I was recently asked by a client to talk to their team about AI. What it is, what it means, etc etc. Naturally, I turned to ChatGPT and Bing Chat to write the presentation for me.

I plugged in their loose question guidance to generate an outline and then fed each part of that into one of the chatbots to see what they spit out. Any time I used Bing Chat I asked it to research the industry or something similar first.

So, what does AI think about AI?

What Is AI?

AI is all about making machines, like computers or robots, do things that normally require human intelligence. Humans are really good at things like recognizing faces, understanding language, and making decisions based on complex information. But with AI, we can teach machines to do these things too.

How Does AI Work?

AI is all about using algorithms, which are like sets of instructions, to help machines learn and make decisions on their own. These algorithms can analyze data, identify patterns, and even make predictions based on what they've learned.

There are different types of AI, like machine learning and deep learning, but they all have one thing in common: they use data to learn and improve over time. That means that the more data a machine has to work with, the smarter it can become.

AI is already being used in all sorts of ways, from helping doctors diagnose diseases to powering voice assistants like Siri and Alexa.

What Is Generative AI?

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that is capable of creating new and original content, such as images, videos, music, or text, based on patterns and rules learned from existing data. Generative AI algorithms use complex mathematical models, such as neural networks, to generate new content that mimics the patterns and characteristics of the training data.

Of course, there are also concerns about the potential misuse of generative AI, such as the creation of deepfakes or other forms of misinformation.

What's a Challenge for AI Adoption?

One of the biggest challenges is data privacy and security. As AI systems collect and analyze large amounts of sensitive information, there is a risk that this information could be misused or stolen. Another challenge is that AI systems are only as good as the data they are trained on. If the data is biased or incomplete, then the AI system will produce biased or incomplete results.

How Will AI Impact Marketing?

Targeted Ads

By analyzing data on buyer behavior and creating personalized marketing campaigns that target specific demographics.

Past Sales Future Wins

AI algorithms can identify patterns and trends that help target marketing efforts more effectively.

Predicting The Future

Predictive analytics can enable digital marketers to make better decisions about how to allocate their resources and invest in new initiatives.

Increased Efficiency + Reduced Costs

Via task automation, predictive analytics, and early issue identification.

I mean, not bad really. Various queries got really repetitive in the "how will AI impact this industry / marketing," but nothing crazy. Of course, maybe this is all a feint by the chatbots so we don't suspect their true power and motives.

This was the point in the presentation where I revealed the joke and got on my soapbox.

I am of the group that believes...

Current AI = Infinite Interns

Our current models are like having an army of super-fast interns at your disposal, and you should approach them as such.

According to AI, the difference between it and an intern is:

It can perform tasks faster and more accurately than a human intern, especially for tasks that involve large amounts of data or require repetitive actions.

It doesn't get tired or bored, so it can work 24/7 without breaks or distractions, while an intern may need breaks and time off.

It can learn and improve over time as it processes more data, while an intern may have a fixed set of skills and knowledge.

It can handle complex tasks that may be too difficult or time-consuming for an intern, such as analyzing vast amounts of data or performing complex calculations.

The AI Formula

Pattern Recognition + Pattern Generation

Like most systems, you get out what you put in. In the case of generative AIs that means more of the same. A really good rendering of the internet culture version of the thing you asked for.

The large language models (LLMs) currently taking the world by storm (GPT, etc) are really just turbocharged predictive text models. If it sounds human, it's because it was trained on words written by humans.

The near term impact heralded by the chatbots is right:

Increased Efficiency + Reduced Costs

What could you do with infinite interns?

I'll leave off with this parting thought:

The Future is Centaurs

If AI gives you more of the same, how do you stay different?

If everyone uses the same AI, how do you do something different?

If every experience is AI, how do you stay human?

It’s not AI or humans…
It’s AI and humans

Meanwhile, in robots:

• It's Google I/O, which means Big G has announced one billion things with AI. Including Search Chat* and its response to Open AI's GPT models: say hello to PaLM 2
• Chip Wars, reignited: Microsoft is getting in on the custom silicone game with an in-house design tailor made for AI & LLMs (chips are still one of my main areas to watch).
• An excellent AI thought experiment: envisioning LLMs as vast cities. "Think of it as the opposite of the Turing test setup: instead of putting a machine in a context where you can’t immediately tell whether or not it’s a human, build it in a way that’s inescapably, viscerally machine-looking."

*Don’t worry, Google Search Chat will still have ads. I’m guessing this marks the end of keywords. Not now, but soon. We’ve been on a slow march to their inevitable death, but now we’ll actually start to see what the post-keyword future looks like.

My biggest question: will Performance Max campaigns be the only ones eligible to appear in AI-powered Google Search Experiences?

🐙 Generative intelligence can propel productivity

Listen now (19 min) | A new era of labor efficiency emerges as AI-driven advancements revolutionise the workplace

Exponential View by Azeem AzharAzeem Azhar

Chalk this up as a victory for the centaurs (humans + AI).

