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Does Sora 2 prove the ‘dead internet theory’? Has the internet breathed its last, or does it just need rewilding? Chris Edwards at Tommy considers what Sora 2, and other AI tools, are doing for creativity on the web. The ‘dead internet theory’ began as an online conspiracy: a half-joke that most of what we see online isn’t made by people anymore but by bots talking to other bots. Scroll your feed long enough, and it no longer sounds so far-fetched. With Sora 2 (or by the time you’re reading this, yet another AI level-up) now generating hyper-real videos that could pass for anything from a fashion film to a Jake Paul personality switch, the line between ‘made by humans’ and ‘made for humans’ is blurring fast. The internet hasn’t died exactly; it has just stopped being alive in the way it once was. What fills our screens now isn’t expression, it’s output. Endlessly recycled, optimized, and reposted until the meaning drains out. Read more here

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Mark Ritson: British Airways’ ‘Reflections’ campaign flies too close to abstraction Beautifully shot and artfully restrained, British Airways’ ‘Reflections’ campaign risks being too tasteful for its own good, argues Mark Ritson. British Airways’ new outdoor campaign, Reflections, is a masterclass in tasteful restraint. Perhaps too much so. Read more here

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Technoplasmosis: the hidden parasite controlling modern marketing Marketing consultant Adel Al-Borky argues that big tech’s platforms and messaging have infected our thinking, seducing us with dashboards and data at the cost of creativity and meaning. There’s a parasite called toxoplasmosis that rewires the behaviour of cats (and even humans) so they act in ways that help the parasite spread. The cat doesn’t know it’s infected. It goes about what it thinks, is its business. But often, it is going about the parasite's business instead. Marketing, I suspect, is suffering from something eerily similar. Read more here

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Crisis or comedy: when should brands laugh it off? When brands stumble, should they crack a joke or keep it straight? From kiss-cam scandals to pun-fueled outrage, timing, tone, and audience are everything, says Laura Hunter at Tug Agency. When brand missteps hit the headlines, the instinctive PR response used to be predictable: issue a sober statement, express regret, move on. But in today’s digital culture, brands are increasingly opting for levity, turning awkward moments into cultural currency. Successful or tone-deaf, these moves rely on knowing one thing: when to make a joke and when to straighten up. Alongside humor-driven crisis responses, we’re seeing the rise of rage-baiting: campaigns that court outrage, knowing that anger drives clicks and engagement as reliably as laughter. Read more here

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The 25 most controversial ads ever made Sex, politics, protests and poor judgment. These are the campaigns that shocked, offended and sometimes changed advertising forever. Advertising has always lived on the edge of attention and outrage. The right ad can spark conversation, but the wrong one can spark a global backlash before lunch. From brands that mistook activism for aesthetics to those that pushed sex, politics or shock too far, controversy has a way of revealing where culture draws its lines. Here are 25 ads that crossed them and in doing so, changed how we talk about creativity, accountability and the price of getting noticed. 25. GoDaddy – “Perfect match” (2013) GoDaddy’s 2013 Super Bowl ad showed model Bar Refaeli kissing actor Jesse Heiman in an exaggerated close-up meant to symbolize “the meeting of beauty and brains.” The spot was designed for shock value, using prolonged sound effects and an awkward kiss to stand out during the game’s commercial breaks. Read more here

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How Six Flags is making ads for “real horror fans” The theme park is building a reputation for immersive, spine-chilling experiences, drawing inspiration from A24 and crafted for true genre enthusiasts. The chief creative officer at TMA, the agency behind the work, shares insights into ‘Come Out and Play.’ With Halloween right around the corner, Six Flags is gearing up for one of its busiest periods. Since the 1980s, the theme park has hosted an annual Fright Night, featuring haunted mazes, scare zones, live shows, and a transformed park. To promote its spooky offerings, last year the park unveiled a five-minute horror film titled ‘Tick Tick Tick’, which featured a clown terrorizing some unsuspecting housemates. It was a bold move. Marketers are often told that long-form content doesn’t resonate and that audiences have ever-shortening attention spans. Yet the ad was a hit. This year, Six Flags is doubling down with an eight-minute horror film, ‘Come Out and Play’. Read more here

