Meta makes ads harder to spot, Pinterest reveals Spring trends, and TikTok adds new ad formats

If you squint your eyes, you might still be able to see it.

The fine print just got finer: Meta has shrunk its Sponsored label down to a small Ad tag on Instagram, making paid posts harder to spot at a scroll.

The change is already live, and the disclosure is noticeably smaller than before.

That’s your cue to test more organic-looking ad creative now, before regulators, especially in the EU, come knocking. And speaking of ad creatives…

Try to make them feel comfortable: Pinterest’s 2026 Spring Trends Report shows 619M active users chasing comfort over reinvention this season—micro escapes, cozy spaces, and more.

With Pinterest’s audience already in shopping mode these can be your purchase signals that form before buyers have made up their minds.

Aligning your Pins with what’s trending now puts your brand in the consideration set early.

TikTok is done being the underdog of ad formats: So, it’s introduced two new placements for Australia:

• Prime Time: Sequential ads within a 15-minute window
• Logo Takeover: A co-branded splash the moment the app opens

Both are a direct play for TV budgets. And with over 10M Australians on the platform, TikTok is making a credible case that short-form video deserves a seat at the premium table.

If TikTok felt too casual for your bigger budgets, it just got a lot more serious.

Especially if you mind the engagement gap: TikTok’s engagement rate hit 3.7% in 2026, a 49% jump year-on-year, while Instagram, Facebook, and X sit flat or declining.

And it’s accelerating.

Prime Day is moving to Q2 and the next-day delivery might start to feel slow

Prime Day is gate-crashing Q2: Amazon is reportedly moving Prime Day to late June, pulling one of the biggest spending events of the year into Q2.

Last year’s extended four-day event drove just over $24B in total US online spending across all retailers, not just Amazon. Huge numbers.

What this means: If you relied on the big sale day to rack up your Q3 numbers, you’ll have to shift your expectations to a quarter before.

Also, whether you sell on Amazon or not, Prime Day lifts the whole market. So your competing promotions, email campaigns, and paid budgets need a Q2 rethink. Now.

And now even next-day delivery is too long: Amazon has launched one and three-hour delivery across hundreds of US cities, covering more than 90,000 items.

Prime members pay $4.99 for three-hour delivery and $9.99 for one-hour, putting real pressure on companies like Instacart and DoorDash.

This moves the speed dial on what customers consider normal. If fulfilment is part of your value proposition, audit what ‘fast’ means for your brand… One hour? Three hours? Thanks Amazon.

Which brand elements make you unique?

Every marketer’s rite of passage: Spending hours on the perfect font, only to find that it looks exactly like the Netflix logo.

Science Says recently reminded us that what we think is a bold identity choice is often just background noise to the average consumer.

If you want to be unforgettable, get yourself a mascot. Whether it’s the M&M’s crew or Colonel Sanders, characters are the heavy hitters of brand recognition.

People are significantly more likely to uniquely associate a mascot with a brand than any other element. They provide a face that sticks in the brain far longer than a hex code.

Logos and fonts are the reliable runners-up: You can’t go wrong with a solid logo like the Nike swoosh or a distinct font like Coca-Cola’s cursive script.

While they aren’t quite as potent as a giant clown or a talking colonel, they still outperform almost everything else.

These visual elements allow customers to bypass the reading part of their brain and go straight to recognition, which is exactly where you want to be.

Your favorite color is actually everyone’s color: Stressing over a unique color is a waste of time. Research shows that 82% of color assets are associated with multiple brands.

Unless you are trying to trick people into thinking you are a global soda giant, a single hue won’t cut it. In fact, you are twice as likely to be recognized using a mascot or logo than by using color alone.

If you must use color, get creative with the combo: Don’t ditch your color palette entirely, but stop expecting it to do the heavy lifting.

Instead of relying on a single shade, pair your colors with unique shapes, patterns, or specific combinations. Think Cadbury’s purple paired with gold accents.

It is the combination that creates the distinction, not the individual color itself.

Read the room before you rebrand: Distinctive assets aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

If you operate in a small niche or primarily advertise via audio ads in podcasts, a mascot might be a waste of resources since nobody will ever see it.

So always match your brand elements to the context of where your audience is.

Don’t make your checkout feel like a trip back to 2005

You’ll lose money.

Today’s shoppers expect their digital wallets to be as ready as their physical ones, and they love the flexibility of BNPL (Buy now, pay later).

The King of cards: Credit/debit cards remain the standard at 88% preference.

Digital wallets have surged to 72%, becoming a “must-have” for any modern e-commerce site and 50% of shoppers now prefer Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options, showing how critical credit flexibility has become.

Payment variety is now a competitive advantage.

By offering BNPL or digital wallets (like Apple Pay/Google Pay), you’re reducing the time to click. Every extra field a user has to type is a chance for them to change their mind.

Integrate at least one “one-click” payment option (like Apple Pay) and one BNPL service (like Klarna or Affirm).

This caters to both the speed-seekers and the budget shoppers. It’s a win-win.

Payment friction is costing you conversions. Pro subscribers get insights on checkout optimization like this, plus tactical strategies to reduce barriers and boost sales. Try it out.