Here's the paper's abstract:

We study the staggered introduction of a generative AI-based conversational assistant using data from 5,179 customer support agents. Access to the tool increases productivity, as measured by issues resolved per hour, by 14 percent on average, with the greatest impact on novice and low-skilled workers, and minimal impact on experienced and highly skilled workers. We provide suggestive evidence that the AI model disseminates the potentially tacit knowledge of more able workers and helps newer workers move down the experience curve. In addition, we show that AI assistance improves customer sentiment, reduces requests for managerial intervention, and improves employee retention.

Unlocking knowledge from top performers' heads and turning it into a resource for anyone at the company to use, sounds amazing.

Generative AIs aren’t an extension of how we currently interact with digital, they’re a reimagining. We have to change how we conceptualize activities like “search” and “content.”

When interacting with large language models (LLMs (think ChatGPT)), asking “please give me sources” is no different from asking “give me something that looks like things that have sources.” These models don’t have context or semantic understanding, they have incredibly powerful pattern matching turbocharged by historic levels of compute.

Is banning Tiktok “un-American?” by Creative Control

Megaphone.fm

Is a TikTok ban a good idea? How would it even work (at least on a state level)? All good questions. But what about this question:

If the US suddenly starts banning foreign apps on data privacy and security grounds, will other (non-Chinese) countries do the same to American platforms and services?

Plenty of unintended consequences on the table here.

Don't Say Content

What if community wasn’t a strategy, what if a community was part of your business model? What if it was just part of doing business?

Community isn’t something you do at people, it’s something you build with them.

Just because something is old hat to us jaded marketers, doesn’t mean it isn’t new and surprising to other people.

It’s not transactional. The goal is to make people feel or understand that they belong. You belong here, this is for you.

How to motivate yourself or others:

• Focus on outcomes over means
• Keep the goal a little abstract
• But make sure it contains a concrete number(s)
• Early on, focus on how far you’ve come. The closer you get to completing your goal, look forward to what’s remaining

This last point is useful for managers.

For new team members or people new to their roles, reviews and support can focus on how far they’ve come.

For experienced peeps, focus on how close they are to achieving their goals and the gap that remains.

Because incentives matter:

• Too many incentives is demotivating
• A few randomized, surprise incentives is motivating (like slot machines and social feeds)

Meta remembered how to make money and posted year-over-year revenue growth for the first time in a year. This, of course, means an earnings call, which means quotes we'll all try to read like tea leaves.

Like this one:

Mr. Zuckerberg attributed some of these gains to Reels, the company’s short-form video product. Mr. Zuckerberg said that Reels is increasing overall app engagement and that the company believes it is gaining share in the short-form video market.

Despite what Instagram engagement trends are suggesting, Reels are still a prime focus for Big Blue. Don't sleep on the format.

It's weird to hear the company position itself as the open-source friendly tech giant.

He also said that he expects Meta to take a more open-source approach to generative AI than companies like Alphabet Inc., MicrosoftCorp. and Amazon.com Inc. due to their different business models.

It does make sense, but that doesn't make it less weird. (And yes, I know they have a history of being pretty open with their AI research in the past.) Of course, the vision is that they'll set the standard.

For us, it’s way better if the industry standardizes on the basic tools that we’re using, and therefore, we can benefit from the improvements others make.

Speaking of AI, it's use in the TikTok-ification of the OG feed is growing.

How much feed content is determined by AI (as opposed to the act of following)?

• 20%+ on Facebook
• 40%+ on Instagram

R.I.P. social graph?

Meta also unveiled a new plan for revenue generation: a mandatory e-commerce tax.

Soon, the only way to use the native Shops feature on Facebook and Instagram will be via in-app checkout. Which means merchants will be forced to pay the 5% (or $0.40 on purchases less than $8) selling fee or shutter their Shops.

When is soon? 1 year if you're in the US. August everywhere else. Except for 21 countries that can ignore this entirely (for now).

After June 5, all new shops will be required to Checkout on Facebook / Instagram.

Losing your Shop also means losing product tagging abilities and other features (I think basically anything involving a catalog).

This is a big push for social commerce, but I'm still not bullish based on current trends (at least not for all businesses and categories). Even if a (Snapchat sponsored) study found that 92% of people would buy from a DTC brand directly on social. (PDF)

Our AI Future

It should be obvious by now, but soon The Platforms will be AI everything. They already push for algorithmically-controlled dynamically-generated ads, soon those will be hooked up to generative AI and the potential of individually customized one-time ads will be realized.

Also, Google is still flailing left and right to match the other giants’ AI moves.

Hey Bing Chat, Show Me Traffic

Soon you’ll be able to see how much traffic BingGPT drives to your site.

Bing Chat specific referrer strings will start getting passed to Bing Webmaster Tools and other analytics tools (like Google) next month. At least for BWT. External tools should get it at the same time, but “should” is a dangerous word when predicting the whims of the tech giants.

Meanwhile, Google taketh away:

Google Search Console To Drop Page Experience Report, Mobile Usability Report & Mobile-Friendly Tests

Digits for Dollars

Unsurprisingly, shoppers are looking to save these days.

