Marketing messaging is moving to local brands and locations, as customers want to have relationships with brands on a local level, and collaborative marketing helps local businesses market more effectively. AI and machine learning are delivering on their marketing promise to personalize the customer experience at a speed and scale never seen before, and collaborative marketing lets local marketers leverage these powerful technologies. The rising tide of privacy laws make third-party data more difficult to acquire, including the impending demise of third-party cookies disrupting the established digital advertising ecosystem, and collaborative marketing provides an alternative path. The pandemic has accelerated customers' move to digital channels and boosted demand for audience behavioral data, rich customer insights and testing methodologies, which collaborative marketing facilitates. Marketing messaging is moving to local brands and locations, as customers want to have relationships with brands on a local level, and collaborative marketing helps local businesses market more effectively.

As part of Lufthansa's ongoing global #SayYesToTheWorld brand campaign, it has become the first airline to launch a Watson Ads campaign, joining other brands such as Lego, Behr Paint, State Farm, Best Western, and TruGreen Lufthansa's AI-powered ad helps consumers plan their next international adventure in Europe, showcasing a specific location and helping a consumer explore the city by providing local travel facts, and tailored image galleries or videos. The campaign, which will run from 10/1 - 11/25, will help Lufthansa to discover new insights about consumers and their travel planning needs, which can inform future marketing efforts. The AI-powered ad is available to US consumers on weather.com, Featured cities include: Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Florence, Frankfurt, Krakow, Milan, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Rome, and Stockholm. The campaign focuses on exploring a world of new possibilities and saying yes to the unknown. The interactive ads, powered by IBM Watson, provides consumers with the opportunity to interact with Lufthansa for general airline questions and for travel content across 15 European destinations.

Kantar Millward Brown, a leading global research agency helping businesses grow strong brands, has released its annual Media and Digital Predictions for 2018. For the 10th year running, the company's predictions provide marketers with a clear guide to the challenges and opportunities of the next 12 months, helping them shape their media and digital marketing strategies. The challenge with non-traditional forms of advertising is how to prove effectiveness; whether the objective is to make people more aware, change perceptions, or take action. The impact and return on investment can be compared directly with other brand and behavioral metrics, but brands must be clear about their objectives and consider how to measure effectiveness early in the process. How brands communicate with people will continue to evolve rapidly away from just standard paid media.