Manischewitz, the 130-year-old food/wine brand, isn’t just popular with Jews. The wine was marketed across religious lines, while its classic Jewish cuisine has been a comfort food for generations.

The wine’s ad slogan, "Man, oh, Manischewitz," became so iconic that Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan exclaimed it during his 1972 moon mission.

Now, the brand is rebranding.

And it begins with the first Manischewitz Deli on Wheels— a mobile Jewish deli serving authentic cuisine year-round. The food truck brings traditional and modern fare directly to consumers, including knishes, matzo ball soup, babka, rugelach and all-beef hot dogs.

“The Manischewitz Deli on Wheels is backed by a digital and social campaign to keep everyone informed of its locations throughout the year,” said Elie Rosenfeld, CEO of Joseph Jacobs Advertising, the agency responsible for the creative.

Follow the Deli on Wheels at Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X and manischewitz.com/foodtruck for “great food, good laughs and updates on where to meet the team.” Rosenfeld told Agency Daily. “We're bringing delicious, authentic Jewish flavors to the masses.”

The truck is also a locus for special events, product activations and Manischewitz merch.

Starting March 27 just ahead of Passover, the Deli on Wheels will debut at high-traffic ShopRite locations in New York and New Jersey, offering free samples of product innovations and holiday staples. The truck pauses during the holiday, from April 12 to April 20, before resuming its travels as a mobile restaurant.

Shani Seidman, CMO of Kayco Kosher, the parent company of Manischewitz, added: “This food truck is a key part of our rebranding efforts, inviting culturally curious consumers to experience and enjoy the richness of Jewish cuisine. It strengthens our connection with loyal customers, while expanding our cultural relevance to a younger Jewish audience and mainstream consumers.”

Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy framework could have contributed to the decline in U.S. game installs and time spent with the apps in 2024, as well as in the first quarter of 2025.

ATT opt-in rates rose slightly from 37.5% to 37.9% in Q1 2025, according to data from Adjust. But the recent study, Gaming App Insights 2025, from the measurement and analytics company suggests AI-driven behavior data can turn that around.

Generative AI-driven personalization has begun to enhance in-game experiences and provide predictive retention strategies, according to Adjust, an analytics and measurement company.

The data identifies trends and patterns expected to shape the gaming app industry in 2025. These trends include personalization through artificial intelligence (AI), hybrid monetization and user acquisition (UA) strategies. 

“Developers can personalize experiences, optimize game mechanics, and offer targeted rewards that drive longer play sessions, encourage repeat engagement, and ultimately improve retention,” said Tiahn Wetzler, director of content and insights at Adjust. “With increased prevalence of AI and machine learning technology to personalize content, from ad creative through to the user journey, it has become more and more possible to give cohorts, and even individual users, experiences that convert.”

Roughly 57% of the U.S. population is projected to play digital games in 2025, according to Emarketer. Asia-Pacific will account for more than 57%, with 588.9 million coming from China and 460.7 million from India. But the fastest growth will come from the Middle East and Africa.

Adjust’s 2024 data suggests North America saw the steepest decline of app installs, down 11%. Sessions dropped 14% in the same year, compared with the prior year, signaling user engagement challenges. 

Middle East and North Africa with 10%, and Latin America at 8% led global gaming app install growth in 2024, while sessions increased 7% and 5%, respectively. 

Asia-Pacific app installs grew 4% while sessions declined 3%, indicating retention challenges. Europe experienced a 1% drop in installs and 6% drop in sessions, reflecting possible issues with user engagement.

Global gaming app installs overall rose by 4% YoY in 2024, although the amount of time spent with content fell by 0.6% after a very challenging prior year, according to recent data.

The hyper-casual category garnered 27% of installs, the largest global share. Action games, despite representing just 10% of installs, generated 21% of sessions.

Gaming app businesses need sophisticated analytics to drill into what converts and what doesn’t, and how that differs based on regional preferences, device types, and demographic data, Wetzler said.

“Staying ahead of evolving privacy laws, regulations, and frameworks is critical to success. From Apple’s ATT, to laws like the DMA and CCPA, the ability to work with aggregated and privacy-compliant data as part of a bigger measurement picture means adopting a next-generation mindset, which is fundamentally data-based and agile.”

The friendly employees seen in many fast food restaurant commercials are being replaced by artificial technology. 

Even though other fast-food chains have tried the new tech out with mixed results, AI will soon be taking your drive-thru orders at 500 Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC locations.

“Through a partnership with technology company Nvidia, fast-food giant Yum! Brands said it will begin rolling out AI at hundreds of its locations starting in April and continuing through June,” according to USA Today. “That includes using the company's voice-ordering tech, which will handle complex menu orders and navigate customer speech patterns, according to a news release this week.”

Yum! Brands announced the partnership last week at Nvidia’s GTC conference, the chipmaker’s annual developer conference.

So what are the advantages of putting a computer as the public face of your brand? 