Faced with soaring inflation, which reached 10.4% in February, 80% of consumers in the U.K. now regularly use their smartphones to access stored loyalty cards and coupons while shopping in physical stores, compared to 79% for the U.S., 73% for France and 72% for Germany.

What‘s the benefit for brands? Sweet, sweet first-party data. Just remember that this too is customer service.

Given the current economic climate, consumers have become more willing to share information and connect with brands in exchange for targeted, cost-saving offers and convenient experiences. This represents an opportunity for retailers to expand their understanding of customers to better cater to their needs, preferences and wishes.

Over to digital, what makes ecommerce convenient?

• Gen Z wants easy to use promos/coupons
• Millennials want to store payment info
• Boomers+ want customer service

In general, shoppers find ecomm more convenient than in-store.

Drop It Like It’s Hot

YouTube is adding a new Product Drops feature to livestream shopping. Looks perfect for piquing interest, which should mean more eyes sticking around to see the reveal.

Viewers will be able to see a mystery product tagged at the product shelf and product list until it gets revealed. As the product gets close to its availability date and time, you’ll see a timer bar under the drop title and description. You’ll be able to pin the product to the chat at or after the drop time.

EU = Uh Oh?

If you advertise in the EU, you should read this piece about the potential unintended consequences for brands of the new proposed rules around political advertising.

You've probably heard by now, but a Meta bug decided budgets are for chumps over the weekend and went all in like a drunk kid in Vegas.

Per Social Media Today:

Some ad buyers reported CPMs up 200%-500% versus the previous day, while all ad performance metrics were seemingly affected. Other advertisers also reported their ad sets well exceeding their daily set budgets, with no way to limit the damage.

It's too late to do much about it now, but if you can find a Meta rep you can request some credits to make up for it.

Metadon

Details about Meta’s “Twitter clone” are starting to leak.

Why the quotes? Because it feels more like Mastodon. 500 character limit, decentralized (or whatever that means in Meta-speak), and using your Instagram credentials for your account info (essentially choosing Insta as your Mastodon server).

Here’s why this is really interesting:

With more discussion shifting to messaging chats, as opposed to people posting in public feeds, Channels is designed to lean into this, providing a more private, intimate discussion interface for creators and their fans.

Barcelona sounds similar, though in a dedicated app, with users able to follow others and stay on top of their text updates.

The platforms venture further into the dark forests.

Stop, Collaborate, & Influence

TikTok has released a guide to running a successful creator campaign on the platform.

It boils down to being authentic yet on trend and connecting with the right subculture.

And remember:

Consumer attitudes toward influencers are changing, but not necessarily for the worse. Audiences are becoming more sophisticated and taking an active role in their relationships with influencers. Marketers who listen to consumer perspectives, choose the right influencers and stay flexible in the face of changing tastes will be set up for success.

Google Goes For Two

Big G’s ad revenue has dropped for the second straight quarter. But the bigger story is that Google is on the defensive for the first time in a long time following Microsoft’s BingGPT sucker punch.

OperAI

Opera has released an early preview of what the future of browsers could look like in an AI-powered world. Mostly a blank canvas for future developments, current features include: chatbot integrations and automatic tab grouping.

The Clock Keeps Ticking

TikTok may be getting headlines for all the wrong reasons, but it seems to be proving the adage “no press is bad press.” The youths love their TikToks.

And yeah, it’s also a search engine now:

The splintering continues.

Now THAT’S What I Call Content Marketing

Acura released a (super) short anime series that racked up 275 million views. Now season 2 has dropped.

How short? 4 episodes clocking in at 60 seconds each.

Why it works: anime is popular but is (likely) largely ignored by most major brands. Cars and anime both have specific fandoms that can be reached via niche platforms, which means higher success metrics than general ones.

This is about building brand equity over the long haul. Creating an experience consumers want to engage with in a language that makes them feel part of an in-crowd is a solid formula for brand affinity down the road.

Opportunity Opens A Pinterest-Shaped Door?

Pinterest budgets are being sacrificed at the altar of performance metrics. As brands shift their focus to the bottom of the funnel, the inspiration app is paying the price. Which of course means you could benefit as auction competition lessens.

But…

Investing in brand is one of the best things you can do during a recession. As long as you can keep the lights on, brand marketing can help grow audience and mindshare for less as competitors focus solely on converting existing eyeballs.

Speaking of zigging while others zag:

While many major retailers are tightening their belts, IKEA is going all in. Everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) purveyor of meatballs and flat pack is investing $2.2B in US expansion over the next 3 years. This is apparently how much it costs to open 8 big stores, 9 smaller concepts, and employ 2,000 more people.

Engage-a-thon 2023

The recent trend for social/content platforms has been expansion; free money fueled growth mode. But the Great Tech Reckoning of 2022 has reversed that.

The clearest example is Meta. A long, long time ago, Zuck split out Messenger from Facebook in an effort to capture more real estate on users’ screens (I think, the reasoning is hazy now and never made much sense to me). But now it’s getting rolled back in. More signals in one platform and less incentive to go back to the home screen and get distracted by another colorful digital dopamine drug app.

