can of Buttermilk Ranch Water," the caption said.

IKEA

IKEA is working on "a store that it is impossible to get lost in." The linear store would stretch roughly 2 km, or about 1.25 miles, and is a response to concerns about shoppers getting lost inside the Swedish furniture brand's massive and labyrinthine stores.

Tic Tac and Dr Pepper

The mint and soda brands teamed up on this gag creation of Dr Pepper-flavored mints, with the fake Tic Tacs even adopting the look of the soda cans.

Some announcements are the real deal

Popeyes is rolling out a limited-time lineup of pickle-themed items at participating locations across the US. It appears the idea started as a social media joke and turned into a real promotion after it was announced.

"What started as a playful social tease has now become a full-fledged culinary reality—a Pickled Popeyes," Bart LaCount, chief marketing officer for Popeyes US and Canada, said in a press release.

And for today only, Dunkin' is offering a free coffee or cold brew in any size with promo code ThisIsNotAJoke. One per customer, no purchase necessary, available Tuesday until the code redemption limit is reached.

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Retail media’s moment in the advertising spotlight continues — both for better and for worse. Concern is growing among marketers about transparency in retail media negotiations, and no one quite knows who should control retail media budgets. But at the same time, marketers keep spending in the channel.

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Just weeks ago, the mood among marketers was one of mild crisis. The prospect of a TikTok-less future — unthinkable yet suddenly plausible — had them sketching out fallback plans, hedging bets and recalibrating campaigns. But as the April 5 deadline looms, when TikTok must find a non-Chinese buyer or risk being banned on national security grounds, the panic has curiously subsided.

In its place is something more measured: a composed, almost serene confidence, bolstered, perhaps, by recent meetings with TikTok reps who are still standing. Despite a noticeable thinning of the app’s advertising ranks in recent weeks, those who remain have done their best to project business-as-usual, even as the ground beneath them continues to shift.

“TikTok said they were ‘feeling very optimistic’ about their future in the U.S., but could not share any additional information on what will happen,” said one ad exec, who each exchanged anonymity for candor on their discussions with the platform in the U.S. 

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As if the retail media boom isn’t under enough scrutiny, new tariffs and talk of a potential economic recession have sparked more questions about the negotiation process that is known as joint business planning (JBP).

Already, some advertisers have started to walk away from the negotiation table with retailers, citing concerns over transparency, standardization and measurement. Now, as economic headwinds threaten consumer spending, and in turn marketing budgets, agency execs say brand clients are more hesitant than ever to sign JBP commitments.

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