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So…what is the tariff rate on China now?
I shared 125%, but I’ve also seen 110% and 145%.
Seems like the messaging on this could have been better.
Had a great time @ Grok Conf (unrelated to the AI model)
Some of my notes from the various talks:
- Write more
- Your work is only as good as the team & clients around you
- Internet is in a liminal space | Have fun & be weird
- Play with the things you are scared of
- When you’re holding a bag of money and your client says “hey, be careful with that bag, or I’ll kill you,” things become really clear
- Clients don’t want design, they want design experiences that function as conversations with a trusted partner
- Aim for high conceptual fidelity
- Make your brand a complete thought
This is true for more than concert tickets
They have to believe that when they expend a tremendous amount of effort leaving the house, getting in the car, parking the car, and buying the ticket…that it was worth the effort. Deep down everyone believes their time is important and how they spend it is important.
Almost every purchase decision represents the only one of those things someone will buy for a period of time—short or long.
Brand reputation is built on where that decision ranks on each person’s regret-reward scale.
Aim for reward.
Google will start using “Landing Page Screenshots for Video Ads for Demand Gen Campaigns” “to improve your YouTube ad performance,” according to emails they’ve been sending to account holders.
I understand all those words, but don’t quite know what this will look like. Couldn’t find any examples.
About those tariffs, they’re on hold. For now. Kind of.
For 90 days, it’ll be 10% on everyone. Except China, who gets all the tariffs at a new 125% rate.
Like TikTok, this deadline might be performative. It’s all about the deal.
(that picture in the second link, oompa loompa in chief)
When thinking about the assets you’re going to create as part of your marketing mix—whether images, video, words, audio, whatever—make sure you are using different pieces to come from different angles. Each piece can appeal to a different audience—or different facet of your audience.
Is playlist design the new branding exercise?
a new study, researchers found that when background music at a workplace is out of sync with what workers need to do their jobs, it can affect their energy, mood – and even performance.
Public Regard curates playlists as part of their design process.
via ScienceDaily
Google Merchant Center now uses your marketing email content “in places across Google such as Search, Shopping, and Maps.”
From the docs:
What information does Google extract?
Google crawls through the marketing content to gather relevant data, including, but not limited to:
- Links to primary social media channels
- Highlighted social media content
- Upcoming or current sales and promotions
- Brand images and videos
- Brand voice and values
Not great if you like VIP offers for subscribers.
Opt-in by default. Big G may auto-subscribe or may need to be added to your list manually.
Consumers are sophisticated, they know when they’re being marketed and sold to.
Even though people want to buy things to solve their problems and satisfy their desires, we also have powerful filtering mechanisms that shift attention away from messages that are “selling” to us.
Rather than a direct benefit-oriented sales approach, an indirect method is used to spark interest, build trust, establish shared identity, and prove authority before the offer is made.
You might say all those pieces of the indirect method are part of brand building.
via Leading Expert
We should all strive to approach our work with this belief from Khalilah Olokunola
Today I consider myself an Impact Architect. I only build that which brings impact.
It rhymes with the concept of being a superstar in your role that sports teams (go Celtics!) talk about.
Every little thing it does is magic, because…
It reduces decision friction.
Or, as Why We Buy says:
[because] eliminates our brain’s natural tendency to overthink a decision.
Instead, it signals the mental heavy lifting has already been done, so the brain shortcuts to accepting what comes after as a valid reason. And we’re more likely to comply when something’s justified.
A classic example:
Based on my kids, real-time generative AI produced entertainment should be the preferred medium for Generation Alpha
Common request format: I want {novel iteration} of {common format}
They try to find something that matches the (multimodal style) vision in their head
We talk about this with clients a lot, and currently have a company thinking about switching to us because their current partner relies too heavily on promos.
The danger isn’t in discounting itself. It’s in conditioning. When buyers consistently see 20% off, they don’t view it as a bonus — they start viewing full price as a penalty. Over time, your standard pricing feels inflated, and loyalty shifts from brand to bargain.
The balance will (likely) get harder in our post-tariff world.
Sales and promotions are tools in your toolkit. But they shouldn’t be the introduction.
via Buyology
It’s hard for people to imagine, sometimes, something that hasn’t happened yet.
So many things that people told me would never happen, have happened.
Said as part of a conversation about how people expend so much effort to say something can’t happen instead of just asking “what if it could?” and facing whatever fear that brings.
It may not work. But what if it did?
It’s not brand OR performance marketing.
It’s brand AND performance marketing.
Only question is the balance between the two.
You see the efficiency in direct URL type in. You see the efficiency in organic search. All of those pop as traffic sources and sales sources when we have the investment in upper funnel.
I’m not worried about us performance marketing the brand to death because we are properly activating the campaigns at every layer of the consumer’s journey, the upper funnel, the mid, consideration, and then the lower funnel, and they all work together well.
You have to be authentic to who you are as a brand, otherwise you’re not going to win, and you’re not going to get new customers or keep your customers if you’re selling them something that you’re actually not.
That authenticity also maybe even starts with the product and making sure that your product is on brand.
Your brand is a story, an expectation, and a promise.
Staying true is hard, but chasing trends usually isn’t a formula for long-term success.
Let the trade war begin
The White House announced" a 10% tariff “on all imports from all trading partners”, plus additional tariffs for 57 countries, including:
- Vietnam: 46%
- China: 34%
- Taiwan + Switzerland: 32%
- India: 27%
- South Korea: 26%
- Japan: 24%
- Germany + Italy: 20% (via EU)
Creative analysis and optimization is top of mind for me right now, so I really like this flowchart from DTC Daily
More than half (54%) of American consumers say they don’t pay attention to the brands they buy, as long as the product meets their needs
57% of American consumers have switched to own-label brands because they are more affordable and 55% think the quality of own-label products is comparable to branded products.
Branding is more than just slapping a logo on the package and calling it a day.
People don’t care about your brand unless you give them a reason to.
Be different. Be better.
via MarTech
If you’re always thinking about your audience and how they’re going to feel when they experience the thing that you’re making, then it becomes a bit more achievable.
James Acaster’s answer when asked if making something that’s both hugely accessible and innovative at the same time is something that can be designed for.
When talking about the song Hey Ya, naturally.
If you’re someone…who’s like “this has to be true to me and what I want to do” but also it can’t just be just for me and nobody else. I think if those are your priorities, then you can kind of accidentally on purpose do that more often than not.
Audience obsession is rarely the wrong choice. (Unless you lose yourself on the way.)