Times are tough in the furniture business, and Bob’s Discount Furniture thinks a dose of reality will help, launching “Till Decor Do Us Part,” a comedic reality show. The campaign stars comedian Gabby Brya as the host, helping six couples with different decorating tastes navigate a shared living space.

Each episode features one partner shopping for furniture while the other, along with the host, watches and comments in real time. Bob’s plays the role of mediator, acting like a couples therapist in the furniture aisle.

The series debuts across the brand’s new social handles—@TillDecorDoUsPart on TikTok, Meta, and YouTube—with six initial episodes rolling out weekly throughout the summer.

Steve Nesle, CMO, says the series is designed to attract new audiences through mobile-first content. “It’s more challenging to reach and resonate with audiences than ever,” he tells Retail Insider via email. “Not only do we need to be on all the platforms people are on today, but with the content they want to consume. And that isn’t always traditional advertising.”

The goal, he says, is simple: “To reach, engage and convert new audiences, and tell the Bob’s story in a fun new way.”

The effort, developed with agency Gale (creative and production) and Horizon Next (media), comes at a rough time for the category. With fewer people moving into new homes—and more consumers wary of redecorating in a shaky economy—the furniture industry is feeling the squeeze.

According to the latest Furniture Insights report from Smith Leonard, new furniture orders fell 9% in April and 7% in March. Analysts say parts of the category may already be in a mini-recession, and ongoing tariff pressures, falling consumer confidence, and shrinking backlogs are compounding the challenges.

Still, Nesle remains optimistic. “Our message resonates in boom and challenging times. Everyone loves value, and we have enough value to share with everyone. We are also definitely seeing higher-income shoppers buying into our brand.”

Bob’s, based in Manchester, Connecticut, is the seventh-largest furniture chain in the U.S., with 200 stores in 26 states.

The advertising ecosystem faces increased legal and regulatory challenges to keep up with change.

Updates made to the IAB Diligence Platform on Wednesday aim to help the digital advertising industry comply with evolving privacy regulations.

A new Online Tracking Questionnaire focuses on cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies, as well as important updates to Data Supplier Questionnaire. 

Cookie scanning tools are important to comply with regulations, but they identify data outflows -- not what companies do with that data.

For this reason, the questionnaire will assess data collection, use, and configuration practices of technology partners whose tools are integrated into their digital platforms such as websites and mobile apps to remain compliant.

Safeguards have been put in place to surface key information about how these technologies interact with user data and how they can help identify potential risks before they become compliance issues. 

Michael Hahn, executive vice president and general counsel, IAB & IAB Tech Lab, told MediaPost that IAB Diligence Platform questionnaires are drafted and reviewed by the IAB and IAB Tech Lab’s Privacy Implementation and Accountability Task Force (PIAT). This working group meets monthly and comprises approximately 150 legal professionals and product managers from dozens of member companies. PIAT aims to develop legal and technology solutions for the digital advertising industry, including standardizing privacy diligence tools.

“New questionnaires are uploaded by Safeguard Privacy and pushed out to all IAB Diligence Platform subscribers for use in their third-party due diligence process,” Hahn wrote in an email. “The questionnaires are not automatically populated.”

He explained that subscribers must complete questionnaires based on their organization’s practices.

A Data Supplier Questionnaire also has been added to reflect the latest takeaways from the FTC enforcement actions in Mobilewalla and Gravy Analytics.

This questionnaire is for data suppliers who sell or share personal data with other entities in digital advertising, and cover upstream and downstream data handling practices, helping folks understand not just how suppliers use data, but also how they managing their own data relationships.

As part of updating the IAB Diligence Platform, the group is designing new modules covering data clean rooms (DCR) and social media.

The Social Media module will look at the use of personal information in the context of advertising on social media platforms.

Fraud-free ad inventory supported by safety and metrics that can analyze content to help advertisers and publishers reach global media-quality requirements seem to be an ideal match.

This is what ShowHeroes and DoubleVerify hope to offer to advertisers and publishers through a programmatic partnership announced Tuesday. 

The companies said the goal is to combine complementary strengths that address fragmentation, metrics, measurement and data, particularly for contextual video and connected TV (CTV). 

The collaboration integrates ShowHeroes’ SemanticHero technology with DoubleVerify’s Marketplace Suite to improve brand safety, invalid traffic protection, and contextual relevance.

