Author: Editor

How do you solve a branding problem like AI?Marketers have some ideas, like borrowing from P&G’s marketing playbook or creating a think tank.It’s no secret that AI is getting a bad rap. Boos at college graduation speeches. AI-related layoffs. Pope Leo XIV has even gotten in the ring, calling for AI to be “disarmed.””It brings back memories of Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma,” David Aaker, vice chairman of the consulting firm Prophet, told me.Ad veteran Rishad Tobaccowala told me the AI industry’s leading spokespeople — Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei — “need to tone down” their public statements…

People walk past a Lululemon store on April 03, 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty ImagesLululemon is ending its feud with founder Chip Wilson. The athletic apparel company entered into an agreement with Wilson on Wednesday that ended a messy proxy contest the founder started late last year as its largest individual shareholder. Under the terms of the deal, Luluelmon has agreed to appoint two of Wilson’s nominees – former On co-CEO Marc Maurer and former ESPN Chief Marketing Officer Laura Gentile – and an additional director with “product and brand expertise in apparel” by October. In exchange, Wilson agreed not to bad…

The adlanders in my WhatsApp chats have been digesting the slew of Google search and ads announcements last week.Which ones actually mattered to CMOs? It’s all about those agents.First up, Google has a collection of new agents, including one that takes actions in the background on a user’s behalf, from planning parties to alerting them when their favorite sneaker brand drops a new collab.Elsewhere, the agents are coming for travel booking and restaurant reservations, and there’s a new “Universal Cart” that works across many of Google’s products.”The purchase journey for an entire set of categories may now bypass your website…

Top YouTubers are throwing their support behind a new school to train the next generation of creators.Jordan Matter, Michelle Khare, and Samir Chaudry are among the advisors for Bedford, which bills itself as an AI-enabled learning platform built on mentoring and mastery of skills, Business Insider exclusively learned.Bedford was cofounded by educational entrepreneur Ben Newton and investment firm Strand Equity, whose cofounder, Seth Rodsky, launched Hello Sunshine with Reese Witherspoon in 2016. Heights is the lead investor. Bedford is targeting people at all professional levels and influence, and companies that want to make their teams more digitally visible.Its name comes…

Foot Locker is slowly getting back to growth, but the costly turnaround of the legacy sneaker store is still weighing on its parent company Dick’s Sporting Goods’ bottom line, as the company posted an earnings miss on Wednesday. In the three months ended May 2, Dick’s incurred $96.5 million in charges related to the acquisition. That includes $53.8 million for merger and acquisition costs like severance and store closings, and $42.7 million to clear through sale inventory. Those expenses contributed to a miss on Dick’s bottom line, as top line results exceeded expectations. Meanwhile, Foot Locker eked out comparable sales growth of…

The war in Iran has stoked inflation fears, sending US Treasury bond yields higher, but don’t expect the trend to reverse once the war is over.Two of Wall Street’s top economists warned that the ongoing Iran war isn’t the only force driving yields higher. Investors should expect steadily rising bond yields even after the conflict in the Middle East resolves, according to Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics chief economist, and Torsten Sløk, Apollo Global Management’s top economist.The 10-year yield hovered just under 4.5% on Tuesday, a key level flagged as a threat to stocks by top forecasters like Morgan Stanley CIO…

Lindsay Stockall is a 38-year-old who splits her time between Newport Beach, California and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Business Insider has verified her income and employment history with documentation. The following as-told-to essay has been edited for length and clarity.I started from a one-bedroom apartment with an IKEA desk in the corner of my bedroom — no investors, no partners, and no golden spoon.Today, I’m the founder and CEO of Stockall & Company, a seven-figure performance marketing agency that crossed $1,000,000 in revenue in 2025 and has managed over $1,000,000 in total client ad spend since launching in 2021.Becoming a founder…

OpenAI’s move into advertising is starting to look like the foundation of a massive new revenue engine, one that could challenge Google’s search empire in significant ways.That’s according to new data from Similarweb executive Heral Amir, who’s been studying early ChatGPT ads bought by hundreds of companies, including HubSpot, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nordstrom, Cursor, and Indeed.He says the reason is simple: ChatGPT ads aren’t built around keywords. They’re built around conversations, and what Amir calls “conversational intent.””When search was dominant, advertisers bought intent through keywords,” Amir said. “Conversational AI changes that completely. The user’s intent evolves during the conversation itself.”That…

At 22, heartbroken, depressed, and unsure about my future, I craved novelty and adventure, so I packed up my life in England and moved to Japan.Now, 31, living in Tokyo, and more secure than I’ve ever felt in my adult life, I can’t help but feel that creeping depression, pushing me to pack my bags once more.In my early 20s, upending my life felt exciting. Now, in my 30s, it just feels indecisive.In 2016, I’d graduated with a degree in fashion photography and was working three part-time jobs in my university town to scrape by while simultaneously trying (and failing)…

Perched on the side of a hill near the Himalayas is a whimsical house made of mud, stone, and straw that two brothers built by hand.Ansh and Raghav Kumar, a pair of architect siblings from New Delhi, moved to a remote town in India to escape the noise and chaos of corporate city life and built the house that they now list on Airbnb.”Someone sees it as a Harry Potter house, someone sees it as a hobbit house, someone sees it as a fairytale house,” Raghav, 32, said. The brothers built a house in Rishikesh, India, using natural materials.  Atik…