So consolidate and complement.

LinkedIn, social’s surprise Hansel, is continuing its run of feature additions geared at enticing users to spend more time on-platform. The newest push is (drum roll…) TikTok’s For You algorithm (algorithmically suggested content)! Which makes sense since the overlap of the Venn diagram of your connections and content related to your interests is almost certainly much smaller than it could be (at least that’s the case for me, so many bankers from a past career life).

Elsewhere, Spotify is shutting down its Clubhouse clone.

The company says it will continue to explore live features on its main platform.

There’s no time to try spinning up a new revenue stream generator for these companies. It’s time to try turning the money dial up to 11.

The plan for 2023: more eyes for more time in the flagship app.

Of course, ByteDance is (once again) zagging while the others zig and pushing to make Lemon8 happen. The grand ban plan b.

That Ban Plan

Congresscritters aren’t the only ones fine with banning TikTok. Survey says half of Americans are cool with it.

Unsurprisingly, the older you are the better you think the ban idea is. Same goes the more conservative you are. Ditto for knowing about the China ties and not using the app.

The Cookie Continues to Crumble

Publishers and ad tech tools are facing off once again. This time it’s all about context.

As contextual advertising continues to take the post-cookie lead, publishers are positioning themselves as custodians of attractive data. And ad tech tools are scraping the content to build their own context buckets.

Super blood moons, Mercury in retrograde, and scraping being at the heart of a digital content ownership issue, some things are like clockwork.

Rethinking Returns

Amazon is testing a new feature in an effort to cut down a returns: adding a ‘frequently returned’ label to products that are just that.

And The Everything Store isn’t the only retailer trying to find a solution to the returns problem. But shoppers aren’t here for it. The numbers aren’t great for any brand trying to keep shoppers loyal or tout sustainability:

• 34% of Americans have dropped a brand for introducing paid returns
• 40% for shortening return windows
• 22% say return charges are totes unfair
• 18% just return unwanted items to the trash

So now brands are scrambling for other ways to mitigate the problem.

Livestream? More like Deadstream

From a Wired piece on livestream shopping in the US:

• “I haven’t seen one success case,” says Marina Jiang, an expert in cross-border ecommerce and founder of The Unoeuf Creative Consulting, a social marketing agency. “If there is one proof of concept in the United States, I would be willing to try it myself.”

See.99

Using the 99 price trick in your next sale? Maximize its effectiveness by displaying the original price along with the discount, it’ll make the savings seem larger. Or avoid the tactic all together if your product involves multiple pieces with individual pricing or if you sell high quality impulse buys and little luxuries.

Riches In The Niches

Wanting to start your own ecomm business to test pricing hacks on? Oberlo has 7 niches for you to consider for your fledgling shop:

1. Home office equipment
2. Eco-friendly products
3. Home workout & fitness equipment (noticing a trend? Pandemic shifted behavior isn’t shifting all the way back)
4. Recommerce (noticing a trend? People want to feel like they’re doing good for the planet (unless you’re charging for returns of course))
5. Pet products
6. Home decor (the housing market is likely to make people focus on feathering their nest instead of flying the coop)
7. Menswear (men need clothes too!)

Pay Up; Or, You Know, Soon-ish

Apple Pay Later has finally arrived.

Animal Spirits in Ad Markets

As has been discussed in this space previously, ad spending is cooling off as brands brace for a recession. Which could cause the recession they are bracing for?

Ad spending historically has lagged macroeconomic performance, meaning pullbacks weren’t as apparent until contractions had already occurred. That’s changed as the media buying window has shortened, making ad spending potentially more of a “leading indicator” of where the economy is heading, S&P Global Ratings argues

But some good(ish) news:

The research upheld that a recession is likely to take shape in the months ahead but will be “shallower” than previously thought.

Steal These Ideas

Elevar (a great Shopify app) shared a solid framework for conversion rate optimization in its recent email

1. Identify the biggest drop in your shopping behavior funnel
2. Find user actions that convert highly but happen infrequently
3. Hypothesize and experiment
4. Profit?

Wondering what ads your competitors are running on Google? Soon you may be able to take a peek thanks to the Ads Transparency Center. It doesn’t appear to be live, despite what Big G suggests, but this could be really useful.

Figuring out how much an influencer partnership is worth can be tricky but the new trend toward pay-for-performance could help (just don’t forget the value of branding).

Pay per performance is gaining traction among marketers as the second-most common form of payment used by 56% of marketers. This approach compensates influencers using performance-based metrics, such as sales, clicks, and impressions.

More Ads in More Places

Microsoft’s Bing chatbot is getting more ads / The AI-powered chatbot will start to show more ads — though exactly what those ads look like isn’t final just yet. (Sounds chaotic so far, in the typical new ad platform way, but it’s plenty intriguing.)

