☕️ Disney just handed TikTok creators its biggest franchises

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

🎬 Disney just handed TikTok creators its biggest franchises

🤝 90% of consumers distrust the influencers you hire

🛒 AI shopping agents can now roam Amazon again

🤖 Snapchat can now feed your campaigns to AI agents

🎥 Kick just opened up a new ad channel

Plus: 💡 6 strategies & tactics, 🎁 7 other news you might like, and 🧰 6 tools.

🎬 Disney just handed TikTok creators its biggest franchises LINK

Disney has struck a deal with TikTok that lets creators legally use characters, scenes, and other assets from hundreds of its movies and shows, spanning Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and FX, in short-form videos.

The partnership starts as a US pilot in the coming months, and Disney will pick some creator-made videos to distribute through Verts, the vertical-video feed inside the Disney+ mobile app.

Details on creator selection, editing rights, monetization, and music and actor likeness rules remain unclear, but TikTok users shared 6.5 million film and TV posts daily last year, with nearly half of viewers watching something they found there.

🤝 90% of consumers distrust the influencers you hire LINK

Nearly 90% of consumers say they distrust influencers, according to a report by The Drum, with much of the skepticism coming from wider awareness of paid partnerships that audiences view as lacking authenticity.

A Journal of Marketing study frames influencer authenticity as context-dependent, built from five properties: expertise, connectedness, integrity, originality, and transparency, where transparent admissions of paid partnerships, especially with humor, make influencers seem more honest.

The research recommends brands swap rigid scripts for outcome-focused briefs, encourage balanced feedback that includes product shortcomings, and prioritize influencers who build reciprocal engagement through Q&A sessions and follow-up content over surface-level metrics.

🛒 AI shopping agents can now roam Amazon again LINK

A U.S. appeals court has overturned a March ruling that temporarily blocked Perplexity's AI-powered agentic shopping tools from accessing Amazon's platform, letting the browser assistants shop and make purchases on the site again.

The court found Amazon was unlikely to win its claim under a federal hacking law, ruling that it was Perplexity's users, not the company itself, who accessed Amazon's platform through the Comet browser.

Reuters reported the decision is the first by a federal appeals court to address whether AI agents acting for users can legally access online platforms, with Amazon saying it disagrees and is evaluating next steps.

🤖 Snapchat can now feed your campaigns to AI agents LINK

Snapchat has launched its Snapchat Ads Model Context Protocol server, which lets advertisers build and refine their campaigns using guidance from third-party AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.

The Snap-hosted connection links the Snap Ads API to supported AI agents, and organization administrators must authorize each AI agent separately while setting the level of data access it receives.

At launch, all approved connections are read-only, but an upcoming release will add write access, letting admins decide which AI agents can create Snapchat ad campaigns and which stay read-only.

🎥 Kick just opened up a new ad channel LINK

KICK has launched KICK Ads, opening its livestreaming platform to advertisers for the first time in its three-and-a-half-year history, after choosing to build up creators, communities, and its product before adding advertising revenue.

The platform has grown past 100 million active users, passed 1.5 billion hours watched in Q2 2026, and hired advertising staff from Google, Spotify, Omnicom, and Seven Network to build the ads platform and service model.

KICK says 81.7% of its audience is aged 18 to 34, a share it claims beats other livestreaming platforms and linear television, and it added 39 million users in 2025 plus 27 million more in early 2026.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> The Best Time to Post on Bluesky in 2026, According to 3 Million Posts: Post on Bluesky during weekend afternoons and weekday evenings, since its chronological feed rewards timing more than algorithmic platforms where posts get resurfaced later.

> How to audit your email automations for revenue gaps: Explains how to recover lost email revenue by fixing deliverability fundamentals and building high-impact automated flows like cart abandonment and post-purchase.

> The Biggest AI Search Signals You’re Probably Ignoring: Get cited in AI answers by building consistent third-party mentions, active LinkedIn and Google profiles, and specific YouTube videos-not just an optimized website.

> Why the F.A.C.T.S. model is the key to search everywhere optimization by SOCi: SOCi's F.A.C.T.S. model gives multi-location marketers five factors-freshness, authority, consistency, trust, and semantic relevance-for prioritizing which optimizations boost visibility across search, social, and AI answers.

> Reddit Marketing: How to Build a Brand Presence in 2026: Earn trust on Reddit by studying each community's rules and helping users first, since authentic participation shapes how people discover brands through real conversations.

> Do you have a Trial Reels strategy?: Test Reels with non-followers before publishing so brands can compare variations and release only the strongest to their feed.

Other news you might like

• Google Assistant Shutting Down On Mobile Devices On September 4LINK

• What to Expect from AI Shopping in the Next 3 YearsLINK

• Google: Reddit Gets No Special Preference In Google Search RankingsLINK

• LinkedIn’s new anti-slop button is coming to every platformLINK

• Spotify Tests Podcast Ad Skip Button to Make Experience More IntuitiveLINK

• Amazon puts Sponsored Products into creator hands on August 10LINK

• Meta Ads introduces stablecoin payment optionsLINK

🧰 Trending tools

OpenSEO: an MCP-connected SEO data tool providing keyword research, competitor analysis, backlinks, and site audits starting at $10/month.LINK

Pebbles Ai: a go-to-market operating system that consolidates 10+ sales and marketing tools into one AI-powered platform for building pipeline and closing deals.LINK

Artifacts by Databox: a business intelligence platform that lets teams build custom dashboards, track key metrics, and get AI-generated insights without complex setup or coding.LINK

PodcastorAI: turns scripts, links, PDFs, or audio episodes into publish-ready video podcasts with AI hosts and avatars in about 15 minutes.LINK

CrawlRaven: connects Search Console, Analytics, Ahrefs, and Semrush data with a 200-point site crawl to generate a ranked SEO action plan.LINK

VisibAI: tracks whether your business shows up in AI-generated recommendations across six platforms, scoring visibility and delivering prioritized fixes to outrank competitors.LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!