- Google Ads rolls out Asset Studio beta: The new tool positions Google Ads as a built-in creative hub, streamlining how advertisers produce and scale ad assets with AI.
- Cloudflare’s Pay Per Crawl campaign from an SEO-led PR perspective: Cloudflare turned a bold idea into a market-defining move – earning 2,000+ backlinks, lifting branded searches, and shaping AI visibility.
- Walmart’s booming ad business provides ‘flexibility’ amid tariff impact: Continued momentum for retail media offerings like Connect is helping drive profits and will remain “obviously key,” executives said.
- Marketing to American soccer fans: Here’s what the numbers say: Approximately 75% of Americans are interested in soccer, with 45% saying their interest is increasing, according to data from The Harris Poll.
- Downy tells ‘Almost Scandalously Soft Stories’ for Spotify campaign: The P&G brand is tapping into the growing popularity around audiobook romances with four stories that position freshness as a sensorial escape.
- Instagram Adds Reels Linking for Multipart Content: Now you can create longer narratives via Reels clips.
- Meta Rolls Out Changes to Its Ad Billing Settings: Meta will now charge you at launch for your campaigns.
- X Publishes Guide to NFL Engagement and Opportunities: New insights to help you plan for the upcoming NFL season.
- TikTok Joins INTA Counterfeit Goods Education Initiative: TikTok will look to expand its efforts to combat fake product listings.
- YouTube Adds Artists Engagement Options to Music: Some new additions to mark YouTube Music’s 10th birthday.
- Google Expands AI Mode to More Regions: Google is also rolling out more AI search elements.
- Meta Adds More AI-Powered Ad Options for Holiday Planning: A range of new AI-powered ad tools and improved creator collaboration features.
- Former Dollar General exec to return for CFO post: Donny Lau is rejoining the discount retailer after a nearly three-year absence to replace Kelly Dilts, who is leaving to become Nordstrom’s CFO.
- Target fulfillment operations closure impacts 200 Indianapolis employees: A spokesperson said the retailer is adjusting what operations it performs at the facility as it continues to evolve its supply chain.
- Inside the latest e-commerce packaging trends: The rapid growth of e-commerce is changing how consumers purchase and receive goods, and it’s also forcing changes to product packaging.
- Wilson CEO to step down: Joe Dudy is exiting the chief executive role after spending three decades at Wilson and parent company Amer Sports.
- Walmart Realm adds new digital storefronts to woo Gen Z, Gen Alpha: The immersive shopping experiences blend content and commerce to facilitate product discovery.
- Can Target’s new CEO hit the bullseye? The retailer’s board believes a company veteran can promote much needed change. Now, Michael Fiddelke has to prove himself to others.
- Gap dances with Katseye to ‘Milkshake’ for denim-focused fall campaign: “Better in Denim” nods to the early aughts and return of low-rise denim and will span social media, in-store, influencer partnerships and more.
- Crocs appoints 2 new CMOs to level up creative strategy – WWD: Crocs and Heydude are getting new marketing chiefs as they double down on storytelling, with the latter looking to build on a brand awareness bump.
- Applebee’s sharper marketing turned around sales ahead of NFL season: The casual dining chain recently achieved positive same-store sales growth for the first time in two years.
- Beyond rebrands to Bed Bath & Beyond: The parent company is taking on the name of one its brands at a corporate level and changing its trading symbol back to BBBY.
- Lowe’s $8.8B acquisition aims to strengthen pro business: The deal with Foundation Building Materials comes about two months after the retailer closed on its acquisition of Artisan Design Group.
- Claire’s strikes $140M private equity takeover deal, pauses store liquidations: The bankrupt tween accessories retailer had plans to shutter at least 700 stores — possibly twice that — and now most will remain open.
- Instagram Considers Counting Screenshots in Its Engagement Metrics: A new consideration for your IG strategy?
- TikTok Implements Hashtag Limit: The move seemingly aims to improve the presentation of clips in-stream.
- Apple to Kick Off Three-Year Plan to Reinvent Its Iconic iPhone: Apple will lay the foundation for a once-in-a-generation iPhone overhaul at its next product launch event. The company has planned three straight years of major iPhone redesigns. The plan starts with the iPhone Air, a skinny new model that follows the MacBook Air laptop strategy. Apple’s first foldable iPhone will arrive in 2026. 2027 will see the iPhone’s 20th birthday and the introduction of a curved-glass ‘iPhone 20’.
- Elon Musk takes aim at Bill Gates’ Microsoft with new AI venture “Macrohard”: Elon Musk’s new software venture, Macrohard, is a purely AI software company designed to generate hundreds of specialized coding and generative AI agents that could one day simulate products from companies like Microsoft entirely through artificial intelligence. The company appears to be closely linked to xAI’s Colossus 2 supercomputer project in Memphis. Musk has confirmed plans to acquire millions of Nvidia GPUs. Colossus is already one of the most powerful supercomputer clusters in the world, and it is still being expanded.
- The next Starship flight will test much more than hardware: SpaceX has planned for a controlled splashdown for Super Heavy in the Gulf of Mexico and an Indian Ocean splashdown for Ship for the next Starship test flight. The launch window for the flight opened on August 24 at 7:30 PM, but the launch was scrubbed 30 minutes from the planned liftoff to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems. SpaceX has beach and road closures scheduled for Monday and Tuesday all day, so it is highly likely it will reattempt a launch very soon.
- Meta’s New 2mm Laser Display Could Enable True AR Glasses: Meta researchers have found a new use for photonic integrated circuits (PICs), chips that can receive, modulate, and direct light. Their PICs can receive RGB light from laser light sources integrated into a panel, process it, then shine light onto a liquid crystal on a silicon panel for final display. The overall complex is just two millimeters thick and has a dramatically better color gamut over similar displays. These PICs are manufactured using a CMOS-compatible process, which means they should be affordable to create at scale.
