The news: Reddit published a report Thursday highlighting its increasing relevance for advertisers as social media users gain trust in the platform for purchase decisions. Reddit routinely delivers promising ad results. Adding Reddit to ad campaigns leads to $6.94 higher incremental ROAS across channels. Our take: Despite lingering brand hesitancy to adopt Reddit as a core advertising channel, the platform is increasingly becoming a reliable source that promises high returns—making it a key part of an effective campaign for advertisers who know how to navigate it.
National Bank is distinguishing itself as the first major Canadian bank to implement a secure data feed (API) for its retail customers to share financial information with approved fintech applications, putting it ahead of Canada's potential 2026 open banking rollout. This innovative approach significantly reduces security risks by redirecting customers to National Bank's own website for identity verification, eliminating the need for customers to share online banking passwords with third-party aggregators (known as "screen scraping"). By taking an 80% stake in Flinks, a financial data aggregator that now accredits fintechs, National Bank transforms a potential threat to customer loyalty into an opportunity to deepen relationships, ensuring it remains the central hub for customers' financial lives even as they use other apps.
Truist is making significant strides in optimizing its digital onboarding process, prioritizing increased personalization and a smoother customer journey to attract new clients. This multi-pronged strategy includes enabling mobile ID verification to boost conversion rates among younger generations, seamlessly integrating new clients with services like direct deposit and Zelle to establish Truist as their primary bank, and allowing personalized mobile app dashboards. These digital improvements, supported by AI for feedback aggregation, aim to offset the impact of branch closures and meet the demand for digital convenience, particularly from Gen Z. Truist should amplify marketing efforts to highlight the ease and speed of their fully digital onboarding, emphasizing that no in-person ID verification is required.
A recent study revealed that Gen Z is struggling with a desire for immediate summer fun with rising costs. Nearly half of Gen Z believes future planning is pointless, driving 37% to spend more on non-essentials and 32% to defer financial priorities until after summer. This presents a prime opportunity for financial institutions to engage Gen Z by framing budgeting as a tool for maximizing summer enjoyment rather than restricting it. Banks should offer intuitive, gamified budgeting tools with real-time insights and vibrant visuals. As summer ends, institutions need to be ready to help Gen Z transition back to financial planning with integrated tools, debt management workshops, and goal-setting features, cementing their role as a trusted partner.
The news: Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that social media platforms must be held accountable for illegal user-generated content (UGC), marking a major shift in digital regulation, per Reuters. Six of 11 justices backed fines for non-removal, putting the pressure on platforms to police their content. The decision to place accountability on platform owners could undermine the business and advertising strategies of Meta, YouTube, X, and TikTok. Key takeaway: When governments crack down on platforms, ad environments change fast. If Brazil’s ruling becomes the norm, social platforms may shift from open forums to tightly controlled spaces—risking user engagement, discoverability, algorithmic reach, and ad effectiveness.
The news: The UK economy contracted by the most in 18 months in April due to the twin pressures of tariffs and tax increases. Our take: The UK economy’s contraction in April sets the stage for another year of tepid growth. Despite a highly publicized (and yet to be finalized) trade deal with the US, macroeconomic uncertainties are set to weigh heavily on corporate and consumer sentiment, while rising household and business expenses will limit investment and consumer spending.
The trend: Retailers and brands are rapidly weaving generative AI (genAI) into their operations to boost efficiency and scale without adding significant headcount. The breadth of the initiatives signals an abrupt shift in many companies’ thinking about genAI from a useful tool to a potential core business driver. Our take: GenAI enables companies to do more with less—a crucial advantage at a time when macro uncertainty is making many firms wary of increasing their headcount. As early adopters scale their efforts and share results, momentum will grow—prompting others to follow out of necessity, not choice.
The news: Cannes Lions 2025 is highlighting how retail media is moving beyond performance marketing into broader applications across brand storytelling, in-store influence, and customer experience. Executives like Victoria Usher and Jim Kane are calling attention to how brands now activate retail data for segmentation, planning, and innovation across media touchpoints including CTV and search. Our take: This shift reflects growing demand for privacy-safe, first-party data solutions amid signal loss and rising complexity. Cannes will underscore retail media’s potential to support creativity and full-funnel integration. The future isn’t just attribution—it’s about making retail platforms vital to brand equity and long-term engagement.
