Both X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok are reinforcing the walls around their gardens. The first by stripping most data from link previews and the second by kicking all ecomm partners out in favor of their own Shop.

I’m interested to see what ideas advertisers on X come up with in response (especially since you can longer advertise to get followers).

On the TikTok side, feels like a simple pro-China agenda but interested to see how brands and other partners react and adjust.

On the perils of design by committee:

No one has ever not bought a product because of the font. Or the color of a website element.

These things are important, but we have a tendency to “overthink them to dramatic levels of irrationality.”

Perhaps the money is not to be made in the rivers themselves, but from the men working them.
-The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt 📚

Nvidia is the picks-and-shovels of the AI gold rush (and crypto).

AI skews towards decentralization and will prove to be a tool, not a platform (like search has become).

Models will be like Cloud 2.0, the real value creation is in the hardware and the apps built on top of it.

Software eats the world. Hardware enables the appetite.

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision — even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone — according to what’s best for your customers.

It’s counterintuitive, but the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just thrill them, and they’ll tell everyone.

fromAnything You Want by Derek Sivers 📚

via James Clear

Rebrands: A Cautionary Tale

Changing Its Name Tanked X’s Downloads in App Store and Play Store

So if you don’t know that Twitter changed its name to X, and search for “Twitter”, the top result is a paid ad from a competitor (Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), and the result for X doesn’t look anything like Twitter. It doesn’t have the name, doesn’t say “formerly Twitter”, and isn’t even blue. It’s just the ugly X icon and the insipid slogan “Blaze your glory!”

Gen Z is all about the memes

It matters what they think.

Once you put something out there—a brand, a campaign, a product—you no longer control it (hear that, JK Rowling?). It now belongs to the audience. An act of co-creation has begun.

And if you have to clarify what you meant in an attempt to reframe what people think, than your launch was a dud.

A great (and fictional) example is from the sci-fi podcast Ad Lucem. I'm going to try to do this without any spoilers. Here goes.

On the eve of a new product launch, a stakeholder in the company gets caught in a bad situation. Once that reflects poorly on the company and its product.

The founder/inventor wants to push ahead with the launch and she's arguing with a trusted employee of the company. He advocates for pushing back the launch because the messaging will play right into the controversy. She starts saying what the product is "meant" to do and he interrupts with:

It doesn't matter. It's what people think.

To which she responds:

I won't let them.

That's a futile argument.

You only control your side of the interaction. And you only get one chance to start it.

Everything after that is a dance.

This all makes a hell of a lot more sense in context, so if you don't mind spoilers jump ahead to about 18:35.

Now for something completely different.

Why Marketers Should Engage with Sci-Fi

I believe marketers do a better job if they are aware of the context their work is operating within.

We don't push campaigns out into a vacuum.

We tell stories to very human people that have a whole host of concerns beyond whether or not our newest product looks cool enough to 'gram.

We also have to think longer term than just the end of this next promo (or at least we should). Enter, sci-fi:

Sci-fi may not successfully predict the future (arguably, it is always about the present), but it can sure instigate thought experiments in advance of the future’s eventual — and in the case of Drake Prime, mundane if worrisome — arrival.

-Mark Weidenbaum

In general, fiction (and poetry) can be a great window into humanity and society. Along with a nice little brain break from all your marketing content consumption.

On-demand audio (paid streaming, podcasts, owned music, etc.) officially has more share of ear than linear (radio over the air, radio streams, Pandora’s free radio service, satellite radio, etc.).

Just another sign that mass culture is dead.

Further cementing the primacy of sports and other live events as the only remaining cultural moments where a critical mass of people are tuned into the same thing at the same time.

This is not a situation where on-demand will grow forever and someday linear will go to zero. Some people prefer linear listening, and even those who mostly prefer on-demand consume at least some linear content. But it is about as safe a bet as one can make that the trendlines in the graph above will continue well out into the future.

The retail reckoning could be coming.

With student loan payments returning this fall, retailers have told investors that sales are likely to face headwinds in the coming months as Americans put more money into chipping away at their combined $1.75 trillion of educational debt.

On the flip side:

Bloomberg columnist Leticia Miranda posited that consumers aren’t necessarily pinched, they’re just bored with material goods.

Either way, you know retailers are wishing these weren’t resuming until after the holiday shopping and return season.

Older Adults Make Up Just 4% Of People Featured In Ads

That age group [60+] represents 16% of the U.S. population alone.

The 60-plus demographic has a higher disposable income than younger generations, and represents 25% of global spending power, yet only 3% of digital media budgets are allocated to ads featuring this audience

Our culture is youth obsessed, but that doesn’t mean your marketing should be.

Speak to your customer—whether their situation or their aspiration—in the language (including visuals) they use.

Part of why I think podcast ads are highly underutilized currently.

Nearly 90% of comedy podcast listeners have a parasocial relationship with their hosts

The team over at Conversion Rate Experts published a list of 11 effective strategies for selling commodities. Here are the ones I like the most:

• Create a unique offer so it can’t be compared with competitors.
• Market your product for a particular audience niche.
• Give reasons why customers shouldn’t shop just on price. (Or, as I might say, tell your story!)
• Reframe your commodity as a solution. (story!)
• Be top of mind when it matters.

Yesterday was about making sure you had a hateable brand, but it's not truly that extreme. You just need to be clear about who you're for.

Or, who you aren't for.

From Corey at Swipe Files:

Illustrating who it's not for creates scarcity, exclusivity, and FOMO.

Or, as Hamilton says:

If you stand for nothing, what’ll you fall for?

Talk to a specific audience. Make it blatant.

Bonus points if you can make it fun.

...

Guess I need to schedule something with a doctor...

The 90s / early 00s are the trend du jour, which is fine. But I take issue with this:

the current craze around everything ’90s and early aughts, a trend that reflects how Gen Z has matured into young adults now pining for their childhoods.

The most specific birthdate range I’ve found for Gen Z is 1997–2012. That means at least 1/2 of Gen Z wasn’t even alive for the period fueling this craze!

I get that nostalgia is fueled by the period prior to the one that shaped you (like the 80s & millennials), but this is some mix of “Gen Z” becoming the new synonym for “youths” and clickbait.

College dorms are big business.

college students are expected to spend $20B more than last year, reaching around $94B

Back-to-college spending has near doubled since 2019 & consumers are projected to spend an avg of $1,366.95 / person

This extends beyond dorm decorating:

you just want to either match or beat what you’ve seen in the past. It just ups the expectation these students have of their spaces. … This concept of aspirational lifestyle and making it actually attainable is something that Dormify embodies and helps them create.

That’s human behavior & branding 101