KIMP’s Picks 28th March: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More
Welcome to the KIMP’s Picks 28th March Edition. It’s been another whirlwind week with a host of new AI updates and exciting posts buzzing in the world of social media. From creative campaigns that wowed us to AI news that caught our attention, and updates coming to social media platforms, we’ve rounded up some of the shareworthy posts from this week.
So, if you are looking to quickly catch up on everything you missed this week on social media, then let’s get started with this week’s recap.
In the Marketing Realm
Are retail media networks the advertising powerhouse you need?
The advertising landscape is complex and ever-evolving. In a recent post, Nielsen discusses how retail media networks are becoming potentially productive channels for advertisers.
Retail media networks utilize retailers’ first-party shopper data to deliver targeted ads. These networks, pioneered by Amazon’s platform, allow brands to reach consumers with relevant promotions at the point of purchase, both on and off retailer platforms. This approach offers a win-win situation, providing retailers with a new high-margin revenue stream, brands with receptive audiences, and consumers with more relevant ads.
This presents a crucial opportunity to connect with consumers in a more targeted and effective way.
Social media is the top source to keep up with trends
A January report from Sprout Social reveals that 90% of consumers globally rely on social media to stay updated on trends and cultural moments. The post here from eMarketer delves into this observation, highlighting the fact that social media is a space that brands cannot ignore.
The post also discusses the average time spent on different platforms. The data shared here underscores the need for brands to have a strong, agile social strategy, leveraging influencer partnerships and real-time content to stay relevant in fast-moving online conversations.
The creative “Fizzooka” campaign from Mentos
Mentos has taken its iconic soda-and-mint reaction to new heights with the launch of the Fizzooka in Fortnite Creative. Developed in collaboration with BBH London and gaming agency Metavision, the weapon debuts on popular maps like Piece Control 2v2 and Sky Wars, reaching over a million daily players.
Beyond the digital realm, Mentos partnered with YouTube’s The Hacksmith to create a real-life, oversized Fizzooka capable of firing soda like a firehose.
This campaign demonstrates the significance of immersive marketing and the creative use of influencer marketing. The ad is also a fusion of nostalgia and gaming culture, showing how playful innovation can capture Gen Z’s attention in unexpected spaces.
Do you have a marketing measurement plan?
Search Engine Journal is a great source of marketing insights and the latest marketing news and updates. In a recent post, they discussed the “marketing measurement plan”—its hows and whys.
A well-structured marketing measurement plan ensures businesses collect accurate data and align their strategy with meaningful insights. It identifies key metrics, audience behaviors, and technical requirements to track performance effectively.
Key steps include mapping traffic sources, setting up custom event tracking, and selecting analytics platforms. For brands looking to create a robust marketing strategy, a marketing measurement plan that tracks performance and adapts to evolving customer journeys can be a crucial step.
Brand apathy is on the rise
MarTech’s post here discusses a recent study by SAP Emarsys and Deloitte. The report reveals a growing indifference toward brands, with 54% of U.S. consumers prioritizing product functionality over brand loyalty.
The post discusses how several consumers are switching to more affordable private labels and what these trends mean for brands. The study highlights a critical disconnect: consumers demand relevance, yet most brands fail to deliver tailored omnichannel experiences.
While many brands have real-time engagement and predictive analytics capabilities, few actively use them. Taking all these into account, brands must prioritize omnichannel personalization to build stronger consumer connections.
In the Content Marketing Realm
SEO fundamentals matter now more than ever
As AI transforms search with tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews, mastering core SEO principles has become 10x more vital for online visibility. This is according to this recent post from Search Engine Land, another well-known authority in the world of search-related news and updates.
Despite technological advances, search algorithms still prioritize technical excellence, quality content, strategic keywords, and authoritative backlinks. So you need to prioritize technical SEO, like fixing indexability issues and optimizing core web vitals.
The takeaway here is that in the AI era, you need to expand and grow your SEO strategies and not chase after fleeting trends.
