Technology

Image: Nvidia Geeks love to get a little more power out of their hardware by digging deep in its guts, either literally or with software. A little gentle overclocking is usually safe, and in fact it’s expected to a certain degree by manufacturers. But an unorthodox method for laptops with discrete Nvidia RTX graphics cards is extremely powerful…and notably dangerous. It’s called a “shunt mod,” and it’s essentially a way to get a graphics card to run at power input way beyond what it’s rated to run at. Shunt modding is a complex, physical process that needs active soldering on the GPU itself, but if done correctly, it can boost the power going into the card by a huge margin. For some of the most powerful RTX laptop cards, this can boost the power input from a spec maximum of 150-175 watts to up to 250 watts, with a similar delta in terms of performance. How and why is this possible? It’s complicated. Some of the laptops with RTX 4090, 5080, and 5080 discrete GPUs are running the same physical graphics chips as seen on the desktop cards, which are rated for much higher wattage inputs. Because of the “binning” process for when these chips are manufactured, the most perfectly produced chips go into the most powerful desktop cards, while the ones that didn’t quite win the “silicon lottery” might be used for laptops. In short, the chips should — should — be able to handle much more watt input than they typically get from a more restrictive, battery-saving laptop configuration. GizmoSlipTech, an expert in the minutia of desktop and laptop GPUs, has aggregated some data from both professional and enthusiast users who’ve attempted this complex process to boost the energy going into RTX 5080 and 5090-equipped laptops (via VideoCardz.com). The results are impressive. One test of an RTX 5090 laptop showed a whopping 41 percent increase in the 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark when the card was modified to run at 250 watts. In-game results are less dramatic, but more than 20 percent improvement in Cyberpunk 2077 is nothing to sneeze at. But before you reach for a screwdriver, you might want to take a second to think it through. We’re talking about some pretty deep hardware modifications here, the kind of thing that shouldn’t be attempted by anyone without some pretty impressive, base-level electronics projects under their belt. This goes way beyond the basic desktop assembly or even laptop repair skills. Cracking open your laptop to access the discrete graphics card might void the warranty on its own, but the full process requires taking a soldering iron to capacitors and then modifying the firmware to make it run hotter. In short, doing this might melt your gaming laptop. And if it does, you can kiss any kind of warranty support goodbye. In fact even if something completely unrelated to your GPU should fail, I imagine that any technician who spots this modification will instantly declare the laptop out of warranty due to user modification. And these are some of the most powerful, and most expensive, gaming laptops available right now. Performing a shunt mod is essentially gambling with thousands of dollars of hardware for a performance boost. A nice boost, but in my opinion, one that’s not worth the risk even if you have the technical skills to achieve it. Still, the fact that this modification is possible — and apparently gaining popularity among the bravest users — indicates that these discrete laptop cards might have a lot more power available than they’re currently utilizing. In fact, some laptop manufacturers have quietly performed similar mods to their gaming models without telling anyone (and then had to issue a patch to undo it). GizmoSlipTech recommends that Nvidia increase the power limits to some laptops, utilizing the latest thermal management tech, to deliver more performance. Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip. Read More

Skip to content Image: Jon L. Jacobi At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Good everyday 10Gbps performance Type-C and Type-A connectors Affordable for the capacities Cons The slowest off-cache write speed we’ve ever seen Our Verdict For light offloads from your iPhone or other device, the PNY Duo Link V3 performs well, and with both Type-A and Type-C connectors integrated, it can used with most any device. But performance off secondary cache is abysmal, so buy way more capacity than you need. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: PNY Duo Link V3 With today’s mix of legacy Type-A and newer Type-C ports, it pays to be able to connect to both. However, adapters have this nasty habit of being misplaced, so a device that has both connector types captive on board, such as the PNY Duo Link V3 reviewed here, can save you a lot of grief. The caveat here is write performance, which falls off a cliff if you run out of secondary cache. For most scenarios, this won’t come into play, but it did in our testing — so read that section carefully. Note: If your still leveraging older Apple devices with a Lightning connector — then look to some of PNY’s older Duo Links which are Lighting/Type-A. What are the PNY Duo Link V3’s features? First and foremost, the Duo Link V3 is an 10Gbps USB SSD. I get the question all the time: What’s the difference between an SSD and a flash/thumb drive. Form factor — nothing else, though the latter do tend to be a bit light in performance. As SSD stands for solid state storage, and thumb drives have always used NAND, they are legitimately SSDs. The PNY Duo Link V3 with both connectors exposed. Beyond that, the Duo Link is an approximately 2-inch long black rectangle of an SSD that swivels in a very solid metal sleeve to reveal either its Type-A or Type-C connector (lead image), or both (the above image), if you so desire. There are tiny stops so the drive clicks in place at 180, 360, or 90 degrees. Weight is a mere 1.5 ounces, though that feels quite solid given the small size. I do have a couple of nits about the design. One or both of the connectors are always exposed, leaving them prey to the elements. Also, the drive fits rather loosely in the shell and I’m not 100 percent optimistic about the long-term prospects of the swivel/stop mechanism. PNY never clued me in on the type of NAND and controller chip on board, and I was loathe to break out my hammer. Whatever they are, they’re fine for normal duty. How much does the PNY Duo Link V3 cost? The Duo Link is available in 256GB/$34, 512GB/$53, 1TB/$86 (tested), and 2TB/$167 capacities. That’s pretty darn affordable for an SSD, or flash drive. But again, read the performance section carefully — you’ll understand at least part of the reason the Duo Link V3 is so cheap. How fast is the PNY Duo Link V3? The PNY Duo Link V3 is your normal 10Gbps USB performer reading, and writing — with smaller amounts of data, up to around 240GB with our 1TB test unit. But if you exceed the amount of secondary cache while writing as we did in the 450GB write, it morphs into the slowest SSD I’ve ever tested — by a lot. But first, light-duty performance. As you can see below, CrystalDiskMark 8 rated the Duo Link V3’s sequential transfer speed as right in line with the thumb drive competition. As you can see below, CrystalDiskMark 8 rated the Duo Link V3’s sequential transfer speed as right in line with the thumb drive competition. Longer bars are better. Random performance is also quite sprightly according the CrystalDiskMark 8, cleaning the SK Hynix T31’s clock. By the way, unless stated otherwise, the ATTO and AS SSD benchmarks are roughly in agreement with CrystalDiskMark 8 numbers we post. Random performance is also quite sprightly, cleaning the SK Hynix T31’s clock in CrystalDiskMark 8. Longer bars are better. When only transferring 48GB worth of data, the Duo Link V3 was right up there with its competitors on the chart: the Seagate Ultra Compact SSD and SK Hynix T31. When only transferring 48GB worth of data, the Duo Link V3 was right up there with its competitors. Shorter bars are better. As noted, after secondary cache is exhausted the Duo Link V3 goes south to a degree I’ve never seen before. I spent the better part of the day running the 450GB write tests, the fastest of which was barely under two hours. By way of comparison, the slowest hard drive I’ve tested took only 75 minutes and the previous slowest SSD (another thumb drive), 52 minutes. Speed started at near 650MBps, then after approximately 250GB had been written, dropped to and vacillated between 15MBps and 100MBps — mostly towards the former. This is remarkably slow for any sort of NAND, even QLC. I’ve never seen an SSD drop to this level, around 1/5th the speed of a hard drive. The 450GB write result ruined the drive’s overall rating, but to be fair, the Duo Link V3 is about light-duty convenience, not heavy-duty workloads. I’ll forgive it — and never try to write 450GB to it again. Note that both the Seagate Ultra Compact and SK Hynix T31 were 2TB, while the PNY Duo Link V3 was only a 1TB drive. Quite likely the 2TB capacity of the Duo Link V3 would’ve turned in a time competitive with the opposition — and tanked right after that. This chart says it all. Whatever NAND is inside the Duo Link V3 has a very slow native write rate. Shorter bars are better. On the plus side, the PNY Duo Link V3 recovered quickly after slowdowns — i.e., subsequent writes would proceed apace after a few minutes

Skip to content Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has launched a new search filter that allows users to prevent AI-generated images being shown in image searches. The feature was added after users complained that AI images make it harder to find relevant results. The setting can be found under the “Images” tab, where a new option called “AI images” lets users choose to show or hide AI content. The filter is based on open block lists, such as uBlock Origin and Huge AI Blocklist. Because of this, the filtering isn’t comprehensive—some AI-generated images may still make it through in search results. DuckDuckGo’s philosophy is that “you should decide for yourself how much AI you want in your life—or if you want any at all.” The company has also shared that more search filters are planned for the future, but hasn’t shed any light on what those other filters might be just yet. This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC för Alla and was translated and localized from Swedish. Author: Viktor Eriksson, Contributor, PCWorld Viktor writes news and reports for our sister sites, M3 and PC för Alla. He is passionate about technology and is on the ball with the latest product releases and the hottest talking points in the consumer tech industry. Read More

