KIMP’s Picks 11th April: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

Worried you are missing out on the key social media updates? Worried the big stories are slipping through your fingers? We’ve got you covered. Welcome to the KIMP’s Picks 11th April Edition–your fast track to staying in the loop.

Our weekly social media recap is your quick social media fix. From game-changing AI updates to marketing gems and must-know posts you might’ve scrolled past, we’re packing it all into a quick, easy read. So, are you ready for this week’s highlights? Let’s go! 

In the Marketing Realm 

Google expands Performance Max capabilities 

Google has announced a series of enhancements to its Performance Max campaigns, aiming to give advertisers greater control and insight across the customer journey. These updates include new retention-focused goals, expanded image asset management, and significant increases in search control options.

The enhancements aim to give advertisers greater control over their campaigns and provide deeper insights into customer lifecycle management. The ability to automatically source images from landing pages and enhance existing images will improve asset variety. The increase in negative keywords allows for more precise targeting and reduces wasted ad spend.

Enhanced Merchant Opportunities Report on Search Console 

Google has revamped its Search Console Shopping tab, renaming it the “Merchant Opportunities Report” and adding features to help retailers manage their online store’s appearance on Google Shopping. 

The updated report now includes options to manage payment methods—such as Google Wallet, Apple Pay, and PayPal—as well as store ratings and shipping and return policies. These additions aim to enhance how retailers present their businesses in search results and on the Shopping tab.

Stores can also integrate customer ratings from Google and third-party platforms like Trustpilot, which Google says boosts click-through rates by 2% on average.

This update offers a streamlined way to enhance customer experience and credibility on Google Shopping, potentially driving higher engagement and sales.

The other side of celebrity endorsements 

The post here from MarTech, a leading authority in marketing-related news, discusses the ups and downs of celebrity endorsements. Celebrity endorsements continue to be a major investment for brands, but many fail to deliver meaningful returns due to poor alignment with the audience and a lack of relevant data. 

Despite the cultural clout of names like LeBron James or Kanye West, the wrong partnerships can lead to costly misfires or even reputational damage.

The article outlines four key evaluation pillars: brand fit, trait transfer, performance lift, and exit strategies. It also notes the rise of influencer marketing as a scalable, authentic alternative, though it brings challenges like audience fraud and authenticity fatigue.

For brands, the takeaway is clear: ditch the guesswork. Use data, rely on social listening, A/B testing to ensure endorsements align with values

Cheetos grabs attention with the Cheetos Pants campaign 

Next, we’re discussing an inspirational campaign just for those looking for a quick creative boost. The post here is from the Little Black Book, a library of inspiration for marketers. 

Cheetos has released a limited-edition pair of trousers called “Cheetos Pants,” designed to solve the problem of Cheetle-covered fingers. These orange pants feature a towel-like texture on the thighs for wiping hands and pockets sized to hold a Cheetos bag.

The pants, matching the iconic Cheetos orange, are available for a limited time on a first-come, first-served basis. For those who miss out, Cheetos has curated a global collection of other orange pants from various brands, making them easily shoppable online.

This campaign from Cheetos demonstrates that playful, purpose-driven brand experiences can create buzz and deepen emotional connection with fans. In fact, it’s campaigns like these that help create fans and not just customers. 

An engaging campaign to raise awareness 

The campaign that Ads of the World discusses in the post below is a combination of shockvertising and cause marketing, and it taps into the power of print to make the brilliant idea work. 

The campaign titled “Fire Prints” has been launched by Unquiet magazine. The campaign has been designed to raise awareness about the devastating wildfires in the Pantanal, South America. 

To make the idea more tangible, the team came up with a haunting print campaign where the magazine’s pages were intentionally burned, with only the Onçafari ad left untouched, offering a path for action. 

The charred issues were sent to media professionals and influencers to provoke conversation and encourage public involvement in preservation efforts.

This campaign exemplifies the use of powerful, sensory storytelling to transform environmental crises into urgent narratives. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Personal SEO – an overview 

Search Engine Land shares insightful search-related updates and tips and tricks for brands and marketers to stay ahead in the search marketing game. Their article here discusses the importance of personal SEO in managing your online presence for career advancement and professional networking. The post is particularly about SEO for personal branding. 

Personal SEO involves optimizing your online information to appear prominently in search results when someone searches for your name. This is crucial for recruiters verifying qualifications, networkers finding you, and enabling recruiters to discover candidates.

The article differentiates personal SEO from business SEO, highlighting differences in scope, keyword strategy, goal orientation, content approach, and measurement metrics. It provides a step-by-step guide to auditing your digital footprint, including conducting self-searches, identifying positive and negative content, and mapping existing online profiles.

SEO vs. SEM – understanding the differences 

Semrush is a leading online marketing platform, and their blog and social media pages are filled with useful SEO related discussions. Here’s one such. This article clarifies the distinction between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). 

SEO focuses on generating unpaid, organic traffic from search engines by optimizing website content and structure. SEM encompasses both SEO and paid advertising (PPC) to maximize search engine visibility.