ShowHeroes technology relies on advanced machine learning and natural language processing to analyze on-page content in real time. The company touts being a privacy-compliant-based contextual targeting option, eliminating the need for advertisers to rely on third-party cookies or user tracking.

The core challenge the partnership addresses is the need to ensure higher quality and effective advertising. It's impossible to manually review and filter ad placements on platforms like YouTube, where hours of video are uploaded each minute, but automation can help.

The integration includes pre-bid segmentation, fraud prevention, viewability filters, and more than 100 content avoidance categories.

The combined solution creates a framework that delivers performance and protection in what the companies refer to as a “future-ready solution” that improves media quality.

One question remains unanswered: How do these types of relationship support the emergence of AI agents, as the technology becomes more popular and begins to roll out?

How does DV Pinnacle analytics remain relevant, and will advertisers still need to gain deep insights and actionable metrics across desktop, mobile, and CTV platforms, or rely on AI to dump the data into a dashboard so it can make those decisions?

Meta is doubling down on the uptick in direct messaging across its family of social apps. After announcing new messaging ad options in WhatsApp last week, the tech giant is bringing new marketing functionality to DMs in its Messenger app. 

“Today people often chat with businesses to make purchases or get support,” Meta explains. “But once their questions are answered or their orders are placed, the conversation often stops there.”

In an attempt to help brands engage and retain customers continuously through in-app messaging, Meta is launching an updated version of marketing messages on Messenger.

Now, brands can send promotional messages to users who have subscribed to receive them, and then “re-engage” those users “anytime.”

Meta says marketers can do this by leveraging existing CRM lists, custom audience lists, or ads that click to Messenger, with the added ability to “write freeform messages for each customer, or broadcast one message to everyone for scale.”

Brands can also check Meta’s newly added tracking metrics to help them measure the impact of their DMs and plan for future promotional messaging. These include cost-per-click delivered message and cost-per-message link click, with more metrics to come. 

Following rules imparted by the original version of this feature, Meta has limits in place to avoid the proliferation of spam messages. The company says each Page utilizing the updated feature can send up to one marketing message per day to a unique user.

Overwhelming customers with direct promotional messages in a short time frame could result in users rejecting a brand’s DMs entirely, and cluttering the platform with unwanted ads.

Meta says Nestle’s Philippines branch is currently experimenting with the updated DM feature, as well as Pancake and Smartly, which are both interested in offering the feature on their platforms. 

In my ongoing introspection on the watering down of sports coverage, two recent insights have grabbed my attention.  Pulled from our late June data, nearly half of sports fans (44%) prefer to stream sporting events rather than watch them on broadcast television.  Looking at this with a demographic filter, 58% of those in the coveted age 44 and under cohort prefer streaming. 

This alone isn’t terribly shocking, given both changing media consumption habits in our increasingly mobile society and the push by properties and media to optimize revenue through fragmentation of delivery channels.

More intriguing is companion data from the same study, in which the majority of age 44 and younger fans say they prefer streaming highlights rather than watching the entire game. That’s a significant difference from older fans, who are still in the camp of watching from start to finish.

There’s clearly a lot to unpack here, and it raises strategic questions about the future of sports coverage and how properties can best attract fans.

We live in a sound bite society.  We’re inundated with analytics and highlight packages abetted by the morsels of social content that aim to capture dwindling attention spans. The Sports Center generation has been weaned on the top ten plays of the day and the deification of a select group of athletes who garner disproportionate attention. 

All this surfaces a chicken-and-egg question.  Did anyone initially ask for this?  I’d maintain that this model was created more to satisfy a need to woo advertisers by driving immediate clicks and views rather than in response to actual fan needs.  We’ve long observed a push toward attracting a broader audience of less invested, more casual fans.

Promoting this type of content delivery system has short-term benefit, but at what ultimate cost?   How long will the event enthusiasts stay? I’ve opined here in the past about the growing generational rift between older and younger fan bases.  But when assessing longer-term costs, this focus on game highlights detracts from the broader storytelling and nurturing of team and property-specific brands that have ultimately created deeper and more resonant fan connections.