Image: Alienware If you’ve been on the hunt for a superpowered gaming laptop at an excellent price, then stop what you’re doing! I’ve found one for you. Right now at Best Buy, this Alienware 16X Aurora is $400 off, bringing its price down from $1,800 to just $1,400. Don’t scott at that tag, though, because that’s a solid deal for what’s packed inside this laptop. The Alienware 16X Aurora is an absolute beast, chugging right along on a super-speedy Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and a massive 32GB of DDR5 RAM, an insane combo that will have you breezing through absolutely anything you have to do on a given day. Top that off with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, one of the best laptop GPUs you can get right now—and with how RTX 50-series GPU prices have been lately, being able to snag an entire RTX 5060 laptop at this price is a total bargain. Other important features to know about include the brilliant 16-inch 2560×1600 display with fast 240Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness, the 1TB SSD, Wi-Fi 7 support, backlit full-sized keyboard, and the HDMI, dual USB-A, dual USB-C ports. Get the Alienware 16X Aurora for $1,400 before this hot Best Buy deal expires! My suggestion is to add it to your cart sooner than later because a deal this good doesn’t stay in stock very long. But if you decide this isn’t the one for you, check out our other favorite gaming laptop picks. An RTX 5060 laptop this powerful is a steal for just $1,400 Author: Gabriela Vatu, Deals Editor, PCWorld Gabriela has focused on tech writing for 12 years, covering news, reviews, buying guides, deals, and more. She has bylines in numerous consumer tech publications, including PCWorld, Macworld, PCMag, IGN, MakeUseOf, XDA, Android Police, and Pocket-lint. Read More

Image: Antonio Salaverry / Shutterstock.com Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, is planning to replace the current Windows app for a simpler web wrapper version. According to Windows Latest, the latest beta version of WhatsApp for PC users will abandon the native Windows UWP framework in favor of an app that’s built on Edge’s Chromium-based WebView2 technology. The new variant is, in effect, a stripped-down web browser that shows the web version of WhatsApp in a desktop app window. What does this mean in practical terms? A simpler user interface, a changed notification system, more basic settings, and weaker integration with Windows. However, the beta version does include support for WhatsApp Channels and enhanced Status and Communities features. Based on tests by Windows Latest, the new WhatsApp PC app “uses approximately 30% more RAM than the existing native app” and exhibits several notable differences including “slower performance.” Why the switch? Most likely to ease development efforts. With a web wrapper, Meta can focus resources on developing a single version of WhatsApp and deploy it cross-platform using web wrappers, instead of maintaining a separate Windows-native version with its own code. This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC för Alla and was translated and localized from Swedish. Author: Viktor Eriksson, Contributor, PCWorld Viktor writes news and reports for our sister sites, M3 and PC för Alla. He is passionate about technology and is on the ball with the latest product releases and the hottest talking points in the consumer tech industry. Read More

By Seb Joseph and Krystal Scanlon  •  July 21, 2025  • Ivy Liu Sign number 108 that creators aren’t just a tactic for marketers anymore: they’re hiring agencies of record to manage them. It might not be as headline-grabbing as Unilever’s influencer pledge or Publicis buying up Captiv8, but it signals the same shift: marketers are, for the umpteenth time, done dabbling. The era of patchwork partnerships and borrowed budgets is giving way to strategy, accountability and the infrastructure to match. Naming an agency of record is the industry’s shorthand for saying this ins’t going away.  “We’ve shifted from brands wanting to go on a date to wanting to be in a marriage,” said Emma Harman, co-CEO of Whalar. Virgin Atlantic did just that earlier this month, tapping Whalar as its creator agency of record. Haleon brought on Collectively last year for a three-year run. What used to be an exception — a few brands making long-term bets — has started to look more like standard practice.  As Steven Lammertink, founder and CEO of The Cirqle, explained: “Yes, we are seeing a huge uptick in RFPs for creator agencies of record roles from brands — about 10 times.” Sometimes these briefs are direct: the ask is for an “agency of record” full stop. Other times, the title is missing — but the mandate is clear: run the brand’s creator marketing. Own it across teams, regions and product lines. Money has a way of formalizing what was once messy.  