More from EMARKETER about tariffs but really about brand building in any economy:

as a brand you can no longer rely on undercutting your competition and tariffs only underscore that. You need to make sure that you have a loyal customer base or you’re trying to have a loyal customer base because you’re not going to be able to slash prices forever.

It used to be: better, faster, cheaper; pick 2

But faster and cheaper is pretty much impossible to achieve now, so you need to be better in some way.

One client (who owns their own factory) was told the worst case scenario for Trump’s Trade War (at the time) was a 33% price increase.

EMARKETER reports potential impacts like:

​auto prices could rise as much as $12,000
&​
an extra $3,300 or so to annual expenses for a family of four
&
​43% of people are already seeing tariff related price increases

And of course tariffs beget tariffs.
​ Who knows where Trump’s Wheel of Trade War stops spinning, but consumers will pay.

Structured Serendipity

the promise of consistent, reliable delight

Consistent, reliable delivery of novel experiences, wrapped in the comfort and structure of expected experiences.

People want the surprise of the new rooted in the comfort of the familiar.

The repetition-to-new ratio.

via Sounds Profitable

You can now use company lists and retargeting lists to build LinkedIn Predictive Audiences.

Full list of audience sources that can now be used as seeds for Predictive Audiences:

• Contact list
• Company List
• Conversion
• Lead Gen Form
• Retargeting

And yes, this feature uses AI. 🤖

So as your building your thing, refining your process, engaging your audience…How much has to be new and how much can be repeated (to the delight or unawareness of the audience)?

Repetition begets routine begets habit

Newness begets surprise begets delight

One without the other is hard to sustain

The combination creates a flywheel

via Gabe the Bass Player

Property incentivizes us.
Prices guide us.
Profits lure us to new changes and losses discipline us.

Pete Boettke on what’s pretty much the core of marketing.

Incentives matter

Part of the abstract from the paper The Rank Length Effect:

The same ranked items elicit more positive judgments when the rank length is longer (vs. shorter), although the differences in judgments between the ranked items are smaller. This effect is driven both by consumers’ tendency to narrowly focus on the rank list and by the manner in which they map the rank list onto their mental number line. The rank length effect extends to willingness to pay, and choice.

Translation: ranking well is more impressive if the list is longer (Top 25 vs Top 10).

Performance PR professionals take note.

A business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation

-Peter Drucker

100M Offers Made Easy by Ben Preston 📚

A good overview of the $100 Million Offers approach with some “how to use with AI chat” tips. A good place to start if you’re looking for an entry point to mess around with LLMs for marketing task acceleration. Otherwise, you might get an idea or two on how to tweak your prompting approach.

Here are the non-prompt bits I highlighted:

An irresistible offer is more than just a sales pitch or a marketing gimmick. It’s a carefully crafted proposition that captivates your audience, solves their deepest problems, and compels them to take action.

The flow of your offer should mirror the natural progression of your prospect’s thoughts. It should start by addressing a problem they relate to, present your solution as the answer, and provide evidence to support your claims. Finally, it should guide them to take action, whether it’s making a purchase or subscribing to your newsletter.

An irresistible offer isn’t just about what you sell; it’s about how you package and frame the value you provide to your customers.

I won’t recreate the prompt verbatim here (if you’re interested, just check out the book), but the general flow is:

• Classic role playing prompting opening: “Act as Alex Hormozi…”
• Ask the LLM to rate your offer using Alex’s 4-part value equation framework (from his book $100 Million Offers) and outline the framework (TBD if you can skip the outlining, give it a shot)
• After rating, take the scores generated from each step and calculate the offer equation
• Ask it to provide advice on increasing each of the 4 scores as well as two alternate offer ideas

Follow up prompt:

• Tweak the offer, however necessary, to reach the optimal offer score of 1,000,000

Other recommendations for prompting include:

• List Unique Selling Points
• Craft a Unique Value Proposition
• Generate headlines, hooks, & stories
• Map the offer structure as a sales letter / landing page
• Add a dash of scarcity / FOMO to the offer
• A/B testing ideas & analysis
• Additional data analysis
• Customer segmentation

Is the US Economy Headed for a Slowdown?

If the US consumer is the engine driving the economy, then some funky noises are coming from underneath the hood.

It seems everyone rushed to get their spending done before Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China hit

The pull forward was always likely to obscure the underlying trend early on.

Markets Are Finally, For Real, Pricing in An Economic War

suggesting investors are officially pricing in a lower-growth future after weeks of possibly misguided optimism.

a steep selloff that first rocked markets on [March 3-4], pricing in a future of higher import costs, potential inflation and the disruption of once-integrated supply chains.

Inflation Cooled in February. Now Come Tariffs.

So the good news: Inflation may be calming down. The bad news: Likely-inflationary tariffs are just starting to hit now, meaning this may well be just the calm before the storm.

