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KIMP’s Picks 25th April: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

A few years ago, AI was a futuristic concept. But today it’s evolving at lightning-fast speed with groundbreaking updates unveiled every week. Social media has become the go-to platform where brands, marketers, and industry leaders share and debate these game-changing developments. If you’re not tuned into your feeds, there’s the risk of missing critical tech news that could shape your industry. 

But let’s be real. Sifting through an endless stream of posts on your social media feeds can be overwhelming. So, how do you stay informed without losing hours to scrolling? That’s where KIMP’s Picks comes in. 

Each Friday, we handpick the posts highlighting the week’s most significant AI breakthroughs, social media algorithm shifts, marketing trends, and design inspiration, delivering a short, impactful read to keep you ahead of the curve.

Ready to wrap up your week with a quick dive into this week’s highlights? Let’s get started with the KIMP’s Picks 25th April Edition. 

In the Marketing Realm 

The power of YouTube to tap into fandom 

YouTube talks about effective ways for brands to boost engagement. The post here gives a peek into the case study that highlights how Frito-Lay leveraged YouTube to boost engagement by tapping into fandom. 

Given that the brand already has built a strong awareness, the goal was to drive engagement, and they did this by appealing to music fans through Music Sponsorship. Generating more than 1.2 million + engagements, this campaign was a hit. So, identifying a niche and knowing what your target customers are fans of can help boost engagement. Because then you have a common topic of interest to discuss with your audience. 

AI skills have become a non-negotiable for marketers 

Generative AI is reshaping the marketing landscape, and we see marketers and organizations integrating AI directly into their workflows. Besides, AI tools have also become more accessible now than ever. This has made them efficient add-ons in content creation, automated testing, and nuanced customer engagement. 

Taking all these into account, marketing teams are now hiring AI specialists to develop custom solutions, such as customer-facing chatbots and automated A/B testing. Reportedly, the AI adoption rates tripled in 2023 compared to 2022.

In short, the future of marketing hinges on AI literacy for marketing teams and leadership roles alike. 

Google introduces improved channel controls for Demand Gen Campaigns

Google has rolled out a new feature for Demand Gen campaigns, allowing advertisers to customize where their ads appear across its visual platforms. The beta feature, known as channel controls, lets marketers select specific channels like YouTube, Gmail, Discover, and the Google Display Network based on what aligns with their strategies.

Advertisers can now tailor ad experiences, such as serving vertical creator videos exclusively on YouTube Shorts for an optimized mobile experience. Or they can extend their social strategy across millions of sites via the Google Display Network. The feature also offers an “All Google channels” option, which uses Google’s AI to automatically distribute budgets across all available inventory for maximum reach and efficiency.

Google Analytics enhances accuracy amidst privacy shifts 

Google has rolled out updates to Google Analytics to improve data accuracy and help marketers address issues faster. These changes are meant to address challenges posed by evolving privacy regulations and technology shifts that impact customer data collection.

The new features include Aggregate Identifiers and Smart Fallback Methods to improve campaign tracking when privacy settings limit data, such as preventing paid traffic from being mislabeled as organic. 

In addition to these updates, marketers can now access faster diagnostic tools. A new Data Quality Indicator surfaces potential setup problems directly in reports, while System-Generated Annotations flag events or changes that could explain fluctuations in data.

Hilton leverages social media listening for a creative campaign 

Social listening is a valuable tool in marketing for brands looking to engage their audience more effectively. Most importantly, for brands looking to create better campaigns. And here’s an example shared by Adweek.

Hilton is putting vacation horror stories to work in its favor with a new social campaign designed to highlight the reliability of its hotel stays. Titled “Hilton Saved My Stay,” the three-part series taps into real travelers’ worst lodging experiences (gathered through social listening on platforms like TikTok and Instagram) and showcases how Hilton stepped in to save the day.

The idea and the execution feel authentic and relatable, highlighting how social listening helps. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

YouTube discusses content repurposing strategies 

Creating long-form content for YouTube takes a lot of effort. So why not make these videos work more? YouTube discusses content repurposing strategies in the post below. 

It talks about crucial steps like identifying the key moments, the best parts, the hooks, and actionable tips presented in the video. Once you have these, play with the speed of playback, transitions and text overlays to create something short yet engaging. While executing all these strategies, do not ignore branding and visual consistency. 

