Google, Meta, and Amazon walk into a bar. Just kidding, an advertising event.

This week, representatives from the three largest advertising platforms in the US, dubbed the “triopoly,” talked shop about everybody’s favorite hype cycle, AI. They were speaking at an event hosted by the IAB’s Tech Lab, which is geared more towards the ad-tech crowd than your average advertising conference.

Reminder: Since late April, there’s been a slew of AI-infused advertising investments and announcements from all three companies.

• Google rolled out a suite of advertising tools that use generative AI.
• So did Meta.
• Amazon said it was updating its demand-side platform with “more advanced machine learning models.”

Historically, AI has largely been “quietly working in the background,” Dan Taylor, Google’s VP of ads, explained. He pointed to predictive AI, which can help advertisers with things like conversion modeling or predicting outcomes for a campaign. Now, the rise of generative AI, which crafts output that people can “see and feel,” has pushed the topic to the forefront.

Neal Richter, director of advertising science at Amazon DSP, noted that most of these AI tools, as the announcements listed above suggest, have largely benefited the buy side—media agencies and advertisers. He also wondered how long it’ll be before the industry sees automated media plans.

Continue reading here.—RB

Despite what the internet may tell you, building a successful DTC empire doesn’t happen overnight. Once you’ve established a customer base, success can often boil down to two things: customer engagement and loyalty, two of the hardest things to earn as a new brand.

Retail Brew connected with top retailers—Mejuri, Casper, and Peloton—to talk about the marketing strategies they use to keep customers coming back and spreading the word. If you work in retail, this guide is for you. Download it now.

Twitch walked back a new set of branded content guidelines it unveiled on Tuesday after creators who use the Amazon-owned platform voiced concerns about how these changes could impact their income.

The original guidelines, which were supposed to go into effect on July 1, contained restrictions regarding “burned-in” ads, or those that are placed directly within a stream. Specifically, it banned burned-in video, display, and audio ads. The new terms also limited on-screen logos to 3% of the total screen size.

Certain streamers panned the new guidelines, saying Twitch was hurting creators by limiting their income. “Twitch is changing sponsorship guidelines to be so restrictive that it makes it near impossible for streamers to even advertise. The way I pay for my shows and events are through sponsorships, and this actively makes it more difficult for everyone to make content,” tweeted Eric Morino, who goes by @PointCrow.

On Wednesday, Twitch took to Twitter to issue a retraction of the guidelines. “Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming. These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately.”

Keep reading here.—JS

Each week, Marketing Brew recaps what people are talking about on social media, the trends that took over our feeds, and how marketers are responding.

In the bag: This one goes out to all the girls who used to steal the free makeup bags their moms got from department stores. Ulta is giving away free, hot-pink “summer totes” with select purchases, and people on TikTok are eating it up. Free bags = seemingly free content for the beauty store.

A meme-nt like this: At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference this week, the company revealed its plans to release a $3,500 product straight out of Black Mirror called the Vision Pro, which will let people view their screen content using goggles. It didn’t take long for the headset to be memed to death, but Apple may still get the last laugh if this thing ends up being anything like the Apple Watch, which bore the brunt of the criticism a decade ago. Either way, keep the memes coming.

Baby Gronk is the new Drip King? Yeah, we also heard this phrase this week, and we don’t care to look much into it.—KH

This goes out to all the entrepreneurs. Paysafe is coming through with extremely relevant resources for SMBs. Check their Small Business Resources blog to learn about:

• Using soft skills as a social strategy for small-business owners
• Smartphone tips and tricks for small-business owners
• Scaling your small-business content

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

Find an audience: Nielsen shared research on ways to engage the LGBTQ+ community.

Tube tips: 10 ways to sharpen your marketing strategy on YouTube.

Be mindful: Tips for brands posting about Juneteenth on social media.

Stories we’re jealous of.

• The New York Times wrote about why we have a tendency to brand the summer.
• Vice did an investigation into whether Mark Zuckerberg was actually choked unconscious in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match.
• The New Yorker mused on what Chris Licht’s departure from CNN could mean for cable news.

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

• CNN’s CEO exits in latest network shakeup
• Why Gatorade is expanding its marketing beyond superstar athletes
• The Trade Desk wants advertisers to know that, like almost everyone else, it also uses AI