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amid the race to automate, a critical truth is emerging: the brands making the most significant impact aren’t the fastest. They’re the most intentional. When everything is automated, meaning becomes the differentiator.
via MarTech
May was a rough month unless you could partake in the Memorial Day sale bonanza, based on my experience.
Consumer spending data backs this up, according to EMARKETER:
US retail sales fell more than expected in May from April, the latest sign that tariff fears and economic volatility are affecting consumer spending.
There are signs of resilience, but plenty of red flags 🚩
Consumer confidence remains well below what it was at the end of 2024, as concerns about the economy, employment, and finances remain elevated due to ongoing volatility and lack of clarity on tariffs.
Even high-income consumers are beginning to rethink their spending, with many choosing to trade down or pull back on discretionary categories like dining out and luxury goods
Turns out Meta is like X and LinkedIn, it doesn’t want your links in the main post.
Users have reported seeing the following message when preparing to post a link in Facebook page posts:
Maybe that means that you should be including all of your post links in the first comment, and an image in the main post, which is what many high-performing publishers on Facebook are currently doing.
Amazon 🤝 Roku
Amazon Ads and Roku Announce Partnership Creating the Largest Authenticated CTV Footprint
Advertisers can now deliver on Roku surfaces via Amazon’s DSP.
This Exponential View episode is worth a listen as a quick overview of the current tech inflection points, like:
- the AI layer upending the current ad funded model of the “open” internet
- why we should approach AI model advancements with optimism
But this is the big one for me:
It”s no longer about phones. It’s about ambient computing.
Ambient, invisible computing
I started writing about this way back in 2020, this will be the biggest marketing shift of the era.
Apple’s liquid glass is the public facing beginning of this shift (for them).
Jasmine Enberg gets it:
people aren’t going to buy your product, tariffs or not, if they don’t know who you are
Building a brand is expensive in the short run and cheap in the long run
This SparkToro post that the messaging categories we emphasize to clients are really as old as Aristotle.
Pathos - Emotional
Ethos - Functional / Relational
Logos - Logical / Data-centric
You have to have all three and they get used at different times for different audiences.
If you knoll you know
Sorted verses unsorted pictograms should be used strategically, depending on whether the messaging is promotional or prohibitive. If eight out of 10 dentists endorse a toothpaste, for example, a sorted pictogram would make consumers feel favorably about the toothpaste. However, when depicting that 8% of children alive today will die if current smoking trends continue, an unsorted pictogram would be appropriate.
research…found that frequency pictograms, which convey proportions and probabilities, induce optimism in consumers when they are presented in a sorted way.
facts don’t have any meaning unless people pay attention to them, and people pay attention to, and remember, good stories.
Save your features rich messaging for the purchase decision moment.
“Once upon an 800 lb weight capacity…” doesn’t hit the same.
Match the narrative your shopper is telling themselves in the moment they meet your message.
via Collab Fund
Marketing is messaging. And messaging is the act of setting expectations by guiding perception.
This Nudge newsletter on placebos covers it well.
Adding the color red to a painkiller pill makes it more effective.
We assume customers are rational.
We think there’s no way a headache can be cured by colouring.
But the sham surgery proves that’s not true. Marketing alters our perception.
Amazon wants to be the Google Ads of CTV (potentially) moving to auction-based buying.
Lower costs, no delivery guarantees, and (I’d imagine) a workflow many digital-first buyers are more familiar with.
Now for the jargon:
non-guaranteed delivery across run-of-service (ROS) inventory, targeting any Amazon DSP audience, but with a dynamic pricing model.
That pricing flexibility allows real-time bid optimization within a defined range—marketers set a floor and a ceiling, and Amazon’s system works within those bounds to find available impressions.
OXO started as an accessibility-centric company.
“Oversized” handles for easier use by arthritic users.
Designing for edge cases and accessibility usually benefits all users.
🍏 👀
The truly astounding part of WWDC is that they made my nostalgic for iOS 7.0’s readability.
What are we doing here, y’all? This isn’t even 101-level design; I saw better stuff on boingboing & Envato’s design roundup listicles in 2010
— Thomas Cannon (@thomascannon.me) Jun 9, 2025 at 2:09 PM
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The tariff situation shows why messaging matters:
If these big household brands and retailers are talking about this stuff, that’s almost going to have a bigger impact on how consumers feel about the economy and how they spend than it will be if they’re actually putting their budget into a spreadsheet and finding out that they’re spending more money. It’s a communications thing as much as it is like an actual brass tax increase in prices
Are vibe-cessions the inverse of irrational exuberance?
via EMARKETER
Survey says…
41% of consumers say they want more personalized deals and offers, not simulated conversations [from AI]
The chatbot form factor is the default box that AI deployment is being thought of within.
Break outside the box!
via MarTech
I misheard “monetization upheaval” (in regards to publishers in the age of AI) as the “monetization of people”
Which, isn’t that really the root here?
The shift to social, the rise of influencers, Substacking the newsroom.
The person is the atomic unit of relationships. Mastheads are molecules.
American Eagle is taking a new route to reach its Gen Z audience—through the written word.
&
Though Substack may not be the first choice for brands to reach Gen Z, its appeal is rising among the younger generation.
Something something zig vs zag
Or, as I once said:
Short-form video has eaten the world, which means another format will soon disrupt it.
via EMARKETER
You can use LinkedIn as a CTV ad delivery channel:
Connected TV Only Campaign
Connected TV video ad campaigns allow you to reach professionals on their connected televisions or streaming devices. Engage your audience with high quality video ads on a larger screen.
Important Changes
- Only video ads are supported
- Connected TV campaigns are only available on LinkedIn Audience Network
- Videos must meet CTV video specifications
How confident are you in your product that you’d talk positively about your competitors’ products in public?
(probably?)