As Monika Ratner, head of growth at Horizon Media’s creator division Blue Hour Studios explained: “From an organic growth perspective [for the business] those brands are doubling and tripling their investment within the influencer space and turning from a one campaign to an annual evergreen strategy for net new business.” That’s a sharp contrast to just a year ago, when most briefs were still built around one-offs and smaller budgets. Now, both heritage brands and newer entrants are locking in long-term creator partnerships across categories.  “I would say in the past, as a percentage [of RFPs], the agencies of records were fewer and farther between — I could estimate it was certainly probably 25% or less,” said Holly Bent, svp, head of development at Billion Dollar Boy. “Whereas now, I would say the bulk, the majority of the RFPs and the requests that we’re getting are for agency of records and it’s much more rare that we’re getting a campaign based request.” And what’s being asked in those briefs show just how far creator marketing has evolved. It’s no longer just sponsored stories and product placement deals. It’s episodic content on YouTube developed with creators at the table. It’s bringing creator thinking upstream into brand platforms. The platforms still matter, of course — but they’re just one part of a broader, more integrated approach. The playbook has grown up. So have the budgets. Brands are now spending between $1.5 million and $2 million on these creator agencies of record deals, according to execs interviewed for this article. It’s the type of investment that comes with expectations — and infrastructure to match.  “I think the creator AOR is no longer like a nice to have add-on for these larger portfolio businesses and larger CPG brands,” said Bent. “It’s really a fundamental requirement for building genuine connections driving measurable impact.” Cynics might call this industry hype. But recent claims suggest otherwise. Zola’s CMO Birana Severson recently said she;s doubling down on creators to offset potential search traffic declines. L’Oreal’s global media director Karla Velez noted at MAD/Fest in London that creator content works best with upper-funnel brand building. And Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun recently pegged the U.S. creator economy as a $30 billion addressable ad market. “With that bigger investment, then comes the C-suite,” said Harman. “And with the C-suite comes a much more strategic conversation, and it has to be scaled, because most big brands need scale.” When spending scales, the model does too. In some cases, creator agencies of records are replacing traditional social agencies. In others, they’re working in lockstep with creative and media shops — wedging themselves deeper into the core marketing stack.  “They’re [creator agencies of record] working in tandem for the most part,” said Natalie Silverstein, chief innovation officer at Collectively. “And it depends on the opportunity, but sometimes the original creative ideas are generated by a creator agency, not the creative agency. And sometimes it’s a collaboration. It really just depends.” Like mobile, social, and programmatic, the path to legitimacy for creators has followed a predictable arc: first came skepticism, then testing, then a wave of brands deciding they’d figure it out in-house. Eventually, the conclusion settled in: this is bigger than a trend and not something to wing. So now, the industry is doing what it always does — bringing in the infrastructure to manage the thing that used to feel unmanageable.  “This is what the C-suite is asking for now,” said Ratner. “Before we’d be working with social teams. Now, it’s coming from the top down. They’re telling us they need a serious and robust influencer presence that not only helps the brand break through, but it also drives performance.” https://digiday.com/?p=583731 More in Marketing Read More

By Kimeko McCoy  •  July 21, 2025  • Ivy Liu Between the TikTok ban and the tariffs eating into marketing budgets, the first half of the year was full of growing pains in the creator economy. As the second half of 2025 shifts into focus, trends in how brands spend and creators monetize are coming into full view. Amid the so-called cultural wars, marketers are pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusivity-driven campaigns, disproportionately impacting multicultural creators. Meanwhile, lifestyle and mid-sized influencers are feeling the squeeze as brands prioritize micro and niche content creators. Simultaneously, the creator lifespan has increasingly been a talking point on the heels of the TikTok ban, forcing creators to think about building businesses off-platform. The creator economy is taking in more ad spend than ever — as U.S. brands are expected to shell out $13.7 billion on influencer marketing by 2027, according to eMarketer. But as it continues to mature, the emphasis is less on virality and more on strategy for survival.  