In the same study, we also found that only a third of fans strongly agreed that they would rather attend a live sporting event than watch it remotely.  Some of that is a function of the companion statistic that nearly three-quarters believe the average fan has been priced out of live sports.

Still, this movement away from immersion may ultimately decrease the stickiness of sports properties, creating a revenue model even more skewed toward digital quick hits -- moving further away from the enduring resonance that nurtured past generations of loyal fans.

In May, Snapchat announced a new 4,000-square-meter office in Paris, calling France “one of the most dynamic and strategic markets” for its business.

Now, the social media company is doubling down on the region with “Dansez Versailles,” an augmented reality (AR)-centric art experience at the Palace of Versailles. 

According to Snap, the objective of the immersive launch is to “restore the gardens of the Palace to their original function: a space for life, pleasure, and spectacle,” adding that “visitors to the Palace gardens are invited to rediscover the baroque festivities and dances that enlivened the Royal Court through AR.” 

Four especially historic spaces in the gardens will become AR-rendered scenes revealing “an iconic dance of the era,” harkening back to the Royal Academy of Dance, founded in 1661 by Louis XIV. 

Upon visiting Versailles, people can open the Palace’s official mobile app to access the “Dansez Versailles” experience, which will prompt historical AR dance recreations asking users to step into the shoes of a various baroque dancers around the Latona Fountain, the Water Theater grove, the Ballroom grove, and the Orangery of the Palace. 

Users themselves will see their appearance transformed with fashions of the era via natively integrated AR Lenses. 

France has become Snapchat’s largest European market, with almost 10 million more monthly active users than Germany, which has 19 million users. And AR has become a major consideration for investing in the region. 

In 2021, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel announced “AR Studio Paris,” which has become an incubator for “educational, cultural, or societal” projects, helping showcase local AR creative while forging ties with major French institutions like Versailles. 

The results of a five-year collaboration between Clear Channel Outdoor and Kantar shows how out-of-home (OOH) can increase performance for campaigns to fill gaps in other media channels.

“We’ve worked so closely with Kantar over the years that we have the data to compare results,” said Dan Levi, CMO at Clear Channel.

Levi said the comparative set between the media surprised him, especially when it came to connecting the brand with the message and changing people’s perceptions about the brand in a positive way.

OOH not only filled gaps to reach consumers, but measurability improved in terms of how it outperformed connected television (CTV), TV, and digital channels in key metrics such as ad awareness, brand favorability, and purchase intent. The data shows a combination of performance media and awareness drove success.

The strategy reached "unreachable audiences," consumers who pay for ad-free streaming, and the years of data shows it improved conversion intent while building long-term brand loyalty.

The Kantar benchmark showed OOH matches linear TV in driving favorability and purchase intent, demonstrating its ability to deliver TV-like impact at a more efficient prices as marketers struggle to connect the dots between marketing spend and return on investments (ROIs).

Levi views OOH as a performance media, rather than a nice-to-have type of media, but brands must decide whether the goal is to drive behavior at the top of the funnel to build awareness, at the middle to drive consideration, or at the lower part of the funnel to drive conversions.

Thousands of measurement studies were conducted through Clear Channel’s campaign performance attribution RADARProof tool. Kantar supported the studies in a variety of advertising categories.

The data showed the OOH campaigns delivered superior brand lift compared with digital, and significantly outperformed digital media in all measured metrics.

The campaign had stronger message recall boosting brand visibility, favorability and intent. It drove higher brand awareness, at 13.3%, as well as engagement compared with digital media, TV, and CTV.

“Specialized agencies typically pick boards based on the location of the industry, but with pharma we start with the audience to get a deep understanding of targeting across digital media and CTV, and bring it into our data platform,” Levi said. “We use the same audience segments, bring them into our data platform, and identify the boards most likely to reach people.”

Targeting continues to evolve. Location-based media has improved through the years with the ability to identify high-impact geographies and audiences to support digital campaigns.

Clear Channel measures a variety of markets like automotive as well as pharmaceutical. Pharma is not an industry the company has talked about too much. Consumer product goods (CPG) is a market that has not taken advantage of billboards in the United States as much as it has in Europe.

Some management studies show CPG brands, with the integration of information from Circana, which aggregates shopper loyalty and other data, could change that as consumer behavior evolves.

