To B, or not to B (Corp)? That is the question that advertising agencies seem to be asking themselves these days.

In recent months, Minneapolis agency Colle McVoy and global network Wieden+Kennedy both became certified B Corps. Other agencies that have joined the B Corp movement in the last couple years include Dutch agency Dept, UK agency Manifest, and Havas New York.

The B Corp certification was created by the nonprofit network B Lab as a way to progress toward an “inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.” To qualify for the designation, businesses must prove they meet a certain threshold for policies in governance, workers, community, environment, and customers.

According to agency executives who have gone through the process, it’s no small feat and requires constantly thinking about recertification, which happens every three years, as well as paying an annual fee. So what’s driving them to do it?

Marketing Brew spoke to executives from Colle McVoy, Wieden+Kennedy, and Havas New York about the process, the benefits, and the costs of B Corp certification. Read more about what they told us here.—KH

Campaigns come and go, but a few impactful ones make big waves in the deep, wide sea we call marketing. And before we get too philosophical (too late?), you should know that Vimeo is chatting with Semrush about how their latest campaign made an unforgettable splash.

Vimeo hosted Semrush’s Andrew Warden, CMO, and Olga Andrienko, VP of Brand Marketing, to discuss all the details behind the timeline, development, and distribution of their hit campaign video series: My Life, My Terms—The Future of Work.

Learn the risks and rewards of using real customers vs. actors, how B2B campaigns can leverage B2C tactics, the value of remaining ~real~, and what the future holds for this successful series.

Watch their chat for all the insights.

Band-Aid is stuck at the top.

The brand scored the highest net trust rating among US consumers for the second year in a row, according to Morning Consult’s Most Trusted Brands report. The report is based on data gathered earlier this year from Morning Consult’s Brand Intelligence platform, which asks thousands of adults across the US how much they trust each brand “to do what is right.”

UPS was also once again on the top 10 list, moving from fourth place last year to second place this year.

In fact, six of this year’s top 10 most trusted brands also appeared on the list last year, indicating that trust is a metric that doesn’t change much year to year, according to the report.

That’s good news for brands with high net trust. But for those that don’t, it seems their work is cut out for them, especially among Gen Z. Read more here.—AM

Google Ads is getting into the generative AI game. On Tuesday, the company unveiled products that it says will inject generative AI into its advertising business, like copywriting tools and image generators.

Perhaps most notably, it also released further details on how ads will fit into its new generative-AI search engine, something it’s calling the Search Generative Experience, which is currently available via waitlist. These ads will largely appear above or below the generative text spit out by the search engine, all labeled with a “sponsored” tag. At the moment, advertisers also won’t be able to opt in or out of the new search inventory, and the kind of ads users see will depend on the specific search query, Dan Taylor, Google’s VP of global ads, said during a press briefing.

Search is no slouch for Google—the company’s “search and other” category raked in nearly $40 billion last quarter, and its search engine commands a 91% market share in the US, according to SimilarWeb. Google first announced its search engine’s generative-AI facelift during the company’s I/O conference earlier this month, on the heels of its first real search competitor in decades: Microsoft and its ChatGPT-charged Bing.

For now, search ads within its conversational AI search engine are largely “experiments within an experiment,” Taylor said, alluding to a new program called Search Labs, where Google is testing this tech.

Read more about Google’s plans for AI and ads here.—RB

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

The state of things: Here’s the 2023 State of Digital report from Luma Partners.

Let’s build: Here are the biggest announcements from Microsoft Build 2023, according to The Verge.

Higher and higher: Save this infographic of 29 SEO tips to improve local Google rankings.

Loyalty is everything: Julie Bornstein turned that motto into millions with Sephora’s Beauty Insider program. Here’s how she did it.

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Recommendations: Restaurants in Manhattan are the new nightclubs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Popular portmanteau: The concept of greedflation—the “idea that corporate thirst for profits drives up inflation,” not wages, per Axios—is gaining ground among policymakers and economists alike.

Read: Brands like McDonald’s, P&G, Coca-Cola, and GM shared with Ad Age how they are spending on Black-owned media.

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

• Skift CEO Rafat Ali on the company’s new AI chatbot
• Details on Instagram’s not-yet-released Twitter competitor
• This company uses cameras to track fans’ attention at NFL games