“Keep on Going” is one of the most memorable Energizer Bunny quotes since the batteries were introduced to consumers 31 years ago. And today, it also seems appropriate for brands seeking a successful passageway out of two major events, COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. For the latter and some folks in Philadelphia, that path was #BringabroomPHL, a volunteer group formed to clean up the mess from protests and riots over the death of George Floyd.

This 1990 movie comedy that focused on an escaped criminal scoring big after stealing an advertising executive’s identity didn’t garner many laughs then and would likely get even less today based on the ad strategies employed. Jim Belushi played the convict and proceeded to beat a business prospect in a game of tennis and then criticize his line of food products. Today’s customers, on the other hand, yearn to be understood.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it seems chatbots are here to stay. In March, it was forecasted by Juniper Research that 2019 retail spending of $2.8 billion due to chatbots would shoot up to $142 billion in 2024. Even if the prediction is off by 25% or 50%, such an increase would still be astronomical and make it impossible for marketers to totally dismiss chatbots.

To sustain the prediction, Heinz Marketing and chatbot manufacturer Drift teamed together on a study and reported that B2B customers increased their chatbot usage 92% from 2019 to 2020. Regardless of how one thinks about chatbots, it seems evident that chatbots will be with us indefinitely.

The idiom “ahead of the pack” has been around for decades, if not longer, but its meaning has endured and remained constant over time. The challenge of being better than the competition has also escalated since the pandemic, as brands incessantly seek to outperform the rest of the industry.

70% of consumers said they would be less likely to continue doing business with a brand after the pandemic after a bad experience. That was the finding of a May survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers by messaging platform firm Podium.

Multinational technology company Cisco was not only the best place to work in 2019 but also the best in 2020 during the pandemic. That’s the conclusion of Great Place to Work, a firm that ranks and recognizes leading companies and offers a platform and counsel to firms wishing to improve their culture and workplace environment.

If the past few months have been any indication, the long-prognosticate future of streaming media is “now.” For some time, pundits and market watchers have predicted that entertainment media would reach a tipping point where more people were streaming their media than watching it on cable or even at the cinema. Thanks to pandemic restrictions and timely moves by streaming companies, that timetable appears to have been accelerated.