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This is a good reminder from this year’s Seth Godin daily calendar, curated and illustrated by Debbie Millman.

It is easy to get caught up in our own tastes and aesthetics when making marketing decisions.

But they’re a distraction.

The tastes and preferences that matter are those of the customer.

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From the abstract of the paper Do Influencers Influence? A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Celebrities and Social Media Influencers Effects 📝

Findings reveal that social media influencers (SMIs) are more effective than brand-only advertising and that there is no significant difference between SMIs and celebrity endorsers. Taking these factors into consideration, the effects are moderated by perceived credibility and influencer types, indicating that mega-influencers are relatively more persuasive, while nano-influencers are less persuasive compared to celebrities, respectively. Findings imply that there is a “sweet spot” wherein SMIs are most effective and distinct from celebrity endorsers, providing support for more nuanced conceptualizations of SMIs and calling for future research to explore additional enhancing and attenuating factors.

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You can obsess about your customers or you can obsess about your competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further.

from Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly 📚

I’d argue obsessing about customers takes care of the competition.

Everything is customer service.

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This post on social doubt has a great nugget to use in your messaging:

define who your product isn’t for to weed out buyers who will likely cause you a headache (and loss of profits).

Wait, what’s social doubt?

Your buyers are constantly looking for reasons not to buy from you.

Sometimes it’s easier to find your path by closing doors. Rather than trying to figure out what’s similar about the open doors or which you like the most.

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Google Ads in 2025

One of Google’s ad leads (title is ridiculous) sat down for an interview with MediaPost with some nuggets worth sharing.

2025 product focus will be on Performance Max, Demand Gen, and Search.

Also, AI!

His prediction:

we’re going to continue seeing seismic shifts in consumer search behavior. The lines between actively seeking information and passively discovering it will blur, driven by AI’s increasing ability to understand intent and deliver immersive experiences.

This means moving beyond simple keywords and embracing a multimodal search landscape where visuals, context, and even our surroundings play a crucial role in how we find what we need

2025: the year where multiple recent trends will collide