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US marketers to spend more on social media ads: Nielsen
MUMBAI: Marketers in US are likely to ramp up their ad spends on social media as consumers increasingly spend more time online compared to traditional media, according to a recent survey commissioned by Vizu, a Nielsen company.
According to the study, consumers spend 20 per cent of their online time and 30 per cent of their smartphone time on social media-accounting for a whopping 121 billion minutes each month.
Around 89 per cent of the advertisers surveyed said they use free tools-such as pages, posts, likes and pins-75 percent say they currently invest in paid social media advertising, which includes tactics such as sponsored content, brand graphs and driving likes. In fact, 64 per cent plan to spend more on social in the future.
Social media ad budgets are small-but growing: Paid social media advertising is still relatively new. The majority of advertisers and agencies surveyed said they‘d been using paid social media advertising for less than three years. One-fifth (20 per cent) said they‘d only started in the past year. Plus, the majority (70 per cent) indicated that they dedicated 10 per cent or less of their overall 2012 online advertising budget to paid social media.
The ad mix will likely shift this year, however, as the majority of advertisers (64 per cent) plan to boost their paid social media advertising budgets. While the increases will likely be modest-primarily between 1 and 10 per cent-the growth is a positive sign for this young channel that hasn‘t traditionally had a dedicated budget. Currently, only 41 per cent of advertisers report having a dedicated paid social media ad budget. To fund the increase in paid social media advertising activity, the majority plan to pull budget from other channels-both on and offline.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