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Judge of the Day: Interbrand’s Fura Jóhannesdóttir champions brave, human design As part of The Drum Awards Festival’s Design jury, Jóhannesdóttir is urging brands to move beyond best practices, embrace emotion and create work that truly stands apart. Fura Jóhannesdóttir, global chief creative officer at Interbrand, leads the company’s creative community at a moment of rapid change. She oversees design, experience and digital divisions across the Americas, EMEA and Asia. A former trustee at D&AD and creative lead at Huge, Publicis Sapient and R/GA, she’s spent her career bridging design craft with business impact. Now, as a judge in The Drum Awards Festival’s Design category, she’s focused on what comes next for creative teams and brands alike. “AI is an opportunity to come up with new value propositions,” she says. “We’ll be able to do things we might have imagined but couldn’t execute before. We’ll also need to design brands that communicate well with AI agents while connecting emotionally with people.” Read more here

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‘We couldn’t even tweet back’: How Josh Cellars turned a meme into a 7m-case sensation When Josh Cellars went viral on X, its team couldn’t log in – but the internet did the work for them. This is the inside story of the wine brand’s accidental meme moment and the marketing rethink that followed. When Josh Cellars went viral on X in January 2024, its marketing team could do nothing but watch. “We were locked out of our Twitter account,” laughs Dan Kleinman, chief brand officer of Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits. “All three people on our IT team were on vacation. For 72 hours, we just had to sit there and watch it blow up.” Read more here

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Does Sora 2 prove the ‘dead internet theory’? Has the internet breathed its last, or does it just need rewilding? Chris Edwards at Tommy considers what Sora 2, and other AI tools, are doing for creativity on the web. The ‘dead internet theory’ began as an online conspiracy: a half-joke that most of what we see online isn’t made by people anymore but by bots talking to other bots. Scroll your feed long enough, and it no longer sounds so far-fetched. With Sora 2 (or by the time you’re reading this, yet another AI level-up) now generating hyper-real videos that could pass for anything from a fashion film to a Jake Paul personality switch, the line between ‘made by humans’ and ‘made for humans’ is blurring fast. The internet hasn’t died exactly; it has just stopped being alive in the way it once was. What fills our screens now isn’t expression, it’s output. Endlessly recycled, optimized, and reposted until the meaning drains out. Read more here

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Ad of the Day: Ikea lets its price tags do the talking in life’s important moments The out-of-home work from ad agency Åkestam Holst NoA is part of the new ‘Wherever Life Goes’ brand platform. Ikea Sweden has taken an unexpected turn in its latest campaign. Instead of simply showing its products, the brand lets its price tags take center stage, amid some key life moments such as learning a new instrument or sharing a kiss. The new communication platform, ‘Wherever Life Goes,’ was developed specifically for the Swedish market. It hopes to position Ikea as a brand that can support people through all kinds of changes, big and small. Read more here

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Halloween 2025: The spookiest spots so far, from Six Flags to Fanta This haunting season, we’re spotlighting global campaigns that cleverly tap into the thrill of fright-filled festivities. As Halloween approaches, brands worldwide are rolling out eerie campaigns crafted to both thrill and entertain this spooky season. From Six Flags’ annual cinematic, arthouse-style feature to Fanta’s collaboration with iconic horror characters, this year’s campaigns draw on classic horror tropes to tap into viewers’ deepest fears. Brands are fully embracing the suspense, thrills and chills of Halloween. Read more here

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Can WPP’s self-serve AI offer Open Pro win without cannibalizing the agency market? It’s a major waypoint in the AI-hastened shift away from the ‘managed services’ model that has long been advertising’s staple. How will the market respond? In a pair of announcements over the last couple of weeks, WPP’s plan for a bounce-back has become clear. First, new chief executive Cindy Rose made her first big statement: a partnership with Google that will see the marketing giant spending $400m on Google’s AI technologies. Then came the launch of WPP Open Pro, a self-serve platform that the holding company says “will empower brands of all sizes to plan, create and publish campaigns independently”. Read more here

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Mark Ritson: British Airways’ ‘Reflections’ campaign flies too close to abstraction Beautifully shot and artfully restrained, British Airways’ ‘Reflections’ campaign risks being too tasteful for its own good, argues Mark Ritson. British Airways’ new outdoor campaign, Reflections, is a masterclass in tasteful restraint. Perhaps too much so. Read more here

