Jules Morris, PhD

The Lab · Marketing newsFor UT marketing students

Trending in Marketing

What’s happening in marketing, and why it matters for your work

October 2026 editionUpdated October 28, 2026New stories every month

Platforms

Instagram is testing 90-minute videos called Features (opens in a new tab)

A person holding a phone and scrolling an Instagram feed
Photo by @georgiadelotz on Unsplash

The test starts in Brazil, with a small U.S. test next, and comes with a tool that turns clips of a long video into Reels that link back to the full version. Reels are starting to work as the trailer, and Instagram wants to be the place people watch the whole thing.

Talk about it If a Reel becomes the trailer for a longer video, how would you plan one idea to work at 30 seconds and at 30 minutes?

TechCrunch · Oct 26

Rules & Ethics

FTC and 20 states sue Dollar General over shelf prices that didn’t match the register (opens in a new tab)

The complaint, filed in Tennessee, alleges thousands of stores charged more at checkout than the price on the shelf, tag or ad, even after tens of thousands of complaints. Regulators are treating the gap between the advertised price and the receipt as deception, and this month they brought similar cases against an auto dealer group and Lens.com.

Talk about it When the price in the ad doesn’t match the price at the register, whose problem is it: marketing, operations or both?

Federal Trade Commission · Oct 26

Audience

58% of Americans now say social media is an important news source (opens in a new tab)

Pew Research found the share rose from 43% in 2022, and 13% now call social media their most important source of news. When people learn what’s happening in the same feed where they see brand posts, accuracy, timing and tone matter more.

Talk about it If your audience gets news and brand content in the same feed, how should that change what and when you post?

Social Media Today, citing Pew Research · Oct 26

More this month AI · Design · Careers

AI

Google’s AI can now build a YouTube video ad from a URL (opens in a new tab)

Asset Studio, powered by Google’s Gemini Omni model, turns a website link and a few product photos into a finished video ad that your team can preview before it runs. Video used to be the slowest, most expensive part of a campaign, so the edge now goes to marketers with a sharp message and good raw images, not just a big production budget.

Talk about it If anyone can generate a video ad in minutes, what makes one brand’s video better than another’s?

Google Ads & Commerce Blog · Oct 1

Design

Apple Music’s new logo was made by sound (opens in a new tab)

Producer Fred again.. and Nest Acoustics played notes through a transducer into a dish of mineral oil, filmed the ripples and used those shapes to redraw the music note icon. The same short composition is now Apple Music’s sonic logo, so the brand looks and sounds like one idea.

Talk about it What real part of your client’s work could become the raw material for its visual identity?

Wallpaper* · Oct 21

Careers

About half of startup marketing job posts now ask for AI skills (opens in a new tab)

A review of 791 B2B startup marketing job posts from September found 47% ask for AI skills, and 15% want marketers who can build AI workflows or agents. Only 25% of entry-level posts ask, so a real example of using AI well can set you apart early.

Talk about it What is one AI workflow from this class that you could walk an interviewer through?

MKT1 · Oct 19

From the archive September and early October

Picked for MARK 465 and MARK 475. Bring one of these stories to class: what would you do if it were your client?