How UX influences SEO 

User experience is not the first thing that marketers optimize when working on improving their SEO. However, the post here from Semrush highlights how well these two are connected and how improving user experience can eventually help improve your site’s ranking. 

Accordingly, the post gives marketers a few actionable tips to improve UX, like creating content that is optimized for search intent, creating content that is easy to read, prioritizing accessibility, and other strategies. 

So, if you are working on your site’s SEO, this is a resourceful article to check out. 

In the Design Realm 

Bold packaging design 

Packaging of the World shares innovative packaging design ideas from around the world. Their recent post highlights the fresh and bold packaging design for an energy drink brand called “Кислый Рогач” which translates to ”Sour Hornhead”. 

The design consists of unique designs for each flavor represented through a burst of color and dynamic illustrations. The character-driven design captures the “sour face” experience, translating it into expressive, energized eyes that channel the drink’s core identity.

This packaging design project highlights the power of bold, flavor-driven packaging to differentiate in a crowded market. And how brands can tap into the power of catchy visuals and custom illustration to connect emotionally with consumers seeking unique experiences.

Budweiser’s unique outdoor campaign 

Budweiser has launched its Speech Bubble campaign, spotlighting its presence in over 1,200 Hollywood films, from classics to modern blockbusters. 

Developed by Africa Creative, the campaign reimagines Budweiser’s iconic “bowtie” logo as a speech bubble, creating the illusion that movie characters are requesting the beer. 

To elevate the impact of the idea, the brand also came up with a strategic placement of these billboards. As you know, billboards and other OOH formats, when executed well, can create a lot of buzz. Budweiser’s speech bubbles were positioned next to movie posters and billboards in carefully chosen locations, starting in Los Angeles and expanding to Brazil’s major urban centers and theaters. This approach aims to seamlessly integrate the brand into pop culture narratives.

This campaign highlights the effectiveness of tying back to cultural moments and blending fandom to create campaigns that create a buzz. 

In the AI Realm 

Grok gets real-time visual and multilingual capabilities 

xAI’s Grok chatbot is getting smarter and more visual. This week, the company rolled out Grok Vision, a new feature that allows users to point their phone’s camera at objects, documents, or signs and ask questions about what they see, much like real-time vision tools in Google Gemini and ChatGPT.

Currently available on iOS only, Grok Vision enables more intuitive interactions, turning your smartphone camera into a real-time source of insight. Android users will have to wait a bit longer. 

SuperGrok users are also gaining access to real-time search in voice mode and multi-lingual audio capabilities. While Grok started out a little late in the chatbot segment, it’s quickly catching up with a rapid round of updates that have been launched recently. 

xAI’s Grok 3 family of models – now in API 

xAI recently announced that the Grok 3 family of models is now coming to the API as well. This brings Grok 3 mini, which is designed for affordability. It reportedly outperforms other reasoning models while being five times cheaper and excelling in graduate-level STEM, math, and coding tasks.

Grok 3, on the other hand, excels in enterprise-grade intelligence. Dubbed the world’s strongest non-reasoning model, Grok 3 specializes in enterprise applications requiring deep knowledge in diverse fields. Customers in these sectors have so far been impressed with the unique capabilities of Grok 3, which have not been seen in other models to date. Therefore, this has proven to be a strong contender for specialized tasks. Now the model’s availability in the API opens up new possibilities. 

Grok now gives more personalized responses 

Grok recently announced an update to the memory feature on the chatbot. As discussed earlier, with every update, the chatbot is catching up with the other popular models in the segment. And now this memory feature update proves just that. 

So, now Grok will be able to remember and reference past conversations on the platform. Details from these past chats come in handy for the platform to provide users with more personalized and relevant responses. Have you tried it yet? 

The platform also has a built-in customizer similar to that on ChatGPT. This is where you dictate the rules for the chatbot, defining whether you like concise responses, a polished tone, or any other specific requirements. 

Midjourney’s image editor gets a makeover 

Midjourney’s image generation platform has been evolving slowly but steadily. Their recent V7 release brought in a bunch of new features like Draft Mode to iterate on various ideas, Remix & Tile features, among other updates. 

Now their image editor is getting a makeover with a refreshed UI to make editing designs on Midjourney simpler. Another notable addition is the option to create layers to personalize designs with precision. 

OpenAI brings gpt-image-1 image generation model to the API 

OpenAI has launched its GPT-Image-1 model on the API, bringing high-quality image generation to developers and businesses. 