In the Design Realm
McDonald’s launches a visually intriguing campaign
McDonald’s has launched a striking outdoor ad series spotlighting its breakfast menu across the U.K. and Ireland. This campaign consists of a series of designs featuring close-up shots of items like muffins and hash browns. What truly stands out is that these ads appear without logos or branding and they bet big on instant recognition from viewers.
The campaign also extends to radio spots that playfully prompt listeners to mentally recall the iconic meals. Additionally, cinematic TV and social spots extend the sensory-driven approach, leaning into nostalgia and subconscious familiarity.
On the whole, this one relies on the use of visuals to evoke a sensory appeal in marketing, which can be a powerful driver for engagement.
Brand identity inspiration
Ads of the World, a popular online resource of creative inspiration, recently highlighted the brand identity for Flings, a new toaster pastry brand that aims to blend childhood nostalgia with modern nutritional values.
The idea was to strike a balance between playful retro vibes and sophisticated appeal. Accordingly, the brand adopts a “retro-futuristic” approach—think 80s-inspired textures paired with sharp, modern wit. This has been the result of tapping into research showing adults crave authentic, nostalgic snacks that fit today’s health-conscious lifestyles.
As a result, the brand has been able to drastically boost its website traffic and sales. This campaign depicts the magic that happens when nostalgia meets innovation and results in great designs.
Bold and playful branding
The next post here is also about brand identity, particularly about packaging design that sets the brand apart. Packaging of the World shared this post exploring the nuances that make this design special.
tāi, a new beverage concept, has launched with a modern brand identity that reinterprets the classic Thai Iced Tea. The design approach focuses on making the diverse flavors tangible through a vibrant visual language. It demonstrates how you can boost the sensory appeal of your design and make it more interactive and unique with the right use of colors and custom illustrations.
This project also shows that a well-crafted brand identity not only communicates product attributes but also deeply connects with cultural roots in a modern and engaging way. And such identity is what helps a brand stand out in a competitive space.
What’s new on Canva?
With another month coming to an end, Canva shared a post summarizing some of the key updates introduced to the platform recently. So, if you are someone who uses Canva in your creative workflow, this is the recap you need.
You can now remove backgrounds from longer videos on Canva, this includes clips up to 10 minutes long. Secondly, Canva now also supports audio enhancement features that let you reduce noise and improve the voiceover clarity in your videos.
The other features highlighted are instant translation of text in any design and scaled sticky notes. Which of these features have you tried already?
In the AI Realm
Google unveils Gemini 2.5—their most intelligent model yet
In December, Google made waves with the announcement of Gemini 2.0 and now the next big upgrade is here—meet Gemini 2.5. Gemini 2.5 is built as a more intelligent model and with more advanced reasoning abilities than its predecessors.
As the first step of this launch, Google is releasing an experimental version of Gemini 2.5 Pro which reportedly outperforms several of the existing AI models on popular benchmarks.
With respect to what makes this model unique, Google stated that Gemini 2.5 models are thinking models trained particularly for exceptional reasoning and therefore better accuracy in their responses. Evidently, this one extends the capabilities of the recently popular Gemini 2.0 Flash thinking models.
In addition to advanced reasoning abilities, the model also brings superior coding functions, which make it an exceptional choice for building web apps and more.
Here’s another post throwing the spotlight on the new model’s performance across a range of evaluations, with the data indicating the model’s brilliance.
OpenAI announces GPT-4o image generation
OpenAI has launched its most advanced image generation system yet, built natively into GPT-4o, combining photorealism with practical utility.
Text rendering is one area where most AI models currently struggle, and OpenAI aims to address this issue with this new image generation update. So, if you are looking to generate images with text, like infographics, this new update comes in handy.
In addition to this, there is multi-turn generation, allowing users to refine images within the conversation. Moreover, the model’s improved instruction following capabilities allow it to handle up to 20 different objects and also analyze and learn from any uploaded images.
