Marketing Dojo #86:💡The Power of Compounding Creativity 🚀
Compounding creativity, Reddit's new-found success, B2B buyer experience and more.
I've discovered a new sanctuary for deep work: our public libraries in Singapore. With pin-drop silence and easy-to-use tech to reserve a workspace, it's the perfect environment for focus. Breaks, naturally, lead to some inevitable scrolling of books, not social media.
Could it be better? Surprisingly, yes.
In a cosy corner of the library, there's a shelf for books that others have passed on. Last week, I picked up a book I'd been meaning to read for ages, and it came with a delightful surprise: a vintage postcard featuring art from the Mughal era.
Double serendipity.
Welcome to the 86th issue of Marketing Dojo! Like my library finds, may you uncover a hidden gem or two in today's insights. Here’s the agenda:
🎨 Compounded creativity
📈 Reddit’s slow climb to growth
🛤️ B2B buyer journey
🥊 David and goliaths of influencer marketing
And lots more.
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Now, let's kick off this week's marketing wisdom...
Einstein Was Right (About Your Ad Campaign)
"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it." — Albert Einstein
Laws humble us. We love to think our work is unique, yet like snowflakes meeting sunshine, our perceived uniqueness melts when faced with universal laws. Compounding is one such law - whether it's growing wealth or building muscle, its power is undeniable.
Imagine my excitement when I came across System 1's research on "Compound Creativity".
Their study, "The Magic of Compound Creativity," dissected 4,164 ads across 56 brands over five years. The secret sauce? Creative Consistency Scores (CCS). High-scoring brands shared three traits:
Consistent positioning platforms
Long-running campaigns
Unified branding across channels (think memorable characters, slogans, ambassadors)
The key takeaways:
Consistency is not boring. Quite the opposite, brands that score high on consistency also do better on creativity and market growth rate.
Time is your friend. Consistent brands enjoy better advertising, brand and business, the effects of which amplify beyond a 12-month period.
Brands that stay consistent are easier to recognize, remember, and trust, all while saving the marketing team's effort in chasing the next big idea.
Win-Win if you ask me.
Reddit's Slow Burn to Social Media Stardom.
In the night sky of social media, stars follow different destinies. Some burst into supernovas of viral fame, burning brilliant but brief. Others fade into digital darkness, joining the graveyard of forgotten platforms. But occasionally, there's a rare celestial event - a star that grows steadily brighter, defying the usual lifecycle of social networks.
Recently, Reddit reached a milestone: with 100 million active users, it announced its first profitable quarter in 20 years. This profitability is partly due to data licensing deals with Google and OpenAI and AI-driven translations that make Reddit accessible to a broader audience.
Reddit is the 6th most Googled word in the US (YTD 2024).
Social media survival typically hinges on two things:
Functionality: How useful is it in daily life?
Status: That ineffable "cool factor" that draws people in
Reddit flips the script. It's decidedly uncool - no celebrities, dance challenges, or filters. But its functionality? Off the charts.
The growth of Reddit has only just begun.
For one, its machine translations will continue driving growth as it expands to 30 countries.
Its average revenue per user still leaves room for growth.
But here's where it gets interesting. Think Las Vegas in the 1930s. Gambling legalization brought a population boom, forever changing the city's character. Old-timers still mourn the loss of their quiet desert town to the neon jungle.
Reddit faces a similar inflection point. As it booms, volunteer moderators - the platform's bedrock - might feel the strain.
Can a community-first platform scale? We are about to find out.
Marketer’s AI Toolkit 2025.
If you are based in Singapore and keen to get hands-on AI training, the folks at AI Marketers Guild have you covered. My incredibly talented friend Sushmita Mohapatra will be on the panel. Sign up for this not-to-be-missed event here.
Strangers Don't Win Deals (And Other B2B Truth Bombs)
If you're in B2B marketing, drop everything and bookmark 6Sense's 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Report. It's a goldmine of insights that might challenge how you think about B2B buying.