5 months ago 0 0 0 0

Technoplasmosis: the hidden parasite controlling modern marketing Marketing consultant Adel Al-Borky argues that big tech’s platforms and messaging have infected our thinking, seducing us with dashboards and data at the cost of creativity and meaning. There’s a parasite called toxoplasmosis that rewires the behaviour of cats (and even humans) so they act in ways that help the parasite spread. The cat doesn’t know it’s infected. It goes about what it thinks, is its business. But often, it is going about the parasite's business instead. Marketing, I suspect, is suffering from something eerily similar. Read more here

5 months ago 0 0 0 0

Crisis or comedy: when should brands laugh it off? When brands stumble, should they crack a joke or keep it straight? From kiss-cam scandals to pun-fueled outrage, timing, tone, and audience are everything, says Laura Hunter at Tug Agency. When brand missteps hit the headlines, the instinctive PR response used to be predictable: issue a sober statement, express regret, move on. But in today’s digital culture, brands are increasingly opting for levity, turning awkward moments into cultural currency. Successful or tone-deaf, these moves rely on knowing one thing: when to make a joke and when to straighten up. Alongside humor-driven crisis responses, we’re seeing the rise of rage-baiting: campaigns that court outrage, knowing that anger drives clicks and engagement as reliably as laughter. Read more here

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Making your B2B comms more human is the best way to connect with audiences People want to hear from people, not faceless corporations, explains Harriet Mumford of Nelson Bostock (part of Accenture Song). And B2B marketers would do well to remember it. If the last decade has proved anything, it’s this: the B2B marketing space is becoming more about people, stories, and meaningful connections. No more is it simply about product manuals and sales sheets; the landscape of B2B communications is taking on creative traits typically reserved only for B2C brands. And this development is a constantly accelerating force, fueled by the social media revolution that’s made brands and professionals more visible, accessible, and human than ever before. Platforms such as LinkedIn have morphed from a digital CV storage space into buzzing hubs of authentic personal and professional interaction. LinkedIn is a place for funny people to be funny, creative people to be creative, and interesting people to be accessible. Suddenly, it’s not just about what you do, it’s about who you are, what you stand for, and how you make others feel. Read more here

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10 Questions on Advertising with…Vico Benevides, co-founder and CCO, Asia He's worked at some of the world's best agencies, won numerous global accolades, and now runs his own agency. But Vico Benevides still lives by the advice he was given at the start of his career: be humble, be passionate and work hard. To Sao Paolo, as 10 Questions on Advertising continues its round-the-world trip (I only wish we could actually do the trip in person – we’ll see what budget we can ask from The Drum for season two). And we visit Sao Paolo for good reason – to learn from Vico Benevides, one of the world’s most decorated, most passionate and most interesting creative leaders. Read more here

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WAN-IFRA’s Thomas Jacob on balancing tech adoption with journalistic integrity Digital media consultant Mark Challinor continues the News Horizons series, which features interviews with the people shaping tomorrow’s media. Today, he speaks with Thomas Jacob, COO of the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The news business isn’t just evolving – it’s undergoing a rapid, technology-driven redefinition. That’s the view from Thomas Jacob, chief operating officer of the global press association WAN-IFRA, who believes media companies must move past platform dependency, diversify revenue streams, and leverage AI responsibly to secure their future. For publishers, the key to survival isn’t just about going digital; it’s about going authentic, consultative, and hyper-relevant. AI: a game-changer built on values According to Jacob, AI is proving to be a game-changer across nearly every function in the media. It’s not just a back-end tool; it’s transforming operations from the newsroom floor to the commercial engine. Read more here

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How AI has changed the search landscape, forever AI is tearing up the search playbook. In the first of a three-part series on the changes underway, Aengus Boyle at VaynerMedia explains how to get ready for zero-click search. For the past two decades, search (both organic and paid) has been a cornerstone of virtually every successful media and marketing plan. While this remains the case, the rapid proliferation of AI answer engines has led to a paradigm shift, with these tools fast becoming a key touchpoint across the consumer decision-making journey. A major change in how consumers discover, interact with, and receive information online is underway. This shift requires brands to fundamentally reevaluate how they approach organic and paid search. And while these changes present risks, it’s important to remember that they also open up significant opportunities for brands. Read more here

