ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS: New Ipsos research explores the factors that lead to “Fame” campaigns in social media– those that inspire people to share and provide the brand with excess share of voice. Four traits are noted: Cultural Impact, Creative Bravery, Positive Feelings, and Controversy…tough to check all those boxes. Snap also published some new research that reinforces their position that longer ads do not mean better ads (at least not on Snapchat).
GOOGLE & COOKIES: Many folks are pontificating about the future of cookie-less digital advertising, which is only making a complicated topic more difficult to follow. Here is a clear-eyed overview from the WSJ on the implications of Google’s recent changes. This report from Jounce also has some useful perspective, including a helpful visualization of ‘different internets’.
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS: The Drum has a great overview of how social platforms are evolving to embrace social commerce (i.e. making posts more transactional). Kantar research says 83% of TikTok’s audience have made purchases inspired by its trending content. YouTube is the last platform to embrace TikTok’s short video format with a new feature called Shorts (following Twitter’s Fleets, and LinkedIn’s Stories). If you are curious about the Influencer / Creator space, this is a very useful guide to what determines rates and terms by #Paid.
FRAMEWORKS & RESOURCES: I love the content that the Spotify Design Team shares through its blog and newsletter. The latest post covers a tool that they use to align teams throughout the design process. Really like the clear Spotify-specific criteria used.
Google also recently published a useful beginner’s resource on ‘Mastering Digital Advertising’. It’s a quick guide that has a good section on ‘waterfall budget planning’. Reminder that I regularly post new frameworks on Kickframe.com.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Brandwatch (which has an excellent newsletter) shared some telling social media listening research last week. They collected millions of posts containing the phrase “I need a” and pulled out the related terms. Chair, Haircut, and Recipe showed the largest increase (Comprehensive Digital Marketing Newsletter is sadly further down the list). Finally, if you are trying to get out of a Zoom call, check out this new service that sabotaging your own audio streams “making your presence unbearable to others.” Welcome to 2021.
AUGMENTED REALITY: Facebook made news earlier last week by releasing a concept video from its Reality Lab. It was interesting to see that the focus was not on glasses, but rather a wrist-worn device that integrates with your neurons. I’m skeptical about giving FB my primary email address, so this might be a stretch. This concept is more my speed – Pizza Hut just launched ‘specialty-marked boxes’ (is there a more exciting term?!) that turn pizza boxes into virtual Pac-Man games.
