As for the promisor…it’s exciting to make the promise. You get to look cool and powerful and helpful. But then when no one is looking and there’s no excitement and maybe you don’t feel like it, you have to fulfill the promise. And it’s important to remember that while you don’t feel like fulfilling the promise, the promisee is somewhere excited that you are going to come through.

Marketing is a pyramid of promises.

Higher promise delivery rate = better reputation = more successful efforts

Will mobile game ads be wired in 2025?

So far AppLovin has the magic 8 ball saying Outlook Good 🎱

AppLovin’s ads are unskippable and pop up between game levels—a sweet spot for undivided attention. 

And for now, for players used to seeing ads for other apps, these retail ads feel like a welcome change, making them more memorable.

Competition is driving ad costs up and novelty will wear off, driving effectiveness down, but this space has had Next Big Thing status for years.

The appeal of late night show hosts was (and still is) their mix of personality and taste. Makes sense that podcast hosts are becoming the new late night hosts.

new statistics from YouTube show the platform has cracked 400 million monthly video podcast watch-hours on connected TVs, saying audiences are watching podcasts in their living room in the same way TV audiences in previous decades casually consumed late-night TV.

Third-party cookies are a tool, not a strategy. They influence how marketing is delivered and measured, but they’ve never been a substitute for a sound marketing plan or strong data practices.

Substitute any form of tech or data solution for “third party cookies” above and it still holds.

The best solution for a theoretical post-cookie world is still the best path forward:

• First-party data
• Build relationships and trust

Inflation is sticking around.

From the BLS:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in November, after rising 0.2 percent in each of the previous 4 months

Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.7 percent

Shelter index rose 0.3%
Food up 0.4%
Energy up 0.2%

4 tactics from CMOs on maintaining a healthy marketing funnel in tough times

• Bottom funnel traffic started as top-of-funnel, don’t cut your discovery efforts.

Those upper-funnel ads are necessary for lower-funnel ads in places like search to work.

• Make sure any low-cost and no-cost avenues are fully optimized

• Measure on the right time frame

• Be proactive talking with leadership

As the name of this blog might suggest, I’m big on curiosity.

“It’s lo-fi chill electronic music” is the aisle where you find things at Home Depot. “It makes you nostalgic for something that didn’t happen” makes you curious.

invoking something people wish they had, wish they had back, or wish they knew. It exposes a gulf that an audience would agree exists between what they know or feel now, and what they would like to know or feel. It is specific, not general. It is a gap they have to fill