蘑菇AV

Credit unions have historically championed white-glove service through personalized customer care, a key differentiator. However, the term's vagueness risks inconsistency and superficiality, potentially neglecting internal staff experience and ultimately harming customer service. To truly excel, financial institutions (FIs) must embed human-centric care into their core culture, beyond just outward presentation. This involves training employees in empathy, rewarding complex problem-solving skills, and redesigning products around customer milestones rather than sales. Ultimately, genuine differentiation for FIs lies in authentic financial partnership and a deep understanding of unique customer needs, which larger, less personal entities cannot easily replicate.

The news: The Trump administration is mulling new policies to make pharma advertising more difficult, per a Bloomberg report. Our take: RFK previously acknowledged the First Amendment hurdles in an outright pharma ad ban. But if he takes an alternate path with new D2C ad regulations, it鈥檚 a win for the industry. Pharma companies can budget for extra media costs of additional TV time and the loss of ad tax deductions, but they get to keep D2C advertising.

Despite uncertainty related to the economy and tariffs, US social network ad spending is expected to grow. AI offerings, social commerce, and lower-funnel investments will drive outlays.

The news: In-car voice commerce has the potential to unlock a $35 billion annual opportunity for automakers, according to new research by in-car voice technology provider SoundHound AI. The hands-free tech integrates voice ordering, payments, and navigation directly into vehicles鈥攖ransforming them into mobile commerce hubs that users are already familiar with. Key takeaway: Marketers and advertisers should prepare for a shift in automotive user interface by integrating voice-first campaigns into connected car ecosystems. Opportunities include forging partnerships with automakers and service providers for branded voice experiences, sponsored suggestions, and frictionless ordering while prioritizing transparency to satisfy safety regulators.

The news: Global ad spend growth is slowing but staying positive, with WARC projecting a 6.2% rise to $1.16 trillion in 2025 and MAGNA forecasting a 4.9% climb to $979 billion. Retail media is outpacing linear TV for the first time, and Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon continue to control the majority of digital revenues. Measurable channels like short-form video, retail media, and ad-supported VOD are gaining ground. Our take: Amid economic pressures and trade concerns, advertisers are prioritizing performance, shifting budgets geographically and platform-wise. With elections, AI, and major global events on the horizon, platforms that prove outcomes鈥攏ot impressions鈥攚ill shape the next era.

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The news: As the 2025 economy tightens under the pressure of tariffs, AI disruption, and shifting global trade policy, brands are embracing adaptability. Retail growth forecasts have been slashed, inflation-wary consumers are scaling back, and even luxury sentiment is weakening. Our take: Resilient brands are leaning into agile planning, reallocating media spend to ROI-focused channels like search and digital out-of-home, and anchoring value in trust and quality鈥攏ot just price. As emotional volatility shapes consumer decisions, marketers who show relevance and reassurance will lead. The brands that win won鈥檛 wait for stability鈥攖hey鈥檒l build strategies that succeed amid constant change.

The news: Google is launching Offerwall, a new Ad Manager tool that lets users unlock publisher content through ads, surveys, or payments鈥攑art of a broader effort to mend relationships with publishers facing traffic loss from AI Overviews and eroding ad share. Publishers say Google pays less than rivals like PubMatic and Magnite, and AI-driven zero-click searches have dropped site traffic significantly. Our take: With a DOJ remedies trial looming and ChatGPT traffic rising fast, Google鈥檚 publisher outreach isn鈥檛 just damage control鈥攊t鈥檚 existential. If AI is to remain useful and ethical, supporting the content it鈥檚 trained on is a must.

Perplexity takes on Google: The AI-powered search engine launched a Buy with Pro ecommerce feature, along with a host of other shopping-related elements to broaden its utility and appeal.

Major financial institutions like Bank of America are exploring issuing their own stablecoins, viewing it as a crucial strategic move. Tokenization, the underlying technology, enables payment transactions to settle in seconds, automating compliance and cutting costs significantly (e.g., 40-60% in bond operations). This transforms static financial instruments into dynamic, programmable assets, appealing to a broader, potentially younger, customer base through innovations like fractional ownership. Failing to lead in tokenization risks U.S. banks losing their global market dominance, especially if retailers develop their own digital currencies, bypassing traditional payment systems. Smaller institutions can participate by partnering or leveraging existing stablecoin services from larger players.

