Louis Grenier & co shared some great nuggets on a fun CXL webinar earlier this week:
- “Strategy is deciding what not to do”
- Don’t just aim for no, but say no
- Do something unrelated to your core services to stand out
- Don’t be broad, be focused in your messaging
And, of course, the key to this whole business thing:
Find a group of people that have struggles in common that you can serve by solving them in your own unique way
What memorable message is your marketing leaving?
Is it easy to remember?
Does it focus on the customer or action?
The Art of the Deal author and Big Daddy Xi continue their game of tariff checkers with a new round of negotiations.
In the near term, penalties are way down
Amid the 90-day pause, Trump’s 20% fentanyl-related tariffs on China, imposed in February and March, will remain. That means Chinese goods entering the US will face a 30% tariff, down from 145%, while US goods going the other way will be subject to a 10% levy from Beijing, down from 125%.
Could Google’s best anti-trust defense be to play up its coming irrelevance?
Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue said last week that AI will one day replace search engines like Google.
Cue said he expects Safari to eventually swap out Google for AI services from up-and-comers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity.
Which of course brings to mind the Twain-ism, “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
In the long run, Google’s 10 Blue Links™ approach is likely dead, a former monopoly. But how long is that long run?
via The Daily Upside
Charlie Day with the advice all marketers need to hear:
A good campaign probably has a little bit of risk. You’re much better off taking the risk and taking the swing on something that could be wildly successful.
Playing it safe is planning to fail.
You can set brand guidelines in Meta Ads Manager to help steer / personalize the AI to your brand for more on-brand generative options.
Another clear step towards less direct input from marketers and more genAI in the ads platform (and everywhere else) a.k.a. Zuck’s dream.
Tears for Fears shows songwriting is just like making ads
You get a great title, it’s half the battle.
Good beat. Good title. Ok, the rest is simple.
Your creative is your beat.
Your headline is your title.
Something something Shout
The indicators are fine, the vibes are bad
A fair amount of US economic hard data — like consumer spending, a 3% rise in core GDP last quarter, and this latest jobs report — have suggested the economy is holding up despite broad uncertainty
But
Last week delivered the lowest reading on the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index since 2011
I usually think in terms of animal spirits, which should mean bad vibes cause bad indicators. But that connection seems weak these days.
Does political tribalism and attention-capture news mean we just always think things are bad and COVID rewired our spending response behavior?
A perma-vibecession soundtracked by ringing registers?
via The Daily Upside
Audio on!
“That move led to a spike in branded search, stronger revenue, and better margins, even as their overall category was in decline,” Shah writes. “Audio wasn’t just supporting awareness. It was delivering real revenue results.”
Because ears are different than eyes
helps build emotional connection and memory structures that influence buying behavior
Why you need pre-search discovery
up to 30 percent of search clicks are actually driven by exposure to other media like video and Audio
Audio is part of (almost) every strategy I write these days.
About that pull forward…again
Behind the 0.3% contraction in GDP [in Q1] were numbers economists called “extreme” and “weird.”
businesses hastily moved to get ahead of new levies and bring goods into the US.
2.2 percentage points of that investment gain was due to companies boosting their inventories to beat tariffs. Consumers, meanwhile, spent on big ticket items like cars, motivated by the same forces.
This was before all the April Liberation Day related shenanigans too.
The theme of Q1: buy and hold.
How much spending potential is left?
via The Daily Upside