Snickers fed a candy bar to misbehaving AI, White Castle summoned a downpour of beer cheese and Vodafone used AI to bring the Bundesliga’s unseen first goal back to life. Read more here

Mediasense's vice president of strategy and Drum Awards Festival juror, explores operating models, measurement infrastructure and why nobody wants to talk about accountability. Read more here

Jess Ruggieri left advertising, put her savings into a $10 snack bar and suddenly found herself facing the same problems she used to solve for clients. In the first of a new series looking at life after advertising, The Drum discovers why she has gone back to the simplest creative brief she ever had. Read more here

Publicis has chosen PepsiCo and walked away from Coke’s global pitch. But what happens to Coca-Cola North America? Where does its review go now? And why was Pepsi worth the sacrifice? Read more here

T&P and director Rodrigo Saavedra give Alice in Wonderland a high-fashion reboot, with a DJ Mad Hatter, a mysterious White Rabbit and a beautifully crafted surreal world. Read more here

Reuben Webb on why the smartest brands at the US Open do the work rather than borrow the glory, and why partnership is finally living up to its name. Read more here

MiniMBA alumni say strategic thinking is a far bigger skills gap today, even as they expect AI to transform how marketing works over the next five years. Read more here

AI now does many jobs that young marketers traditionally cut their teeth on. Michael Loper of Green House explains why frontline marketing is the perfect proving ground for industry talent. Read more here

From a UPS package blown up to city-block proportions to a scented confessional booth and a magazine that turns B2B sales training into a game, three creative teams show what can happen when an idea becomes something you can touch and feel. Read more here

CNN’s ad sales chief tells Mark Challinor how the network is putting its transformation strategy into practice, using AI and first-party data to sharpen advertising while betting on creativity and human relationships. Read more here

Assembly Global's chief client officer and Drum Awards Festival juror on integration over specialization, and why the industry's commercial model is overdue for change. Read more here

TBWA and OCX enlist the Saturday Night Live star for a campaign where baked goods make it almost bearable to be an early riser. Read more here

A survey of 216 MiniMBA alumni finds that, when asked about their skill gaps, marketers are looking past the latest tools and back to the basics of what good marketing requires. Read more here

A festival app that summarized the agenda but failed to deliver a usable map signposts an increasing problem: advanced digital capabilities that miss basic customer needs. Read more here

Four cities. One region. And four genuinely different conversations happening inside it. Working across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh, I hear the assumption most often that the GCC operates as a single market. It does not. The ambitions are shared, the growth story is connected, and the spend is real across all four. Read more here

Designing data into experiences means thinking about measurement from the outset, explains Dan Rhodes of Jack Morton. Here’s how to create interactions that generate useful insight naturally, transparently and in the moment. Read more here

Bose's global head of media and Drum Awards Festival juror on incrementality, AI discoverability and why ROAS keeps rewarding the wrong channel. Read more here

Good Good was held up as proof that creators could build credible, diversified businesses attractive to major brands. Dark Horses’ Simon Hanley argues its fall from grace could make marketers question the risks of the entire model. Read more here

The minute-long film by Maximum Effort for The Michael J Fox Foundation uses the pair’s easy chemistry and self-deprecating humor to show friends what to say – and what not to say – after a Parkinson’s diagnosis. Read more here

AI is rebuilding the creative production line from the inside out. From sculpting instead of drawing, ‘venturing into the weird’ and redefining collaboration, here’s what the next era of creativity looks like. Read more here

In the first episode of Ritson’s Remedies, The Drum and MiniMBA’s new bite-sized video series tackling real-world marketing problems, Julie Seal quizzes the former marketing professor on social 4.0. Read more here

AI engines are now influencing buying decisions well before customers reach brand websites, exposing the limitations of attribution models. Brands looking to understand demand must move from a single source of truth to a hierarchy of evidence. Read more here

As AI makes generated content cheap and easy, The Drum Awards for Experiential jury president says live experience is becoming one of marketing’s scarcest assets. Read more here

Landlord is now the UK’s best-selling cask ale, and younger drinkers are rediscovering the category – so why did the rebrand? Yorkshireman Andrew Tindall tackles one of his home county’s great beers. Read more here

The refurbished-tech marketplace’s head of European marketing tells Tim Healey how it is building consumer trust, why sustainability won’t do all the selling and where AI crosses the line. Read more here

