10 Lessons from 2020’s Most Creative Activations; Facebook, the Monopoly?: Thursday’s First Things First

This was not a year that was conducive to brand activations—so there’s a lot to be learned from the few that managed to pull off the impossible and connect with people safely. Adweek’s Ian Zelaya rounded up 10 of the most memorable, creative and impactful activations from the past year, and analyzed what lessons other marketers could draw from them. Adobe, HBO, Showtime, FX Networks and more created incredible events with interactive storytelling, choose-your-own-adventure elements and more.

Experience the magic: Discover how these brands pulled off virtual festivals, drive-in activations and hybrid experiences to connect with consumers.

Leadership in Crisis: In yesterday’s live 150th episode of CMO Moves, Nadine Dietz talked with A-list CMOs Alicia Tillman, Antonio Lucio, Dara Treseder, Linda Boff, Marisa Thalberg, Martin Renaud, Raja Rajamannar and Vineet Mehra, who offered the ultimate playbook for high-powered, empathetic leadership. Watch the episode on demand here.

Exclusive on fastest growing brands: Each year, Morning Consult puts out a list of the brands blowing up in popularity. Last year, before food delivery was even essential, DoorDash topped the list. This year, the brand took fifth place. What’s No. 1? Well, you probably have fatigue from it.

The Federal Trade Commission and 48 states filed separate suits to break up Facebook Wednesday, marking one of the most ambitious antitrust efforts in years. The suits target Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, which they say were illegal measures to stifle competition in the social media marketplace, and seek to force the company to divest from the brands. 

Inside the suits: It doesn’t look good thatMark Zuckerberg once wrote “it is better to buy than compete.”

Google has a new page ranking factor, “Core Web Vitals.” It mostly boils down to gauging the speed of a webpage, but does so based on three metrics: the time for the main content to be viewable, shifting or displacement while the page loads, and the time until the page is interactive. That means it’s high time to ensure that your website performs well on this front. 

Here’s how to find your ranking, plus a few tips for improving it before Core Web Vitals kicks in.

Supply-side platform PubMatic has officially gone public, trading on the Nasdaq under PUBM. The move is likely to be followed by other ad-tech companies like DoubleVerify and AppLovin in what is shaping up to be a wave of “public ad tech 2.0.” As it ushers in a new era in ad tech, we have a couple exclusive looks at PubMatic’s business.:

More ad-tech news: InfoSum has appointed Brian Lesser, who unexpectedly stepped down as CEO of Xandr in March, as CEO as part of an executive makeover following its latest investment round.

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