ROUND UP — Reels, Programmatic, and MER

The EU encourages AI transparency, Nikon's terrific new campaign & more!

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SIDE NOTE 1: In this edition of The Marketer's Playbook, I've added yet another new section — Bites! Moving forward, you'll find this right below The Round Up, featuring articles from around the web that I found interesting but not interesting enough for a full breakdown. Bite-sized marketing/business news. Enjoy!

SIDE NOTE 2: In the coming weeks, I am going to be launching a private community for entrepreneurs, professionals, and visionaries. It's called The Commonwealth Club — designed to connect one another to opportunities all over the world in the name of mutual prosperity. Do you want an invite? Reply to this email, and I will get you an invite as soon as it goes live. Let's see what the power of collective ambition can do.

REELS GET AN UPGRADE

As Reels continues to grow, Meta has launched a new update for the placement designed to help brand partners add further flare to their videos. When producing a Reels ad, you can now choose from a list of free music from Meta's new sound library. You can even use this to spice up your static image ads to drive better engagement. “Reels ads with both music and voice-over show a +15-point statistically significant higher average positive response score than those without sound, and that’s why we want to make it easier to source, select, and add music during the campaign creation process.” For more info, check out Meta's announcement here.

AI CONTENT WILL SOON BE LABELED

In an effort to combat fake news, disinformation, and generally misleading content, the EU has urged big tech companies to clearly identify AI-generated content. Specifically, the EU has urged companies like Google and Facebook to label content and images generated by artificial intelligence and warned Twitter that it faces sanctions if it does not comply with new digital content laws. I think this is a great idea, as even though AI is relatively new, there have already been many cases where AI-generated images have been passed off as genuine and believed by most.

PROGRAMMATIC'S PROBLEM

In the ANA's (Association of National Advertisers) recently released Programmatic Transparency Report, they discovered that approximately 15% of all programmatic ad spend is being spent on 'made-for-advertising websites' (aka low-quality clickbait websites) whether advertisers are aware of it or not. This 15% backs out to a staggering $13B annually spent on websites packed with filler content designed to generate low-intent traffic. Why is this happening, and what can/should you do about it? Learn more about that at the link below:

DTC CONFIDENCE INDEX

In a collaboration between KNO and Common Thread Collective comes the DTC Confidence Index. Using macroeconomic data to plot and time-adjust consumer confidence, this website can be used to forecast MER, as they were able to correlate CI and MER with a relatively high level of statical significance. For reference, around 100 CI backs out to around 6x MER. Using this, you can predict DTC business outcomes based on how CI changes over time. For more info, head over to their website here.

• REMOTE WORK WINS: Still unsure whether remote work is suitable for your brand? Well, the titans at HubSpot have come out and said that it's not only better for culture but no productivity has been lost for them.

• LINKEDIN REMOVES SOME THINGS: LinkedIn has removed native carousels, profile videos, and in-image links in a recent update. While removing so many options for creators may seem odd, it appears that it was due to 'lack of usage,' which is fair enough.

• THE UPSELL NEWSLETTER: The Upsell is a newsletter run by Danavir Sarria, the founder of SupplyDrop, the agency 8-figure brands recommend. Every week, he shares controversial DTC marketing advice that goes against "best practices" to give your brand the competitive edge it needs. Topics include everything from the best ad creative for scale to billion-dollar bundles to how to become a category king and more. Subscribe here today (sponsored).

• REDDIT FORGETS ABOUT COMMUNITY: Ironically, the company created by and for communities has forgotten how to manage a community. I'm sure you've heard the Reddit API drama by now, so I will spare you, but I think there's a multitude of community management best practices you could learn from doing the opposite of what Reddit is currently doing.

• TWITTER GETS JOB POSTINGS: Twitter seems to be working on a new addition to the platform in the form of job postings. While this appears only to be coming for Verified Businesses, we may see this change in the future.

NIKON — DON'T GIVE UP ON THE REAL WORLD

Immediately, I love this. Nikon has something to say as the world moves deeper into AI, specifically AI-generated images. In a new campaign, Nikon features fantastic landscape imagery with text overlaid showing the prompt you would use to generate these images. The thing is, these are actual photos. At the bottom, the campaign's tagline accompanies it, "Don't give up on the real world." In so few words, this campaign has said so much. Check out this article for more info.

COORS LIGHT — BEAR

To dodge league regulations around promoting alcohol, Coors Light has teamed up with NFL quarterback Patrick Mahones to promote... a bear. In this cheeky ad, Mahones buddies up with an ice-cold Coors Light bear on the golf course. Honestly, I'm not sure how this sidesteps his contract obligations, but I'm here for it. I think this is a perfect balance of comedy while keeping it grounded to the product. I'm not sure why, but despite watching a man hang out with a bear, I now want a cold beer. Based on the YouTube comments, people seem to agree that this struck a perfect balance.

Have a great week,Cory