- Meta to unveil Hypernova smart glasses with a display, wristband at Connect next month: Meta plans to launch its first consumer-ready glasses with a display at its annual Connect conference next month. The company will also launch a wristband that will allow users to control the glasses with hand gestures. The glasses, which will feature a small digital display in the right lens, are expected to cost about $800. They will be solid in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, with which Meta has been in partnership since 2021, when the two companies released the first-generation Ray-Ban Stories.
- Coinbase CEO explains why he fired engineers who didn’t try AI immediately: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently fired engineers for not signing up for and testing the AI assistants the company purchased licenses for. The firings sent a clear message that AI isn’t optional at the company. Armstrong has since leaned even further into AI training. The company hosts monthly meetings where teams that have mastered creative ways to use AI share what they have learned.
- The AirPods Pro 3 are rumored to launch this year with heart rate monitoring, a feature Apple already introduced on the Powerbeats Pro 2 earlier this year.
- You should buy a faster CPU: Today’s top-end CPUs are about three times faster than comparable top-end models from three years ago.
- The Airbnb cofounder who just became the US’ chief design officer is using the Apple Store’s style as his north star.
- Donald Trump recently appointed Joe Gebbia, a cofounder and former chief product officer of Airbnb, as the US’ first chief design officer.
- Bluesky goes dark in Mississippi over age verification law.
- Serena Williams goes public with GLP-1 use in new campaign.
- Instagram adds retention metrics for Reels.
- Hertz is selling used cars on Amazon.
- LEGO Ideas chocolate factory channels the creative spirit of Willy Wonka.
- Ikea’s most Ikea product ever? This meatball plate.
- Data shows that emotional ads increase sales for high-price, high-quality products, while informational ads are more effective for low-price, lower-quality products.
- De’Longhi’s high-end coffee machines are technically computers as they do process data, store information, give outputs, and run programs. They also happen to brew coffee. Since U.S. law exempts “computers” from certain tariffs, LOLA MullenLowe agency rebranded the coffee machines as computers. They took bitter tariffs and turned them into a success.
- Zoom stakes the future of its contact center business in AI: The vendor’s ability to support agents with AI, as well as offer agentic AI that can handle calls on its own, are each driving adoption, executives said.
- Instagram Adds Retention and Skip Rate to Reels Insights: Instagram is rolling out a new retention chart in Reels insights, offering creators a visual breakdown of viewer engagement over time. The interactive chart highlights exactly where audiences drop off, helping creators fine-tune content to maintain viewer interest. Alongside this, Instagram will soon replace the view rate metric with a more actionable skip rate, which shows the percentage of viewers who exited the Reel within the first 3 seconds. Together, these tools aim to help creators improve their hooks and retain audiences through the end of their videos. Instagram via Threads.
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TikTok Sees Big Revenue Increase in the UK Market: TikTok’s business is stabilizing outside the U.S.
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IG Chief Says Longer Captions Won’t Increase Reach: Also, a look at those weird, unrelated captions on IG posts.
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Instagram Adds Virtual Pets for Instagram and Horizon Worlds: The tool allows users to create and customize their own virtual pet.
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Elon Outlines Plans to Power-Up xAI, Open Source AI Models: Elon Musk is hoping to significantly boost xAI’s processing power over the next few years.
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CarMax ditches longtime tagline, repositions brand around omnichannel: The “pivotal” brand shift includes ads featuring a comedic house band singing about how CarMax lets customers shop the way they “wanna.”
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White Castle sponsors NIL-focused podcast to engage football fans: The series hosted by sibling football standouts Caleb and Josh Downs will unpack viral trends and the intricacies of brand building.
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Macy’s partners with Amazon for retail ads ahead of holiday season: The retailer will pilot Amazon Retail Ads Service, which allows the tech giant to serve as a third-party provider of ad-serving capabilities.
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Marketing to American soccer fans: Here’s what the numbers say: Approximately 75% of Americans are interested in soccer, with 45% saying their interest is increasing, according to data from The Harris Poll.
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How experiences turn in‑store retail media into real results: Retail media needs to bridge the gap between physical and digital to create a cohesive media ecosystem, writes Sam’s Club’s Harvey Ma.
- Trump says furniture tariffs coming in next 50 days: The president said his administration is conducting an investigation into the sector just days after applying steel and aluminum levies on various household appliances.
- Dillard’s buys a shopping mall: The department store teamed up with mixed-use developer Trademark Property Co. to acquire the 646,000-square-foot Longview Mall in Texas.
- Foot Locker shareholders approve Dick’s Sporting Goods acquisition:While the deal hasn’t closed yet, the two retailers have checked off one more hurdle on their path to a combined business.
- Walmart, Target tout AI plans: The two retail giants are capitalizing on sustained investment in their technology foundations even as they face economic headwinds.
- Urban Outfitters taps Levi’s for its next On Rotation experience: The space aims to infuse “the energy of a vintage flea market” by featuring both new denim styles as well as vintage pieces like its paper bag jeans.
- Lowe’s $8.8B acquisition aims to strengthen pro business: The deal with Foundation Building Materials comes about two months after the retailer closed on its acquisition of Artisan Design Group.
TLDR: Social Media Headlines – 25 August 2025
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Could you perhaps tell me which political party is the ruling party in South Africa?
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Van is hitch-hiking and he gets picked up by a larnie in a merc. After travelling awhile and making small talk, Van asks the larnie what the 3-pointed star on the bonnet is for. The larnie decides to have some fun with Van.
\”Oh, that\’s the sights, you know, for aiming. When I see someone on the side of the road and I want to run him over, I just line him up in the sights.\”