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Welcome to The Brief by Kuro House, your daily dose of sharp, actionable insights from the world of marketing. Today, we’re diving into stories that matter—from TikTok’s recent advertising hiccup and the impact on the broader digital ecosystem, to Salesforce’s playbook for marketing at scale in the AI era. Whether you’re a CMO, a strategist, or just someone who likes to stay ahead of the curve, let’s get right into it.
Let’s start with a story that’s had advertisers buzzing over the past 24 hours: TikTok’s U.S. data center outage and its ripple effects across the ad industry. According to Adweek, TikTok sent an email to advertisers explaining that a power failure at a U.S. data center had caused a significant outage. The platform warned that “features or ads may be missing from campaigns” and acknowledged ongoing technical issues with monetization features in TikTok Ads Manager and through API partners. The timing couldn’t have been worse, as TikTok is in the midst of rolling out its new U.S. joint venture, TikTok USDS, led by Oracle and a group of politically connected investors. During the outage, users reported being unable to upload videos, and some saw their posts stuck at zero views or likes for hours. Advertisers felt the pinch immediately: Tinuiti’s senior social innovation director, Jack Johnston, reported “significant under delivery across a number of clients.” As TikTok went dark, CPMs on rival platforms spiked—Meta saw a 12-15% increase, YouTube Shorts went up 8-10%, and Snapchat rose 5-7% before things settled down. Beyond the technical mess, there’s also growing concern about TikTok’s new terms and conditions regarding immigration and citizenship data, which have sparked user backlash and made advertisers nervous about retention. As one agency exec put it, “This does not feel like business as usual on the buying side.” For now, the industry is watching TikTok closely to see if the damage is temporary or a sign of deeper instability.
Next up, let’s turn to the world of B2B marketing and the ever-evolving role of AI. Adweek’s interview with Salesforce President and CMO Ariel Kelman is a must-read for anyone thinking about marketing at scale. Kelman lays out his 25-year playbook, emphasizing that trust is the ultimate differentiator in tech marketing. One of his key strategies is the “show, don’t tell” approach—especially important in the crowded AI marketplace. Rather than bombarding buyers with claims about platform superiority, Salesforce showcased real customer implementations at Dreamforce’s AgentForce City. Attendees could see, for instance, how Williams Sonoma uses AI agents for shopping. This evidence-based approach, Kelman argues, is far more persuasive than traditional marketing, especially in an industry where skepticism runs high after years of overpromising. Kelman also stresses that leadership must personally experiment with AI before asking their teams to embrace it. The biggest barrier to AI adoption, he says, is psychological resistance to change, not technology itself. By leading from the front and sharing their own experiences, executives can turn AI adoption from a mandate into an aspiration. Finally, Kelman warns that without unified first-party customer data, AI initiatives are doomed to fail. Siloed or incomplete data leads to irrelevant or even damaging customer interactions. His advice: harmonize all customer data into a single, secure source of truth before deploying AI agents. And perhaps most refreshingly, Kelman encourages leaders to learn from each other’s failures, not just their wins—building networks where candid discussions about what didn’t work can help everyone avoid costly mistakes.
That wraps up today’s edition of The Brief. We’ve seen how even the biggest platforms can stumble—and how quickly those stumbles can ripple through the entire marketing ecosystem. We’ve also heard from one of the industry’s top CMOs about the importance of trust, transparency, and learning from failure in an age of relentless tech change. As always, the landscape is shifting fast, but staying curious and connected is the best way to stay ahead. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you tomorrow with more essential marketing updates.
