This idea from Adam Grant (~44:16) is (also) great reasoning for why generations as marketing personas should stop.

We should stop defining people by their group membership. Instead of assuming that just because people came from a particular background that they had the same degree of difficulty and adversity. We should actually get to know the individual to find out the obstacles they face and adjust expectations.

Know your actual customers and fans. Use that to create an aspirational persona you market too.

Generation groups are lazy and dumb.

AI isn’t going to replace people, but it will replace people that don’t use AI.

via Manton Reece

The future is centaurs.

The more important it is to meet your numbers, the more important it is to stop concentrating on your numbers and start concentrating on the clients' numbers.

-Let’s Get Real Or Let’s Not Play​

via Josh Spector

I’ve been waiting for streaming to make TV advertising easier and more accessible, Amazon is giving it a shot.

Amazon Ads announced Sponsored TV, a new self-service advertising product that allows all brands that sell on Amazon in the U.S. to reach audiences on streaming TV, including on Amazon Freevee, Twitch and third-party services through Fire TV apps.

More ways Amazon is trying to connect its various platforms and generate more ad revenue.

This is my kind of lateral thinking:

Disproving

Based on the idea that the majority is always wrong (as suggested by Henrik Ibsen and by John Kenneth Galbraith), take anything that is obvious and generally accepted as “goes without saying”, question it, take an opposite view, and try to convincingly disprove it.

Podcasts are coming to TV.

This is partly Amazon connecting the dots between existing parts to get more mileage out of content and channels and add more ad slots to the mix.

Partly due to the rise of video in podcasting. (Thanks YouTube!)

And maybe partly due to the Smartless show on (HBO) Max (which might have been embarrassing for Amazon since it’s a Wondery show).

The Philosophy of Community™ (~7:10):

Can you bring groups together and create a sense of belonging and then you inherit the credibility of bringing that group together and having that sense of belonging.

And that can happen lots of different places in your marketing journey. There could be customer communities. There could be non-customer communities. It could be you infiltrating communities that already exist.

But it's almost more of a philosophical approach to marketing than a program.

If you decide to join a community, how you join as a brand—and whether or not you should join as a brand or whether you leverage folks at your company—is a make or break situation.

I'm ending here mostly so I don't end up transcribing half the episode, it's worth a listen. They go from here into influencers and marketing as a connective tissue for your organization (~9:10).

But that first part, about bringing groups together, that's sports teams.

That's this:

Who Owns The Brand?

A brand without customers is not long for this world, so who holds the true power?

CuriousMarketers.ClubKyle Mensing

Next, curiosity! (~14:45)

When all of these buying behaviors and channels and things switch underneath us, the curiosity that I have is what things are remaining as consistent human behaviors—of how we buy things and take chances and how we spread recommendations amongst each other and all of those traditional things that humans have always done—what piece of this remains versus what piece of this gets thrown out in the trash?

That's well-placed curiosity. And we're all about that sort of thing here.

According to Sprout Social:

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of consumers say they’re likely to reach out to a brand on social over the holidays

This is why I wrote:

The true social media use case for brands now is customer service. These are the channels customers want to talk to you via. Your customer support/service/success team should have access to answer comments and messages.

McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle has been getting lodged in brains for 20 years.

Why is it so successful?

After reading the names of the prior jingles, I had the same thought shared by Garrett Crosby later in the post:

shifting from “you” and “we” language in prior jingles to first-person in “I’m Lovin’ It” may have helped its longevity.

Your marketing shouldn’t be about you. You’re a platform for your fans.

Speaking of TV ads:

‘Pause Ads’ Creep Onto Hulu, Peacock and Max as Streamers Seek New Revenue

This is a placement type that opens up TV ads to a wider crop of businesses, namely those that can’t (or don’t want to) produce “TV-quality” video spots. And monetizes “dead space” in a way that should minimally impact the viewing experience.

According to Martech:

Shoppable ads are beginning to make an impact on smart TV audiences, with 55% in a new survey sample recalling seeing shoppable ads and 50% admitting to interacting with them.

The shift to streaming has made this ad type more widely experienced and it’s been around long enough that the novelty has worn off. I think that’s the point when new ad types start to gain performance traction (or don’t).

I would guess the TikTok QR code Super Bowl commercial was the tipping point for the viability or interactive TV ads.

Despite solid realtime reporting, it can take up to 24 (and maybe even 48) hours for data to fully populate the reports throughout GA4.   

I haven’t found a reliable way around this (other than paying for 360), so this is just a PSA. Processing time is inconsistent too, especially when Google services are unstable (like they are now). 

This table is from Google's official data freshness documentation:

Be wary of yesterday’s numbers in your reporting. If something seems off, you’ll need to wait a day or exclude the prior day and do trend analysis to see if anything jumps out.   

For immediate peace of mind, use realtime reporting or Tag Assistant to do a quick check, making sure things look to be firing as they should. 

Henry Ford’s “any color as long as it’s black” choice may have been too minimalist, but more, more, more isn’t always better.

Studies have found that there is a choice cliff where sales drop when too much choice is present.

Too many choices can lead to procrastination, dissatisfaction, and suboptimal decisions.

Reducing the number of choices you offer can also decrease your costs.

A good listen on how to think about the current landscape of AIs and LLMs.

Add some Douglas Rushkoff quotes for additional context:

AIs are probability engines.

If AIs are based on us (our writing, knowledge, etc.), the only way to raise better AIs is to be better ourselves.

Emotional labor has become a competitive advantage. Our commitment to showing up as a human, even (especially) when we don’t feel like it is precisely how we create value. And it’s this human work that helps us feel seen and valued as well.

-Seth

Why am I extra bullish on podcasts right now?

TV and film producers prepare for potential post-strike production logjam

Once the actors’ strike ends the shows and movies still need to be made and the backlog will be big.

Content owners (Disney, Nickelodeon, Dr. Seuss, PBS, etc.) have been turning to audio to fill the entertainment gap and ad dollars are pulling back from TV because of the lack of new content.

The longer it lasts the more likely habits are to change in a meaningful way towards channels producing new entertainment.

Shocks cause shifts.