DEI pullback ripple effects in the creator economy  Over the past year, the backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion has reached a fever pitch and brands have been quietly pulling out of Black History Month, Pride and other heritage month activations. While creators of color say they’ve been overlooked for brand deals for a while as the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 has fallen out of the cultural zeitgeist, they feel the topic has taken even more of a backset after the Trump administration’s DEI dismantling earlier this year. “This is how politics plays into our daily lives. You can’t separate them—especially myself as a Black, queer individual,” said actor, creator and comedian Kalen Allen. Allen, who served as a guest host on The Ellen Show, said creators from historically marginalized communities have historically had to work “twice as hard” as their counterparts. Now more than ever.  Allen isn’t alone. Steven Sharpe Jr., a Black creative director and content strategist, said he has seen a shift in how brands choose to divvy up their marketing dollars. “A lot of those brands have shifted their marketing to include less people of color, less black creators,” he said. Sharpe said there’s been a slowdown in brand deals that cross his desk, pointing to the DEI pullback, uncertainty around the TikTok ban and tightening marketing budgets. In the first half of 2025, the lifestyle and wellness creator had approximately eight or nine brand partnerships, a decrease from the estimated 15 to 20 he had during the same period last year. As the second half of this year gets underway, he’s lined up two contracts when there’d normally be four to five, he said. Rise of micro and niche influencers Influencer spend is increasingly going to micro and niche creators, who marketers have said drive better engagement, brand lift and sentiment. As brands prioritize micro and niche creators, mid-tier and lifestyle creators say they’re feeling the squeeze and struggling to scoop up their fair share of brand spend. But in the do-more-with-less era, marketers are becoming more selective about which influencers they work with, looking less for reach and more for a clear return on investment. “These creators bring a level of authenticity and trust that’s hard to replicate at the macro level, where audiences are often oversaturated and less responsive,” said Gregory Curtis Jr., director of influencer strategy at Empower Media.  It’s part of a growing trend as brands look for more control in striking deals with influencers and creators, said Danielle Wiley, founder of influencer marketing shop Sway Group. Wiley told Digiday that clients have asked for everything from young, male bodybuilders who talk to the camera during their content creation process in the gym to contractors who specialize in HVAC. “It keeps getting more and more specific — the asks of who the influencers are,” she said.  Between changes to marketing budgets, mysterious algorithms and the TikTok ban, monetization beyond the social platforms has become a bigger selling point for creators — and opportunity for marketers. Creators like Allen and Joshua Williford, a full-time creator who goes by The Rapping Chef, have started exploring business streams like product launches and on-air hosting. As of late, Williford’s platform playouts have been slashed. In the past, Williford would pull in anywhere up to $4,000 in a month on TikTok, he said. This month on TikTok, he made $13. “These videos and these brand deals, it’s not going to last forever,” said Williford.  Call it the Mr. Beast route. The influencer launched a snack brand, Feastables, and a television show called “Beast Games” on Amazon Prime Video, marking a path to success beyond social media for creators—and an investment opportunity for marketers. Creators’ presence in Hollywood is growing with YouTubers like Mr. Beast and Michelle Khare at the helm, offering marketers yet another ad opportunity on a greater scale. Allen too has shifted his way of thinking about monetization, opting to strike brand deals to fund aspirations for owned projects. Back in May, Allen graduated from New York University with a Master’s in Journalism in hopes to launch his own talk show, he said. “If you want to survive in this industry, you have to always be thinking long term. You have to always be thinking five and 10 years ahead,” Allen said.  https://digiday.com/?p=583675 More in Marketing Read More