The article highlights the cost and time differences: SEO requires ongoing investment in content and optimization and takes months to show results, while SEM demands an advertising budget but provides immediate visibility. 

In short, this is a resourceful discussion for brands to understand the distinct roles of SEO and SEM to build a comprehensive search marketing strategy. 

In the Design Realm 

Typography ideas for your next project 

I Love Typography always has some fresh font recommendations for those times when you feel stuck in a creative rut. Here’s a font idea they shared this week. 

The post discusses a cheerful bubble font called Sandhouse. The subtle bounce, the rounded shape of letterforms, and the high-contrast strokes together create something unique and fresh. It makes a great choice for designs meant to make a statement and brands focusing on a young and energetic crowd. Given that large and bubbly fonts are projected to be trending in 2025, this is a great font to add to your list. 

Brand identity built around a playful mascot 

If you thought branding for the home services industry is plain and boring, think again. The branding project here proves that a creative and playful mascot can breathe new life into a brand and appeal to diverse audiences. 

Ding stands out in the home services industry with a charming, house-shaped mascot featuring big, expressive eyes. This playful character is central to the brand’s identity. The mascot was key to creating a friendly, recognizable presence for the new subscription-based app.

The brand’s visual language emphasizes warmth and neighborliness, using a vibrant palette of orange, green, yellow, and blue hues, and approachable typography. This rebranding aims to make home repairs feel less daunting and more personal, moving away from transactional interactions. 

A bold and unique packaging design example 

Looking for some fresh perspectives when designing packaging? Packaging of the World shares plenty of ideas discussing projects from around the world. This one explores the packaging for Riega Foods. 

The new packaging design was created with an aim of matching the boldness of their flavors with equally bold visuals. After tasting the blends, the design team knew the packaging had to go big—Texas big. Accordingly, the design features bold, vibrant colors, particularly fiery red, and playful typography. 

Illustrated motifs, such as guitar-playing avocados, raging bulls, and peppers, add a handcrafted, lively feel to the design while also preserving the regional appeal intended in this design. 

This packaging overhaul shows how brands can use vibrant visuals and culturally rich motifs to enhance product appeal and create a memorable consumer experience.

Fantastic Four poster channels retro cool

Creative Bloq shared a post discussing a recent campaign by Marvel. Marvel has dropped a fresh poster for Fantastic Four: First Steps, and it’s already winning over fans with its sleek, retro style. Set to release on July 25, the reboot leans into a 1960s-inspired design language that feels like a breath of fresh air in a world filled with overwhelming visuals. 

The poster’s minimalist style, with a blue and white color palette and silhouette depictions of the superhero team, deviates from the typical floating head movie posters. The design incorporates a repeating “4” motif to create depth and a graphic appeal.

The popularity of this poster highlights the effectiveness of traditional marketing material like posters as well as the growing popularity of retro designs.

In the AI Realm 

Amazon’s Nova Sonic brings emotional intelligence to Voice AI 

Amazon has unveiled its latest breakthrough in conversational AI, Nova Sonic, a next-gen foundation model that doesn’t just process what you say—it understands how you say it. 

By recognizing tone, inflection, pacing, and other vocal nuances, Nova Sonic promises to make voice interactions feel more human and emotionally aware than ever before. 

This model, accessible via Amazon Bedrock, aims to simplify the development of voice applications in various industries, such as customer service, travel, education, and healthcare. From handling pauses and hesitations to managing interruptions gracefully, this model signals the next step in Voice AI. 

Amazon Nova Reel 1.1 brings enhanced video generation capabilities

Amazon is turning up the volume on generative video with Nova Reel 1.1, the latest update to its video generation foundation model under the Amazon Nova family unveiled at re:Invent 2024. 

Nova Reel 1.1 brings higher-quality, lower-latency video generation, making it easier than ever to create stunning, multi-shot videos up to two minutes long with consistent style across shots, providing greater creative control.

This video model streamlines video production for marketing, social media, and product campaigns, cutting time and costs with AI-driven creativity. 

Nova Reel 1.1 democratizes high-quality video production, allowing marketers and creators to rapidly prototype ads, tutorials, or branded content without extensive resources.

Deep Research is now available on Gemini 2.5 Pro experimental 

Google has announced that Gemini Advanced subscribers can now access the Deep Research feature on Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, its most advanced AI model. This upgrade enhances the AI’s ability to find and synthesize information, provide more insightful reports, and improve analytical reasoning. 

According to Google, user testing has shown a significant preference for reports generated by Gemini Deep Research with 2.5 Pro over other leading research providers. Users are reporting notable improvements in the quality and depth of research reports. The feature is available across web, Android, and iOS platforms, allowing users to generate detailed, easy-to-read reports on a wide range of topics.

NVIDIA launches Llama Nemotron Ultra 253B

NVIDIA has introduced Llama Nemotron Ultra 253B, a powerful new model optimized for reasoning tasks across industries. The Llama Nemotron family includes Nano, Super, and Ultra models, each tailored for different use cases and hardware requirements. 

