Brands are leaving Twitter, but the data they’re sharing with the platform could still be flowing.

Following Elon Musk’s takeover, brands including Pfizer, Chipotle, and Volkswagen have all publicly said they’re pausing ads on the platform.

• However, those same brands appeared to still be sharing data with Twitter as of late November through the use of what’s called a tracking pixel, according to ad-tech researcher and founder of Adalytics, Krzysztof Franaszek, who crawled more than 70,000 sites to see which brands still had Twitter’s tracking pixel installed.
• Other companies, including a who’s who of advertisers like Spotify, Amazon, and Disney, also appeared to still use Twitter’s pixel, per Franaszek’s research, though they have not paused advertising on the platform, according to ad spend data collected by advertising analytics company Pathmatics.
• We reached out to several brands that Adalytics research indicated had the pixel installed while not running ads on Twitter. Only Hyundai, Stellantis, and Volkswagen replied. Marketing Brew also reached out to Twitter, though the company no longer has a communications department.

Big picture: Though the advertising industry’s concerns about Twitter’s new ownership have focused largely on brand safety and content moderation on the platform, the widespread continued use of Twitter’s pixel and the data it collects could raise data and security concerns after several senior privacy and security employees recently left the company.

Though pixels are ubiquitous—advertisers use them to measure the success of online ads—they can also collect a ton of data, like what someone clicks on, their payment information, and their IP address.

• “Twitter is able to gather data about not only its own users, but also about consumers who have never had any direct relationship with the Twitter platform” via its pixel, Franaszek wrote in a blog post. He also noted that third-party code, when vulnerable, can leave advertisers open to “rogue actors.”
• “At this point, the data concerns are the unknown,” Heidi Saas, an attorney who focuses primarily on data privacy, said. “If businesses do decide to leave Twitter, they need to actually make sure they did in fact leave Twitter.”

Click here to keep reading.—RB

Ah, Thanksgiving. If it already feels like a distant memory, that’s probably because you didn’t do much besides eat four plates of food, get into a fight about politics with a relative, and take three naps—all with the TV on.

All together now: From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the National Dog Show to football games, Turkey Day TV makes Thanksgiving one of the remaining few days on the calendar where advertisers can reliably find big audiences all day long. And if broadcasters can stack programming on a live-viewing juggernaut day like Turkey Day, they can attract more advertiser interest.

• On Thanksgiving Day, NBCUniversal reached 40% of the ad market, or around 100 million viewers, according to iSpot figures. Over the course of the entire weekend, the broadcaster said ads on its channels and platforms reached more than 50% of US adults, or 128 million people.

“It is that appointment viewing where everyone sits down together,” Mark Marshall, NBCUniversal’s president, advertising and client partnerships, told us. “In a time where scale is harder and harder to find, this is one of those areas where you can find appointment TV where people are sitting down together and watching.”

Read the full story here.—KS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Look back: TikTok’s list of what trended on For You pages around the world this year.

Look ahead: Instagram surveyed Gen Z to find out which trends they think will be most important next year.

Ew, David: Why “gross-out marketing” can actually be effective.

Moving on: Nostalgia has dominated pop culture and advertising for the last decade. What’s old became new—a story as old as time itself. But are we at a tipping point? Read mntn’s new article to find out.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Morning Consult published its Fastest Growing Brands report for 2022, which measures growth in purchasing consideration over the past year. It’s the company’s slowest Fastest Growing Brands report to date, apparently because “historic inflation kneecapped purchasing consideration.”

Two of a kind: Morning Consult created five different lists of fastest-growing brands: one for all US adults, and one for each generation. No brand scored a spot on every generation’s list, a change from years prior, but Meta and Crocs almost did.

• Meta and Crocs both landed in the top 20 fastest-growing brands for all US adults, millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers, but Gen Z ruined the streak.
• Across all US adults, brands including Beats by Dre, Milwaukee Tool, and Zelle made the top 10.

Gen Z’s picks: So which brands saw purchasing consideration accelerate among the youngest generation in the report? We’ll give you a minute to guess…

• Roku, Grand Theft Auto, and Beats by Dre took the top three spots.
• Discord, Hinge, and Heinz also placed in the top 20, as did Google Sheets (Gen Z is on that spreadsheet grind), Citi, and Bank of America.
• A few travel brands made Gen Z’s list as well.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Have we hit peak nostalgia?
• Victoria’s Secret’s road to redemption is a lesson in shifting brand perception
• Are companies second-guessing branded swag as gifts?