RadioShack

Dec 30, 2022

From a Deepfaked Elon Musk to RadioShack’s NSFW Tweets, CMO Today’s Twenty-Two Most-Read Stories of 2022 Famous brands tried winning consumers with more AI and less reliance on search advertising, as well as rafts of obscene tweets An ad for real-estate investment startup reAlpha featured a deepfake version of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo: reAlpha The biggest marketing news of 2023 will likely have had roots in 2022. If brands next year flood social media with computer simulations of A-list endorsers, for example, remember this year’s marketing videos starring deepfakes of Elon Musk and Tom Cruise. Our report on deepfakes was the most-read CMO Today story in 2022. Other widely read articles by CMO Today covered big shifts in brands’ marketing strategies, efforts to improve customer experiences and the growing use of AI in marketing, which is poised to spread even further in the new year. Prepare for what’s coming with this list of CMO Today’s most-read coverage in 2022, presented in order of popularity. Photo: Cameilla Menard New owners tried shocking a formerly powerful brand back to life with crass posts on Twitter. (See also: No. 15.) “We wanted to come up with something effective, something that is essentially all organic traffic, and just cut down on the average cost per purchase,” an executive explained. Subscriptions once mostly evoked a way to get regular deliveries of magazines, newspapers or milk, but expanded in the internet age to include everything from videogames to pet food. Taco Bell, Sweetgreen and Alaska Air Group explored whether customers would pay up front for a taco a day, discounted salads or frequent flights. As soon as Google promised to restrict consumer tracking on mobile devices, advertisers declared its approach more collaborative and “empathetic” than Apple ‘s take on privacy, which forced app developers to get explicit permission from users in order to track them. But some said all the drama might still encourage them to diversify marketing beyond certain online platforms.