“This is how it’s always been done” is an instant red flag for me, so this quote from a piece on ads in audiobooks doesn’t hold much water in my opinion:

“It’s a premium, ad-free, transactional environment, full stop, and so I don’t really see the wisdom of changing that into an ad-supported [space] when there’s already a robust ad-supported ecosystem for audio, millions and millions and millions of people understand that audiobooks are a paid product, and podcasts are ad-supported, so it seems like a very expensive proposition to retrain people.”

rant mode: engaged

Millions and millions and millions of people also understood that you paid a cable provider to pipe a whole bunch of channels into your house instead of paying a channel directly, we all know how that worked out.

Ad supported tiers of other media types are also gaining tractions. You can stare in your rear view and hope the road ahead doesn’t have any curves, or you can be ready to adapt.

Everyone Hates Big Tech

There’s a “new” bill in Congress that essentially caps digital ad transactions at $20B, if a platform goes over that it has to start selling off parts to get back under. It would also prevent these large players from “owning more than one part of the digital ad ecosystem.” I understand what they’re going for with this, but it has unintended consequences written all over it.

Speaking of unintended consequences, turns out the legislation that would allow Joey White House to ban TikTok is a towering stack of them.

The RESTRICT Act contains “insanely broad” language and could lead to other apps or communications services with connections to foreign countries being banned in the U.S.

The bill could have implications not just for social networks, but potentially security tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs) that consumers use to encrypt and route their traffic.

Arkansas sues TikTok, ByteDance and Meta over mental health claims

Meta Is…

Launching "a new set of inventory filters for Facebook and Instagram Feeds, which will provide a simple way for brands to avoid unwanted association with potentially offensive, or otherwise undesirable content.”

“Planning to let European users of Facebook and Instagram opt out of certain highly personalized ads as part of plans to limit the impact of a European Union privacy order”

Who the hell is this guy?

Hi! I'm Kyle.

I'm a strategist and tech nerd at Blue Ion, a badass full-service marketing and creative agency. I started this site to stop clogging chat channels with the news and insights I thought the rest of the team might want to know.

Also, I'm a human. Promise.

The Netflix ad tier has hit the 1 million user mark. Which means it won’t have to refund advertisers anymore.

I’m interested how the numbers are working out for them. The ad tier is $3 cheaper per month than the ad-free basic plan. Netflix wanted CPMs in the neighborhood of $60-$65. Reports are that they’ve been a bit lower. But even at a $35 CPM, it’s forecast The ‘Flix could hit a $9.45 average revenue per user (ARPU) per month.

Making money!

But wait, they have to be paying Microsoft something to provide and maintain the infrastructure powering those sweet ad dollars. I don’t know what that agreement is, but it’s cutting into that $6.45 of monthly revenue differential.

If Netflix goes the roll-your-own route to replace the Microsoft stack, I wonder how long the ad-free basic tier will last.

It has to be looking at Disney’s success raising the price to avoid ads with envy. Same $3 difference, 94% of subscribers ponied up. (Expect that price insensitivity to be tested again.)

There is also the aggregation theory angle at play.

Netflix rose to prominence on a deep catalog of OPC (other people's content). That moat is gone. It's far from the only streaming service in town these days.

What happens when companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google start dumping billions of dollars into content production for their competing platforms? Those companies don't need to monetize that content directly, it's just a sweetener for joining (and staying in) their respective ecosystems.

Reed Hastings ('Flix cofounder) has one of my favorite views on content competition:

It’s 8:00 in the evening, you’re next to your TV–which remote control do you pick up: PlayStation remote? TV remote? Or do you turn Netflix on?

Sometimes employees at Netflix think, ‘Oh my god, we’re competing with FX, HBO, or Amazon, but think about if you didn’t watch Netflix last night: What did you do? There’s such a broad range of things that you did to relax and unwind, hang out, and connect–and we compete with all of that.

That's pretty clear-eyed. It also means the rise of TikTok and YouTube is just as panic-inducing for them as for Meta.

But for now the focus is on making enough money to stay relevant, otherwise the rest of those concerns are irrelevant.

After a rocky start, the new ad tier could be the money printing machine The 'Flix has been looking for. At least for as long as the current economic uncertainty sticks around.

If there were a year to transform your brand into a cult brand, 2023 would be it.

If you want a brand like Death Wish Coffee, Patagonia, or The Liver King (don't be like The Liver King), then you're looking for this:

But how do you get there?

Here’s a rough guide created by combining these 3 episodes of the Marketing Against The Grain podcast:

• How To Start A Cult Brand | Lessons From Peloton, Nike, and CrossFit
• How Liver King Fooled The World With Great Marketing
• Use This Marketing Framework To Build A Cult Brand

Cults 101

Let's start with real cults, the kinds your parents warn you about and every procedural show needs at least one episode about.

Why do people join cults? (And what brands might match up?)

1. Offering a solution to societal problems (Patagonia, health brands)
2. Gain a sense of belonging (Peloton, fitness brands)
3. Low self-esteem (fashion brands (Chanel, Gucci, etc.))
4. Seeking purpose (Nike)

A few more quick nuggets to keep in mind:

• Cults are based around a charismatic leader that uses “routinization of charisma”
• People join cults to discover their individuality and stay for the sense of belonging—come for “you,” stay for “us”
• Word of mouth is the most successful method for generating new members
• Successful cult brands become the status quo

So, to apply that to brands:

Let's get culting!

