Chief Marketer

3 weeks ago | chiefmarketer.com | Kaylee Hultgren

Familiarity with generative AI is not breeding contempt among marketing executives—far from it. Among the CMOs surveyed by Boston Consulting Group in April and May 2025, 79% are confident that the technology will improve their outcomes, up from 71% two years ago. And while 23% are somewhat worried or anxious about AI, that’s half of the 46% who said the same in 2023.

3 weeks ago | chiefmarketer.com | Kaylee Hultgren

As one of the top running brands in the U.S. since the 1970s, Brooks knows its way around a performance running shoe. But some 50 years later, running shoes have literally left the track. They pervade streetwear culture and the fashion world, even crossing generational lines. (Chunky yet comfy “dad shoes,” we’re looking at you.)Leaning on its heritage and expertise, Brooks Running saw an opportunity to enter the lifestyle space and embark on the next phase of its brand evolution.

3 weeks ago | chiefmarketer.com | Kaylee Hultgren

Editor’s Note: In the past five years, chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolonely has grown its North America sales from single-digit millions of dollars to more than $70 million per year. And a large part of its recent success comes from adding paid media to the marketing mix as a supplement to shopper marketing, live events and organic marketing. Chief Marketer Network publication AdExchanger reviews how adding paid media to the mix upped the game for the brand.

4 weeks ago | chiefmarketer.com | Kaylee Hultgren

Influencer marketing is on the rise, with 59% of all marketers—and 69% of U.S. marketers—planning to partner with more influencers this year, according to a new report from Sprout Social. The data is based on a January 2025 survey of 650 marketers across the U.S., UK and Australia. Altogether, 37% of marketers plan to partner with the same amount of influencers as they did last year, and just 4% of brands are scaling back their influencer marketing investments.

4 weeks ago | chiefmarketer.com | Kaylee Hultgren

Marketers are wooing Gen Z as assiduously as they did millennials, Gen X and baby boomers before them. But not all the methods of courting previous generations of consumers work with Gen Z. This was the topic of “Gen Z Broke the Marketing Funnel,” a panel discussion at the April 2025 POSSIBLE conference in Miami. Though as moderator Krystal Hauserman, NOYZ consulting CMO and UrbanStems strategic advisor, put it, “The marketing funnel wasn’t just broken.