Generative AI comes to Google Ads:
advertisers can generate all the assets they need for a campaign by simply providing the URL of a preferred landing page, rather than creating a range of text and image assets individually. From there, advertisers can view and edit AI-populated assets, including both stock and AI-generated images, with a guarantee that Google will never create two identical images, even when given the exact same prompt.
Platforms will increasingly give the levers advertisers are used to pulling to the robots.
We are all creative directors now.
Spirit Halloween runs on memes:
Memes of the Spirit Halloween banner taking over vacant department stores and of fake, hilarious costumes have taken the internet by storm every fall since around 2019.
Instead of shunning the memes, the company has embraced them, letting them be what every company wants — free, viral, grassroots marketing.
Luxury is coming out of lockdown:
Consumers are now shopping IRL for brand quality and prestige, setting up the US luxury retail market to exceed $75 billion in sales by the end of 2023.
Luxury shopping is as much about the experience as it is about the purchase, which means digital has a larger gap to close.
the expansion of luxury retail proves brand experience (even in the form of brick-and-mortar shops) still attracts big spenders.
Physical will go increasingly upscale and experiential (think: The Sphere) as digital eats the rest.
AI/AR/VR-powered customization and experiences will be the next gen of luxury.
The biggest challenge a marketer at a big company faces is the specter of industrial short-term thinking. Going along with the bean counters might be the worst marketing mistake you can make. Beans aren’t the point of the organization, they’re a side effect.
TikTok can get people to spend money in the app, but can they get people to shop?
users sent over $250 million in digital gifts to live-streamers in the app in Q3 alone
I’m still skeptical that The Clock App can pull off an everything app style ecomm takeover in the US (maybe anywhere in the west). Trust and ingrained behavior remain the sticking points for me.
TikTok could overtake Temu, but I think Amazon is safe (at least without the help of antitrust regulation).