Amid an uncertain economy, some marketers are reconsidering their former dependence on performance strategies. They’re not cutting back on digital, though. Instead, they’re running with an updated playbook layering CTV, creator marketing and audio on top of search and social. Consider the case of Opensky, a financial services brand that offers secured credit cards to customers with poor credit ratings. The company operates in a tight, competitive and regulated market in which growth is hard to come by; new customers often come through affiliates, raising its customer acquisition costs and chipping away at Opensky’s margin. Furthermore, zero-click search is beginning to alter the journey taken by the customers that do come directly. The solution? Expanding its appeal to a new class of customers by repositioning and launching its first-ever brand campaign in April utilizing a full battery of digital and programmatic channels, from CTV to digital display, audio and paid social, as well as creator activity.  “We are no longer a secure card business. We are a credit-building business, and our mission is to be the most trusted credit building partner for every person in America,” said CMO JJ Kaye. He declined to disclose the campaign’s media spend. Key to reaching new customers was a partnership with DSP Quantcast using lookalike modeling to target a broader audience base without violating the strict advertising regulations surrounding banking products. “That is allowing us to compete on a much larger level,” said Kaye. So far it’s paid off. Customer acquisition for its secured card products rose 142%, while its conversion rate doubled. Kaye’s approach at Opensky is one example of a broader trend taking hold among marketers. Formerly besotted with performance media’s supposed accountability relative to traditional media like linear TV, CMOs are rediscovering the importance of brand awareness. But it doesn’t mean they’re relinquishing any of their digital media spending. Recent IAB research found search advertising remains the industry’s largest segment, accounting for $102.9 billion of worldwide ad revenues, and digital display some $74.3 billion.  Having a full funnel strategy is now ‘table stakes’ The Honey Pot, a premium menstrual care brand, has faced a similar challenge to Opensky. The company previously relied on mid-funnel and performance channels like retail media networks, paid search and social. But according to Anne Thompson, the brand’s CMO of one year, if it’s to find more growth it’ll need to expand the boundaries of its own category. “Lower-funnel tactics just won’t work. If you’re not even aware that a whole class of products exists, you really need something that taps into your value system and engages you,” said Thompson. Guided by agency AKQA, its response has been to run a new campaign on streaming TV, YouTube, Spotify and digital out-of-home (DOOH). “We’re not a big, established brand that’s trying to eke out a percentage point. We’re trying to double the size of the company in the next couple years,” she said. Thompson also declined to share the campaign’s budget. The Honey Pot and Opensky aren’t the only brands building out digital upper-funnel channels to their media plans in recent months. “Advertisers know they can’t just be performance partners. You will run out of headroom, it will lack incrementality,” said Carly Carson, head of integrated media at agency PMG. “And so having a full-funnel strategy is [now] table stakes.” To borrow a phrase from British politics, it’s a “cakeist” strategy: one that looks to satisfy marketers’ desire for reach, engagement and measurement, all at the same time. For another example, consider running shoes brand Hoka. After a period of rapid expansion, it’s locked in a close rivalry with competitor On for the loyalty and wallets of the world’s running enthusiasts. In an attempt to emphasize its positioning as a friend to runners and running communities (as well as recruit younger consumers to the brand), Hoka has just launched a summer brand campaign playing on its usual digital suspects — Instagram, Tiktok, Strava, Meta, LinkedIn and X — while pumping the gas pedal on Netflix, YouTube Select, Fire TV, Amazon and Hulu Live Sports.  “CTV continues to be a powerful growth driver for our brand storytelling, and we’re doubling down on this momentum with the launch of [the campaign],” said Erika Gabrielli, vp of global marketing at Hoka. “This is our biggest campaign investment to date,” she added, but also declined to provide specifics. Gabrielli said the company was also experimenting with YouTube’s “Peak Points” ad product, a feature that inserts ad units at the moment of a video judged to be the most engaging for users. Experian’s marketers have been thinking in similar terms. The financial services company floated a new brand platform in June, its first major refresh in nine years. The intention was to better “lay the foundation around the Experian brand”, Steve Hartmann, head of integrated marketing for Experian Consumer Services, told Digiday upon the campaign’s launch. Its campaign heavily focused on digital video channels, including Netflix, Roku, TikTok, Snapchat and Meta, as well as creator marketing. Experian’s strategy also includes a major live sports component that means it’s keeping one foot in linear for now; the company launched the campaign during ESPN and ABC’s coverage of the NBA playoffs and will be running ads against college football coverage come autumn. But its media plan becomes more digital with each passing year. Hartmann estimated it currently spends 50% of its budget on streaming and CTV, versus linear. “We’re shifting into CTV pretty considerably,” he said (but declined to offer a dollar amount). ‘Advertisers are still keeping a focus on what is measurable’ There’s good reason for advertisers that previously relied on performance media to now turn toward upper-funnel media channels and brand-building campaigns. Powerful brands prove their worth for companies navigating an uncertain economy — U.S. consumer confidence fell in June — for firms fighting off competition from rivals or which are attempting to expand their consumer category. In recent years major brands like Airbnb and Nike have forsworn their former dependence on

