Executive Briefing: Monday 28 September

Executive summary Recent developments highlight critical shifts in marketing strategy and operations. A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for product harm, sparking discussions on ethical design. Concurrently, new tools for strategic brand colour selection are emerging, alongside advancements in predictive media intelligence to forecast trends. Advertisers using Google Local Services Ads also faced a temporary discrepancy in call tracking. Ethical design under scrutiny after Meta and Google ruling A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Meta and Google liable for causing harm to users due to the addictive nature of their products. This verdict shifts focus from content moderation to the companies' deliberate design choices. Research indicates that even well-intentioned user-centred design methods, such as design thinking, can inadvertently lead to ignoring potential harms or inadequate attention to ethical considerations, with features intended to increase engagement sometimes resulting in addictive behaviours or the amplification of extreme content. This raises fundamental questions for all companies employing user-centred design about managing blind spots and ethical challenges in product development, underscoring the need for a responsibility reboot in design thinking. Predictive media intelligence enhances trend forecasting Marketing teams are gaining a significant advantage with the rise of predictive media intelligence, which uses AI, real-time signals, and historical patterns to forecast emerging trends, stories, or potential crises. Unlike traditional media monitoring, which tracks what is already happening, predictive intelligence anticipates what is likely to happen next by analysing the pace and trajectory of conversations across social media, news, and the wider web. This technology allows brands to get ahead of fast-moving narratives, assess the potential impact of a negative review beyond a simple rise in mentions, and gain crucial time to react to shifts in audience attention or sentiment. Strategic brand colour selection tool launches A new brand colour tool has been introduced to help marketers and designers align their colour choices with desired brand perceptions, moving beyond subjective preferences. The application allows users to set a starting hue and then adjust it across five scales: Price, Warmth, Energy, Character, and Ground. This functionality is designed to ensure that a brand's visual identity communicates specific attributes, such as luxury (darker, quieter hues) versus bargain (brighter, more saturated hues), or calm (cold colours) versus urgency (warm colours). By enabling a more data-driven approach, the tool aims to prevent colour choices from creating visual contradictions with a brand's intended message, which can otherwise manifest as a logo or webpage that feels inconsistent with the brand's identity. Google Local Services Ads phone number discrepancy Advertisers using Google Local Services Ads (LSAs) encountered an issue where calls were being directed to the phone number associated with their Google Business Profile, rather than the Google Ads number designated for tracking. This discrepancy impacted call tracking accuracy for businesses relying on LSAs. While Google confirmed that ads featuring specific business locations might direct calls to those location-associated numbers over call assets, the issue was reportedly resolved for some users. This event highlights the critical importance for advertisers to regularly verify call tracking mechanisms, especially across integrated platforms, to ensure accurate performance measurement and attribution for their local ad campaigns.