The news: Hotel companies are expanding their upscale offerings to capitalize on strong demand for unique and customized accommodations among affluent consumers. Our take: Luxury and lifestyle brands are weathering economic ambiguity better than economy lodging. This divergence indicates that upscale, experiential offerings will be more resilient, while economy hotels face headwinds from cost-conscious consumers.

Klarna鈥檚 later entry into the US debit card space offers it a pathway to seize more payment volume.

The news: Klarna will offer unlimited 5G data, talk, and text for $40/month with coverage on AT&T鈥檚 network in the US, per a press release, with plans to expand this deal to the UK and Germany soon. Our take: Klarna鈥檚 ambitions to be a BNPL provider, a mobile phone service, a neobank, and most recently鈥攁ccording to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski鈥斺�渁 digital financial assistant,鈥� per CNBC, signals the company鈥檚 voracious appetite to be everything at once.

The trend: Consumers who take weight loss drugs are eating less and consuming healthier foods when they鈥檙e on the medication. Our take: This behavior change is driving a slew of food sellers and CPG brands to develop product lines and reformulate items with GLP-1 users in mind.

Lloyds, NatWest, and Truist are redefining banking with generative AI. Lloyds moves beyond individual use cases to rethink processes entirely, aiming for a customer-facing AI agent by late summer 2025. NatWest shifted to reimagining entire customer experiences, empowering all 70,000 employees with AI tools to rapidly explore new possibilities. Truist focuses on "knowledge extraction," a low-risk, high-reward use case demonstrating immediate value. Continuous experimentation and adaptable strategies are crucial for AI implementation, requiring agile learning, boundary-pushing, and prioritizing employee buy-in for customer-focused solutions.

The trend: Value-seeking behavior is on the rise, though not without some volatility, per Deloitte. Our take: Consumers鈥� growing focus on value doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean they want the cheapest option. In fact, up to 40% of how consumers evaluate value comes from nonprice factors, per a separate Deloitte study. That鈥檚 a critical distinction for brands. While it can be tempting to lean into discounts, a narrow focus on price cuts can hurt long-term brand equity. Brands that offer added value鈥攖hrough better quality, service, loyalty programs, or other innovations鈥攁re seeing stronger purchase intent and increasing consumer share.

The scene: When Cooper Flagg鈥攖he odds-on favorite to be the NBA Rookie of the Year next season鈥攕teps onto the court for the first time, he鈥檒l be wearing New Balance basketball shoes. Our take: New Balance鈥檚 push to sign Flagg, along with its other star-powered ambassadors, underscores its clear ambition to break into the top tier of global sportswear brands. While Nike and Adidas still lead by a wide margin, New Balance has its sights set on Puma, which reported $9.5 billion in sales last year鈥攚ell ahead of New Balance鈥檚 $7.8 billion. To close the gap, New Balance needs to turn its growing visibility into demand, which is far from a sure thing. From there, it must maintain that momentum with consistent sales across both its performance and lifestyle lines. If Flagg lives up to the hype and the brand finds ways to ride that momentum, New Balance could take a meaningful step up the sneaker hier

Anxiety around inflation, a deteriorating labor market, and trade war consequences have deepened consumer uncertainty about the US economy, with wide-ranging implications for retail.

The news: China鈥檚 coffee giants are making their way to the US in the hopes of unlocking a lucrative market to offset pressures back home. Our take: Luckin鈥檚 and Cotti鈥檚 US launches are a problem for Starbucks, which is already struggling to compete with the companies in China and having a hard time winning over customers at home. Unfortunately for Starbucks, many of the moves it鈥檚 making鈥攕treamlining its menu, enhancing the in-store experience, leaning into premiumization鈥攔un counter to consumers鈥� current desire for variety, convenience, and value. That has created an opening for chains like Dutch Bros (and now Luckin and Cotti), which are better positioned to capitalize on emerging trends in the coffee space and can undercut Starbucks on price.

The insight: The US is mired in the 鈥渨orst housing market in almost 50 years,鈥� RH CEO Gary Friedman said during the company鈥檚 Q1 earnings call, as high housing costs and economic uncertainty chill demand. Our take: With the sluggish housing market showing few signs of improvement, retailers must lean into any pockets of opportunity they find. For RH, that鈥檚 burnishing its luxury credentials and pushing deeper into hospitality, while Wayfair is leaning on its diverse supplier base. The resilient pro market is another area companies should look to take advantage of as they try to ride out the downturn.