Despite its 50 years in business, Japanese candy brand Hi-Chew still has to work at brand awareness with U.S. consumers, said Joanne Hsu, Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Morinaga America Inc., which owns Hi-Chew. The brand is tapping into in-person activations with sampling to get its product in front of new audiences — specifically Gen Z consumers. Here’s a look at Hi-Chew’s sampling strategy, brand awareness results, activations and plans for 2026.

Pet grooming business Woof Gang is growing at a decent clip; combined sales from its retail store, bakery and grooming services are on track to grow 25% year over year, said CEO Ricardo Azevedo. Plus, the company will finish 2025 with 300 locations nationwide, up from 260 in 2024. Azevedo shares how passionate store owners plus the web traffic of a national brand helps keep the pet groomer and retail store growing.

Businesses that have long relied on SEO to reap leads and sales are now hustling to optimize their websites for answer engines. But AEO is not radically different from SEO, says Nikhil Lai, Principal Analyst, Performance Marketing at Forrester. In its report “Zero-Click Goes Shopping,” Forrester recommends how businesses should approach some of those key differences regarding bot access and content.

To promote its latest piece of hardware, the ROG Xbox Ally handheld device, Xbox is thinking outside the box to get the word out. But in this case, the Ally campaign involved uncharted territory for the company: a college bowl game. Read how the gaming company integrated the new product into fan activations and media.

ICYMI: we've assembled the most read Chief Marketer stories of 2025 — from a case study in higher education marketing to a creator network launch from Lowe’s to a McKinsey growth study examining the CMO-CEO disconnect.

And finally, Chief Marketer Network is headed to CES this week as the conference’s official media partner for the second year running. Expect daily recaps, video interviews, session takeaways and added newsletter coverage through next week and beyond.

Until next week,