But first...

Be Marketing-Minded

There are 3 general focal points for marketing people:

• Leadership (of a category or market, etc.)
• Analytic Iteration & Data
• Storytelling & Messaging

The key is to be at the intersection of all 3. And doing that means focusing on a lot of little things.

Here’s an example, where the marketing-minded person will put out something “on trend, relevant, and super cool.”

The goal is to operate from that central point and make it part of your brand's DNA.

Be A Category of 1

To cult your brand, you need to redefine the category and/or differentiate the product.

If you can’t create a new category—or if you have a product that is “nothing” (NFTs, anyone?)— you need to create a truly unique experience that makes it seem as if you are in a class of your own. You can’t just take something that exists and make it slightly cooler, you need an experience. (According to Todd McFarlane, adding 3% sexy gets you over the tipping point into something new.)

Be Charismatic

How do you do that “routinization of charisma” thing?

Organized religions have regular services. Crossfit has a daily workout.

This ritual is a critical part of culting your brand. It also serves as a word-of-mouth generator since fans will talk about it.

Put It Together

(Read that again, even if you aren’t trying to cult your brand)

If you want to go the extra mile, you need to identify a clear enemy for your brand to stand against.

At its core this will be the status quo, but you can get more explicit with it (like Pepsi vs. Coke).

Create urgency with clear reasons why this is important to do now.

It wouldn’t be a terrible idea to reference that list of 4 reasons why people join cults and see what you can align with. This is where the charismatic ritual comes in.

Now the easy part, cultivate a group of passionate followers that are rabid about your brand and help spread the word.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Everything before this was theory, this is where you have to turn your dreams into reality.

While not covered in these episodes, I would recommend picking one—or maybe a small handful—of channels to focus on to build your fanbase. Pick the medium that feels most natural and manageable, then find the channels that match up, and then get to work making and shipping.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Build Your Pyramid

You need a clear vision—a clear point of view—on the problem you’re solving, in addition to solving it in a differentiated and better way.

This vision comes from the founder or CEO and sets the stage for the brand story.

Sometimes companies are product-led, in those cases story can act as an accelerant and differentiator. A compelling story isn’t required from the jump (or at least the seed of one), but it certainly helps.

To be a successful company, you have to have a point of view around a real problem you’re solving and how it truly helps the people you’re trying to help and serve.

Less “we make shirts,” more “passionate fishers spend a lot of time in the sun, we make shirts to keep them burn-free so they can spend less time worrying about reapplying and more time focused on reeling in that next great story.”

Don’t worry, this doesn’t need to be the fully realized, end game vision. You don’t have to have it all mapped out. But you need to be clear about where you are now and have a plan for what the next steps will be. And the vision can evolve as the product iterates and grows over time.

Positioning builds off this clear vision by applying it to a clear, well-defined category.

So you’ll need to start by determining if you fall into an existing category or are creating a new one. Then you’ll need to know how you’re differentiating from what’s existing in the market / mind of the consumer. This step might be handled by a group at the company with roles similar to CEO, head of product, and head of marketing.

Messaging is how you communicate all this to your customers.

Turning the position you created into words that will resonate with your target market. And this is all in the hands of marketing. The more you get down to functional messaging the more the product people will likely take over, but keeping the brand peeps involved and in an ownership position can ensure cohesion.

The pyramid is upside down for a reason. Everything flows down from the vision, it is the base of the pyramid as far as foundational importance but top of the list as far as priority. Message is the tip because the entire thing balances and pivots on the strength of the messaging.

The Quick Version

• Foster a sense of both belonging and individualism.
• (Truly) Differentiate the product.
• Position and market against the status quo.
• Develop routine and ritual built on charisma and connection.
• Don’t drop the ball.

We may be heading towards a recession (we technically always are, it’s just a matter of time frame), but we don’t require one to come down from inflation.

A primary factor in recessions is consumer confidence.

Continued headlines acknowledging a looming recession can cause a recession by eroding that confidence.

Again, recessions are normal.

Businesses have cycles.

The economy has cycles.

Trends and fashion have cycles.

There are seasons for everything.

Everything about time is cyclical except for the narrative we tell ourselves about it being linear.

The cult of continuous growth we expect to be the norm.

How much of the current downsizing and sales numbers are a result of over exuberance during good times?

Big tech hired like crazy.

Retailers of all stripes are talking about a glut of inventory. (Whereas car dealerships can’t get enough inventory.)

Poor planning requires an adjustment.

And I’ve been wondering for a while who will be left holding the bag?

Maybe we have the wrong “re” in mind.

Less recession, more readjustment?

The fallout from The End of Cookies has already (for the most part)  happened and now various crumbs are being swept up into assorted piles as marketers and platforms figure out what shape fits their needs.

On the marketers’ end, influencers and creators look to be the post-privacy strategy of choice on social platforms that were hit hard by The iOS-ening.

