Consumer sentiment plunged in early April to the lowest level ever recorded in the more than 70-year history of the University of Michigan’s survey. The Index of Consumer Sentiment’s preliminary reading for April  fell to 47.6, down 10.7% from March, extending a decline that began with the start of the Iran conflict. Year-ahead inflation expectations rose to 4.8% this month from 3.8% in March. Comments show that many consumers blame the Iran conflict for unfavorable changes to the economy, according to Joanne Hsu, director, surveys of consumers.

Quad/Graphics, Inc., a marketing experience company that solves complex marketing challenges for its clients, has appointed Kristin “KJ” Jones and Evan Hughes as Senior Vice Presidents at Rise, a Quad agency. Building on a long-standing rapport and deep industry experience, Jones and Hughes now lead integrated teams together at Rise, focused on transforming the go-to-market approach for clients. Their work will combine their extensive agency experience with the power of Quad’s proprietary household-based data stack and omnichannel media solutions to help brands connect with target audiences through intelligent segmentation, modeling, testing and measurement. This unique data capability gives Rise and Quad a differentiated position in the market and unlocks greater value for clients. Both executives report to Joshua Lowcock, Quad President of Media. “KJ and Evan are exactly the kind of leaders Rise was built for: agile, transparent, and results-focused,” Lowcock said. “In an industry that is often opaque and unnecessarily complex, Rise delivers measurable value to clients with speed, smarts, and scruples.

A new study from Interpublic’s Magna and the IPG Media Lab reinforces the idea—embraced by the industry for a number of years now—that ad personalization is one of the best techniques to help brands deliver more relevant and effective ad experiences. The study focused on three key ad categories—auto, retail and finance—and includes responses from more than 6,000 participants. Testing was conducted on two audience types: brand target demographics and high-value audiences based on people-based IDs created by precision targeting platform Kinesso. Six types of data sources for personalization were tested: demos, past purchases, location, life events, search terms and precision messages for high-value audiences. The study found that most forms of ad personalization had some value and that higher levels of personalization were more effective at shifting difficult-to-move metrics.