A key feature is the model’s ability to switch between reasoning and non-reasoning modes via system prompts, allowing it to support both complex decision-making and general-purpose tasks.

In addition to possessing exceptional reasoning capabilities similar to those of the DeepSeek-R1 model, this one is said to have better world knowledge. In short, it is built to stay ahead in the agentic era. 

Gemini Live expands with camera and screen Sharing

Visual processing is slowly expanding in the AI realm and taking this one step ahead, Google has announced live visual processing and interactions with Gemini Live on Android devices. On select Android devices, you can now use your camera to capture something in your surroundings or share your screen to let the AI process and answer questions based on what you share. 

Gemini Live supports natural, multilingual conversations (in about 45 languages) and enables users to engage visually with the AI for a range of everyday tasks. 

Google expands the availability of AI Mode 

Google has broadened access to its AI Mode feature, making it available to millions more Labs users in the US. 

This experimental tool is now enhanced with Google Lens integration. It allows users to search using text, voice, camera, or uploaded images. AI Mode allows users to have more open-ended conversations to explore topics further. 

The update enables AI Mode to tackle complex queries with detailed, AI-generated responses, accompanied by follow-up question prompts and web links. Initially launched for Google One AI Premium subscribers, the rollout now targets a wider audience eager to test its capabilities.

Runway upgrades Gen-4 with Turbo 

Just a week after introducing the Gen-4 model for enhanced image-to-video generation with world consistency, Runway has announced Gen-4 Turbo. 

This upgrade makes the Gen-4 model faster, with the ability to generate 10-second videos in about 30 seconds. 

Google streamlines AI app development with Firebase Studio

Google has introduced Firebase Studio, a cloud-based, agentic development environment designed to streamline the creation, testing, deployment, and operation of production-quality AI applications. 

Firebase Studio integrates tools like Project IDX, Genkit, and Gemini in Firebase, providing a unified platform for developers of all skill levels. 

The platform allows users to prototype full-stack AI apps using natural language, images, and prompts, with Gemini providing real-time assistance for editing and expanding features. 

Google unveils unified security platform & AI-powered security agents 

At Google Cloud Next 2025, Google unveiled a set of innovations aimed at redefining modern cybersecurity, centered around its newly launched Google Unified Security platform. 

Designed to unify and elevate security across enterprise environments, the announcements reflect a major push toward integrated, AI-driven security solutions. 

To recall, a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft announced the expansion of Security Copilot with AI Agents. Now Google is stepping up with its own AI-powered security ecosystem. 

Google expands productivity on Workspace with new AI updates 

At Cloud Next, Google unveiled a suite of AI-powered updates for its Workspace platform, with Gemini continuing to take center stage. 

Among the standout features is the integration of audio tools into Google Docs, allowing users to generate full audio versions of documents or short, podcast-style summaries.

Docs also gets a “Help me refine” feature, which adds an AI writing assistant to instantly improve content quality. Additionally, Google Chat now includes enhanced Gemini-powered collaboration features, and Google Vids leverages the Veo 2 image generation model to boost visual storytelling.

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes 

Meta expands teen safety features across Instagram, Facebook & Messenger 

Meta is rolling out new built-in restrictions for Instagram Teen Accounts and extending the same protections to Facebook and Messenger. Aimed at users under 16, these updates include preventing teens from going Live or disabling protections against explicit images in DMs without parental permission.

The protections will now cover Facebook and Messenger as well, beginning with teens in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. These accounts will feature similar safeguards, like private default settings, limited messaging permissions, and reminders to log off after an hour.

Community Notes starts appearing across Meta apps 

A few weeks ago, Meta announced that testing has begun for the Community Notes to replace Fact-Checking across Meta apps like Instagram, Threads and Facebook. This feature functions similar to the Community Notes feature on X. 

Last week, Meta announced that the third-party fact-check program has ended, and users will slowly start seeing Community Notes. 

Snapchat unveils sponsored AI lenses 

Snapchat is introducing Sponsored AI Lenses, a new ad format powered by its proprietary generative AI technology.

This new ad format aims to help brands craft immersive, personalized experiences for users. These interactive Lenses allow Snapchatters to transform their appearance with themes like retro hairstyles, futuristic fashion, or wild west personas, placing them directly at the center of branded moments.

The format has already seen early adoption from brands like Uber, Tinder, and Coldplay, who used it to create high-engagement campaigns tied to cultural moments and launches.

That’s a Wrap…

Time to wrap up this week’s social media recap. That was an overwhelming set of updates, don’t you agree? These buzzing updates unraveling week after week mean just one thing – staying in the loop matters now more than ever. But keeping up with all the buzz can be exhausting, we know. So, if you want to do it the easy way, come back next week for your weekly highlights served in a neatly wrapped recap in the next edition of KIMP’s Picks. Until then, stay inspired and keep pushing your creative boundaries!