3 Insights that stood out for me:
Familiarity Drives Consideration: Remember that Fear Of Messing Up (FOMU) I mentioned last week? The data backs it up. A staggering 92.6% of vendors in the evaluation phase are ones buyers already know. In B2B, strangers rarely make it to the party.
Beware Of The Regional Differences: Think global, act local has never been more relevant. The size and complexity of buying teams vary significantly across regions. APAC teams, for instance, average 12.8 members—compared to 9.76 in EMEA—and evaluate more vendors, often taking three months longer that EMEA counterparts to finalize a choice.
Source: 6Sense 2024 B2B Buyer Experience Report. 3. Self-Directed Research: Buyers initiate first contact with vendors over 80% of the time and typically don't reach out until they're 69% through their buying journey. Remarkably, 81% of the time, the first vendor they contact wins the deal.
The Writing on the Wall For B2B marketers, the message is clear: your buyers are spending two-thirds of their journey in stealth mode. Your content needs to work harder - engaging not just primary decision-makers but the entire buying ecosystem: C-suite, purchasing, legal, and everyone in between.
MrBeast vs The Mini-Beasts
Towering wealth, modern hustles - The influencer industry is turning into a Tale of Two Cities.
In one city, the numbers are staggering. Forbes released its Top Creators List for 2024. Together, the top creators earned a staggering $720 million this year—a $20 million increase over last year—while adding 100 million new followers.
Weak economy? Not for Mr Beast with his 500Mn+ subscribers and total earnings of $85Mn.
The Second largest creator -Dhar Man, has less than a third of Mr Beast's followership and earns half the revenue. The wealth difference between the first and the second could fund a small nation.
But there's another city emerging.
Rest Of The World's article sheds light on the powerful TikTok Shop affiliate program. Anyone with over 1000 followers on TikTok can join the affiliate program.
For the sake of comparison, Instagram creators tend to need follower counts of more than 90,000 to command payments of more than $1,000 per post.
TikTok's democratic approach is birthing a new breed: full-time users moonlighting as content creators, selling everything from toys to takeout.
Exciting times are ahead for TikTok.
The creator economy is stretching like a rubber band. At one end, MrBeast and his peers reach for the stars. On the other, thousands of micro-creators are finding their first taste of digital entrepreneurship.
The big are getting bigger, yes, but the long tail? It's getting longer, richer, and more interesting by the day.
Short Stuff:
Instagram lowers the video quality of less popular videos (New creators FTW)
YouTube’s Q3 2024 earnings surged 12% to $8.9Bn on the back of increased subscription revenue (Powered by a 56% increase in my monthly subscription).
After Open AI, Meta is reportedly working on its AI-powered search engine (Search is heating up).
That’s a wrap on this week. Thank you for your time and attention. If you liked this week’s newsletter or found something interesting, please give me a like ❤️ or drop a comment🗨️. Your support helps drive the newsletter's discoverability.
Regards,
Garima Mamgain
P.S:
I read Paul Graham's essays twice. First for meaning, then for mastery - to catch the subtle brilliance in his prose.
His latest, "Writes and the Write-nots," landed like a punch to the gut.
"In a couple decades, there won't be many people who can write."
Writing is tough. Because to write clearly, one needs to think clearly.
Today, AI makes writing seem effortless. You see it everywhere - LinkedIn posts with that unmistakable ChatGPT sheen and websites stuffed with prompt-generated content. Writing, it seems, is becoming as automated as factory work.
But here's the kicker - when we outsource our writing, we outsource our thinking.
Graham's warning isn't just about a future split between writers and non-writers. It's about something far more chilling: a world divided between those who think and those who let machines think for them.
I loved the Chart comparing social media platform usage - took me down memory lane! Orkut was missing though :D
This was brilliant post! So much to relate to.
Btw, your library visit, books left by readers and a postcard in the book - that's like a few of my favorite themes in one place. I had covered these in recent times. This landed a big smile.