Steal This: Intentional Stance
I was introduced to Daniel Dennett's concept of the intentional stance via Seth Godin. It reads like marketing strategy 101 for being customer-centric with your messaging:
Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.
I translate this as:
- Acknowledge the entity you are talking to is both a human being and a rational agent capable of making its own decisions (you're making an appeal—an ask—not coercing or commanding)
- Determine what (you believe) this entity believes: experiences, values, foundations, local reality, etc.
- Determine what (you believe) this entity desires: dreams, aspirations, self-talk, role models, etc.
- Determine what (you believe) this entity will do, given its beliefs, to satisfy its desires: actions, means, consideration set, etc.
With that base you can then craft your messaging.
What is the narrative the entity is telling itself?
How does your brand fit within that narrative?
What is it seeking?
How do you call attention to your solution?
Many car manufacturers are selling car owners’ data to advertisers as a revenue boosting tactic, according to earlier reporting by Recorded Future News. Automakers are exponentially increasing the number of sensors they place in their cars every year with little regulation of the practice.
The OpenAI as platform company era has begun.
GPTs are a new way for anyone to create a tailored version of ChatGPT to be more helpful in their daily life, at specific tasks, at work, or at home—and then share that creation with others.
Anyone can easily build their own GPT—no coding is required. You can make them for yourself, just for your company’s internal use, or for everyone.
GPT Store coming soon. And maybe a phone (a Jony Ive collab)?
The Apple Playbook is in full effect.
Tag, You're It: How to Think About Google Tag Manager (GTM)
The Google Analytics 4 era is upon us, and to do GA4 right you're likely going to need Google Tag Manager.
There are more ways than GTM to GA4, but they work together pretty seamlessly. And GTM reduces the need for a developer, which is one reason I like it (I always feel bad asking a talented programmer to copy-paste this event code snippet just because I can't access the code base).
Google's vision for the GA4 era seems to be:
- GTM is the implementation layer
- GA4 is the intelligence/analysis layer
- Data Studio is the reporting layer.
The simplest way to think about GTM is as an extension of your site's code.
To make events and interactions "visible" to GTM, the information has to exist in the data layer.
A data layer is a JavaScript object that is used to pass information from your website to your Tag Manager container. You can then use that information to populate variables and activate triggers in your tag configurations.
With Tag Manager, there are now two code bases for your site (or app):
- The functional code - what your developers created to make the whole experience happen
- The marketing code - all the stuff we can do in GTM that isn't part of the user's core experience but facilitates most modern web work (social media pixels, Google Tags, event tracking, cookie banners, A/B testing tools, etc.)
GTM is a container for all that code that powers your digital marketing and analytics efforts but doesn't need to be in the core code base (there are some things that need to be added directly despite not being core to the user experience (like A/B testing tools) to avoid creating a bad user experience due to the way GTM handles code injection).
An added layer of data for your marketing and analytics needs.
What happens when I change something?
Edits in Tag Manager are not destructive to historical data. They change how things are handled moving forward (and may cause you headaches if you rename things and forget when you go to do time period comparisons).
An example question I was asked recently:
I am adjusting various triggers based on some new website updates. Will this effectively "erase" the event count of previous tags with the old triggers?
Short answer: nope!
Once an event hits GA4, GTM no longer holds sway over it, it just packages the information that gets sent and processed.
In this example, changing the trigger allows you to adapt/update the event criteria so you can send the same event name into GA4 even if the trigger changes.
How to think about Google Tag Manager:
Tag Manager is a supplementary code base where you can move (most) of your marketing, analytics, and related code to keep your core code base lightweight while giving you, the marketer, more flexibility and control over how your events and code snippets are implemented.
Need a new Meta Pixel event firing for better optimization? It's now just a few clicks away, no developer required.
GTM is an extension of the site code.
GA4 is a destination data is sent to.
Generative AI comes to Google Ads:
advertisers can generate all the assets they need for a campaign by simply providing the URL of a preferred landing page, rather than creating a range of text and image assets individually. From there, advertisers can view and edit AI-populated assets, including both stock and AI-generated images, with a guarantee that Google will never create two identical images, even when given the exact same prompt.
Platforms will increasingly give the levers advertisers are used to pulling to the robots.
We are all creative directors now.
Spirit Halloween runs on memes:
Memes of the Spirit Halloween banner taking over vacant department stores and of fake, hilarious costumes have taken the internet by storm every fall since around 2019.
Instead of shunning the memes, the company has embraced them, letting them be what every company wants — free, viral, grassroots marketing.
Luxury is coming out of lockdown:
Consumers are now shopping IRL for brand quality and prestige, setting up the US luxury retail market to exceed $75 billion in sales by the end of 2023.
Luxury shopping is as much about the experience as it is about the purchase, which means digital has a larger gap to close.
the expansion of luxury retail proves brand experience (even in the form of brick-and-mortar shops) still attracts big spenders.
Physical will go increasingly upscale and experiential (think: The Sphere) as digital eats the rest.
AI/AR/VR-powered customization and experiences will be the next gen of luxury.