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Ads of the Week: Ghost cars, whisky winks and festive firsts Brands are finding fresh ways to surprise us, from MINI’s Halloween mischief and Johnnie Walker’s sly humor to Good Housekeeping’s long-awaited holiday spotlight. Wit, warmth and a little absurdity prove hard to resist this week. Garage Beer invents the most American rake ever The brand known for BeerBed doubles down on dumb genius with its latest fall “innovation”: a rake that holds your beer so you don’t have to. Why it works: Read more here

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Why Kraft Heinz’s Todd Kaplan believes brand power beats performance data The brand’s North America CMO says steady brand work builds pricing power and that true growth comes from consistency, not clicks. Todd Kaplan thinks marketers have fallen a little too in love with data. “It’s everywhere,” the Kraft Heinz North America CMO told the crowd at ANA. “But while data shows us when a purchase took place, we need to remember there’s a person on the other side of that click.” The zeros and ones, he said, can help sharpen targeting and efficiency, but they can also create an illusion of understanding. “We’ve mistaken the signal for the story.” That story, according to Kaplan, is where real brand building begins. He drew a line between short-term product marketing and long-term brand work. “Product marketing is a push that drives a transaction,” he said. “Brand-building is the pull. It creates intent and emotional connection over time.” Then came his favorite test: “People tattoo brands on their body, not products. Only the ones that mean something make it that far.” Read more here

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PepsiCo Foods’ cultural reboot: ‘We don’t just build brands – we build categories’ North America CMO Hernán Tantardini is digging for growth through creativity, community and the ground in a strategic shift to embed in food culture. When you already feed almost every American household, growth doesn’t come easy. “Our portfolio has a household penetration of 99% – how do we start to grow?” asks Hernán Tantardini, chief marketing officer at PepsiCo Foods North America, on stage at the ANA Masters of Marketing in Orlando, Florida. It’s a question that sounds like a riddle only a marketer with a global perspective could answer. Argentinian by birth, Tantardini has spent more than two decades inside PepsiCo across Latin America, most recently in Mexico, before taking on the US food business – home to more than 40 brands including Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos and Fritos. Read more here

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Piyush Pandey (1955-2025): lessons in life & advertising from Ogilvy’s global creative chief Piyush Pandey died this morning (October 24) at the age of 70. The advertising legend joined Ogilvy & Mather India (now Ogilvy India) in 1982 and went on to become one of the agency’s most revered creative leaders. We revisit an interview that first ran in The Drum in December 2018 after he was named global chief creative officer. 1982 was the year Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi won eight Oscars, the year India showcased its confidence as a nation by hosting the Asian Games for the first time and the year color TV was first introduced in the country. It was also the year Piyush Pandey made his first foray into advertising, joining Ogilvy as a suit following stints as a cricketer and a tea taster. “I come from a city called Jaipur in Rajasthan and can still remember my first taste of advertising,” Pandey tells The Drum, prior to his appointment as global creative chief. For him, that was the sound of vegetable sellers in front of his mother’s house. Read more here

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Uptempo: the software that aims to be the least sexy part of marketing The Drum caught up with CEO Adrian Tuck and CMO Marie Bahl at the ANA Masters of Marketing Conference 2025 in Orlando to learn why marketing was the last department in the enterprise without an operating system – and how their platform might finally change that. For years, marketing has been the messy backroom of big business. Finance had its ERP. Sales had its CRM. But marketing? Just spreadsheets, consultants and endless decks explaining where the money went. That’s the blind spot Adrian Tuck, CEO of Uptempo, and Marie Bahl, its CMO, are attacking. Their software promises to give CMOs and CFOs something they’ve never had before: a single, universal source of financial truth for marketing. Read more here

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What happens when AI rewrites the cold war as a Broadway musical? Rich Silverstein’s new exhibit, 13 Days: The Musical, turns cold war panic into art satire and a test of AI’s creative conscience. Rich Silverstein has never been one to sit still. The Goodby Silverstein & Partners co-founder has spent a lifetime turning ideas into cultural shorthand, from ‘Got Milk?’ to Nike’s ‘Dream Crazy.’ His latest project doesn’t sell products but provokes questions, such as, what happens when AI helps write a Broadway musical about the end of the world? That’s the premise of 13 Days: The Musical (Or The Most Dangerous Moment in Human History), now open at The Cube at ICA San Francisco. The exhibition reimagines the Cuban missile crisis through the lens of a Broadway rehearsal with original songs, floor-to-ceiling visuals and an AI orchestra of tools like Suno, OpenAI and Google Veo3. Read more here

