Copyright forbes
Ads can have the power to influence decisions. In the last week, one ad in particular provoked seismic shifts in international relations and trade—and potentially the global economy. Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has projected a very different attitude toward longtime close ally Canada. He denigrated the country as the “51st state” and slapped steep tariffs on several imports over the U.S.’s northern border. While Canada has responded internally with some of its own retaliatory trade measures, shunning U.S. products and seeing a sharp drop in tourist visits, Ontario Premier Doug Ford took it up a notch. Earlier this month, Ford announced plans to spend CA$75 million (about $53.5 million U.S.) on ads in the U.S. featuring audio from former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican and supporter of free trade policies. The ad, which took audio and video from a 1987 radio address about tariffs and trade from the former president, was intended to show Americans how Reagan—a figure often lionized by Republicans—thought tariffs would hurt the nation. The ad features Reagan’s voice from the radio address, while video plays featuring images of farms, cities, workers, families and cargo ports. It ends with video of the former president at his desk saying, “America’s jobs and growth are at stake.” After the ad began airing, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted on X that “The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address, and the Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks.” The remarks indeed had been edited, with sentences rearranged and the then-current context about Japanese imports removed. Still, several fact checks found that Reagan’s original anti-tariff message was not changed in the ad, and the Reagan Foundation and Institute hasn’t commented further. Trump, on the other hand, was extremely vocal about his disapproval of the ad. On Truth Social, he posted: “Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.” He also felt the timing of the ad—during the high TV viewership of Major League Baseball’s World Series (incidentally featuring the Toronto Blue Jays)—was planned to interfere with a case over the legality of tariffs that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court next month. Based on this “egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED,” Trump posted. He then added an extra 10% tariff to all Canadian imports, leading Ontario to pause future airings of the ad. Trump, currently traveling in Asia, told reporters that he has no intention of meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney again “for a long time.” Meanwhile, Politico reported Ford told reporters the ad achieved its goal. “They’re talking about it in the U.S., and they weren’t talking about it before I put the ad on,” he said. “I’m glad that Ronald Reagan was a free trader.” Less consequential but just as memorable ads are created by brands every day. However, many top brands have decided in the recent past to bring their advertising in-house. I talked to JT Pierce, who helps build and grow these in-house teams as Tag Americas GM and chief client officer, about the trend. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter. We’re always looking to improve the stories and format of this newsletter. We’d appreciate your feedback in this brief reader survey. This is the published version of Forbes' CMO newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief marketing officers and other messaging-focused leaders. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images More e-commerce abilities are coming to ChatGPT. This week, PayPal announced a partnership with OpenAI’s chatbot that allows users to pay for purchases, and merchants to conduct transactions, without needing to leave the platform. PayPal’s digital wallet—which allows users to pay using bank accounts, balances and credit cards—will be integrated into ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout. ChatGPT has been quickly moving toward allowing users to shop directly from the app. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced partnerships with Walmart and other popular e-commerce platforms, including Etsy and Shopify. Through the OpenAI partnership, PayPal said that in 2026 it will bring the thousands of businesses that use its platform to ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout. It’s not clear when this feature will be available, but retailers and brands are preparing for an AI-enabled holiday shopping season, and there are just over eight weeks until Christmas. ATTENTION ECONOMY How can you use video content to grab the attention of Generation Alpha? Show them a story about friendship. The Center for Scholars and Storytellers at UCLA found in its annual Teens & Screens report that three out of five adolescents want to see more video content about friendship—59.7% want the central relationships to be friendships, and 60.9% want romantic relationships to be more about the friendship between the couple than sex. Forbes senior contributor David Bloom talked to UCLA psychology professor Yalda Uhls, founder of the center that published the report, about the findings. “They care about friendships starting around right when they hit puberty, and they’re pushing away adults in their lives for the next 10 to 12 years,” Uhls told Bloom. “Their focus is mainly friendships, and they have to learn about that before they start focusing on intimacy and romance.” Young people also do watch traditional forms of video—TV and movies—a lot more than older generations think they do, the study found. While their parents actually watched television, 78.4% of adolescents in the survey said they watch TV and movies at least sometimes on YouTube, TikTok or social media. Nearly half said that their primary TV and movie watching is on a device other than a television. MARKETING MATTERS It’s important to snag the attention of younger consumers, but members of Generation X are coming into the peak of their spending power, writes Forbes senior contributor Shelley Kohan. While Gen Xers make up just 19% of the population, they currently control 31% of all retail spending. Careerwise, they’re getting into their peak earning years—and as they hit middle age, their peak inheritance years—and are leading in spending per transaction across most categories. For the most part, Gen X has long been overlooked by marketers seeking to get results from generations that have larger numbers. To target Gen X, use methods that cater to their preferences, Kohan writes. They prefer physical shopping, but are also adept with e-commerce. Four out of five Gen Xers stay loyal to brands they believe in, so trust building is of utmost importance. They want to see quality and practicality, but appreciate a bit of sophisticated humor. They’re at the point where they’re looking to upgrade on goods and services, but also thinking of life transitions. A bit of nostalgia in marketing doesn’t hurt, but don’t go overboard—these are people who actually remember the ‘80s and ‘90s as they were. Why More Marketing Is Coming In-House Now Tag Americas GM and Chief Client Officer JT Pierce. Tag Americas, Getty Nowadays, more brands are in-housing their marketing. I talked about this trend with JT Pierce, a veteran in-house agency builder who currently is in charge of designing and scaling in-house agencies for Tag Americas as its GM and chief client officer. He told me why in-housing is currently so popular and what the next step is likely to be. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity. In-housing has been a growing trend for the last several years. Why is it getting to be so much more popular now? Pierce: It’s becoming increasingly difficult for marketers to find everything they need in one place from a content standpoint. There was a time when you had your ad agency and your digital agency. That has changed a lot as the content landscape has changed. And so the same agencies that give you big, bold culture-driving ideas are not always the ones that can also give you all the scale that’s needed to bring those ideas all over the globe. There was a period of time where in-house teams were very focused on what I would call the “blocking-and-tackling work”: the sort of below-the-line work. And then [in] 2012 or 2013, Agency Inside at Intel grew to be one of the preeminent in-house models. I spent some time at DoorDash, and we had a very similar model in terms of wanting that internal team to not just do the blocking-and-tackling work, but to also apply creativity to business problems. I think the reason for a lot of the change, the trends and the pendulum swinging is because as the media landscape changes, as technology changes, as marketing is impacted by all those things, content needs shift, too. Content models need to change, and that’s what we’re starting to see, especially with in-house right now. For those that are not in-house now, when should a brand consider doing it? I think that it all depends on what you’re trying to get to. Any really good in-house model I’ve seen offers two things. One is proximity to the business. Having an in-house group of creatives, producers, makers and strategists that can focus on developing content from inside your organization means you are building creative solutions that solve business problems, not just answer briefs. When you’re a marketer and working with an external creative agency, there’s that barrier that exists between an external partner and your internal teams. And sometimes that’s great. Creative agencies provide divergent thinking, big ideas that maybe you can’t get from an internal team. Your internal team is so close to the day-to-day business challenges. But being able to get creative talent that’s really focused on solving business problems, that’s one sort of moment at which we see clients wanting to bring stuff in-house. The other is just around speed, agility and often cost. When you are working with internal teams, you can create processes, engagement models and structures that are right for your organization. It doesn’t have to be a model from an agency where they have an account person that joins up with you. It could be anything you want. There’s account agencies where we have PMs that plug straight into marketers, where we have account-type folks that plug into marketers, or marketers plug directly into creatives. It can kind of be whatever you want it to be. Oftentimes, you can do it in a cost-effective way—[though] not if you go hire a whole bunch of senior-level group creative directors [and] take on their salaries and overhead. Depending on what you’re trying to build, building an in-house model that reflects your organization and has talent that’s really built for what needs to be accomplished [can be cost effective]. We see that across clients like Intel. They have said we’re saving them between 25% and 30%. Clients like Heineken, it’s closer to 40% as opposed to sort of traditional agencies, because you’re not paying for as much overhead and other things. You said that this is like a pendulum—now, in-housing is something that everybody is doing. Where do you see the pendulum swinging next? I think AI and the use of AI in creative and creative production is accelerating it. We’re seeing from our clients that marketing budgets are constrained. There’s cautious optimism going into next year, but there’s also a lot of pressure on keeping teams lean. There’s a ton of pressure for marketers to be leveraging AI across all facets of their business. But when it comes to creative production, I think that a lot of our clients’ expertise is not in the building of the creative team or arming that creative team with all the technology tools and things that they need to be bringing innovation to a brand’s creative studio. I think one of the things we’re going to start to see is more of a shift towards leaning into the expertise of external partners for that AI-driven innovation, as it relates to creative and creative production. I think what we’re going to start to see is a lot more models that are emerging from the middle: Bespoke models based on what a client needs. That might not be a fully in-house thing or it might not be a fully by-subscription, but that it’s a combination. I’m seeing the different studio models that we have in place with clients, and I’m starting to see it naturally happen. Clients are [saying], ‘We’ve been here, but as we get smarter on things like automation, we might not need these resources. We’re going to have to upskill some of our people, but the shape of our studio might look different. Can you help us build toward what that vision is?’ AI is disrupting in a lot of good ways [in] our industry. It’s going to disrupt also the content model for in-house teams. COMINGS + GOINGS IT services and consulting provider DXC Technology promoted Anthony Pappas to its chief marketing officer role. Pappas was previously vice president of business leadership, and earlier in his career he founded Pappas Group, a full service creative agency. Logistics and transportation firm RPM appointed Walt Piekarski as chief commercial officer, effective October 13. Piekarski joins the company after working in leadership at Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and The AZEK Company. Mobile ticketing platform SeatGeek selected Matt Herman as its chief marketing officer. Herman joins the company after a 12-year stint at Wayfair. STRATEGIES + ADVICE Marketing can deliver good messages, but it doesn’t add up to greatness on its own. Greatness is about meaning: standing for something that matters and delivering on those values, building belief among customers. Talent of all ages is needed to make an effective marketing organization, but it can be difficult to catch the eye of younger professionals. Here are eight strategies to attract and retain Gen Zers. Dating app Tinder is introducing a new way to stop bots from joining the service: nobody wants to swipe right on an AI bot. What is the service asking users to do to prove they’re human? A. Respond to questions about their profile B. Use a third-party authenticator C. Pay a $50 annual user fee D. Scan their face to log in to their account See if you got it right here. Got a tip? Share confidential information with Forbes. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
