Now we can all be Mr. Beast

YouTube is finally rolling out the ability for creators to test and compare how multiple video thumbnails perform

With the new tool, which YouTube calls “Thumbnail Test & Compare,” creators can test up to three thumbnails for a video.

via The Verge

On Brand: Authenticity & Personality

Blake Droesch on the type of brand that won’t be disrupted by AI And other technologies (~25:21):

The authentic brand is the one that is going to stand out. That was true yesterday, it’s true today, and it will be true in the years to come.

& Bill Fisher (~25:40):

Every brand’s going to have a core audience. And you need to speak to that audience in a relatable way. That’s what your brand personality is—or should be.

& Carina Perkins (~26:40):

Brands can’t really get away with false personalities anymore. Is that personality really reflecting their business and values? And everything they do, rather than just what they say?

Plus some solid branding advice from Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor):

It’s like I always say, if you’re going to use two brand names, just use one.

Costco has entered the chat.

Costco is building out an ad network built on its trove of loyalty membership data, using its 74.5 million household members’ shopping habits and past purchases to power targeted advertising on and off its website.

The slogan of the cookiepocalypse: let a million ad platforms bloom.

via Marketing Brew

Following up on my post about how to make a video according to Meta, from Meta:

we won’t recommend Reels that are over 90 seconds long

If you’re hoping for organic discovery of your Reel, keep it shorter.

via Social Media Today

From a Meta rep, creative differentiation isn’t just about designing assets that look different. It’s about creating assets and messaging that speak to every potential customer segment.

It’s not just about the stage of their journey, it’s about them plus their stage.

Anything created before you’re 15 is just the way the world has always been.

Anything created between the ages of 15 and, maybe, 35 or 40 is amazing and cool and exciting and you can have a career in it.

Anything created after you’re 40 is a threat to civilization.

This maps pretty well with how I think about societal power centers.

Cultural power is with the young, molding and accruing in that first bucket.

Spending and professional power in the second.

Political power in the last.

Also why the youth are always seen as counter-cultural. The change is their norm.

via Another Podcast

I think the future, as seen for the last 20 or 30 years, is task-specific UIs that reduce complexity and data overload and focus on what you need to see. And obviously, I think the future is AI systems that show you less and tell you more.

-Ben Evans

Tech progress is usually the process of simplifying the complex until a new paradigm creates a complexity explosion, starting the cycle anew.

Platforms are multi-purpose.
Apps (in the West, at least) are single- or few-purpose.

In general, how can you simplify for your customer’s benefit?

36% of respondents had the highest attention quality with the version of the ad containing the highest voiceover volume. Keeping an ad creative engaging, but scaling back complexity and layered audio elements boosts efficacy.

Everyone hates when commercials are way louder than the content they’re delivered around (looking at you, FX).

And don’t yell, you’re not a car salesperson (and if you are, dear god stop yelling in every ad spot).

Just like every other medium, the message needs to be clear and rememberable.

via Sounds Profitable

The resale industry (formerly known as second-hand shops) is growing fast. The segment could double to $82 billion by 2026, according to an industry-funded report—fueled by a generation of young shoppers interested in buying unique pieces in an affordable, environmentally friendly way.

In an age of fast fashion, even faster copying, and rapidly diverging price-to-quality ratios, people are seeking the unique, one-of-a-kind, not off an infinite rack at a good value.

Be different.
Be valuable.

via 2PM

Good advice from James Clear

There are at least 4 types of wealth:

  1. Financial wealth (money)
  2. Social wealth (status)
  3. Time wealth (freedom)
  4. Physical wealth (health)

Be wary of jobs that lure you in with 1 and 2, but rob you of 3 and 4.

You usually expend 1&2 to compensate for the lack of 3&4.

Can you over-communicate with clients?

I really like this:

Marketing’s value proposition for a brand is not growth but differentiation.

Differentiation as a way to become visible and appealing to the customer, thus driving tangible growth.

Differentiation comes about primarily through story-telling; effective brand narratives that engage the customer

via MarTech

This chart is interesting because I feel like brands firmly focus on the items in the middle. Customers just want to be rewarded for being loyal shoppers and fans in a way that makes them feel like a human rather than a number.

via EMARKETER

The chart titled "Aspects of a Personalized Shopping Experience That US Adults Value, March 2024" displays the percentage of respondents who value various personalized shopping features. The data is presented in a horizontal bar chart format. &10;&10;The percentages for each aspect are as follows:&10;- Loyalty programs tailored to your shopping preferences: 61%&10;- Special offers/discounts based on your shopping habits: 57%&10;- Wishlist features (e.g., save for later, share with others): 31%&10;- Emails based on your interests about new products, sales, and restocks: 23%&10;- Customized product/service recommendations while shopping online: 22%&10;- Ability to customize the look and feel of the shopping site: 16%&10;- Content curation based on your preferences and past interactions: 14%&10;- Personal shopping assistants or chatbots: 11%&10;- Virtual try-on features (i.e., AR): 10%&10;&10;The source of the data is Bizrate Insights, from "The State of Customer Loyalty," dated May 1, 2024. The respondents are US adults aged 18 and older.

When asked how Dave Matthews Band sells out so many shows…

Dave Matthews’ line is always, “we only have 35,000 fans, they just go to every show.”

This is the goal—the dream.

Make something so good that a core group loves it to the point of never getting enough.

Yes, it’s a joke (probably), but it’s rooted in a fandom that puts the fan in fanatical.

Going for scale is flashy and en vogue.
Going for depth can be more fun for everyone.

via the Celtics Talk podcast

Instagram confirmed it’s testing unskippable ads after screenshots of the feature began circulating across social media. These new ad breaks will display a countdown timer that stops users from being able to browse through more content on the app until they view the ad, according to informational text displayed in the Instagram app.

Unsurprisingly, people hate it. But Meta is really good at figuring out what people will actually put up with vs what they just say.

If these stick around, will they command a higher price?

via TechCrunch

I’m always wondering where to draw the line with advertising frequency, so I’ll take this number from Meta and use it as the ad-level threshold to help with decision making.

After around 4 exposures, conversions could decrease by about 45%.

I agree with Rushkoff on this:

The value of this technology in creative work is not to come up with the ideal commercial product but to show us perfect examples of what to avoid.

Create it yourself.
Create it with AI.
If you can’t tell the difference, start again.
(Or automate that task and find somewhere else to add value.)

Let your human show.

Average marketing budgets have fallen to 7.7% of overall company revenue, down from 9.1% in 2023

Budgets typically lag the economy, but can be a leading indicator of advertiser confidence.

This could be a leading indicator for smaller margins from coming price cuts too.

In the four years preceding the pandemic, average marketing budgets were 11% of overall revenue. In the four years since, they’ve dropped to an anemic 8.2%.

This is from a survey of CMOs, so a specific class of business.

via MarketingTech

LinkedIn has reduced the size of link preview images for organic posts, while maintaining larger preview images for sponsored content.

I noticed the smaller image size on a client’s post the other day but thought it was a bug or an image smaller than the recommended size, turns out it’s the new normal.

A reminder that social platforms don’t like external links. Unless you’re paying.

via Search Engine Land