Turns out the Bud Light boycott was good for one thing: marketing lessons.

• Know your customer
• Don't become a commodity (by definition they are easily replaced)
• Stay true to your values

Of course, brands should be allowed to change their values, but it has to be done carefully.

Great bits on why need is better than new, how catchphrases = cult status, defaulting to value, embracing the cringe, why you shouldn't fail short, being wrong is better than boring, and why you should follow your conviction.

And a great reminder for marketers:

We're not solving world hunger. We are trying to help more humans believe in themselves in order to do something in business that could lead to financial freedom for them.

Narratives matter. And brands are narratives.

Performance Max now in Microsoft (aka Bing) Ads!

The future: all robots, all the time

Microsoft Advertising Blog: Introducing Microsoft Advertising’s Performance Max

If not, this probably isn’t the place for you. I’m curious, about most things, which makes me glad I’m not a cat (the dad jokes are free!). Here I’m mostly curious about marketing—things like branding, strategy, consumer behavior, technology, and ~~~the future~~~.

This place isn’t for specialists. If you only care about influencers or ecommerce or Google Ads you might not like it here (but you might like the linkblog). I want to try to understand it all, the whole box of Legos. And how those bricks fit together to create resilient platforms for brand growth.

I have some specific beliefs about marketing, but we’ll get into those later.

If this isn’t your cup of tea (or coffee or artisanal kombucha or bubbly water), I get it. Thanks for taking the time to check it out. Maybe I’ll see you around the internet.

If you’re still here and (maybe) even more curious than you were at the top, welcome! Maybe toss your email in that box up there so I can slide into your inbox. Or just jump right in.

Stay curious!

How does it serve the user to tell them the price is increasing but not from what / by how much?

I don’t remember how much I pay, but now I have to dig around to compare if I want to.

Don’t use dark patterns to retain customers. Use excellent experiences and delight.

I’m a sucker for new browsers, so guess I’m downloading Arc now.

The Verge: The excellent Arc browser is now available for anyone to download

A powerful message.

Delivered simply.

Reflecting the customer's reality.

Last week I shared what AI thinks about itself, along with some of my thoughts on both AI and AI's thoughts on AI.

Now it's time to put on my tinfoil futurist hat and gaze deeply into my 8-bit crystal ball.

Here are 4 trends I think will be turbocharged by AI:

1. Search is Dead
2. Social is Dead
3. Personal Algorithms
4. Ambient Computing

I'll elaborate on each of these points more in the future, but here are the subheads:

Search Is Dead

The era of the megalith search engine for all things is over.

Social Is Dead

The era of the traditional social media platform built on users sharing their own content is over.

Personal Algorithms

The era of Her is just beginning. Our current crop of technological "personal" assistants (Siri, Alexa, Clippy, etc.) will morph into truly personalized algorithms that make TikTok's For You feed look quaint.

Ambient Computing

Screens will no longer be the ruling paradigm for tech interaction. And the number of devices used will increase.

Google Says, “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?”

Social media, now in your search results!

It’s blatantly apparent that AlphaBrass read every headline about what trend or app or newfangled thing posed an existential threat to their search business and decided to announce an answer to all of them all at the same time.

YouTube Has Spoken:

Turn off your ad blocker or pay up.

It’s an experiment.

A “new pop-up explains that in order to keep watching YouTube videos, users will have to disable their ad blocker, or make YouTube.com an exception within their ad blocking rules.”

Shifting Screens

Close to 45% of overall YouTube viewing in the U.S. today is happening on TV screens…compared with well below 30% in 2020.

It’s less about screen-specific viewing now and more about platform-specific viewing.

Different apps means different content experiences and expectations. Which screen is just a matter of convenience.

Not sure if this includes YouTube TV or is just the OG YT app. Or if that distinction even really matters.

Pods With Friends

Portable audio doesn’t just mean personal audio, “co-listening” is a common activity.

What ads perform best with co-listeners?

Storytelling*

In case it helps with your story:
“the most common types of moments for co-listening: relaxing, hanging out with friends, cooking, entertaining kids, and doing yoga.”

*always a good decision

RadioCasts

Only a handful of terrestrial radio genres are growing. And talk radio listeners are migrating to podcasts.

So why not give broadcasters the tools to easily turn their programming into podcasts.

(Especially when you need content that doesn’t carry continuous licensing fees.)

One Pin To Rule Them All

Pinterest is combining the various pin types into one creation flow. All the toys, fewer barriers to getting started.

I am not a Pinner, but I like the platform (and advertise on it). I think this is a good change an should hopefully lead to more fun and inspiration and less Instagram-like post type games.

Meta Pays For More Reels

I don’t really care about this headline, other than the fact that it means Meta is still all in on Reels.

And if it’s going to pay more for the content, it means it expects to make more on it.

Reels ad placements are (still) the ones to watch.

Gmail: now with check marks!

Funny how Elon kills off the blue check only to cause a blue check renaissance.

Social Schedule

Finally, the best times to post to social.

So, naturally, you should do the opposite.

And don’t post on the hour.