Mobile ad IDs identify locations. Vehicles emit a signal -- geofencing -- when passing one of Clear Channel's billboards. The company has used geofencing since 2016, when it introduced CCO Radar, but has not talked about its advancements. The mobile ad ID is used as a proxy for groups of audiences.

The data enables Clear Channel to send Kantar audience data collected through data-matching technology with LiveRamp and other companies.

Kantar then finds the exposed audiences to find in its panels to integrate into campaigns. It creates a greater likelihood Clear Channel can serve surveys to people who have seen the ads seen on the roads.   

Brands bet on consistent journeys to create successful campaigns and allow consumers to consume the ads on their own terms.

“You don’t get up in the morning and take your kids to a different school or go to a different job,” he said. “Most people drive a consistent journey to destinations each day.”

Amazon Prime Day is shaping up to be a performance monster—not just for Amazon, but for the entire ecommerce ecosystem, according to a new Adobe forecast.

Adobe expects online shopping to surge 28.4% from July 8 to 11, which translates to a $9.6 billion increase.

Some observers initially questioned Amazon’s decision to double Prime Day’s length to 96 hours, concerned the added time might dilute urgency and lead to more cart abandonment. But with recent shifts in consumer search behavior—and mounting economic uncertainty—many now expect a blockbuster. Bank of America is reportedly anticipating $21 billion in sales over just four days, marking a 60% increase from last year's sales of $13.2 billion.

Adobe forecasts that total spending on all online retail will be equivalent to two Black Fridays, as other retailers—including Target with its Circle Week—tempt shoppers with big-discount deals of their own.

Mobile continues to dominate for impulse buys, and Adobe expects it to account for 52.5% of sales—about $12.5 billion.

Less predictable is just how tempting the deals will be. Adobe forecasts that they will remain at historically high levels, providing a good value for consumers, but potentially creating profitability problems for retailers. Adobe predicts discounts will range from 10% to 24% off, inspiring shoppers to trade up to higher-end selections.

It expects the steepest cuts on apparel, estimating those discounts at 24%, compared to 20% last year,

Other average discounts: electronics at 22% (vs. 23%), televisions at 17% (vs. 16%), appliances at 16% (vs. 14%), and toys at 15% (level with last year's 15%).

Adobe also expects many shoppers to use Prime Day to jump-start back-to-school spending. A separate Deloitte survey backs that up: 53% of K–12 parents say they plan to shop the event, with 46% buying school supplies, and 40% starting holiday shopping.

Photo Credit: Tanya Gazdik/MediaPost

Independence Day is in the rear view mirror, but the focus on “Made In America” is a year-long emphasis by some marketers. 

“In an era of fluctuating tariffs, does this ideal still hold significant sway for U.S. consumers?” asks Pymnts.. “And perhaps most importantly, how does it intersect with their understanding of complex economic shifts, such as the relationship between U.S. and China? The answers have implications for how consumers view pricing, retail choices and even the products they purchase.”

When given the choice between low-priced or American-made products, 39% of shoppers always or mostly value affordability, a feature associated with imports from low-cost China, according to a Pymnts report, “Consumer Tariff Sentiment: Informed Americans Are Skeptical of the Benefits. Conversely, 34% always or mostly prefer items made in the U.S., and 26% feel each matters equally.

The “Made in America” message correlates directly to pricing expectations and the ability to meet them, according to Pymnts. 

“The May report found that while 34% of shoppers consistently prioritize American-made products, it’s notable that consumers living paycheck to paycheck are more likely to seek out U.S.-made goods (41%),” per Pymnts. “This group, along with those valuing domestic products, also tends to expect more positive impacts from tariffs. Yet, the overall picture of consumer understanding is nuanced.”

The Federal Trade Commission enforces regulations regarding "Made in USA" claims, ensuring they are truthful and not misleading to consumers. For a product to carry the label, it must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S., meaning all significant parts and processing must originate domestically. 

“‘Made in USA’ is trending on Amazon, and sellers are leaning in,” according to Modern Retail. “According to new data from e-commerce analytics firm SmartScout, discovery-oriented searches like ‘made in USA products only’ have surged 220% year-over-year. Similarly, ‘made in America products only’ is up 130%, while more specific terms like ‘American flag made in America’ have jumped 250%.”