“There’s no disinflation momentum right now,” [Nationwide chief economist Kathy] Bostjancic added. “We are predicting a little bit of a bump up in the coming months because of these tariffs.”

GDP estimates are being revised downward too.

Walmart is trying to pass tariff costs onto suppliers. It’s not alone

However, this approach has proven difficult. Many suppliers have resisted, resisting price cuts and calling for changes in production. Some have even been urged to move production outside of China, with countries like Vietnam seen as potential alternatives.

Canada to impose 25% retaliatory tariffs on $21 billion worth of U.S. goods

The new tariffs cover steel and aluminum, as well as other U.S. goods including computers, sports equipment and cast iron products

The new Canadian duties are on top of the 25% counter-tariffs that Ottawa already slapped on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods.

Marketing is the act making a promise—or a series of promises. Good marketing delivers on that promise. Bad marketing pisses people off.

Daring Fireball breaks down how Apple Intelligence broke Apple’s promises.

The fiasco is that Apple pitched a story that wasn’t true, one that some people within the company surely understood wasn’t true, and they set a course based on that.

You can stretch the truth and maintain credibility, but you can’t maintain credibility with bullshit.

Apple either drank its own Kool-Aid or forgot who its real customers were.

A slew of earnings reports last week from the consumer discretionary sector raised the specter of sapped spending as executives discussed the possibility of increasing prices on goods to offset the costs of tariffs on shipments from Canada, Mexico, and China.

Retail roulette continues

via The Daily Upside

Word of mouth is always the best marketing…but after your first impression doesn’t go as planned, it’s the only type of marketing that makes a difference.

So make it cool and less risky for your fans to re-tell their friends.

-Gabe the Bass Player

I love this ad

Not because it’s especially good or cool.

Because instead of rambling on about features or tech specs, it frames things in terms of the emotional benefit to the customer.

Shoppers don’t care about the technical stuff until they’re about to make the purchase.

Grabbed tacos with some coworkers last week from a restaurant that opened in an old UPS Store space. Even if we hadn’t known (we only knew because one of the crew remembered it being there), it would have been obvious as soon as we walked in.

All the UPS Store fittings were still there—counter, table, shelves, carpet—with some thematic decorations and touches layered over the top.

This wasn’t a place to sit and eat, it was a grab-and-go counter. And it was delicious (bonus points for having beef tongue tacos, not often seen on menus around here).

They could have put money into renovations and appearance, or they could focus on the food—the actual product.

I’d go back, so I guess they focused on the right thing.

Plus, the absurdity of the interior makes it more likely that I’ll talk about it and remember it.

“Hey, let’s go get tacos at the old UPS Store.” 🌮

More findings from Podscribe’s recent podcast performance report:

• Ads bought per episode (“episodic”) outperform buying across shows (aka “run of network”)—more conversions on more efficient spend
• Host-read ads drive more purchases but cost effectiveness might be a wash
• Mid-roll ads are more efficient per impression, pre-roll are on a per dollar basis—and post-roll are trash
• Longer ads deliver better performance, especially on a per dollar basis

New study sheds light on the role of sound and music in gendered toy marketing

commercials aimed at boys, the soundtracks tended to be louder, more abrasive, and distorted, reinforcing notions of masculinity through harsher soundscapes. In contrast, ads targeting girls featured softer, more harmonious music, reinforcing traditional associations with femininity.

[music-primed gender schemas] merge aesthetic and gendered meanings, priming listeners to associate certain sounds with masculinity or femininity. In the context of advertising, this can reinforce narrow conceptions of gender roles, which, in turn, shape children’s perceptions of what is ‘appropriate’ for boys and girls

According to the first author, toy commercials can be described as “semiotic bombs,” packing multiple layers of meaning into short bursts of sound, imagery, and language.

Don’t just zig when your competitors zag, try zigging when your brain zags. Doing the opposite of what “feels right” or “normal” or “standard.”

People love free samples. Is the marketing opportunity of the future free tastes?

Novel technology intends to redefine the virtual reality experience by expanding to incorporate a new sensory connection: taste.

“The chemical dimension in the current VR and AR realm is relatively underrepresented, especially when we talk about olfaction and gustation. It’s a gap that needs to be filled and we’ve developed that with this next-generation system.”

Free smells too!

via ScienceDaily

Smaller is better. At least when it comes to podcasts for ad performance.

Smaller podcasts consistently are more efficient at driving visitors per impression

smaller podcasts are more effective per dollar spent

smaller shows may have more committed, niche audiences that are more connected to the host

Which makes sense, since podcasts are basically audio-first influencer channels. It’s about audience engagement, not size.

More nuggets:

• 16% of site visits occur within 24 hours of hearing an ad
• 40% within a week
• 80% within 23 days

via Inside Audio Marketing