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Cannes Briefing: Creativity is moving beyond the agency model

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Cannes Briefing: Creativity is moving beyond the agency model

The Tiny Awards finalists reveal the weird, wonderful and political side of the internet

Since its start in 2023, where its first web awardee was crowned (Lauren Walker’s impeccable Rotating Sandwiches site) the Tiny Awards has been celebrating the “small, poetic, creative, and handmade” side of the internet – URL-based web experiences that sit outside the commercial realm, made by independent creatives. The sites entered into the Tiny Awards

The Top CMS For Core Web Vitals

The Core Web Vitals Technology Report by the open source HTTPArchive community ranks content management systems by how well they perform on Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV). The July update shows that every major platform has improved since June, but not all gains were equal. Joomla posted the largest month-over-month increase, while Duda ranked first

Retail media has hit a wall. Bayer wants to break it down.

After years of growth going up and to the right, retail media seems to have finally hit an inflection point — retail media networks want brand dollars and brands want attribution metrics. Until retail media can be seamlessly integrated with national brand campaigns (within budget constraints) the industry may remain at a standstill. Some companies

This serene, lush foliage was actually made with a Blender plugin

Achieving lush, plentiful foliage can be a challenge for both physical and virtual gardeners and creators. I’ve just transplanted a lemon tree that’s promptly dropped most of its leaves and drooped almost to the ground, and my jasmines have been stripped by ants. I feel for anyone trying to make whole forests in 3D modelling

Google Expands YMYL Guidelines To Cover Election & Civic Content

Google published a new edition of its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. The update clarifies that the Your Money Your Life (YMYL) category now covers election and voting information, along with other government and civics topics that affect people’s lives. What’s New The YMYL framework now uses the label “YMYL Government, Civics & Society,” with the

Nielsen and Warner Bros. Discovery Sign Multi-Year Deal

Today, Nielsen and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced a new multi-year measurement deal, covering measurement for all of WBD platforms. This new deal expands the partnership between the two companies as the media conglomerate gains key big data and advanced audience capabilities. WBD will continue to use Nielsen’s big data + panel offering as currency

Max Lancaster photographs the life and work of a shipping container crew

In January, the photographer Max Lancaster found himself touring a decommissioned submarine, the SAS Assegaai, in Simon’s Town, South Africa. Guided by a former crew member who had served on the watercraft in the 1980s, Max was struck by how the guide described life on the boat as “both isolating and full of camaraderie”, and

Bias In Search: Visibility, Perception, And Control

Bias in search isn’t always negative. It’s easy to frame it as something sinister, but bias shows up for structural reasons, behavioral reasons, and sometimes as a deliberate choice. The real task for marketers and communicators is recognizing when it’s happening, and what that means for visibility, perception, and control. Two recent pieces got me

Designing the GTM model for marketing’s revenue era

Marketing has long been measured by the marketing-qualified lead (MQL). Entire budgets, campaigns and reporting cadences built around producing as many as possible, with targets backed into based on volume. The result was marketing teams churning out thousands through brute force and spamming. But MQLs are not revenue. They are proxies: single contacts who often

Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition review: a laptop with boardroom aura

Why you can trust Creative Bloq Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test. (Image credit: Future/Sean Cameron) Intro The laptop as a form factor has been bound by two dreams: one for power, the other for

How To Position Your Agency As An AI Search Authority

This post was sponsored by Visto. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Clients keep asking a new question: “Are we visible in AI search?” This is the reality: Google’s AI Overviews are reducing organic traffic by 30-70% for many businesses. In fact, we’re seeing that SEO agencies that incorporate GEO (Generative Engine

Rising competition is making The Trade Desk bend, publishers say

This week’s Media Briefing looks at how The Trade Desk’s relationship with publishers is shifting, offering new incentives, more outreach and a softer approach to get OpenPath deals signed amid increasing competition from other demand-side platforms. TTD bends to some publishers to smooth OpenPath deals The detente between the Trade Desk and publishers is starting

A Queer Year of Love Letters is a collection of “time machine” fonts that take us to our countercultural past and futures

As well as functioning as a sort of archival project, Nat’s interest in paving the way for queer futures is evident in their interest in science fiction writers like Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ. “I read these writers for the same reason I research queer histories: they offer radical alternatives to

Google Retiring Core Web Vitals CrUX Dashboard

Google has announced that the CrUX Dashboard, the Looker Studio-based visualization tool for CrUX data, will be retired at the end of November 2025. The reason given for the deprecation is that it was not designed for “wide-scale” use and that Google has developed more scalable alternatives. Why The CrUX Dashboard Is Being Retired The

Howard Kurtz Loses Sunday Show, Big Weekend Expands

Fox News is introducing a new weekend morning and evening lineup that sees Howard Kurtz losing his Sunday morning show and the Big Weekend Show expanding to three hours. After a 12-year run, Fox News is sunsetting its media-focused show MediaBuzz, with its longtime host Kurtz transitioning to a political media analyst role. He will

Why I’m pre-ordering Atari’s new handheld – the Nintendo Switch for retro gamers

When Atari announced the Gamestation Go, I didn’t expect to be this interested. Retro handhelds are everywhere right now, and it feels as if there are more Atari collections than actual games. Really, how many repackaged versions of Pac-Man do we need? But this handheld console release feels different. It’s not trying to cash in

Trust Still Lives In Blue Links

I’ve been extremely antsy to publish this study. Consider it the AIO Usability study 1.5, with new insights. You also want to stay tuned for our first AI Mode usability study! It’s coming in a few weeks (make sure to subscribe not to miss it). Boost your skills with Growth Memo’s weekly expert insights. Subscribe

Adobe makes AI agents and orchestrator generally available

Today, Adobe announced the general availability of its AI agents for Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) and AEP Agent Orchestrator, the platform layer for managing and customizing AI agents from Adobe and third-party ecosystems. Adobe previewed the agents and orchestrator at its Adobe Summit event in March 2025. The Hershey Company, Lenovo, PGA Tour, Wegmans Food

How Falmouth’s online MAs are helping creatives refresh, refocus and move forward

That global studio extends far beyond Cornwall. A student in Falmouth might be trading feedback with someone in Canada while another dials in from Lagos. For Jane Pugh, who teaches film and television, this community is the beating heart of online study. “Anyone can apply – whether you’re eight months pregnant, a full-time chef, or

Google Drops Search Console Reporting For Six Structured Data Types

Google will stop reporting six deprecated structured data types in Search Console and remove them from the Rich Results Test and appearance filters. Search Console and Rich Results Test stop reporting on deprecated structured data types. Rankings are unaffected; you can keep the markup, it just won’t show rich results. API returns continue

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