“AI could speed up the time it takes for a person to order food at a drive-through or call center, especially during big events like game days when demand could surge at popular restaurants,”  according to the Los Angeles Times. “On average, the total amount of time a customer spends in a drive-through is 5 minutes and 29 seconds, according to a 2024 drive-through study by Intouch Insights. The study, which involved shoppers placing orders at the drive-throughs of fast food restaurants, found that only 4% of visits involved AI technology, but the total time spent was faster by 29 seconds.”

Other fast food restaurants are also experimenting with the technology including Wendy’s, which announced in February it was deploying voice-enabled AI to take orders at up to 600 restaurants nationwide after executives "really liked" the results of the pilot program, which incorporated the technology at nearly 100 locations.

However, McDonald’s ended a pilot AI program last July after customers reported the tool got orders wrong. In 2021, the fast food giant partnered with IBM to test-run the AI ordering technology at over 100 locations, according to CNBC and Fox Business.

For those who aren’t fans of talking to AI, yelling “representative” over and over again won’t do you any good at the drive-thru window. There’s always the restaurants mobile apps, which offer a goes of having to use your voice all together. 

Google has spent nearly $66 billion on its top 10 acquisitions -- with half of that spent on acquiring Wiz, estimates CB Insights.

But how do you put a price on security -- especially when the threats are related to your top business, cloud services and online advertising?

In a research note published earlier this week, the analyst firm wrote that the $33 billion acquisition of cloud security Israeli startup Wiz is 2.4x larger than its second-largest purchase, Motorola Mobility, in 2012. It even surpassed Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk for $28 billion in March 2024.

The analyst firm makes an interesting point. Google’s merger-and-acquisition strategy has evolved from ad technology, such as YouTube and DoubleClick, to mobile such as Nest and Motorola, to cloud such as Mandiant and Looker. Now the company needs cloud security to protect this movement.

Google's acquisition of Wiz addresses security challenges in the cloud services and ad-serving era, driven by AI-powered threats and safety.

Wiz strengthened its position as a leader in cloud cyber security, especially since Assaf Rappaport, co-founder and CEO at Wiz, walked away from a potential $23 billion acquisition by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, last year.

Wiz this week reached an acquisition deal with Alphabet that had a price tag of $32 billion.

“The company generates about $700mn of annualized recurring revenue — a common metric used by software start-ups,” reported the Financial Times. People familiar with the company said “it was on track for that figure to surpass $1bn this year.”

Did Rappaport plan this move? Some insiders said yes, although the company publicly said there were no plans to go public in 2025. It hired a former executive at DreamWorks and Tanium as a chief financial officer.

Sometimes hiring a CFO is a sign of getting books ready for a public offering, Bill Hogan, board member and advisor at the cybersecurity company Sphere that specializes in Identity Hygiene, wrote in an email to MediaPost. 

“One of the reasons the talks failed previously was the inability of the two companies to agree on whether Wiz would remain a separate division or be integrated into Google Cloud,” he wrote. “Plus, the high regulatory scrutiny for large transactions during the Biden administration also contributed to the deal’s breakdown last summer.”

Now that the deal is done, he said, it will have a significant impact on the cybersecurity space. “We will just have to wait and see how,” he wrote.

The AI boom will require Google and others that support cloud services to tighten cybersecurity, even if they must spend billions of dollars to get there.

The acquisition is just one more creative move for Google to take additional market share to compete with Amazon, Google, Oracle and others.

For the sake of keeping companies, brands and advertisers safe, here's hoping that the Department of Justice doesn't view this as a monopoly. 

Consumers worldwide have lost trust in brands when it comes to protecting their privacy. 

Privacy fears prompted 82% of consumers to abandon brands last year, according to a new study from Thales: Consumer Trust Index.  

And why wouldn’t they be suspicious? Of the individuals polled, 19% learned that their personal data was compromised in the past year. 

Moreover, 63% feel that brands put too much onus on the consumer to protect their own data. Indeed, 86% expect some level of privacy rights with firms they interact with online. 

The sheer hassle of remembering passwords has caused 75% to favor passwordless authentication via biometric data or a PIN -- up from 72% last year.  

Which sectors are most trusted? Banking remains the top vertical in this regard, although only 32% of those ages 16-24 have faith in it, down from 44% in the prior year.  

Oddly, 42% government organizations are now more trusted, compared to 37% last time. The least trusted sector is news media, at 3%. 

All this is harming companies. Consumers list these five reasons for abandoning a brand in the past 12 months: 

• Demanding too much personal information — 32%
• Poor online support — 27%
• Concerns about how my personal information is used — 25%
• A long sign-up process — 25% 
• Website too slow — 24%

Most of us, even those in the profession, have experienced these aggravating issues. Why can’t companies get it right?

Take the challenges faced by a new banking customer.  “A conventional onboarding process would require her to visit the branch, get in a queue and wait for a long time for the bank to run its administrative processes,” the study says.