One item widely associated with Independence Day and other federal holidays — the American flag — is increasingly being made overseas, a flag manufacturer told Spectrum News.

“American flag retailers are working with Congress to pass the ‘Make American Flags in America Act,’ which targets online retailers that falsely claim their flags are American-made,” according to Spectrum News.

The bill is still before the Senate, where it has been referred to the committee on homeland security and governmental affairs, according to congress.gov. 

The sourcing of items used by the U.S. military has also been in the news. 

“New bipartisan legislation reintroduced in the Senate this week aims to ensure all combat boots worn by U.S. service members are manufactured entirely in the United States,” according to DefenseNews.com. “The Better Outfitting Our Troops, or BOOTS, Act has united a diverse coalition of lawmakers across the political spectrum in proposing that all U.S. military boots are produced from only American-manufactured components. That includes optional combat boots, which are authorized by commanders as an alternative to the military’s standard-issue boots.”

Automotive marketing focusing on country of origin seems to be resonating.  Analysts say Ford Motor Co.’s May sales surge indicates its made-in-America marketing is working. 

“Since January, Ford has continually beat the drum in the media about how it is the most ‘American’ car company of all with 80% of the vehicles it sells in the United States also being assembled here,” according to the Detroit Free Press.

One item whose country of origin is still TBD is the new Trump Mobile phone. Trump Mobile’s website no longer promises that its upcoming smartphone will be made in America.

“The company adjusted language on its website on or around June 22 to drop the ‘Made in USA’ claim, according to captures of the site by the Internet Archive,” according to CNN Business. “As of June 25, the company says the T1 8002 phone was ‘designed with American values in mind.’ The website previously said the phone was ‘Made in the USA,’ according to screenshots taken by CNN earlier in June and archived versions of the site from June 18.”

The Verge first reported the change. The revised language comes after industry analysts expressed skepticism about the phone’s American origins, noting that its specifications resembled a phone made by a Chinese manufacturer.”

ChatGPT continues to push referral traffic to news publisher sites, but not enough to counter declines in clicks from users who increasingly get news from AI-powered search results, according to a report released this week.

Between January 2024 and May 2025, news-related prompts in ChatGPT rose by 212%, while Google searches declined by 5%.

The change, mapped by Similarweb, began in late 2024 with ChatGPT use accelerating since January 2025. This suggests users are increasingly turning to generative AI for real-time news insights.

ChatGPT's app users have more than doubled in the last six months compared with the same period the previous year, while web visitors grew by 52%.

For news publishers and aggregators, this shift signals a need to rethink distribution and payment strategies. Some companies have already done this.

For example, on Wednesday Cloudflare released a permission-based model that blocks AI scrapers from accessing content across millions of websites that it protects -- about 24% of all sites across the internet.

It created a protocol that gives developers of bots and AI agents a standard to identify themselves. The company believes it has created a new “fundamental economic model for the web” -- a permission and payment model that will significantly shift online information services like publishers and have major implications for the advertising and digital ecosystem.

A Pay Per Crawl model will monetize content with an HTTP 402 response code, which is used for bots when payments are required.

As more users turn to GAI for real-time updates and conversational summaries, the traditional SEO-driven approach may be insufficient when it comes to capturing audience attention.

The trend highlights shifting user preferences and the growing role of AI assistants in information retrieval.

Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024, and since then the share of zero clicks -- the percentage of searches resulting in no clicks -- has steadily increased, rising from 56% to nearly 69% by May 2025.

During the same period, organic traffic to news publishers has declined, dropping from more than 2.3 billion visits at its peak to under 1.7 billion.

The data, per Similarweb, suggests that users increasingly get answers directly on the results page without clicking through to publishers.

For news organizations, this shift marks a critical point in paid and organic search. Visibility alone will longer translate into traffic, and it challenges the assumptions of what type of value companies gain in search rankings.

Similarweb suggests that AI has created a new path to headlines on publisher sites.

ChatGPT referrals to news publishers rose from under 1 million between January and May in 2024 to more than 25 million during that same time frame in 2025. Publishers such as Reuters, The New York Post, and Business Insider have benefited from the switch.

CNN, however, is absent from the referral rankings. The New York Times also is underrepresented due to restrictions on ChatGPT sourcing or linking to their content, according to Similarweb. It shows gaps in the process and what sites will benefit from the change.