On the platforms’ end, APIs are the name of the game. Conversion APIs are the most common but there are others for various purposes. These APIs allow platforms to receive data directly from servers instead of using the browser as a proxy. In many cases this means data can be transferred without having to worry about ad blockers or privacy controls. Generally this is less plug-and-play than the pixels for end users.

Any company that wants to be (even tangentially) an AI company is rolling out generative tools to create images or videos, or turn images into videos, or etc etc. Microsoft is adding the feature to every tool they can think of. Soon (if it’s not possible somewhere already) there will be a prompt field or button in the ad creation flow of most major digital platforms that allow you to generate visual assets instead of or alongside “manually” created assets you upload.

The biggest draws of this route for marketers will be speed and no longer needing to worry about image licenses or permissions. You can’t get sued over an image an algorithm created based on your own words (probably, only precedent will truly tell). A potential drawback will be the terms and conditions the platforms apply and if it includes language that you don’t really own the image. Ultimately not a big deal if it’s just an ad campaign image, but the concern arises from where else it might surface or what it might be used in tandem with if the platform owns it.

Just as markets boom and bust, they also bundle and unbundle. We are currently in a phase of unbundling. 

Everyone that owns a tv show or movie now has a streaming service.

Search is unbundling from Google as specialized and niche alternatives pop up to fill the gaps Google leaves behind in its quest to realize The Future of Search™.

The shopping experience is splintering across platforms and surfaces as every company tries to shave off their sliver of the commerce pie.

Social is shifting from “one platform for everything” to “one thing per platform” (such as Facebook for groups, Snapchat for close friends, Instagram for broadcasting to connections, TikTok for discovery, YouTube learning and entertainment (and yes, it’s a bit of an overstatement)).

Plus podcasts, newsletters, slacks, discords, telegrams, messaging apps, etc. 

It appears the internet is niching back down. But the problem is all the providers and platforms still want to be monoliths.

The End of the Techno-Giants?

This unbundling could hit the current techno-giants (techno-tyrants?) the hardest. 

Google is flailing to find a post-cookie solution the market will latch onto. The current cookie ecosystem powers their money printing machine and they’ve parlayed it into a dominant market position. Content creators love to talk about not building your empire on rented land; the way things are currently shaping up, Google is poised to become a tenant of someone else’s tracking and targeting high rise.

Meta is floundering. The meta-pivot was too little, too soon (the timeline was probably accelerated to distract from all the bad headlines they were generating) and another example of techies chronically believing The Next Big Thing™ is much closer than it actually is. In this case, that’s VR. The metaverse is here, it’s just called Roblox or Minecraft or something else the kids are doing that I haven’t heard of. Meta is also getting hammered by the privacy-posturing of Apple (and others) and the years of trying to be everything for everyone is finally catching up with them.

Microsoft is no longer The Windows Company but is having one hell of a second (third?) act so far. Apple is probably just fine, unless they bet too big on The Next Big Thing™ or bet on the wrong one (that mysterious AppleCar project is getting mighty expensive), but it has more than enough money in the bank to weather plenty of storms. Amazon is in the awkward adolescent period, we may soon find out if it’s a goose or a swan.

The past week or so has felt like the dam breaking in terms of TikTok showing its ambition and illustrating the differing approach of eastern and western attention platforms.

First, why “attention platforms” and not “social media”? One reason is because TikTok refuses to call itself social media. More importantly is because this isn’t just about traditional social platforms. Social media as a discreet concept or experience type feels more archaic by the day. The guiding idea here comes from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings who said (something along the lines of) the company doesn’t (just) compete against other TV and movie platforms but all other ways people spend their time. Name-checking options like TikTok, YouTube, and even sleep.

Back to TikTok. While most social platforms have been rushing to TikTok-ify (or BeReal-ify), The Trend Machine has been ignoring all of them and setting its sights on other sectors.

I would categorize the Silicon Valley approach as a vertical one. Adding iterative features that are similar to what they already have with everything geared towards maximizing ad inventory and, therefore, revenue. For Facebook, everything since the creation of the News Feed has been just another feed. This might also explain why Horizon Worlds and the dream of the metaverse is going so poorly.

My take on the Chinese approach is solely informed by what I know of WeChat and TikTok, so consider it highly imperfect. As you might guess, I see it as horizontal. Instead of asking “what format don’t we have,” they ask “what activity don’t we have?” Announcements or leaks have come out about TikTok potentially getting into product distribution, music streaming and podcasts, and it continues to build out its commerce capabilities.

Silicon Valley typically tackles efforts like this through minimum viable products or partnerships / integrations. TikTok is doing it themselves, including buying warehouses. But it’s not just TikTok, Shein is getting into the reselling game by building their own, in-app functionality. American retailers just partner with someone like ThredUp.

Elon wants to build (or turn Twitter into) an Everything App like WeChat. If he manages it, it will likely be in some crypto-ish decentralized way. TikTok is actively working towards building the American version of WeChat, in a very centralized way (much like the Chinese government). (I am highly skeptical that a true WeChat clone will happen in the US. The Everything App is more-or-less a digital representation of the state, so users didn’t have to adapt to the idea. It is also dangerous to map across countries on different points of their development and adoption curves.)

