One sure sign that brands recognize the importance of customer reviews is how aggressively Amazon and Google have sued companies that sell fake ones. Even more of a premium: Reviews with photos—which, with clothing in particular, can help shoppers visualize how something will look on them when they see a reviewer with a similar body type modeling it—and as a result reduce the likelihood they’ll return the items.

Eight in 10 Americans find photos in product reviews from other customers more helpful than the brand’s product photos, according to a survey from Power Reviews. One-third of Gen Z and about one-fifth of millennials won’t purchase a product online if it has no images or videos from other purchasers, according to the study.

But a new academic study finds that when it comes to clothing, plus-sized consumers, due to “social and cultural stigma,” are less likely than other consumers to leave any reviews, and even less likely to leave reviews with photos.

Keep reading here.—AAN

Black Friday may be typically associated with shoppers heading into stores, but this year consumers relied on online shopping in a big way.

Online sales on Black Friday rose 7% YoY to hit $17.5 billion in the US, Salesforce data showed. Global sales grew at a slower pace at 5% YoY to $74.4 billion.

Salesforce tracks more than 1.5 billion consumers across Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud, which power the backend of retail websites like Saks, L’Oréal, Yeti, and Decathlon.

Separately, Shopify, the tech company that builds e-commerce stores, helped its merchants crush it this holiday season. Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke took to X to report $5 billion in online sales on Black Friday globally and that peak sales per minute on that day were $4.6 million.

The tech giant did not share a number for sales in the US. But, it said, top selling categories of items in the US on Nov. 29 included T-shirts, skin care, vitamins and supplements, makeup, and hoodies. The average cart price in the US was $154.26, Shopify said.

Keep reading here.—VC

AI is coming for everything, even the Coca-Cola polar bears.

Recently, Coca-Cola joined brands like Toys R Us and Under Armour and dove into the AI ad game, this time with a series of remakes of the soft-drink brand’s nostalgic “Holidays Are Coming” spot from 1995.

Coke released three separate 60-second commercials, each produced by a different production studio, but all of which share the same smooth, AI aesthetic that, love it or hate it, has become identifiable with the technology’s use in creative production.

Keep reading here on Marketing Brew.—RB