Plus: Calculating The True Value Of Marketing Campaigns |
| Marketing is often undervalued, which is not news to many reading this newsletter. When companies are looking to make budget cuts, they often begin by looking to their marketing teams and campaigns. But a new white paper from insights company TransUnion and marketing trade organization MMA Global uses their Brand as Performance (BaP) framework to determine the true value of campaigns, and finds that traditional measurement methods have undervalued brand marketing’s impact on sales by as much as 83%. BaP was first introduced by MMA Global in 2022, and connects softer marketing outcomes—including consumer sentiment and brand perception—with hard measurable outcomes, including sales. It also broadens the timeline that’s measured, looking at how household feelings and purchase behaviors change over time. “Brand as Performance gives marketers the language and evidence to prove what they’ve always known: brand drives growth,” Executive Vice President of TruAudience Growth Strategy at TransUnion Matt Spiegel said in a statement. The latest white paper, which examines campaigns from Ally Bank, Kroger and Campbell’s Soup, demonstrates the importance of brand favorability. Using marketing to bolster how consumers think of brands can drive favorability by as much as 24%, the research found, even for an already well-known brand. Conversion rates were as much as 4.7x higher among consumers who see a brand favorably. And the effect of a successful campaign continues, with long-term impact up to 6x greater than in the short term. There are less traditional forms of marketing that are also driving results. One of the more popular today are influencer storefronts, where a retailer lets influencers create their own collection of products available on the retailer’s website. Recently, beauty store Sephora and publisher Condé Nast announced their entrance into the storefront game. I talked to Corinne Travis, director of marketing and creator growth at BrandCycle, about influencer storefronts. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.
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| In today’s CMO newsletter: |
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First Up: Meta will tap into AI data for targeted ads
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| So far, most generative AI platforms haven’t explicitly used user data for targeted ads—but that’s about to change. This week, Meta began to notify users that their interactions with its AI tools will be used for targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, writes Forbes senior contributor Kate O’Flaherty. In a blog post, Meta writes that data drawn from AI will help the company improve recommendations across its platforms, better serving users with content they’re interested in. The tech giant says it will continue to protect user privacy. Conversations and requests about religion, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs or union membership will not be used to inform ads. Meta also added that its ad preference tools can help adjust what you see. And users in places where there are laws limiting default use of user data—including the U.K., EU and South Korea—are exempt. But there is no voluntary opt-out to keep AI data private after the policy takes effect on December 16, writes O’Flaherty. While this policy could help Meta provide better targeted ads, Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET, said that it could have another effect: causing people to switch to other chatbots. At the moment, there are several that provide similar services, and only one is promising to use user data for ads. |
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| Nike CEO Elliott Hill has made a series of bold choices in his push for the company to recapture its previous spirit and success, and another new initiative is on the way: A World of Flight store, dedicated to Nike’s Jordan Brand, is set to open in Philadelphia. Forbes senior contributor Pamela Danziger writes that this will be the first U.S. location of the flagship store, which already has locations in Milan, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Mexico City. The store opens on Friday. Nike chose Philadelphia for its first U.S. World of Flight location because of the city’s ties to basketball, its place in Michael Jordan’s story—he played his last NBA game there in 2003—and because of Jalen Hurts, the Jordan brand ambassador and star quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Jordan brand itself has been lagging—revenues were down 16% last year—but the new store is designed to reignite passion in the brand. In Nike’s most recent earnings call, Hill said increased sales and interest from Nike’s refreshed “House of Innovation” store in New York has already led to double-digit revenue increases. |
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| As AI video technology improves, it’s appearing more in Hollywood—and raising the ire of some in the entertainment industry. Late last month, an AI studio “introduced” its newest ingénue, the AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood. Creator Eline Van der Velden, who is an actor and producer, said she wants “Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman.” SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 160,000 actors and entertainment workers, quickly condemned the AI-generated creation, saying that “creativity is, and should remain, human-centered,” and that the union is “opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.” Two years ago, AI-generated performers were a crucial issue in SAG-AFTRA’s nearly four-month-long labor strike. The union eventually struck a deal requiring studios to bargain in good faith if they want to use an AI-generated performer instead of a human actor. Several acclaimed human actors had visceral and horrified responses to Tilly Norwood’s introduction, saying that an AI-generated actor can’t connect the way actual humans do, writes Forbes senior contributor Dani Di Placido. But many in Hollywood also don’t want AI redesigning stars of the past. The daughter of actor Robin Williams, who died in 2014, pleaded on Instagram for people to stop making AI videos of her dad, Di Placido writes. “It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s not what he’d want,” Zelda Williams’ post reads. Williams isn’t the first star to be brought back from the dead by AI against his family’s wishes. In early 2024, podcast Dudesy released the AI-generated “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead” comedy special with a voice that sounded like the iconic comedian who died in 2008. Carlin’s estate sued, saying Dudesy used Carlin’s work without seeking consent or compensation. The video was quickly removed from YouTube and the lawsuit was settled last April, Variety reported, with a permanent injunction barring the podcast from uploading the video or using Carlin’s image, voice or likeness on any platform. |
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 | | BrandCycle Director of Marketing and Creator Growth Corinne Travis. Getty, BrandCycle |
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| | | How Influencer Storefronts Impact Marketing |
