Edition 112.

5 brand bytes to inform & inspire you this week:

🏡 The Meta ad catalog is moving in

Meta’s ad tools keep evolving. I’ve seen it firsthand. Its AI creative tools once (unprompted) turned a Spoken Flames lifestyle shot into multiple AI variations; my original model morphed into a new one drinking wine, taking a bath and moving through skyline scenes.

Now, Meta is bringing that AI-generative power even closer to the point of purchase.

Muse Image, the first image-generation model from Meta, promises “smarter reasoning and iterative refinement.” And includes a room restyle feature that’s coming to Meta AI Shopping.

Shoppers can upload a photo of a room in their home, and visualize real catalog products (potentially *your* products) in their space.

Takeaway: Cleaner product catalogs will give brands a creative advantage as AI-powered shopping expands.

🏷️ AI made it. Now, label it.

As ad platforms generate more creative, they’re also making AI easier for consumers to spot. Meta adds “AI info” to ads created or heavily edited with AI. And Google’s new “How this ad was made” panel identifies ads made or altered with AI across Search, YouTube and Discover.

One of my premier retail partners even asked Spoken Flames to disclose AI product imagery, too. We’re in the clear. I’m sticking with real-world lifestyle photography, and even shared our new human-generated brand work on LinkedIn.

Takeaway: The more AI enters the creative workflow, the more brands will need to label who did the work 🤖

🏆 Employee content wins

I introduced EGC, or employee-generated content, in Edition 110. Now, the data has entered the group chat.

The numbers show that 40% of consumers discover products or services through EGC. And that number rises to 61% among Gen Z. And that matters because a brand trust report found that Gen Z gave 94% of the brands it tracks lower trust scores than U.S. adults did.

Takeaway: Employees, and human voices in general, may be one way to narrow the trust gap.

🏝️ Love Island, full funnel

I’m living under a brand rock and haven’t watched Love Island. But a neighbor and a Trader Joe’s cashier have caught me up.

And where attention flows, ad dollars go.

NBCUniversal shared that ad sales are up 73% from last season. And social-forward soda brand Poppi made the island-franchise its summer marketing play across retail, creators, watch parties, gaming and giveaways. Their result: 212 million creator-content views and 11,000 new email and SMS subscribers.

Takeaway: The best brand partnerships connect the screen to the shelf, feed and inbox. On a smaller scale, there are always ways to play cross-channel.

🔁 Roast, refine, repeat

New session with my speaking coach. We connected to roast my Saltbox Summer Summit performance. Verdict: B+.

The bigger takeaway, and why I’m sharing with you?

Leaning into entrepreneurship creates opportunities to grow personally, communicate more clearly, and deliver more powerfully for clients and even here, with you, on The Brand Bloc.

With clear coaching and fresh direction, I may finally escape three-podcast-episode purgatory.

Question: When was the last time you invested in coaching or development to grow yourself or your brand?

More brand bytes next Sunday at 5!