Only time will tell if their bets pay off, but we’re watching the fallout of one approach to building an attention platform while witnessing an attempt at another approach.

The market is mixing signals like a middle school dance.

Housing prices and mortgage rates are up. Inventory and home sales are down. But the high end of the market seems unphased. Spec builds might decrease as builders race to catch up on fulfilling existing orders. Lumber and container prices are dropping. Along with the valuations of tech companies. And levels of VC funding. And capital in biotech. Digital prices didn't move much. But inflation and gas prices did. Crypto skipped fall and went straight from summer to winter. Travel is exploding, both in volume and infrastructure stability. Extra income is down, but consumer spending might go up.

When markets or sectors are running hot, I always wonder who will be left holding the bag. I'm still waiting for that one hotel or apartment project in the local market here to realize they were the one that marked the overbuilt point. I've been waiting for years. CNN+ marked that point in the Great Unbundling Race a.k.a. The Streaming Wars. (Let The Great Rebundling begin!) Substack is playing this game with...itself?

Being left holding the bag isn't always a bad thing though. In some markets that bag is full of money. Grocery delivery companies are scrambling to be the one that secures the bag. Social media platforms seem to take a misguided approach to this (believing they must all be TikTok now).

Everything is either in a phase of unbundling or rebundling (yeah, you'll have to stretch those terms a ways to make them fit plenty of areas).

Hey, I thought this was a newsletter about marketing and (tenuously) marketing-related news?

It is.

How can you plan your marketing if you have no idea what the larger market and economy is doing? (Tesla started with a luxury sports car because that's the market that could handle the prices required to manufacture an EV at that time. As scale could be reached, prices could drop, and vehicles with broader appeal (except Cyber Truck) could be launched.(I am not an Elon fanboy, but this is the best example I could think of off the top))

What makes everything so messy now is that the signals are all over the place and the causes are unprecedented. The housing market explosion wasn't toxic like 2008 (I think, we really won't know for a few years). It was driven by pandemic-induced lockdowns that had people spending more time in their homes than ever before and with very few other avenues to spend money. "I could really use a [insert: 'home office', 'play room for the kids', 'bigger kitchen', 'actual kitchen', 'second / third bathroom', etc.]. I know, I'll buy a house that has one!" Wash, rinse, repeat. Thousands of times.

That same pandemic messed up supply chains like a kid kinking the hose to get you to look into the nozzle.

And then a war was started by a country that exports a lot of oil.

And then we collectively got to a point where we were over the pandemic and decided, at the population level, to do things outside our homes again. Like roleplaying as sardines and getting the hell out of where we are for literally anywhere else and calling it a vacation.

The money that turned the housing market into Shark Week didn't disappear. It just went somewhere else. Substitute goods reappeared and people yelled "praise be the flying spaghetti monster." And they went and spent their money.

So, in conclusion: the market is up. But also down. And people don't have any money. But people are also spending money. Don't panic. Yet. But understand what's happening out there when you're analyzing your marketing. Or business performance. Or personal budgeting. Etc, etc, etc.

You think about yourself / your business more than you think about the market (probably). Others think about the market more than they think about your business / you (unless they're family, maybe).

Welcome to Hot Weird Summer.

Your GDPR-compliant cookie banner is actually a violation of GDPR.

And so is your analytics platform. (If you’re using Google.)

And so is Facebook Meta. (This is unlikely to impact non-European targeting advertisers directly (if it were to actually happen) but the fallout, at least financially, from such a move could cripple Big Blue Infinity / Upside-down Spider-Man Mask Eyes)

More importantly, this is another sign of the de-centering of America in the digital sphere and the splintering internet. We essentially have two internets now: The West v. China. But these headlines could signal a Web Trinity: America v Europe v China.

To be overly reductive of the West v China split: the western internet is bottom up while China is top down. Wild west versus total control. This has been getting more dramatic lately with full blown tall poppy syndrome taking effect, as illustrated by the recent Tencent drops.

The US v (western) Europe division is more nuanced but built on items grabbing more (marketing / tech) headlines: privacy, competition, data sovereignty, and user experience. European authorities don’t want their citizens’ data in reach of US spy orgs (and no one wants it within reach of China) and they want privacy by default. The thorny bits are related to data handling for international tech platforms and the fact that privacy typically benefits incumbents since they get to keep their data locked up tight. And how does all of this impact the user experience of the web? (I’m guessing no one enjoys ubiquitous cookie banners.)

The ad-based internet gets a lot of flak; some of it warranted, some of it overblown. (I’d wager people will like depersonalized advertising a lot less than the current setup, remember ye olden days of banner ads?) Combining recent lawsuits in various European countries hints at a trend of making advertising harder while forcing the platforms that rely on it for money to pay for the content they make accessible (you know, because News Corp needs more money).

This will be an interesting space to watch over the next few years, especially if laws and regulations remain ambiguously written.