I hope you’re well and enjoying the spooky season. I’m typing this jacked up on Halloween candy (which I now need to secretly replenish), so please forgive any sugar-fueled spelling mistakes.
I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on the excellent Marketing News Canada podcast. Darian Kovacs is the host, and he is so good at making anxious guests (i.e., me) feel at ease. We covered a lot of ground in our discussion – from digital training & trends, to advice for young marketers, to my marketing ‘origin story’. Listen here.
MARKETING & SUBCULTURES
Is there simply too much Internet? Ed Zitron has an interesting post on how subcultures are thriving online, and that even the most voracious scrollers can’t keep up with popular niche creators and communities. He counters the prevailing narrative and sees this as a good thing: “I do, however, find this entropy to be delightful. I don’t want to know everything. I don’t want to be aware of every subculture, but I do like to know that they exist and flourish entirely out of my sight.” Blue Hour Studios has released a report that explores the media habits of Gen Z and this subculture theme is further reinforced. Should marketers targeting Gen Z move away from mass marketing in favour of more subculture-focused plans? The Gen Z Field Guide is worth a skim to noodle this question, and the tangled relationship between communities, creators, culture, and identity.
META-ENTERTAINMENT
Wunderman Thompson coined a new term (for me) – Augmented Entertainment. They point to forms of interactive entertainment on the horizon from existing (Disney) and emerging (Bored Apes) players. Seems like leveraging popular characters / IP is the on-ramp for these new experiences. Here’s a cool demo of a mixed reality experience using the Meta Quest Pro to make the whole thing more tangible.
Connection to real-life was also a highlight from this journalist’s 24 hours in Meta’s Horizon virtual platform – her favourite moment was attending an exclusive real-world live comedy show virtually. Not sure it’s a promising sign that the best thing about a metaverse experience is watching a live offline event through your goggles.
DATA TRANSPARENCY & DISRUPTION
Information is power. Uber was reminded of this recently when a former employee created an app to help gig economy workers understand how much they really make. Shocker – it’s not much, and less than advertised. Amazon is also using data (price) transparency to move into the UK home insurance market by providing a price comparison portal. It’s interesting to think about what else might be quantified and shared that could make a big impact? Speaking of disruption, restaurants are now experimenting with subscription-based models and NFT reservation tokens to increase revenue and serve those willing to pay for exclusive, guaranteed access. A useful way to think about NFTs might be to just explore what areas of status or exclusivity are under-monetized today.
FRESH REPORTS
Key Digital Themes for 2023: Simon Kemp has published his latest and greatest (235 slides) report on Global Digital Trends. A great resource for current, big picture stats.
20 Years of Trending Google Searches: A fun trip down memory lane / your search history (same thing?)
For the Game: A very useful report from dentsu on gaming – an area that is overlooked by the majority of agencies and brands today. Smart perspective on the impact of gaming on culture. Worth the download.
2023 Global Culture Report: A comprehensive study from O.C. Tanner on workplace culture, including recommendations for leaders navigating hybrid / back to work decisions. Figuring this out is top of mind for many of my clients given our experiences over the last 2 years with non-linear workdays.
Finally, love this simple post and template for better error message. These principles can be applied more broadly to writing for the web / digital experience design.
