Marketers are bystanders.
In the words of Peter Drucker:
The bystander sees things neither actor nor audience notices. Above all, he sees differently from the way actors or audience see. Bystanders reflect, and reflection is a prism rather than a mirror; it refracts.
As a marketer, you operate in this middle space, at a slight remove.
Your job is—to continue the metaphor of actors and audience—to manage the fourth wall. The vital point where performance meets audience and the magic happens (or doesn’t).
From the Don’t Say Content ladies:
There’s nothing to fell when it’s mass produced
Remember when you’d go to a how to article and part of what you loved about it was the personality of the brand who wrote it?
And what is gen AI if not the newest tool of mass production?
(This is not an anti-AI post. I’ve been playing with AI text generation since before ChatGPT.)
You can’t mass produce personality. But you can mass produce the stuff that doesn’t meaningfully contribute to personality so the humans can double (and triple) down on it.
The 9 F's of Attention
The digitally-mediated world today is a competition for attention. Attention being the currency culture-making platforms trade in.
So how do we gain it?
Why We Buy has a great primer on the 9 F’s of attention:
- Food
You know, survival.
- Fears
Monkey brain survival.
- Faces
We’re communal animals.
- F#cks
Sex sells!
- Fables
We’re storytelling animals.
- Foreign
Embrace the weird.
- Familiar
Trust shortcuts mental processing.
- Fascinates
Open the curiosity gap. Then deliver.
- Future Me
Purchasing is an act of aspiration. Buying a future state.
The next time you’re searching for a hook, try reaching for one (or more!) of these.
Brand value. Brand equity. Brand strength.
All fancy words for how much customers care.
Or, as Seth says:
The accurate measure of brand value is the premium that consumers will spend over the generic.
What time, money or risk will they take for a valuable brand compared to the very same offering from an unknown?
Familiarity is not always a proxy for high value.
In short, brand value is a narrative, not a formula.
The second Good Life 2030 report highlights that what’s missing in our age of comfort and convenience is connection.
People are yearning to be more connected to themselves
People are dreaming of being more connected to others, too. They want to strengthen and protect family relationships, build more nurturing support systems, and share routines and rituals with others.
people are dreaming of being more deeply connected to nature.
The people want community.
Some interesting findings from a study comparing Google Search to chatbot traffic (caveat: chatbot volume is much smaller)
AI chatbot referrals stay more than a minute longer than Google traffic.
And visit more pages
The data indicates that homepages are more important in the “AI future” and that AI chatbots qualify users better before sending them out.
and
AI seems to go counter to the age-old study of “every second a page loads faster, it converts more people.”
Instead, it pre-qualifies users before they visit a site, which leads to those users being happy to spend more time.
Drew Hanlen is an NBA trainer for some of the world’s most elite players, his approach to writing his new book is a template for (long form) content of any kind.
- Simple
Very short sections so that you can pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down
- Direct
Trimming the fat and making it shorter and shorter out of respect to the reader’s time
- Actionable
Prompts that you’re doing and filling out as you go. Identify the changes you want to make and build out the blueprint to make those things a reality
Nested in 3 is to make it relatable.
Content bricks that build a story.
Boring is the default—fight it
What ideas are not boring and worth trying?
Ones that scare you to do. You should be worried about creating and releasing it, either because you think it’ll bomb or you’re worried about people’s reactions.
Stand out.
Be weird.
via the DemandCurve newsletter
Building on this post, I like the point made at the end of the episode.
The experiences are different because Sam’s Club zagged to Costco’s zig.
It makes sense to not replicate what your chief competitor is doing but offer something different and distinct because you’ll appeal to a different segment of consumers.
Find value for your consumers that’s not just being the cheapest product available, because you’re never going to win that race
Give consumers are compelling reason to shop at your store and trust your brand
Sam’s Club has overtaken cult favorite Costco. At least when it comes to happy customers.
It’s done this by focusing on the customer experience.
Technology + convenience + value
Through the tech they’ve created a retail media network that blends seamlessly with the in-store experience.