LGBTQ dating app Grindr has 90% brand awareness within the queer community and has grown to 14.5 million monthly active users worldwide without significant marketing investments. But while the app is a huge success in many ways, the brand perception isn’t consistent and is frequently negative, according to Tristan Pineiro, Senior Vice President of Brand Marketing and Communications.

“There’s a fair amount of stigma around the fact that we’re seen as a gay hookup app,” he said. “We’re on a path to de-stigmatize Grindr and to ensure that we’re in culture and in conversation as the real connector of the community, which is what we’ve actually become.”

Instead of being tasked with increasing brand awareness, the marketing team is charged with increasing positive brand engagement. And one of the ways it aims to accomplish this is through content marketing with a social-first video series.

Marketing budgets average 7.7% of companies’ total revenue, which is flat compared to last year and down from 9.5% just three years prior, according to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey. Moreover, 39% of the 402 marketing leaders surveyed plan to reduce labor costs and cut agency allocations. We spoke with Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst and Chief of Research at Gartner Marketing Practice, to shed led light on the survey’s most important takeaways.

Lastly, Google launched "AI Mode," a chatbot-style interface embedded into its apps, at its annual developers conference this week. The new feature stands to alter the search landscape even further, requiring brands to shift from optimizing for search to optimizing for audiences.

Until next week,