YouTube—the unofficial king of podcasts—is coming for the crown.

If you’re a podcast creator, you can use YouTube Studio to upload your podcasts to YouTube through an RSS feed.

via Google


The arc of clarity bends toward simplicity.

-Rohan Rajiv

Hike Picasso’s Hill

Write like you’re human

Be comfortable with “I don’t know”


This: US credit card balances hit a new record as delinquencies rise in the background
+
The potential for more Fed rate hikes (could overconfidence in coming cuts actually cause the need for hikes?)
+
An election year

Could be a formula for economic performance based on vibes


A still-in-progress big list of digital ad specs to maximize your creative’s usefulness, minimize your work.

Or; how to repurpose your ad assets across digital platforms without having to resize.


Customer service is a choice

It’s either part of your strategy or you’re paying for your mistake.

Great customer service is expensive, but it’s also free. It’s free because delighting a customer who has an issue is the single cheapest way to not only keep that customer, but also have them spread the word.

Everything is customer service


Big List of Digital Ad Specs

As AI continues to takeover many of the tasks that marketers thought made up their "secret sauce," our creative increasingly becomes our most impactful lever for success (remember, a computer vision breakthrough sparked the current AI wave).

Problem is, every platform has their own aspect ratios, recommendations, and minimum sizes. But! That doesn't mean assets can't be used across platforms.

Here is a list of the sizes you'll get the most cross-platform mileage from.

Note: this post is a work-in-progress. It will be expanded with more platforms and recommendations over time.

IMAGES

1200x1200

  • Google Ads
  • Meta
  • Pinterest Shopping Collection pin hero
  • Spotify

1080x1350

  • Google

1200x628

  • Google Ads
  • Meta - search and right column placements

900x1600

  • Google Ads
  • Meta - any messaging/context must be included in the asset (Story placements do not display any text fields from Ads Manager if the asset is fullscreen)

960x1200

  • Google Ads

1000x1500

  • Pinterest - with CTA and any messaging/context included in the asset (direct link clicks mean users will not see any of the Pin text)

300x60

  • Companion banner asset for YouTube ads

VIDEOS

1200x1200

  • Meta (can be gif or video file format. An animated gif uploaded as an image won't animate.)
  • Pinterest max width video

1080x1920

  • YouTube Shorts
  • Meta vertical placements
  • Pinterest
  • TikTok
  • Spotify Video Takeover

This lesson from Inside Taco Bell’s Innovation Kitchen: “You can change either the taste or the form… but you can’t change the taste and the form.”

-Austin Kleon

Customers need an anchor point in familiarity.


Vice on the trendy Stanley Tumblers

responsible for a $676 million increase in revenue, from 2019 to 2023, for the brand

dropping exclusives, like their Stanley X Starbucks collab, which led people to literally camp out outside stores.

Their most recent drop – a limited edition Valentine’s Day cup, in a fairly normal pink and a fairly normal red – has people performing citizen’s arrests in Target in an effort to cop.

A dash of (not untrue) snark:

following the rule-book of forced hyper-exclusivity typically only seen in hype bro fashion brands

The power of drops


From Exploding Topics:

Immersive dining is part of the Immersive Experiences meta trend.

Searches for “immersive experiences” have grown by 144% over the past 24 months.

Immersive experiences have become more accessible, thanks to technologies like AR, VR, and projection mapping.

Videos about immersive experiences have over 515 million views on TikTok.

The further we get from pandemic-era lockdowns, the more the consumer pendulum swings from goods to experiences.

a line graph showing the upward growth trend in search volume for Immersive Dining since 2019

When I started doing things just for growth’s sake and didn’t let the product simmer within the industry, I started making a lot of mistakes. With the products, with the customers, with the positioning.

Sleep, creep, leap