The model has received a positive response so far and has also set in motion a new Studio Ghibli style trend. Have you noticed all those retro anime images popping up on your feed?
Gmail’s AI-Powered upgrade enhances search
Google has introduced an AI-enhanced search feature on Gmail. This feature is designed to tackle the challenge of navigating cluttered inboxes.
Unlike the traditional chronological display tied to keywords, this upgrade prioritizes emails based on recency, most-clicked messages, and frequent contacts. The result? The most relevant results appear at the top. Additionally, users can switch between “most relevant” and “most recent” views via a toggle for a more flexible experience.
Microsoft expands Security Copilot with AI agents
Microsoft has announced new AI-driven security advancements. These include Security Copilot agents designed to automate cybersecurity tasks such as phishing detection, data security, and identity management.
These updates bring six new agents to triage phishing alerts, data loss prevention, monitor new users and vulnerabilities and provide automated and timely threat intelligence.
Claude can now search the web
Anthropic has finally brought web search capabilities to its Claude AI model. This enables the chatbot to provide up-to-date answers with source citations.
Available initially for U.S. paid users, the feature allows Claude to supplement its knowledge base with current web information while automatically citing references for verification. The enhancement supports time-sensitive tasks like market analysis, academic research, and product comparisons by delivering processed web results conversationally.
Now that users look for updated responses and real-time data, most AI models support web search, and Anthropic has finally joined the race.
DeepSeek-V3-0324 is here
The announcement of DeepSeek R1 created ripples in the AI realm, and now the company has silently dropped their next model, DeepSeek-V3-0324.
Reportedly, the notable changes to the model include significant upgrades in logical reasoning, front-end development skills, and tool utilization.
The new version offers optimized performance for straightforward tasks when used without its “DeepThink” mode. Moreover, the model now operates under the MIT License, mirroring the open-source approach of its predecessor, DeepSeek-R1.
Alibaba’s Qwen now supports voice & video chat
Alibaba’s Qwen team has unveiled Qwen 2.5 Omni, a new flagship-tier end-to-end multimodal AI model. This seven-billion-parameter system can process various inputs, including text, images, audio, and videos, and generate real-time text and natural speech responses.
Notably, Qwen 2.5 Omni introduces real-time speech generation and video & voice chat capabilities, features previously limited to closed-source models from Google and OpenAI, but now open-sourced by Alibaba.
Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes
YouTube is updating the Views Count metric
Starting March 31, 2025, YouTube will update its Shorts view count metric to reflect the number of times a Short starts to play or replay (without requiring a minimum watch time). This change aims to provide creators with a more comprehensive understanding of their short-form video performance across multiple platforms.
The original view metric will still be available in YouTube Analytics under the name “engaged views”. Importantly, this update will not affect creators’ earnings or eligibility for the YouTube Partner Program, which will continue to be based on engaged views.
LinkedIn announces Campaign Manager updates
LinkedIn has introduced several enhancements to its Campaign Manager, aiming to streamline the advertising process and provide marketers with more effective tools for achieving their goals.
These updates are coming to three major steps in advertising, namely Campaign Planning & Strategy, Campaign Creation, and Measurement & Optimization. In other words, the upgrades are improving the overall efficiency in advertising on LinkedIn.
Instagram announces School Partnership Program to enhance teen safety
Social media platforms are actively working on strategies to enhance the safety of younger users. A few weeks ago, TikTok announced enhanced parental controls, and now Instagram is making its move with the introduction of the School Partnership Program.
This program is designed to enable educators to directly report potential teen safety issues, including bullying, to the platform. Additionally, this initiative builds upon the recent introduction of Instagram Teen Accounts, which offer built-in safety protections for younger users.
A Final Word
Updates people on social media were raving about, shareworthy posts we stumbled across—there you have it. We hope you found this week’s social media recap useful. These AI and social media breakthroughs are reshaping the tech industry. For another insightful round-up that will keep you in the loop, stay tuned, and we’ll be back next Friday. Until then, keep riding the digital wave!