∞
The manager looks at him and says, “HA! You think I am in the music business? No. I’m in the Iron fucking Maiden business.” The publishing industry? The retail business? These are not the businesses I am in–just like you’re not in the coffee industry or B2B. No, you’re in the business of you. You’re in the business of serving your customers in your city with your unique offering.

What matters is their relationship with their fans. That’s who they are in service of. That’s the job. And so it goes for all of us, whatever we do.

Everything is customer service.

Know who you’re serving and what they expect.

Business is a series of promises.

Success is based on delivering.

∞

Meta just casually announced an AI-powered AR glasses prototype.

Ambient computing accelerates.

∞
Word spreads because taste aligns…not because of wild interruption.

Find the stories that mesh.

∞

Adobe’s holiday shopping predictions are in:

major discounts this season–up to 30% off listed prices–as retailers compete for consumer dollars

Biggest discount wins?

share of the most expensive goods is set to increase by 19% compared to pre-season trends—driven in large part by competitive discounts

Inflation and price sensitivity who?

I think post-election holiday shopping is gonna pop like a champagne cork.

∞

This.

If you try to be for everyone, you end up being for no one.

Or, as Vonnegut said, “if you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

∞

Meta reportedly rolled out an ad algorithm update in August. It caused a lot of volatility, but includes some nice sounding features.

  • Conversion Value Rules

You can assign certain audience profiles OR conversion types higher values

  • Incremental Conversions Attribution

measure which conversions would not have happened w/o the ad being shown (true impact) AND optimize for these types of conversions

  • Third-party Analytics Integration
  • Cross-Channel User Journeys

more emphasis on cross-channel journeys to drive incremental conversions.

∞

We’ve been preparing all our clients for this:

The vast majority of political ad spend happens in the month prior to the election.Bottom of funnel, so to speak. Expect prices to be higher up to Election Day in early November, then drop off sharply, leaving an opening. Take advantage. 

After that, consumer spending is expected to skyrocket. Lots of people will be online engaging in discourse. Screentime will be up, which means CPMs will be down and CTRs up. Get on it. 

∞

Minimum Viable Website: A Thought Exercise

If your website had to fit entirely on a phone screen—only one page, no scrolling, no links—what would it say?

How would you:

  • Tell your story
  • Establish your value
  • Drive one action (buttons are allowed to trigger forms, checkouts, etc.)

How can you turn visitors into customers with one frame of an Instagram Story?

What is the one core nugget your audience needs to understand to “get” what you do, what the value is?

What are their primary questions / concerns / blocks that you need to address immediately?

What is the one action you want them to take that creates the highest exchange of value between both sides?

∞
Thinking about God promotes greater acceptance of Artificial intelligence (AI)-based recommendations.
…
when God is salient, people are more willing to consider AI-based recommendations than when God is not salient.
…
God salience reduces reliance on human recommenders and heightens willingness to consider AI recommendations.

What does this suggest about human psychology and behavior?

∞

Roku announced a self-serve ad platform which include two ad types I want to test:

  1. Action Ads: Marketers can easily generate interactive video overlays on their own, allowing viewers to send themselves a text message while watching their video ad.

  2. Shopify Checkout: For the first time in CTV advertising, Shopify merchants can now launch self-service shoppable ads that allow consumers to check out directly on-screen using their Roku remote.