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Consumers are feeling a little less confident as Labor Day looms.
The Consumer Confidence Index, Present Situation Index, and Expectations Index all decreased from July (which had an upward adjustment on its confidence index).
Among demographic groups, confidence fell for consumers under 35 years old, was stable for consumers aged 35 to 55, and rose for consumers over 55.
Blame: tariffs, inflation / high prices, recession concerns
Crafting your narrative can create an irresistible draw for some because words affect emotions, which leads to a response. The right words can attract the perfect candidates… But be cautious, as the wrong words could put off your ideal match.
Marketing is the process of creating and sharing a narrative about your brand and offer. Attracting customers that are interested in the narrative and, eventually, want to help co-create it.
from Do Recruit by Khalilah Olokunola 📚
Crafting your messaging isn’t just about what you want your audience to know.
It’s about what you want them to feel.
we have decades of research in behavioral science that tells us that predicting what individuals are going to purchase is logistically impossible. We can predict what large groups of populations are going to buy and that’s what makes it possible to stock grocery stores with the right assortments based on where they’re located. But knowing exactly what Sarah Marzano is going to purchase on her next grocery order is nearly impossible.
We market to abstract groups.
We sell to individual humans.
Handy chart for your channel mix planning from EMARKETER.
As always, what’s old is new again.
The key is figuring out where we are in that looping cycle.
Your product should meet demand, not attempt to create it.
Are you trying to influence Culture or a culture?
The scale is different. The distinction matters.
There is nothing but micro trends these days. Sometimes, things bubble up, and they capture the imagination of pop culture…but then they last for a really short time. In that environment, how do you really set yourself up to influence culture?
If your marketing is going to be trend-based, that requires a particular discipline and dedication.
Pick a direction and go all in. Half measures are where the true losses happen.
via The Sociology of Business from this chat (youtube link)
Get weird!
McKinsey study found that companies that prioritize creativity have 67 percent higher organic revenue growth than those who do not. Yet, creativity, despite its superior business value, is often siloed in “creative” departments like marketing, design or creative. Creativity is a company-wide mandate
via The Sociology of Business from this conversation (youtube link)
Nudge podcast: A surprisingly effective way to persuade (almost) anyone
- The power of identity (people like us, do things like this)
- Conforming to status
- It’s all mimicry
Being a mirror that looks like a window.
Running sales is a short-term solution that can create long-term problems.
Discounting Trains Customers to Devalue You → Short-term revenue spikes don’t build sustainable customer behavior. Your audience starts waiting for sales instead of buying on impulse.
Discounting is lazy. The best brands make full-price irresistible.
via Buyology
When messaging your product, don’t say what’s missing.
Renaming the “𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐭-𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭” to “𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝-𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭” made diners 200% more likely to pick the plant-based option.
&
renamed “𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘢𝘳-𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨” to “𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒔 𝒈𝒍𝒂𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒔”.
Doing so increased sales of the carrots by 25%.
Why? Loss aversion. Losses hurt more than gains feel good, even if we say we want less of thing (e.g. sugar).
caveat: disregard this if what your product is missing is what you’re turning into an enemy to stand against (e.g. Liquid Death’s death to plastic tag).
Benchmarks are useful for quick comparison and decisions. But forget what the benchmark is or that it isn’t an immutable law and it becomes a trap.
The CEO of Bronco Wine – which sells the Charles Shaw “Two Buck Chuck” wine at Trader Joe’s – was once asked how he’s able to sell wine for less than the cost of bottled water.
He replied: “They’re overcharging you for the water. Don’t you get it?”
The real question is how can they sell bottled water for more than the cost of a bottle of wine?
Comparison goes both ways.
via Morgan Housel
According to Goldman Sachs research:
Our estimates imply that US consumers had absorbed 22% of tariff costs through June but that their share will likely rise to 67% by October if the later tariffs have the same impact over time as the earliest tariffs
Not sure how recent announcements and rate changes may impact this, but it doesn’t bode well for Q4 and already meh consumer confidence indices.
via CNBC
side note: I can’t find the original research/note from GS and it’s annoying me
Conductor David Robertson has a mixtape he plays for conductors he’s teaching filled with all kinds of music. But this isn’t your classic high school mixtape.
It’s all put together with a maximum of 2.5 seconds. Sometimes they’re even shorter.
Why?
to get them to understand that, whether or not you feel musically sophisticated, the speed with which your brain decides, “Ah, yes, for me. No, not for me,” is very, very quick.
We make taste based decisions incredibly quickly. Not just about music.
don’t know what a mixtape is? Kleon’s got you
Taco Bell gets it 🔔
Their Distinctiveness Rule:
You can change either the taste or the form, but you can’t change the taste and the form.
People want their new to be familiar. They need an on-ramp.
Your thing also has a language. Changing the “taste” and “form” (whatever those are for your thing) is more likely to make it a different thing altogether.
Be different. But make it rhyme.
via Austin Kleon
Speak to someone’s pain and emotional state at the right moment, and you’ll have their attention.
It’s hard to do this if you’re only in it for the money or don’t care about your customers.
via DemandCurve
The modern consumer journey according to DemandCurve:
- They see your ad while doom-scrolling Instagram. They click.
- Something distracts them away from their phone.
- They remember later in the evening (or 3 weeks later) thanks to a Trigger Event.
- They Google your company name.
- They visit your homepage, not the conversion-focused landing page you intended them to hit.
Between screenshots and post save buttons, everything is a bookmarking app now.
Marketing is like gardening. You plant a bunch of seeds and sometimes the best plant comes from the compost heap.
This is the first AI related “breakthrough” I can remember being attributed to Apple
Apple researchers have developed a breakthrough “multi-token prediction” framework that enables large language models to generate text up to 5 times faster while maintaining output quality
Has it finally entered the chat?
via Perplexity