Brands Fail to Meet the ANA’s Diversity Goals, Too
Progress has been strong in CMO gender balance while ethnic diversity continues to face significant shortfalls, according to new research from the Association of National Advertisers and its inaugural CMO scorecard. While 45 percent of top marketer positions examined in the ANA member data were female, only 13 percent were people of color. AdWeek

Instagram Makes Stories Advertising Easier with Automatic Full-screen Support
Instagram advertisers can now have square or landscape ad photos or videos automatically reformatted for full-screen utilization, one of several new features the firm recently announced as part of an effort to improve Instagram Stories. Marketing Land

Google AdWords Releases New Keyword Planner Tool
An updated and more feature-rich Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool has been released, including a newly-designed forecasts area showing a unified overview and the ability to add multiple keywords in bulk, all now available to anyone with access to the latest iteration of the AdWords experience. Search Engine Journal

Forecast: Digital Advertising Pulling Away From TV on Global Basis
New research from Zenith forecasts big gains for global digital ad revenue, increasing a lead built last year and pointing towards a 44.6 percent share of total ad revenue by 2020. With the U.S. and China leading the 2017 through 2020 adspend growth forecast, mobile will be the biggest contributing medium. Marketing Land

Roughly One in Four Americans is Online ‘Constantly’
More than a quarter of U.S. adults consider themselves online “almost constantly” according to survey data recently released by the Pew Research Center, a figure that jumps to nearly 39 percent for younger people in the 18-to-29-year-old age group, and Kurt Wagner looks closely at some of the survey’s fascinating statistics. Recode

Facebook Introduces ‘Store Sales Optimization’ and Other Ad Improvements for Retailers
Facebook has added three new options for retailers, announcing its expanded store sales optimization, tabs for Canvas, and product categories for dynamic ads, all aimed at improving mobile and offline conversions. Greg Sterling takes a look at some of the details. Marketing Land

Social Networking Platforms’ User Demographics Update 2018 –  The most widely-used social media platform in the US isn’t Facebook. It’s YouTube. This new report from Pew Research explores data from the top social networking platforms for 2018 including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter and WhatsApp. MarketingCharts

Forrester Says Only 15% of B-to-B Marketers Are Fully Compliant With GDPR – According to results of a report released this week by Forrester, only 15 percent of b-to-b marketers are fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), while 18 percent are still wondering what to do. In fact, of the 66 marketing professionals surveyed in January, less than half of marketers had even even assessed all points from which they collect data. AdWeek

McDonald’s Flipped Its Famed Golden Arches for International Women’s Day – McDonald’s made a major play to celebrate International Women’s Day this year, taking its famed golden arches and turning them upside down across social media and at an owner-operated location in Lynwood, Calif. The effort is getting both kudos and criticism as a marketing ploy. Of course it is, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s bad, right? AdWeek

Also drawing attention to International Women’s Day: Here are two thoughtful videos from TopRank Marketing co-founder Susan Misukanis and Content Marketing Manager Christine Berres on the importance of women in the workplace and how to be the best you.

Image source: Instagram

Instagram Adds Gifs to Stories and, Yes, It’s a Direct Shot at Snapchat. Instagram announced users can now add GIF stickers to all photos and videos uploaded to Stories with more than 100,000 moving stickers to choose from, as well as see which movable images are trending. Does this remind anyone of the annoying days of Angelfire and MySpace? AdAge

App Spending Topped $86 Billion In 2017. Around the world, smartphone-carrying consumers downloaded more than 175 billion apps last year, on which they spent over $86 billion according to the latest annual report from App Annie.  MediaPost

2018 Creative Trends – Shutterstock’s data and creative teams analyzed their customers’ billions of searches for images, footage, and music search and download data to discover the biggest year-over-year increases. What are the top trends? Fantasy, New Minimalism, Space, Natural Luxury, and Punchy Pastels among others. – Shutterstock

‘Organic reach on Facebook is dead’: Advertisers expect price hikes after Facebook’s feed purge. If any brands haven’t already shifted their Facebook strategy entirely to paid, then they may have to soon. Facebook is changing its news feed to prioritize what friends and family share, which will reduce the amount of content that users see from brands and publishers. Open up those wallets folks! Digiday