Don’t sell the product first, sell the reason someone should care.

When people are scrolling, they want to be informed or entertained. Not sold to.

The “sponsored content” tag doesn’t exempt you from this fact. It means you have to work even harder to make people care.

via DTC Daily

What people think and feel is more important than what is “true.”

Shoppers don’t care what the indicators say about the strength of the economy or buying power. They care about how it feels to watch the numbers tally up at checkout.

Vibecessions feel worse than recessions.

via EMARKETER

As expected, the Fed dropped the rate another quarter point

Replace “music” with “marketing,” the idea’s still sound.

And this nugget is perfect for thinking about your messaging:

every part has to be really, not necessarily catchy, but something about it that draws you in, and they all work against each other rhythmically.

You build a song with your touchpoints. Each moment and message doesn’t need to be the hook, the sing-along, the hit. But they need to work together to create a cohesive whole. They support and enhance each other. The collective causes movement.

via Song Exploder

I love this idea of “little councils of weird strategic thinkers”

“Full service” really just means “these are the full list of services we want to offer.” Marketing is too big to have one agency that can truly do it all. Or at least do it all well.

Be weird. Be strategic. Be curious.

Search, the old way: craft a machine-interpretable query, plug into search bar, sift through 10+ blue links (sound a bit like prompt engineering?).

Search, the new way: open favorite app, toss in casual query, entertain your way to an answer.

Thanks to the rise of contextual machine understanding, everything is a search engine now.

According to TikTok:

“Search has fundamentally transformed from this old model of ‘I have a question, I need an answer,’ to really a place for stories and perspective”

&

“They’re not just looking for quick answers. They’re looking to explore, compare, and really shape their perspectives.”

Consumers are smarter and more empowered than ever before.
Build relationships by providing value via a brand with a personality.

Long run »» short term

October’s consumer confidence survey results = 😐

Consumer confidence moved sideways in October…Changes to the individual subcomponents were also limited and largely cancelled each other out.

Confidence…

declined for consumers under 35
and…among consumers over 55
improved for consumers aged 35 to 54
fell for consumers making less than $75K a year
improved for most of the income groups making more than $75K
largest increase among those earning over $200K
Younger consumers and consumers earning over $75K have been the most optimistic overall

🎶Sp-sp-splinters🎶