Good news!

Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 353,000 for the month, much better than the Dow Jones estimate for 185,000

unemployment rate held at 3.7%, against the estimate for 3.8%.

On a year-over-year basis, wages jumped 4.5%, well above the 4.1% forecast.

December and November numbers were revised up and GDP ended the year strong.

But The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged

& counterpoint

In the last year, tech giants made massive cuts to their workforce, which didn’t just please investors — they led to sky-high profits.

Mostly good but not all rainbow farts and unicorn giggles

Ads that rhyme, stay in mind

The average believability of the proverbs in the non-rhyming condition was 5.26 on a 9-point scale, but 6.17 in the rhyming form.

That’s an improvement of 17%.

via The Nudge Newsletter

Acast is brining AI to podcast ads

Called Collections+, the AI-powered tool pulls podcast and listener data from different sources to automatically group podcasts into contextual categories. This allows Acast to package up smaller shows from Acast’s catalog of podcasts to meet advertisers’ briefs

Contextual targeting—supercharged by AI—will be the future, as personalized targeting accrues to first-party data mines.

Also, wider placement spread!

advertiser named 11 shows it wanted to buy in order to reach a particular audience. Glenday said his team used the AI tech to show the advertiser what it would look like to buy 52 shows that reached the same target demographic, but reach more scale and at lower CPMs. The advertiser’s budget did not change as a result

Going one step further on:

The grow first, monetize later playbook is what causes louder disapproval of ads.

I think personalized advertising quiets these objections back down.

#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is the extreme end of this.

Ads feel less like ads if they are perceived to provide value (by getting you to purchase, subscribe, etc).

This is also where the uncanny valley of “they’re listening to me to target ads!” arises.

If privacy advocates and regulators keep pushing, we’ll soon see if I’m right or wrong on this hypothesis.

Seems inflation makes ad-supported media more appealing

13% of consumers are opposed to ad tiers on streaming platforms, according to the survey, which polled roughly 18,000 US adults. That’s a significant decrease from last year’s 36% who said they were opposed to ads in exchange for discounted streaming.

There are some forms of media where ads are seen as normal:

• Radio (now podcasts)
• TV (now streaming)
• Publications (now digital in oh so many ways)

The grow first, monetize later playbook is what causes louder disapproval of ads.

via Marketing Brew

Finished reading: Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie 📚

TikTok tests feature to make every post shoppable as social media giant moves to create multibillion-dollar e-commerce business

TikTok looks to be following the Chinese social media app playbook, come hell or high water.

I don’t think an “everything app” will happen in the West. User reaction to the aggressive Shop push is increasing my confidence in this prediction.

users have complained about counterfeit and knockoff products sold on TikTok’s marketplace. Some also say the preponderance of ad-like posts from influencers is wrecking the experience.

Sending a free copy of something to garner attention?

Send 2

Make it easy to share. Make it easy to spread.

Those who want to share it will identify the right audience better than you will.

via Josh Spector

Wired: Threads?
Tired: TikTok?

Threads is continuing to grow, having tripled its downloads month-over-month in December

TikTok is still a massively popular app but its growth has started to slow amid consumer complaints that TikTok Shop is ruining the app’s experience.

via TechCrunch

From Growth Hacks Weekly:

Dangle the carrot!

Outcomes > Features

The formula is 🥕 + How = $$$

Customers don’t want to know what you’re selling. They want to know what what you’re selling will do for them.

Add New Jersey to your list of states with privacy laws

The bill covers any company doing business in New Jersey that controls or processes the personal data of at least “100,000 consumers,” or any business that processes the data of at least 25,000 consumers and makes money from it. Like California’s consumer privacy law, a “sale” is defined as “sharing, disclosing, or transferring” data for money or “other valuable consideration,” which could apply to third parties like ad-tech vendors.

If NJ is like CA, sending data to your analytics tool could qualify as “selling.”

Whenever there’s an economic upheaval, there’s two kinds of dancing that emerges: line dancing and slam dancing.

Late 1970s, you had disco and you had punk at the exact same time.

In the early 1990s, you had the emergence of country line dancing and you had grunge.

There’s an idea of freeform negation that happens in things like punk. And there’s things like rigid conformity that happens in at least the white version of disco that took over in the 70s and country line dancing.

-Dr. Ian Brodie

Yes, this is about more than music.

Brands are culture.

Is yours punk or disco?

Manton Reece on Apple’s EU App Store game:

Because of their decades of truly great products, Apple thinks they are more clever than anyone else. Because of their focus on privacy, Apple thinks they are righteous. Because of their financial success, Apple thinks they are more powerful than governments. The DMA will test whether they’re right.

Apple is trading on brand reputation and trust, which is a dangerous game. Once it’s gone, it’s very hard to get back.

I wonder how much of this is driven by needing a revenue engine not tied to user data for AI, since their privacy stance makes it hard.

Netflix Inc. has acquired the exclusive rights to Raw as well as other programming from World Wrestling Entertainment, marking the video service’s first big move into live events.

via Bloomberg

Streaming is about catalog. Live events add a wrinkle to the traditionally bingeable streamer line ups.

Wrestling is likely cheaper than one of the major sports leagues, but has a devoted fan base.

Netflix’s aim now is to add a bunch of different pieces to their catalog to keep the subscription sticky as churn and rebundling accelerates.