Chances are high that you’ve seen at least one truck with an ad on the side and assumed the truck was carrying that brand’s products. Chances are also high that wasn’t the case.

Across North America, last-mile delivery trucks in major cities carrying everything from lobsters to appliances are advertising on behalf of brands like Glossier, Crown Affair, Jolie, and Olipop with the help of out-of-home advertising companies like Adgile.

The company, which connects small businesses with unbranded trucks with brands eager to advertise, began operations in 2020 and has since completed more than 400 campaigns. In 2022, Adgile made $1.7 million in revenue, which nearly doubled last year to $3.3 million, according to co-founder and CEO Tom Shea. So far this year, it’s already pulled in $2.5 million, which Shea said is a “big change.”

Much of that change might have to do with the results seen to date. When speaking with recurring clients, Shea told us that “what [he] heard from them was, ‘We like this form of advertising because it’s the only form of advertising that no one knows is a form of advertising.”

We spoke with Shea about the stealthy way that Adgile is looking to change the out-of-home (OOH) industry.

Billboard on wheels: The idea of a “mobile billboard” first came to Shea and his co-founder Max Flannery as a digital screen on the side of an interstate shipping truck. It soon became clear that the costs of digital signage were simply too high to be feasible, so they decided to focus on building an OOH attribution model for static ads and home in on more local markets. But even that came with risks.

“There are a lot of variables that can make something unattractive in this context,” Shea said. “What if [the truck is] on the road four days a week, but it’s only on the road four hours a day? What if it’s only driving during nighttime to avoid city congestion? The average truck is not performing from a return-on-ad-spend or growth marketing perspective.”

Continue reading here.—KH

The trends are wild, but one thing’s for certain: Brands are dead set on getting and keeping new customers. In fact, 61% cite acquisition as a top priority.

There’s more stats where that came from in Customer.io’s State of Lifecycle Marketing report.

They surveyed over 600 brands of every size across various industries—including SaaS, fintech, and healthcare—to get the complete picture of what’s what in lifecycle marketing.

Here’s a sneak peek: Email absolutely reigns in ROI, but that’s not the only channel brands are using to crush the numbers. Wanna know which other channel is showing super-high ROI for 21% of brands?

Read the report to find out.

Doja Cat. Prince. Pixar’s Up. What do these things have in common?

At first glance, not a lot—but they’re all involved in Airbnb’s new Icons category, a collection of overnight stays and experiences that began to roll out at the beginning of May.

As part of the promotion, the short-term rental company is offering users the opportunity to request to book experiences like staying at the house from Prince’s Purple Rain film, visiting a floating home similar to the one featured in Up, and attending a living-room concert from Doja Cat. Icons debuted with 11 experiences, with more to come throughout the summer.

Icons is the latest example of Airbnb using beloved intellectual property to help market its platform and get its user base engaged with experiences, efforts that could also stand to bolster the company’s profile and help differentiate it from competitors.

Continue reading here.—JS

TikTok’s been in the headlines a lot lately: Besides the well-documented potential ban, it’s also planning to lay off a significant portion of its operations and marketing teams, according to The Information.

But the short-form video giant is still looking to court advertisers, and at its TikTok World product summit, the company debuted a new set of ad tools, with some notably focused on generative AI and automation. They mark TikTok’s continued effort to stay relevant to advertisers as competitors like Meta continue to churn out new ad products and lean into AI.

The lowdown: What are the new tools, exactly? TikTok debuted two new hubs, TikTok One and TikTok Symphony.

• The former moves various creative tools, including the previously existing TikTok Creator Marketplace, into one place where brands can access creators and agency partners.
• TikTok Symphony, meanwhile, is a suite of various creative AI tools that can help with tasks like scriptwriting.

To help brands further tap into TikTok’s creator base, the platform also added a Duet feature to its Branded Mission ad product, which lets brands invite TikTokers to collaborate on video content. TikTok also debuted Interactive Add-Ons for TopView, which bring pop-out elements and countdown stickers to the offering. Other new ad tools center around ad automation.

Keep reading here.—JS

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Executive moves across the industry.

• PayPal, which is building out its advertising business, appointed former Uber advertising exec Mark Grether as SVP, general manager, PayPal Ads.
• Smashburger has a new CMO: Thomas Prather, who was previously VP of brand and product marketing at Starbucks.
• The American Cancer Society tapped Dave Lew, a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital marketing alum, as its new CMO.