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Welcome back to another edition of The Marketer’s Playbook! In today’s edition:

• Instagram Just Made Carousels More Like Mini Blogs

• The News Industry’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t AI. It’s Attention

• Shopify Wants to Be Your AI Marketing Team

• Pinterest’s New AI App Lets You Shop by Vibe

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THE ROUND UP

Rounding up the most important marketing news of the week

Instagram Just Made Carousels More Like Mini Blogs

Instagram now lets users add a unique caption to each slide in a carousel post, giving creators more room to tell stories, explain ideas, and add context without cramming everything into a single caption. The update turns carousels into a more flexible publishing format, allowing each image or video to carry its own narrative. For creators and brands, it creates new opportunities for tutorials, product showcases, and step-by-step storytelling. The change reflects a broader trend across social platforms: moving beyond simple photo sharing and toward richer, more interactive content formats that keep users engaged longer.

The News Industry’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t AI. It’s Attention

The 2026 Digital News Report finds that more people are getting news through social platforms, creators, video, podcasts, and AI tools rather than directly from publishers. Trust in news remains fragile, especially among younger audiences who increasingly follow personalities over traditional outlets. As AI-generated summaries and alternative discovery channels grow, publishers face mounting pressure to stay visible and relevant. The report’s key takeaway: the future of news is being shaped as much by platforms and algorithms as by the organizations producing it.

Shopify Wants to Be Your AI Marketing Team

Shopify is expanding its AI tools with the goal of becoming a built-in agency for merchants. Rather than simply helping businesses run online stores, Shopify wants AI to handle tasks like marketing, content creation, customer acquisition, and campaign optimization. The strategy reflects a broader shift in e-commerce, where platforms are moving beyond infrastructure and increasingly offering automated expertise. For merchants, the promise is access to capabilities that once required agencies or dedicated teams—now delivered through AI embedded directly into the platform.

Pinterest’s New AI App Lets You Shop by Mood

Pinterest is testing an experimental AI shopping app called Ask Pinterest, designed to help users discover products through natural language conversations rather than traditional search. Instead of browsing categories or entering keywords, users can describe what they’re looking for and receive personalized recommendations, inspiration, and shopping suggestions. The app builds on Pinterest’s strength as a discovery platform while pushing deeper into AI-powered commerce. The bigger trend: shopping is shifting from search-based experiences to conversational ones, where AI acts more like a personal stylist or shopping assistant than a search engine.

NEWS BITES

Everything else you need to know

• AI Overview Bias: Google’s AI Overviews may cite self-promotional listicles that recommend competitors, raising concerns about the quality and potential bias of the results.

• Meta Shopping Push: Meta unveiled new ad tools designed to connect product discovery with purchases more effectively across its platforms.

• Creator Business Model: Creators are finding sustainable growth by building direct audience relationships and diversified revenue streams beyond platform algorithms.

• OpenAI Ad Automation: OpenAI is moving toward automating ad creative creation, using AI to streamline campaign production and optimization.

• Reddit Research Growth: New research strengthens Reddit’s position as a key platform for product research and purchase decisions.

CAMPAIGN MONITOR

Review recent and note-worthy marketing campaigns

e.l.f. — "What the h.e.l.f.?"

e.l.f. Beauty is launching its first-ever hair care line with a campaign built around an unlikely spokesperson: Bigfoot. The playful marketing push uses the famously hairy cryptid to introduce the brand’s expansion beyond cosmetics, leaning into humor and internet culture rather than traditional beauty advertising. By turning Bigfoot into the face of hair care, e.l.f. aims to stand out in a crowded category while staying true to its reputation for quirky, social-first campaigns. The move highlights how modern beauty brands increasingly rely on entertainment and cultural relevance, not just product benefits, to capture attention and drive conversation.

Etsy — "Shop Other Jeffs"

Etsy’s latest campaign promotes the idea that shoppers can find products that are “5,000% more distinctive” than those on mass-market retail sites. Without directly naming competitors, the ads contrast Etsy’s handmade, personalized, and creator-driven products with the standardized offerings of large e-commerce platforms. The campaign continues Etsy’s effort to position itself as the destination for unique finds and human-made goods at a time when online shopping is becoming increasingly commoditized. The message is simple: when everything online starts to look the same, uniqueness becomes a competitive advantage.

THANK YOU FOR READING

We will see you again next week!