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Retro is an evergreen trend, thanks to the One Song podcast I now have a benchmark for what that means:

Retro is almost always running on a 20 year clock

So if you want to try riding the front of the retro wave, look back 19-20 years and pick your trend to revive.

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Microsoft’s Clarity is an under discussed part of the analytics toolkit (who doesn’t like free heatmaps and session recordings?), the new conversion maps feature will only make it more useful.

Conversion maps provide specific data of key business metrics of your E-Commerce sites. Through Conversion maps, you can understand your website interactions that affect your purchase rate.

Conversion maps show the conversion rate, representing the percentage of all sessions that resulted in a purchase when a user clicks in a selected area.

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There’s no use in being a lesser version of Lego.

This is not just about Lego.

via Behind the Numbers podcast

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Beware “not”

Soon after being exposed to a message, people forget whether or not there was a “not” in it.

Meaning your anti-positioning backfires.

Over time, “not like those other companies” becomes “like those other companies.”

Think in terms of “not,” but don’t say it.

via The Knowledge Project

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EMARKETER with more good research, as usual.

the most intrusive ads and the least likely to be noticed ads were the ones where the display covers the entire screen.

The best kind, the most likely to be noticed and the least intrusive ads were pre-roll video and targeted ads using your search history were a close second.

the level of interruption of the ad rather than its invasiveness informed how ads were ranked, mid-roll ads, display ads and that fully covered the screen and ads that follow users around the screen were ranked as much more intrusive than any targeting method.

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Marketers are bystanders.

In the words of Peter Drucker:

The bystander sees things neither actor nor audience notices. Above all, he sees differently from the way actors or audience see. Bystanders reflect, and reflection is a prism rather than a mirror; it refracts.

As a marketer, you operate in this middle space, at a slight remove.

Your job is—to continue the metaphor of actors and audience—to manage the fourth wall. The vital point where performance meets audience and the magic happens (or doesn’t).

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From the Don’t Say Content ladies:

There’s nothing to fell when it’s mass produced

Remember when you’d go to a how to article and part of what you loved about it was the personality of the brand who wrote it?

And what is gen AI if not the newest tool of mass production?

(This is not an anti-AI post. I’ve been playing with AI text generation since before ChatGPT.)

You can’t mass produce personality. But you can mass produce the stuff that doesn’t meaningfully contribute to personality so the humans can double (and triple) down on it.

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The 9 F's of Attention

The digitally-mediated world today is a competition for attention. Attention being the currency culture-making platforms trade in.

So how do we gain it?

Why We Buy has a great primer on the 9 F’s of attention:

  1. Food

You know, survival.

  1. Fears

Monkey brain survival.

  1. Faces

We’re communal animals.

  1. F#cks

Sex sells!

  1. Fables

We’re storytelling animals.

  1. Foreign

Embrace the weird.

  1. Familiar

Trust shortcuts mental processing.

  1. Fascinates

Open the curiosity gap. Then deliver.

  1. Future Me

Purchasing is an act of aspiration. Buying a future state.

The next time you’re searching for a hook, try reaching for one (or more!) of these.

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Brand value. Brand equity. Brand strength.

All fancy words for how much customers care.

Or, as Seth says:

The accurate measure of brand value is the premium that consumers will spend over the generic.

What time, money or risk will they take for a valuable brand compared to the very same offering from an unknown?

Familiarity is not always a proxy for high value.

In short, brand value is a narrative, not a formula.

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The second Good Life 2030 report highlights that what’s missing in our age of comfort and convenience is connection.

People are yearning to be more connected to themselves

People are dreaming of being more connected to others, too. They want to strengthen and protect family relationships, build more nurturing support systems, and share routines and rituals with others.

people are dreaming of being more deeply connected to nature.

The people want community.

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Some interesting findings from a study comparing Google Search to chatbot traffic (caveat: chatbot volume is much smaller)

AI chatbot referrals stay more than a minute longer than Google traffic.

And visit more pages

The data indicates that homepages are more important in the “AI future” and that AI chatbots qualify users better before sending them out.

and

AI seems to go counter to the age-old study of “every second a page loads faster, it converts more people.”

Instead, it pre-qualifies users before they visit a site, which leads to those users being happy to spend more time.

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Drew Hanlen is an NBA trainer for some of the world’s most elite players, his approach to writing his new book is a template for (long form) content of any kind.

  1. Simple

Very short sections so that you can pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down

  1. Direct

Trimming the fat and making it shorter and shorter out of respect to the reader’s time

  1. Actionable

Prompts that you’re doing and filling out as you go. Identify the changes you want to make and build out the blueprint to make those things a reality

Nested in 3 is to make it relatable.

Content bricks that build a story.

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Boring is the default—fight it

What ideas are not boring and worth trying?

Ones that scare you to do. You should be worried about creating and releasing it, either because you think it’ll bomb or you’re worried about people’s reactions.

Stand out.
Be weird.

via the DemandCurve newsletter

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Building on this post, I like the point made at the end of the episode.

The experiences are different because Sam’s Club zagged to Costco’s zig.

It makes sense to not replicate what your chief competitor is doing but offer something different and distinct because you’ll appeal to a different segment of consumers.

Find value for your consumers that’s not just being the cheapest product available, because you’re never going to win that race

Give consumers are compelling reason to shop at your store and trust your brand

Do the same thing as everyone else and get worse results.

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Sam’s Club has overtaken cult favorite Costco. At least when it comes to happy customers.

It’s done this by focusing on the customer experience.

Technology + convenience + value

Through the tech they’ve created a retail media network that blends seamlessly with the in-store experience.

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we didn’t ban noisy aircraft we banned supersonic aircraft

Incentives matter and words matter.

Here, poor word choice disincentivized an entire industry.

Clarity of messaging helps align incentives.

via Alex Tabarrok

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TV is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the US.

and according to Nielsen, YouTube has been #1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for two years

And Mr. Beast has more subscribers than Netflix.

YouTube is mass media via niche media.

via YouTube

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As Seth said:

Discovery doesn’t just happen in the online store’s search box.

I would go further and say true discovery never happens in the search box.

Awareness and exposure—the precursors to intent—happen elsewhere. In the rhythms and routines of life separate from shopping.

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Anthropic released the Anthropic Economic Index

The Anthropic Economic Index aims to understand AI’s effects on the labor market and broader economy over time. The Index provides the clearest picture yet of how AI is being incorporated into real-world tasks across the modern economy.

Trends are based on anonymized usage data for their Claude model.

Seems like a useful indicator to add to the monitoring mix.

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All advertising is unwanted, so if you’re going to crash the party, bring some champagne.

-Bob Thacker