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Finished reading: John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 6: Bloodlines by Garth Ennis 📚
Walmart is in talks to acquire Vizio, which sells a popular line of value-priced smart TVs that include an ad-supported free streaming service
which
could make Walmart a significant player in the connected-TV advertising business, competing with the likes of Roku, Amazon and Google/YouTube
via Variety
When users say “platform,” we mean software (increasingly cloud-based).
When platforms say “platform,” they mean hardware.
Every major ad platform wants a hardware platform of their own. For that sweet, sweet first-party data & to not be beholden to someone else (especially a competitor).
I’ve been waiting for TikTok’s fall, but didn’t see them being their own worst enemy
TikTok’s aggressive growth tactics are upsetting partners, creators, and everyday users
If TikTok no longer offers a stream of fun, serendipitous videos and instead becomes a social-media version of the Home Shopping Network, users may jump ship
…
“The For You used to seem uncanny in how it would serve up content perfectly tailored to me. Now it feels like the algorithm is less a diagnostic tool of my soul and instead is assessing me as a potential consumer.”
TikTok said the quiet part out loud
Think of some recent digital ads that caught your eye or spurred you to take action:
- What similarities or themes are there?
- What about them felt relevant to you?
- What made your thumb stop mid scroll/swipe/tap?
If you’re a marketer, you now have a checklist for your next campaign.
This doesn’t surprise me
Retail sales, which captures spending on all goods and food services, fell 0.8% in January
That was even lower than the downwardly revised 0.4% increase in December, and well below economists’ expectations of a 0.1% decline
Black Friday was huge and early January showed signs of slowing spend, a holiday hangover of sorts.
Tax season and spring might thaw things a bit, but we’re back in the land of general economic uncertainty (which I have thoughts on)
via CNN
I’m turning into a Google bear 🐻
Competition from OpenAI: Develops Web Search Product in Challenge to Google
Arc Search getting buzz (I’ve used it & can easily see this being a glimpse of search’s future)
It’s important to remember that each individual listener actually does experience the record in their own way.
Even though the online and streaming mentalities seem to flatten out that individual experience.
It’s important to remember that every individual listener is hearing the record their own way.
Don’t let the promise of scale and mass trick you into thinking you’re talking to a mass.
We’re not rational decision makers, we’re rationalizing decision makers.
An important fact to keep in mind.
We justify a purchase after—not before—making it.
NVIDIA’s new local LLM chatbot seems tailor made to corporate office/knowledge workers
Those with compatible hardware can now install Chat With RTX, an AI chatbot that turns local files into its dataset.
…
At its core, Chat With RTX is a personal assistant that digs through your documents and notes. It saves you the trouble of manually searching through files you’ve written, downloaded, or received from others.
…
can also pull transcripts from YouTube videos.
…
a matter-of-fact tone
No offsite data transfer.
“Chat” with local files.
At the very least, employee onboarding could become easier.
Soft landing? More like slow landing.
CNN spoke with the Atlanta Fed President, who:
is anticipating the nation’s inflation rate — which currently stands at around 3% — will be near “the lower twos” by the end of 2024.
& said
With that outlook, I really see the first move coming sometime in the summertime
Thing is, according to Fed data our current rate environment is more the norm compared to the 0 rate exception the market got used to.
Earlier this month I asked if Google was now Microsoft.
Magic 8 ball says “Signs point to yes” 🎱
via Inside:
A U.S. federal judge has scheduled an antitrust trial against Google for Sept. 9, 2024. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit targets the search giant’s alleged monopoly over online advertising.
If, like Microsoft, Big G limits/unwinds development to avoid more antitrust actions, we may have seen the last of Google as portal to the Internet.
& yes, it’s an existing trend that is accelerating.
& yes, Microsoft pulled a phoenix so it’s not necessarily The End.
Nearly 90% of consumers no longer trust influencers
Consumers are becoming fed up with influencer marketing and are starting to seek out user-generated content (UGC), or brand-related content created by customers instead
This is people’s natural preference for something that feels more like word-of-mouth than paid advertising. Influencers are part of “the system” now.
TikTok’s Shop push isn’t likely to help this either.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was more about mega-influencers and obviously paid promo material either.
An important caveat to the Stanley Drops.
They were the fuel, not the fire or the fire starter.
The frenzy is “something that was, and still is, actually driven by women content creators”
Most brands won’t be able to start trends. It’s about knowing what to do when you find one.
via Garbage Day
Drops: the key to Stanley Mania™️
Stanley hired Terence Reilly, the marketer credited for reinventing Crocs. Reading between the lines of what Reilly has said about his work at Stanley, it seems like his main strategy for both Crocs and the Quencher was capitalizing on internet buzz and growing it into otaku product worship. Or as Inc. phrased it in their feature on him, he uses a “scarcity model” to whip up interest. Cut to three years later, now we’re seeing mini-riots over limited edition Stanleys at Target.
via Garbage Day
Some thoughts on the Vision Pro from Benedict Evans:
- Any use case that doesn’t land on the pinnacle of current tech—watching sports, gaming, whatever—probably isn’t going to happen ever.
- With AirPods and the Watch, Apple is already an augmented reality company, just not in a glasses form factor.
“The buying of time or space is not the taking out of a hunting license on someone’s private preserve, but it is the renting of a stage on which we may perform.”
-Howard Luck Gossage
&
“Advertising builds brands best when it is entertaining, popular, and memorable, when it is not just a pitch, but a performance.”
-Paul Feldwick
via Westwood One
Podcast consumers prefer funny and entertaining ads but say they currently hear more ads that communicate dry features/benefits
…
Appealing to consumers on an emotional basis is what podcast hosts do best and they should extend that method to their ad reads.
via Westwood One
Podcast ads are well suited for brand discovery, a stage that should be focused more on creating an emotional connection and less on reading your spec sheet.
Of course, if you have an offer you know works, you can use that too.
Have a personality, show it off.
the most powerful institutions, brands and people are the ones who are in alignment with their audience.
Streamers differentiate on content.
The tech is basically all the same and you can only do some many things on the interface front.
The “every one has a streaming service” wave meant it was about the content you could create. The end of the free money train ended that as a viable strategy.
Now it’s about games: video and sports.
Thus Disney to take $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, work with Fortnite maker on new content
Iger calls it:
an important step when you look at the demographic trends and where Gen Alpha and Gen Z and even millennials are spending their time and media