Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 148
Goodmorning everyone, thank you in advance for reading my newsletter, really appriciate it. Thanks a million.
Let’s dive into the news that I found interesting (and I hope you find it interesting as well) from the past week or so.
Note: I booked my ticket to Shanghai in september. So soon first hand China news and probably I hop into another country in the area as well haven’t yet decided.
😎 Levels.io → trendchart
Levels.io (Pieter Levels) is one of those creators I’ve followed for years. I don’t know him personally, but his ability to spot trends early digital nomads, remote work, indie hacking, AI are among those, motivates me. We have many of the same interests I think. Last week he dropped **“The Everything Chart”** (an interactive visualization of 20+ trends from 1985 to 2031). Nice idea! It also encourages to do things with the trends one sees.
Maybe I also vibe code something similar soon based on everything I wrote here on substack, might be an idea. (Thanks Pieter).
https://levels.io/the-everything-chart?show=the-internet
🧐Agile is 25: Which practices still work in 2026 and which don’t?
Maybe 8-10 years ago in a previous job, a freelancer who worked there motivated and tought me an agile way of working. It was such an eye opener, so motivating and more fun to work in such a way. Together with a small “ pizza team” we challenged the organisation and were able to rebel against bureacracy and hierarchy; to prove things can also work in a different way. Not only for development but also in digital marketing. I learned a ton of things and because we were with a group we could actually move the needle.
I recently came across this great (and fairly long) article by Vibhor Chandel: “Agile is 25: Which Practices Still Work in 2026 and Which Don’t?”. It’s worth your time if you’re in product, tech, or any knowledge work where “Agile” is part of the daily routines.
In a lot of organizations today, Agile itself has become the system. Teams aren’t rebelling against bureaucracy anymore they’re navigating Agile bureaucracy and maybe that needs change now as well.
Now, in many organizations, Agile itself has become the system.
That means some teams are no longer rebelling against bureaucracy. They are navigating Agile bureaucracy.
A 2025 systematic mapping study that analyzed 97 studies published throughout the Agile era found that
are the qualities that recur most consistently across healthy Agile teams, regardless of which framework they use.
A retrospective that fills a Confluence page with observations and produces three action items nobody tracks by the following Thursday has generated compliance.
A retrospective where the team decides to stop estimating in story points for the next Sprint, runs the experiment, and then reviews what changed has generated learning.
Details via fellow substacker Vibhor Chandel (thanks for the great insights)
🇮🇳 Flipkart lets campaigns tap into viral moments (nice idea)!
Ha! This is nice! Take a look at this campaign from Flipkart, India! Really nice! Makes you smile! I like it also because they think differently. Not a seasonal calendar but tapping into internet culture and viral moments. This albino buffalo went viral in parts of Asia before, now Flipkart taps into it with a campaign.
Different approach instead of seasonal or annual planning. Very nice.
And this is of course works perfect to distribute. The topic is still very much viral and combine this with Flipkart offers it works very well to distribute that then across social or even paid ads. Must have high CTR!
I can imagine it was very very fun to create this campaign.
Flipkart has rolled out a new sale campaign that makes one of the most talked about viral sensations on the internet an unlikely shopping mascot. The campaign, ‘Bhains of Luck’ features Don the Buffalo, the rare albino buffalo from Bangladesh who became a social media sensation earlier this year due to his unique look and widespread meme appeal.
Instead of festive or seasonal narratives, Flipkart continues its strategy of tapping into contemporary internet culture and viral moments with ‘Bhains of Luck’. This campaign is the latest in a series of culture led activations from the brand, turning a social media meme into a humorous sales proposition.
🔍Google is now grading your AI visibility
Adriaan Dekker the well known google ad specialist reminded me (and many others) via his e-mail newsletter, of the new Google Pilot on AI visibility called “Performance Insights”. It shows how your products get discovered across AI Mode, AI Overviews and the Gemini app. It’s now piloting in a few countries among: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and India.
As Adrian says (and I also regularly wrote about the topic of data completeness and cleanness before on substack) :
So this is a feed and product data story, not a bidding one. Get that data clean now, before the paid layer lands on these same surfaces.
Details via: https://adriaan-dekker.nl/
🇺🇸 Walmart new content guidelines for sellers
This relates a bit to new guidelines for products that WalMart released a few days ago.
They now require (and I think other companies can use this example/framework also to decide requirements for their own product data):
TITLES: The open title format is gone. Titles now follow a concatenation structure: Brand + Product Line + Key Features + Size + Count. Brands must pick the highest volume key features within the title as space is now very limited.
DESCRIPTIONS: The 4,000 character description is now a 200 word description. Walmart's new guidelines say to repeat the product name within it.
BULLETS: No major changes. Still 10 bullets, 80 characters each. No punctuation is allowed at the end of the bullet.
IMAGES: Text overlays calling out features and benefits are now required on secondary images, and a dimension image is required for every item, not just select categories.
ALT TEXT: Now keyword, color, material, and GTIN is required (previously a UPC and any name). Your images need to be findable by AI search, not just viewable by humans.
FASHION: Major updates for this category. The gray hashtag#f1f1f1 background is just the start. The new guides specify posing, required product shots, and even foot angles for shoes. Fashion suppliers have work cut out for them on Walmart right now.
SEARCH RANKING: Walmart announced part of their formula to rank higher "SEO & Copy Guidelines". For example, you must repeat the product name in the description (not common at other retailers) and ask for contextual use cases of where, who, and when the product is used (critical for AI personalization).
Via: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/millerberg_f1f1f1-ugcPost-7483232481333256192-edQT/
🫠 B2B from SEO to social?
I work in B2B now, but I always found B2B very interesting and nice even before I worked in it. It’s more complicated but also still so much digital potential and a lot of space for creative differentiation, I think.
I guess Pierre Herubel also thinks that. I refered to him in earlier editions of this newsletter, I think he has a very nice substack on B2B content especially and there is lots of info there B2B companies can take lessons from or use in their strategy.
I wrote earlier on repurpusable content. I know from experience it’s difficult to explain that principle to others, if you don’t actively follow what is happening online in this field. So I can only recommend Pierre , he does a good job on that.
Don’t be mislead by the title, SEO/GEO is still very important and social and repurposable content is in fact a key element of it in my opinion.
Check out all details:⬇️⬇️⬇️and use it in your B2B content strategy (many things you can also use in B2C)
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