The news: Klarna partnered with Nift, a gift platform, to offer “gift”-style rewards for customers’ BNPL purchases. Our take: Until they can close that gap, BNPL players will struggle to attract a meaningful share of shoppers. It’s one reason we forecast BNPL user growth will slow every year through 2029.
The news: Global Payments rolled out a retail point-of-sale (POS) system under its Genius platform targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Our take: Despite that clout, as other merchant service providers also diversify their offerings through verticalized software, hardware, and partnership integrations, Global Payments’ Genius will enter a crowded POS space with its offerings nearly indistinguishable from Stripe’s, Square’s, or Toast’s hardware and software lineups.
The news: Blackhawk Network and Visa will launch physical gift cards with tap to pay capability. Our take: Blackhawk’s rollout patches a serious security loophole that risked gifters and recipients’ money being snatched by fraudsters.
The news: Auto parts maker Marelli filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it one of the first high-profile casualties of the Trump administration’s tariffs. Our take: Not all of Marelli’s problems can be blamed on tariffs. But tariffs and uncertainty have a way of magnifying the cracks in a company’s business—cracks that will become harder to paper over the longer the Trump administration sticks to its hardline tariff policies.
The news: Eight years after acquiring Whole Foods, Amazon is moving to more fully integrate the grocer into its core business, Business Insider reports. Our take: Amazon is clearly aware of the friction—and the opportunity—in its grocery ecosystem.
The news: Eli Lilly said it won’t partner with telehealth companies that sell compounded weight loss drugs. Our take: Lilly’s demand may signal that it’s in a better position in the weight loss drug market than Novo to play hardball with industry partners such as Hims & Hers.
The news: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced the CDC’s influential vaccine advisory board with 8 new members, including some anti-vaccine advocates. Our take: The new HHS administration's public statements and actions undermine the safety perception of all vaccines. Drugmakers on the sidelines risk consumer trust—and vaccine uptake. It’s time to partner with respected medical groups like AMA to counterbalance confusion.
The news: BioNTech is buying cancer vaccine researcher and one-time COVID-19 vaccine rival CureVac in a $1.25 billion all-stock deal. The takeaway: The new HHS is taking a less-than-positive view on mainstream vaccines and mRNA technology, but it’s also signaled strong interest in personalized medicines and novel therapies. That’s good news for BioNTech, and could be a sign to other pharmas and biotechs that precision and specialty drugs are poised for fast tracking, while vaccines caught up in public and political controversy will be overscrutinized and delayed to market.
The data: Physicians are more bullish on AI in healthcare than patients. Our take: Doctors are still figuring out AI themselves—but they can’t lose sight of how important it is to keep patients informed. They’ll need to get patient consent for use cases such as transcribing visits, and should opt out of using AI if their patients aren’t comfortable with it.
The news: Gaming is becoming a powerful vehicle for delivering ads to engaged audiences, with gamers spending significant time gaming across platforms, per a study from Activision Blizzard Media. Seventy percent of gamers play or watch video games daily, while 95% play or watch weekly. Seventy-seven percent of weekly gamers play on mobile devices, while 52% play on console and 34% play on PC. Our take: In-game advertising provides reach that few other channels can match, connecting with an engaged, highly attentive, and diverse audience, making it a critical touchpoint—but advertisers must understand what strategies work best.
The news: Snap announced its sixth-generation AR smart glasses at the 2025 Augmented World Expo (AWE). The wearables will be available to the public for the first time since 2016, potentially unlocking a new revenue stream beyond ads. The lightweight consumer smart glasses, called Specs, will launch in 2026 and include an “ultra-powerful wearable computer.” Our take: Snap’s next-gen smart glasses could diversify its revenue streams and show off its AR prowess. But unless the price tag is affordable and competitive, users may continue to just use Snapchat’s AR filters on their phones.
The news:** Amazon has quietly doubled the ad load on Prime Video, now serving 4 to 6 minutes of ads per hour—up from 2 to 3.5—placing it alongside Hulu and Paramount+ in volume. This aligns with Amazon’s effort to scale its connected TV inventory and offers buyers greater reach. Our take: The added ad time could shift Prime Video’s role in media planning, attracting performance-focused advertisers if CPMs soften, or reinforcing a premium stance if PMP rates hold. Weekly user engagement remains high, making the platform a reliable environment for consistent exposure. Amazon is quietly positioning Prime Video as a leading CTV ad player.