Int adds “A digital onboarding experience still requires an excessive amount of back-end processing, but hides that complexity from the consumer who can be up and running in the matter of a few clicks.”

The user can enter a mobile phone number or email address. The system does the rest, affirming identity with device intelligence, behavioral analytics, behavioral biometrics and consortium intelligence. 

Granted, consumers make take a dim view of some of these practices if they learn about them through exposes. The best policy is transparency. 

The takeaway?  “Global trust in digital services is decreasing or remaining stagnant at best, even among highly regulated industries,” says Sebastien Cano, senior vice president, cybersecurity products at Thales.

“One area that does not remain stagnant is the threat landscape. Consumers are more aware than ever before of online threats, and the consequences of their data falling into the wrong hands,” Cano adds.

On behalf of Thales, Censuswide and the Red Consultancy surveyed 14,009 consumers  in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, the U.K. and the U.S. 

Apple’s latest campaign puts some big star power behind a diminutive product.

To promote Apple’s new AIrPods4 -- the fourth generation of its earbud headphones -- the brand launched a cinematic spot with stars behind and in front of the camera. The ad features Pedro Pascal -- who co-stars in HBO’s “The Last Of Us,” which returns for its second season next month -- and was directed by Spike Jonze (“Her”’ “Where The Wild Things Are”).

The ad, entitled “Someday,” opens on a melancholy Pascal in an apparent breakup scene, silently glancing back at a woman as he walks out of a restaurant. As he begins gloomily walking through a snowy city wearing his AirPods4 earbuds, pedestrians react in choreographed response to the music he’s listening to. After a man stops to ask him for directions, he catches a glimpse of a sunnier, happier version of himself, and the scene transforms, along with a song change, into a colorful, floral surreal landscape with Pascal accompanied by backup dancers.. The spot also finds time to showcase the AirPods4’s “Active Noise Canceling” feature as its story unfolds.

The lengthy ad pushes past the five-minute mark, likely a sign of Apple giving Jonze and its dedicated creative agency TBWA/Media Arts Lab relatively free reign, given the significant star power involved. On YouTube, “Someday” has already racked up over 7 million views.

Jonze’s work behind the camera also marks something of a homecoming for the director. Back in 2018, he directed the “Welcome Home” ad for Apple’s HomePod, starring FKA Twigs. The new ad acts as something of a spiritual successor, as a lengthy cinematic spot that follows an emotional transformation showcasing the power of music.

Apple also shared some behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the spot on Instagram, while using the occasion to promote another of its products (and alluding to a separate campaign), claiming the ad was “#ShotoniPhone by director Spike Jonze.” Published yesterday, the post has already received over 330,000 likes.

  Discord is bringing video ads to mobile devices starting in June 2025, expanding its ad business while inviting users to earn rewards for “playing, streaming, or watching videos.

”Expanding our advertising platform to mobile is an obvious, natural evolution in our strategy,” said Discord Product Leader Peter Sellis.

In further developing its “player-centric advertising platform,” Sellis added that the company is attempting to create opportunities for businesses that help them connect with Discord users in “meaningful, performant ways.”

Last year, Discord launched Video Quests -- ads that allow users to earn rewards including avatar swag and in-game items by watching a video ad -- across PCs and consoles. Now, the Quest ads are coming to mobile.

The ads will appear as a “Quest bar” at the bottom of users' screens. Users can choose to dismiss the ad, but will gain points for opening the video and watching it full-screen.

Discord currently has over 200 million active users. According to Analyzify, the Discord mobile app was downloaded 23.7 million times globally in 2024, up from 23.4 million downloads in 2022.

The company's mobile app brought in $31 million in revenue last year, 66% of which came from the United States.

Initially designed as a communication platform for gamers to communicate and come together via voice, video and text channels in 2015, Discord is aiming to provide gaming brands with the ability to better showcase trailers for new games and downloadable content.

Over the past decade, Discord has pushed the concept of online micro-communities into the larger social media landscape, influencing Meta to implement various community-focused features across its family of apps, like WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger.

Some Quests ask users to stream games to unlock rewards as a way for advertisers to target new players.

Over the past year, movie trailers and other video announcements have also become popular use cases for the new ad format.

In addition to Play Quests -- ads that reward players for completing in-game tasks -- Discord is bulking up its ad business after being primarily ad-free for years.

Although some users are annoyed by the introduction of ads and contend that they take up screen space and tarnish the user experience, Discord -- valued at roughly $15 billion -- is reportedly preparing for a public offering.

Mobile apps with strong onboarding experiences and well-placed paywalls significantly outperform their competition, according to data compiled in a report by in-app subscription platform RevenueCat. In most categories, the top 10% of apps convert downloads to trial subscriptions at double or even triple the median rate, highlighting the importance of …

Reminder: You are seeing this premium content because you are a subscriber to MediaPost's Research Intelligencer and/or a member of the Center for Marketing & Media Research. This content cannot be viewed by non-subscribers/non-members.