Despite reporting improved performance last month, the ad giant is set to shed another 1,000 roles globally before the end of the year. Read more here

The UK has a new prime minister, whose use of social media has been likened to that of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The Drum asked its members to vote on which politicians are best and worst at getting their message across. Read more here

YOU Agency's chief executive officer and Drum Awards Festival juror on brand and commercial work running in tandem, and why a strategic AI director might be the smartest hire of 2026. Read more here

Advertising has shed specialist jobs with every technological leap. AI looks like the next one, but the economics, productivity data and copyright law complicate that assumption. Read more here

Global marketing teams perform many important functions, including scaling a set of core strategies across multiple international markets. But when well-researched assumptions are treated as fact, local marketing teams are often forced to accept answers to questions they were never asked. Transmission CEO & Founder, Chris Bagnall breaks down why the tidiest global strategies are often the ones quietly capping growth. Read more here

B2B buyers are increasingly using AI search before they speak to sales, but many marketing teams are still working out how to respond. Our analysis of 555,973 online opinions explores what this shift means for visibility, brand representation and the buyer journey. Read more here

The US watchdog alleges that Amazon has been overcharging its advertisers for years. Commerce media columnist Kiri Masters believes trust is damaged, even if spending stays put. Most importantly, competitor networks have a clear line of attack. Read more here

Dude Milan and A+C Studios bring Picci1 back in painstaking stop-motion to show how Canva turns social content creation into something effortlessly simple. Read more here

Dude Milan and A+C Studios bring Picci1 back in painstaking stop-motion to show how Canva turns social content creation into something effortlessly simple. Read more here

General Mills CMO Valentina Ciobanu spent years turning down approaches for bigger marketing jobs. Now she needs one herself. She confided in Mark Ritson, who explores how the senior jobs market has gone eerily quiet. Read more here

T&P’s Jim Stump walks The Drum through the making of the campaign, revealing the practical effects, CGI, AI and legal compromises behind its most outrageous moments. Read more here

As family life continues to evolve, so does the challenge of understanding today’s parents. New research suggests modern households are more nuanced, with distinct parent mindsets shaping how families discover, trust and buy, says Moonbug Entertainment’s director of audience intelligence, Johanna Moscoso. Read more here

Trust shows up everywhere – brands want to be trusted, organizations want to become trusted advisers, and so on and so on. Yet, marketing can’t really make anyone trust more. It can, however, make you begin to believe. Read more here

B2B video has outgrown the hero film. Michael Ruby argues marketers need to build connected video ecosystems designed for the whole buying journey. Read more here

Known's co-founder and president and Drum Awards Festival juror on talent wars, radical audience intimacy and why some agencies still tell you it's raining. Read more here

Insurance compliance is a judgment problem disguised as paperwork. AI can make that judgment faster, more consistent and auditable. Read more here

Created to promote ‘The Unseen Goal’ documentary, it has brought a previously missed moment in German football history to life. Read more here

No scripts, no storyboards, no brand oversight. Not one frame of Chipotle's new campaign was shot by the brand - a risk that its new CEO is betting will pay off in the kind of authenticity no scripted ad could fake. Read more here

Pointy Stick’s Rebecca Fennelly explains why comedy can help brand ideas stay memorable, repeatable and commercially useful for years. Read more here

Programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) has evolved from a specialized, niche channel into a core omnichannel advertising pillar. As it’s matured, new targeting signals, creative formats and transaction categories have emerged, expanding buyer flexibility exponentially. Applying planning strategies backed by recent data enables buyers to take advantage of this evolution to deliver more effective campaigns. Read more here

James Kirkham believes the BBC is in pole position to build a content recommendation system around usefulness, participation and connection. This would give Britain something commercial feeds cannot, and will not. Read more here

Melissa Metheny, VP of strategic partnerships at Acxiom, uncovers a paradox seen in the martech industry: most brands are satisfied with their investments but are leaving enormous value on the table. New research shows what they’re missing – and how to close the gap. Read more here

Chili’s claimed the 19th hole, IAMS gave dogs their own 26.2-mile challenge and Stella Artois sent David Beckham into the intimidating world of ‘The Gentlemen.’ Read more here

DHL Group's vice president of communications and sustainability for the Americas and Drum Awards Festival juror on newsroom instinct, niche storytelling and why speed alone won't save a brand. Read more here

The Prophets turns the eternal style-versus-comfort dilemma into a wonderfully petty corporate feud. Read more here