By Sara Jerde  •  July 21, 2025  • To launch a new sparkling water in the U.S., Nestlé Waters turned to the country’s most well-known “love affair” with Italy (as the brand’s global CMO puts it): The Sopranos. The campaign — featuring Sopranos stars Michael Imperioli (Christopher) and Steve Schirripa (Bobby) — highlighted “the craft” of creating the new beverage, Sanpellegrino CIAO!, from harvested citrus in Sicily, said Elisa Gregori, who was promoted six months ago to global CMO Nestlé Waters & Premium Beverages. The ad, in partnership with Ogilvy, won a Bronze Lion at Cannes for Film Craft (Script), and was shortlisted for Film (Microfilm) this year. TikTok — this f****n’ guy While TikTok still faces a pending ban in the U.S., Gregori said building content for the short-form video platform flexes “a new muscle” that the brand hasn’t quite figured out. And the team is hesitating to do so because of the pending ban and because the channel creates the need for a specific type of content to be successful — “the way TikTok should be done,” Gregori said. And though TikTok is reportedly building a standalone app for the U.S., there’s still too much up in the air to make the channel a must for Nestlé Waters & Premium Beverages content. “We are not actively building this content creation up because of the uncertainty on what is going to be the future,” Gregori said. Instead the team, is keeping an eye on what happens “to understand if the race is on or not.” AI? Fuggedaboutit. Active in more than 100 markets, Gregori acknowledged that AI is “critical” to adapting campaigns to be fast and efficient. For this campaign, however, Nestlé Waters was flexible enough to storyboard and film material that AI did not infiltrate the creative process. “When it comes to pure advertising and craft, we still wanted to have a lot of human touch,” she said, noting that the former Sopranos cast members helped celebrate the Lion win in Cannes. “Those guys were incredibly fun and there was nothing we could have anticipated with the machine [learning] because it was part of their creative process of being there and playing with these characters,” she said. “It was like their playground.” How [you doin’?] to introduce a new brand to crowded shelves “Launching a new product is tougher than ever,” said Luis Miguel Messianu, co-founder & CCO, MEL, a creative agency, in an email. “Companies are facing volatile markets, supply chain headaches, fast-changing technology, and rising expectations from consumers who want brands to stand for something real and honest.” It’s not an easy time to stand out from the noise, particularly in a volatile and divided geopolitical climate and as President Trump continues his tariffs war. “We recognize that the situation can be quite heavy at the moment for some of the U.S.,” Gregori said. “This is about bringing some light-hearted messaging, bringing you the sun. We’re bringing you the Italian air. A moment of humor.” Execs saw a competitive advantage by introducing a campaign that was “true to the DNA” of the brand, harnessing celebrity status and nostalgia. The U.S. campaign generated over 1.2 billion earned media impressions across 74 placements, and over 840 million digital impressions, according to the brand. Nestlé Waters began running the campaign in April across a variety of channels: Amazon Prime to dabble in entertainment and introduce the brand, investments on Meta, and billboards in New York to remind consumers as harvest season ramped up this year. Gregori didn’t share details of the exact spend, but said the brand’s investments matched the production cycle of the product itself. Retail media spend specifically fluctuates to more than one third of the brand’s overall spend during harvest season, Gregori said, without revealing sales revenue. The beverage has been on shelves in the U.S. since February. Todd Sommers, president, ad agency O.H. Partners, conceded that the beverage aisle and its new products can be “overwhelming” to consumers — but strategies including brand collaborations, new OOH formats and loyalty programs could help win over customers. “With the increasing adoption of self-checkout and at-home delivery services, product discovery is even more challenging,” said Sommers. “Brands and retailers need to explore new ways to engage consumers and provide value.”   https://digiday.com/?p=583587 More in Marketing Read More

Nokia and HMD Global started to part ways last year, which included de-listing Nokia-branded phones from hmd.com and replacing most with corresponding HMD-branded models. But the Nokia brand may live on in the phone world if the Finnish company finds another partner. On the Nokia sub-reddit, a Nokia Community Manager posted that the company is