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A Brand is Empty, then Full

A new brand is an empty vessel.

The meaning doesn’t come from the name or the logo, but from what you fill it up with.

Your drive. Your reason for existing. Your core belief. Your brand experience.

“Just Do It” means more than the strict definition those words when Nike is attached. Red Bull doesn’t literally give you wings. Buying an Apple doesn’t magically make you Think Different.

When we bring a brand to the world, it’s rare indeed that people are okay with it having nothing inside. The wrapper matters, but so does the experience within.

-Seth Godin

Your brand may be hollow when it lives only as a final design file, but it better not be when you launch. Just make sure to leave room for what your fans want to fill it with too.

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Looking forward to playing with this new reporting feature from Meta (because I’m a data nerd).

With the Engaged Customers Audience Segment, you can define your engaged customers using custom audiences, which provides reporting breakdowns specifically for this audience.

Meta now offers a new segment to analyze results in Ads Manager. Just go to the Breakdown menu and choose “Demographics by Audience Segments.” From there, you’ll see separate rows for New Customers, Existing Customers, and Engaged Customers

Cracking open the lid of the black box ever so slightly.

I’m a believer in the AI/algorithm-driven targeting but learning more about what audiences it finds success with can be helpful to fold back into other efforts.

via Search Engine Land

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The premise is that creators make content for a brand, but instead of living solely on social media channels, that content lives in 15- and 30-second spots on ad-supported streaming platforms.

Interesting concept. Creators scale up their reach, brands scale down their production.

Creators and AI (and their ethos) will increasingly become studios.

Ad meets word of mouth meets social proof meets celebrity endorsement.

And social media eats the world.

via Digiday

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Social media is a major gatekeeper at this point—the other one is search—so if you’re building a strategy that would be reliant on social media, I would just ask that publisher “why?” given the fact that the rules of engagement can change on you immediately.

Don’t confuse channels of amplification and distribution for your foundation and infrastructure.

via The Daily podcast from eMarketer

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Finished reading: The Wager by David Grann 📚