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Join the brands, marketers and innovators defining B2B at The Drum’s B2B World Fest 2025 The must-attend event for B2B marketers is just around the corner. Here’s what to expect when the industry’s biggest brands and brightest minds gather in London on November 4. B2B marketing is evolving fast. AI is rewriting the rules, customer expectations are higher than ever and every decision must deliver both quick wins and long-term brand impact. Enter B2B World Fest, the event designed to help B2B marketers stay ahead in this ever-changing world. This one-day festival brings together global brands, innovators and marketing leaders for a dynamic exploration of what’s next in B2B – from AI and creative technology to the evolving expectations of millennial and Gen Z buyers. Read more here

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Why the future of ad testing might live inside your head Glassview’s partnership with Cogwear uses EEG headsets to capture emotion in real-time, hinting at a future where campaign testing starts with brain data, not surveys. The same device that can detect the first signs of Alzheimer’s is now being used to test car ads. That sentence reads like science fiction, but it’s very real. Glassview, a digital media company that works with Fortune 500 brands, has partnered with Cogwear, a neuroscience startup from the University of Pennsylvania. Together, they’re using clinical-grade EEG headsets to measure how people feel when they watch ads. The collaboration began when Glassview chief executive J Brooks noticed the limits of data-driven advertising. “Marketing has always lived in the softer sciences,” he says. “Sociology tells us who people are, psychology tells us why they buy. But we wanted to move into the hard sciences, biology, neurology and chemistry to understand what really drives connection.” Read more here

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Making your B2B comms more human is the best way to connect with audiences People want to hear from people, not faceless corporations, explains Harriet Mumford of Nelson Bostock (part of Accenture Song). And B2B marketers would do well to remember it. If the last decade has proved anything, it’s this: the B2B marketing space is becoming more about people, stories, and meaningful connections. No more is it simply about product manuals and sales sheets; the landscape of B2B communications is taking on creative traits typically reserved only for B2C brands. And this development is a constantly accelerating force, fueled by the social media revolution that’s made brands and professionals more visible, accessible, and human than ever before. Platforms such as LinkedIn have morphed from a digital CV storage space into buzzing hubs of authentic personal and professional interaction. LinkedIn is a place for funny people to be funny, creative people to be creative, and interesting people to be accessible. Suddenly, it’s not just about what you do, it’s about who you are, what you stand for, and how you make others feel. Read more here

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The productivity paradox: why marketers must escape the ‘busy-ness’ loop Marketers are drowning in tools, tabs and to-do lists, but not necessarily getting more done. For Dropbox, the next wave of productivity isn’t about adding more tech, it’s about making the tools we already use work harder for us. Being busy has become a reluctant badge of honor in marketing. Agencies and brands are managing more channels, more workflows and more collaboration tools. And sometimes, we just want. Less. Noise. It’s the paradox of productivity: we’re working harder, but not always working better. Research from Dropbox found that less than half (46%) of the workforce has enough time for creative work, and almost a third (30%) say they feel less creative today than before. Read more here

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Alcohol marketers walk a tightrope. What if bartenders could help tip the balance? The WHO very almost made alcohol marketing a lot harder, with a proposed advertising crackdown. Thankfully, says Jason Tamanini of Green House, it failed – but brands should think about who might be best-placed to market their drinks. In late September, global health officials came dangerously close to redefining alcohol marketing as we know it. Following the World Health Organization’s 2023 position that no level of alcohol consumption is safe, the UN draft proposals pressed for stricter regulations and alcohol warning labels – a move that would have aligned alcohol messaging with that of tobacco. This would have meant a near total media blackout: television and radio, outdoor ads, event sponsorship, branded merchandise, online placements, and more would be off the table. If that sounds dramatic, remember what happened to tobacco. Joe Camel disappeared. Marlboro billboards came down. Free samples at clubs? Gone. Read more here

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