Today's brands have become media companies with all the content they need to create, distribute, and amplify on a daily basis. Marketers need to think holistically about their content marketing efforts, instead of relegating it to only the Owned channels of the Paid, Owned, Shared, and Earned spectrum. Since influencers are both content creators and promoters, a great influencer marketing campaign helps branded content take off and inspire the holy grail that is user-generated content.

What should marketers look for in an AI tech vendor for their brand? We looked at the hype surrounding AI and how companies can cut through it to find the right partners to help them take advantage of the AI revolution.

The Next Great AI Advancements Will Come from Marketer-Vendor Partnerships (eMarketer)

When you look at the volatility on exchanges, it's clear cryptocurrency has a marketing problem. Branding plays an essential role in helping the public trust something new, but marketing promises should always be rooted in the product and the team. The cryptocurrency market right now is both undervalued and overhyped, and marketers need to be responsible with how they promote new coins and products.

Looking into 2018, influencer strategy will continue to be a vital skill for marketers to learn to support their brands. Measurability and ROI are essential to influencer marketing, and brand strategists need to collaborate with marketing and PR teams to fit the right influential voices into their plans everywhere from social media to events.

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16 Skills Every Marketing Pro Should Master In 2018

Looking ahead at 2018, the Brand Matters show outlines three tech trends we expect to see next year: 1) artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistants; 2) compelling augmented reality experiences that digitally enhance the world around you; and 3) user smartphone fatigue as customers begin to feel stifled by the always-connected nature of our mobile devices.

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Smartphones Will Continue to Take Over Our Lives – And Other Predictions for 2018? (Mobile Marketing Watch)

Brand Matters shares highlights this week from the Upside-Down Market Entry Roundtable session at TNW New York. The traditional way of expanding to new markets is too slow for the digital age. We need to flip the process upside-down and realize that our companies are already global brands and we are entering and guiding an existing conversation.

Made with Descript

There's a new trend among companies marketing to consumers where instead of building a flashy brand, companies are choosing to have a minimalist brand identity. We look at three companies – Public Goods, Brandless, and Common Projects – and how they're using a lack of branding to their advantage.

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Millennials And The 'Reverse Branding' Trend

Public Goods

Brandless

Common Projects

This week's episode of Brand Matters discusses why it's important for brands to switch from a horizontal to a vertical mindset when it comes to creating content for mobile devices. We also recap some related insights from the App Promotion Summit in Berlin.

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Why Brands Need to Adopt a Vertical Mindset (MarTech Series)

App Promotion Summit

This week's show recaps the Mobile Marketing Roundtable discussion from the Data & Marketing Association and Industry Index. We cover topics from mobile commerce, influencer marketing, to location intelligence.

In our second segment, we discuss how today's smartphones are actually quite dumb. Artificial intelligence has the potential to make our mobile devices truly smart through anticipatory, contextual, and personalized experiences.

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Data & Marketing Association

Industry Index

Dumb Smart Phones - Adotas

We've spent close to a week with the iPhone, and it's the best iPhone Apple's ever made, but it's not quite perfect. We look at some of the issues with the device, like the autocorrect bug and FaceID challenges.