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You can set brand guidelines in Meta Ads Manager to help steer / personalize the AI to your brand for more on-brand generative options.
Another clear step towards less direct input from marketers and more genAI in the ads platform (and everywhere else) a.k.a. Zuck’s dream.
Tears for Fears shows songwriting is just like making ads
You get a great title, it’s half the battle.
Good beat. Good title. Ok, the rest is simple.
Your creative is your beat.
Your headline is your title.
Something something Shout
The indicators are fine, the vibes are bad
A fair amount of US economic hard data — like consumer spending, a 3% rise in core GDP last quarter, and this latest jobs report — have suggested the economy is holding up despite broad uncertainty
But
Last week delivered the lowest reading on the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index since 2011
I usually think in terms of animal spirits, which should mean bad vibes cause bad indicators. But that connection seems weak these days.
Does political tribalism and attention-capture news mean we just always think things are bad and COVID rewired our spending response behavior?
A perma-vibecession soundtracked by ringing registers?
via The Daily Upside
Audio on!
“That move led to a spike in branded search, stronger revenue, and better margins, even as their overall category was in decline,” Shah writes. “Audio wasn’t just supporting awareness. It was delivering real revenue results.”
Because ears are different than eyes
helps build emotional connection and memory structures that influence buying behavior
Why you need pre-search discovery
up to 30 percent of search clicks are actually driven by exposure to other media like video and Audio
Audio is part of (almost) every strategy I write these days.
About that pull forward…again
Behind the 0.3% contraction in GDP [in Q1] were numbers economists called “extreme” and “weird.”
businesses hastily moved to get ahead of new levies and bring goods into the US.
2.2 percentage points of that investment gain was due to companies boosting their inventories to beat tariffs. Consumers, meanwhile, spent on big ticket items like cars, motivated by the same forces.
This was before all the April Liberation Day related shenanigans too.
The theme of Q1: buy and hold.
How much spending potential is left?
via The Daily Upside
Again, about that pull forward…
From The Daily Upside:
To prepare for a slowdown of global trade, US retailers have spent months stocking up, building a massive inventory of products. It’s all in fear of the ultimate retail boogeyman: empty shelves.
This will either delay the supply shock or, if avoided, dampen future purchasing activity until inventory normalizes.
Or, we’re in for some crazy sales as retailers try to catch up to “normal” and liquidate overstock.
It’s a little paradoxical, but good ads simultaneously tell us two things: (1) you won’t be a total weirdo if you buy this product because others are using it too, and (2) this product will make you stand out from everybody else.
David Perell is right.
People want to be unique. “Authentic” to themselves.
But only in a way that is socially acceptable within their tribe.
Fitting in by standing out.
Ads usually boil down to selling a spot at the cool kids’ table.
Or, as Seth says, “people like us do things like this.”
Of course, you have to be right about the “people”, “things”, and “us”.
While I expect the tariff strong arm to be walked back to some degree, predicting anything right now is a fool’s errand. Which means Memorial Day could be 2025’s Black Friday.
Or, as Apollo’s Chief Economist says:
tariffs have been implemented in a way that has not been effective, and there is now a 90% chance of what can be called a Voluntary Trade Reset Recession (“VTRR”)
The bottom line: If the current level of tariffs continues, a sharp slowdown in the US economy is coming.
🎢
Benefits > Features
What’s the scrappy / DIY version of that big, expensive campaign idea?
If it can be easily scaled, it can be easily copied.
What’s something you’re willing to work harder and longer on than most?
Do more of that.
Escape the Feed
When I’m interviewing someone or talking to someone looking to break into marketing, I always ask if they have any go to sources for marketing news / insights / tips & tricks, etc.
Typically the answer is some form of feed.
“I scroll LinkedIn”
or
“TikTok shows me a lot”
or
“I follow a lot of marketing people on Instagram”
I’m never impressed by this.
My advice, find a few blogs / sites / newsletters related to your role and/or area of interest and subscribe in a way that there isn’t an algorithm between you and the most recent update.
Email is good. RSS* is my preferred method.
Keep feeds for discovery and entertainment.
Create a space you control for learning.
Cultivate your own curious corner.
*RSS Tools
Do you need to do the whole thing? Or can you just do the part you’re particularly good at as part of a team?
Is growing your list of offerings the right move? Or would you be better served by subtracting—focusing on the most popular / what works the best?
People feel increased prices long before potential reshoring employment shifts from tariffs, these 3 headlines could sour sentiment for the executive branch:
Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers
Kickstarter Introduces ‘Tariff Manager Tool’ to Add Charges to Already Fully Funded Projects
Temu adds ‘import charges’ of about 145% after Trump tariffs, more than doubling price of many items
Brands are buckling up for a rough year, especially those importing from China.
This could open the door for more messaging opportunities as major platforms make the impact of tariffs plain to shoppers.
Eventually all large platforms become commerce platforms
When ChatGPT users search for products, the chatbot will now offer a few recommendations, present images and reviews for those items, and include direct links to web pages where users can buy the products.
The ChatGPT search update is part of OpenAI’s effort to compete with rival Google by creating a better, more personalized experience to find products and information on the internet.
Everyone is coming for Google these days.
via TechCrunch
Perplexity wants to be Google, but based in AI vs. traditional search.
From TechCrunch:
“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you,” [CEO Aravind] Srinivas said. “Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal.”
This aligns with the company’s vision and is not a recent pivot, but you can tell they smell blood in the water with Google’s regulatory woes.
The easiest job in marketing is to give people what they’re telling you they want. And sometimes companies even mess that up.
This story (YouTube link) from Bryan-Michael Cox shows the value of listening to fans.
The fans were asking for this song. First of all, they didn’t even put the song on the album initially. The fans were asking for the song because…they were playing songs during the pandemic on a Live and played the snippet and the snippet went viral. And everybody asked for the song and the album comes out, the song’s not on the album. So they had to go do a re-release.
Each individual is a heliocentric universe in which they are the sun.
When it comes to your marketing, they don’t care about you. They care about how your offer and brand fits into their universe as a satellite.
Don’t talk about you. Talk about what you do for them.
Right human
Right message
Right time