The model powers the popular image native generation feature in ChatGPT, which was an instant hit. ChaGPT images saw over 700 million images created by 130 million users in its first week. The model’s versatility has been greatly lauded, and now it’s coming to the API as well. 

With this the API lets users generate images in various styles, follow custom prompts, render text, and apply real-world knowledge. It supports applications across industries like creative tools, e-commerce, gaming, and education. Adobe, Airtable, and Figma are already integrating GPT-Image-1 to enhance creative workflows. 

Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash aids cost-effective AI reasoning 

Google has introduced Gemini 2.5 Flash, a hybrid reasoning model (now in preview) through the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI. The model allows developers to adjust Gemini’s “thinking” process, balancing quality, cost, and speed. This can be particularly handy in tasks like building chat apps and data extraction.

With a thinking budget feature, developers can set custom token limits to control reasoning depth, ranging from zero for faster responses to higher budgets for complex tasks like math problem-solving. Gemini 2.5 Flash outperforms many models on complex prompts, ranking second only to 2.5 Pro in LMArena tests.

Perplexity brings Voice Assistant to the iOS app 

Perplexity has finally rolled out an update to its iOS app. This update brings a conversational AI voice assistant that can handle everyday tasks like writing emails, setting reminders, and booking dinner reservations.

With this upgrade, Apple users can now interact with the assistant directly from the app and even continue talking to it after navigating away. But yes, some features available on the Perplexity Android app are still not available on the iOS app, like the screen sharing feature, for instance.

Google makes Gemini Advanced free to college students in the U.S. 

Google has announced that Gemini Advanced is now free for U.S. college students until June 30, 2026, if they sign up by June 30, 2025. The offer includes access to advanced AI models like Gemini 2.5 Pro and Veo 2, along with tools such as Deep Research, NotebookLM Plus, and Google Labs’ Whisk.

Students also receive 2 TB of storage, providing ample space for academic projects and media. The initiative aims to support exam preparation and research with cutting-edge AI capabilities, available across web, Android, and iOS platforms.

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes 

YouTube turns 20 

Can you believe that it’s 20 years since the first ever video was shared on YouTube? A 19-second clip sparked a video revolution. 

With over 20 billion videos now uploaded, YouTube is reflecting on its journey and unveiling new features, stats, and fun surprises.

Every day, more than 20 million videos are uploaded, and in 2024 alone, users posted over 100 million comments daily. Over 3.5 billion likes are given to videos each day, and creators heart comments from 10 million viewers on average. The post here from YouTube shares more such intriguing data and some new features introduced to make the platform better for users. 

YouTube’s seeing an increase in virtual creators 

The creator economy is booming, but a new development in this segment is the trend of virtual creators. 

Reportedly, last year saw about 15 billion views spread across 300 virtual creators, with about a billion views from the U.S. alone. 

With AI tools now simplifying the creation of virtual avatars and animations, the trend is all set to explode. 

Meta’s “Edits” is here 

A few weeks ago, Instagram’s Head Adam Mosseri announced that Meta is working on a new app for streamlined video creation, Edits. With TikTok already having CapCut, Edits soon became one of the most anticipated launches. And it’s finally here! 

This new standalone video creation app is designed to simplify and supercharge mobile content creation. Aimed at creators who want pro-level tools on the go, Edits offers a streamlined, all-in-one workspace for producing high-quality videos, whether you’re posting to Instagram, Facebook, or anywhere else.

The app will let you create 10 minutes of footage in one go and efficiently manage projects, and finally export edited videos without watermarks. 

Instagram Blend feature 

Instagram’s Head, Adam Mosseri, shared some updates about a new feature to try on Instagram called Blend. This feature on Reels is to let users connect with their friends over creativity. Available both for DMs and group chats, this feature lets you share a feed of Reels with your friends. To access this feature, look for the Blend icon in any DM or group chat and start sharing Reels you love or even chatting about them. 

Let’s Wrap It Up…

That’s a wrap on this week’s biggest social media moments! We hope this round-up gave you a quick and clear snapshot of the buzz you might’ve missed. With social media evolving at lightning speed, staying on top of every update can feel like a full-time job. That’s where KIMP’s Picks has your back.

Stay tuned right here for next week’s edition—same time, same scroll!

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Posted On

25 Apr, 2025

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