At one of her many soccer tournaments at just 10 years old, she arranged for her team to take a shuttle to a neighboring hotel to join a soccer party-not to socialize, but to gather market intelligence on the other teams and give her squad an advantage in the next day's game. It's safe to say Larsen has carried that same spark of ingenuity throughout her career.
Performance marketing agency Wpromote has acquired full-service creative shop Giant Spoon to form a new agency, Wpromote x Giant Spoon, per a company announcement. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Wpromote CEO Andrea Bendzick will lead the merged agency, which promises to support creative strategy with data-driven results and to streamline processes for clients by integrating media, creative, data and full-funnel strategy all in one place.
Recent research at our direct response marketing agency, conducted in partnership with a research firm, shows that direct mail continues to gain ground. We surveyed 350 B2B and B2C marketing strategy leaders across the United States to gather insights on direct mail usage. As part of this research, we found that 67% of marketers saw improved performance over the past year, with only 3% seeing declines-the best year-over-year outcome of any channel we measured.
In a world of fluid identities and real-time data, personas are obsolete. B2B is no different from B2C in the sense that we are marketing or selling to individuals. Those individuals are humans, with their own past experiences, preferences, prejudices and personalities-and all of those things impact the way they receive and interpret information, and their propensity to buy at any time. Rigid personas flatten complexity and miss nuances, and when overused, potentially even alienate prospects and limit revenue opportunities.
Diageo turned food search behavior into a new media moment, inserting cocktail inspiration directly into recipe journeys. With FlavorPrint AI crunching sensory data and real-time food queries, the brand delivered ultra-relevant drink pairings at the exact decision point - setting new standards for AI-driven personalization. Lesson: Don't wait for consumers to search for your product - use insight to meet them where the intent already lives.
