Austin Lau joined Anthropic — the makers of AI model Claude — in 2024 as the company’s first growth marketing hire in the U.S. Since then, he’s built out performance marketing, SEO, lifecycle, attribution and a suite of AI-powered workflows largely on his own, contributing to the company’s meteoric rise from $150 million to $7 billion in revenue in two years. During a fireside chat at AirOps Next Conference in New York City on May 13, Lau shared insights and best practices for marketing teams experimenting with the technology.

Chief Brand Officer Michelle Goad is making big changes at Claire’s — and she’s happy to steer its turnaround. After the mall-based retailer filed for bankruptcy for the second time in August 2025, investment firm Ames Watson acquired it in September 2025 for $140 million. Goad's focus is on “rebuilding the foundation of the business and brand, and the stores are the heartbeat of that.” Here’s how she aims to do it.

Caffeinated chocolate brand Awake primarily sold its products in food service locations, such as hospitals, college campuses and workplaces, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But when people stopped going to those places, the brand shifted its strategy to direct-to-consumer sales, including in retail. Today, stores are the fastest growing part of its business and will be for the foreseeable future, according to co-founder and CEO Adam Deremo. He shares how the brand adjusted marketing tactics to suit that objective.

Lastly, CM sister pub AdExchanger was on the ground in New York City this week covering eight major upfront events, from the likes of NBCU, Fox, Amazon and Netflix. Read (and watch) their can’t-miss coverage of the media companies’ annual performance for ad buyers.

Until next week,