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| More and more online retailers are creating influencer storefronts—customizable sites at which influencers can curate and sell their favorite merchandise from that retailer. Beauty retailer Sephora recently announced that it would add its own storefront capability, and fashion publisher Condé Nast has plans to add some next year. I talked to Corinne Travis, director of marketing and creator growth at BrandCycle, about storefronts for marketing. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity. How is a storefront beneficial to a retailer, like Amazon or Target, or to the individual brands that are being sold through the storefront? Travis: It will basically allow the full customer journey to take place on their site. Someone could go to Target without being influenced by anybody. They could see a product that they like and peoples’ reviews. Now you can also see: Did a creator talk about this? You can go to their storefront and better understand the product there, and get that validation from a creator and check out. It can also work if I’m a shopper and I purchase or I click a link, I’m now on a creator’s storefront. Maybe I came for one product, but I’m now able to see a lot of others, and I’m being kept on the Target site. It really helps keep the customer on there [with] loyalty loops, keeping them engaged from beginning to end, being influenced, and then being able to capture that transaction on the site and have that first-party data. If there’s not a storefront and the creator is working with a sub-affiliate—like LTK, BrandCycle [or] ShopMy—some platforms don’t provide the creator-level data to a brand. If Target is working with [a sub-affiliate], Target sees that [it] is performing really well, but they don’t see the specific creator that’s performing really well. If they bypass that sub-affiliate platform and they have their own thing in house, now they have that first-party data. Obviously, retailers are interested in storefronts. Do they present any challenges for influencers, creators and brands? I’m typically going to someone’s storefront if I’m directed there, so if I’m not being shown that link, I’m not going. If [creators] are not sharing their storefront link, they’re not getting traffic to that storefront. If there’s more and more storefronts, ultimately it becomes a fight for Story time. If I’m a creator and I’m sharing this brand or this storefront, it becomes one more thing that a creator needs to share. It becomes a fight for the real estate of Stories. Especially on Instagram, if traffic and algorithms are changing and a storefront is not getting as much traffic as it should, [why are] creators maintaining and managing it? The other piece is just overall fragmentation. If there’s multiple storefronts that someone [who] is a creator needs to share or is managing, overall there could be a lot of decision fatigue. Who do I promote, and when and where? Taking a step back from the storefronts, creators are managing multiple channels. Maybe they’re on Instagram, Substack, Facebook, maybe they have their own website, TikTok. Then there’s affiliate platforms they might be working with. Then there’s these individual sub-affiliates. Some of them have a storefront—an LTK or a ShopMy. There could also be a link-in-bio tool that they’re using. The more storefronts, the more decision fatigue from the creator [and] even potential confusion from the shopper. If one day they’re promoting directly to a brand site, other days you’re going to a storefront, other days you’re going to this other storefront, other days you’re going over here, it becomes very reliant on what the creator is sharing. I can see creators getting burnt out. [For brands,] I’m sure Sephora is [getting] more traffic and eyes on your individual brand. But now that increases fragmentation for that brand. They might have their own affiliate network. Maybe they’re also partnered with a ShopMy. Maybe they’re on Ulta as well. This is one more place where data will live. That’s fragmentation for the brands when they’re trying to simplify. Where do you see the whole concept of storefronts going in the next five years? There’s a lot of different ways that storefronts can play. “Link in Bio” is even becoming its own storefront for a creator. You see companies that were once just a place to put more links and are now growing into [tools where] a creator can sell their digital course. They can also put their favorite lip gloss in [and] individual links. They’re becoming more robust, and that in and of itself is kind of this storefront. I think that’s a good evolution. It becomes kind of a fight for creator attention. Who at the end of the day is really going to solve the main need: a place to put my links? The company that I used to work at—Flagship, which has since closed—created more of a shop. Creators owned the checkout; they would have this storefront, but the checkout happened on their site. If I was sharing different brands or products, I wasn’t directing my audience to go purchase from the brand site. They were purchasing from my store. I personally love that direction. It gives the power, the control, the customer information to the creator. They become more connected to their community with that information, and it’s something that they can take with them wherever they go. Creators own two things: Their blog and their newsletter or emails. The storefront concept gives the perception of ownership, but it’s not. |
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Dental products manufacturer Dentsply Sirona appointed Aldo M. Denti as its first executive vice president and chief commercial officer, effective October 6. Denti most recently worked as company group chairman for Global Orthopedics at Johnson & Johnson Medtech.
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Employment benefits platform provider Alight hired Stephen Rush as its chief commercial officer, effective October 8. Rush joins the firm from HCL Software, where he worked as senior vice president and head of the Americas.
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Cloud commerce marketplace Pax8 selected Tom Gavin to be its new chief marketing and communications officer. Gavin previously worked as senior vice president of corporate marketing at Workato, and has also held leadership roles at Coupa and Salesforce.
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| Send us C-suite transition news at forbescsuite@forbes.com. |
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| We’re already in Q4, which means 2026 is just around the corner. Technology and consumers are perpetually changing, and the evolution of peoples’ relationships with brands and marketing will shape strategy for the future. Here are insights from four marketing leaders to keep in mind as next year draws closer. It’s important for business leaders to be optimistic, but too much positivity can blind you to risks on the horizon. It’s better for leaders to ground their optimism by being positive but realistic. |
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| | Netflix gave the green light to a new reality competition series based on which classic game? | <
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