Marketing Dojo#63:🚜The Best Job Ever🏆

John Deere's hunt for a CTO, The impact of Reels on Instagram, Dove is the first Anti-AI brand and more.

Apr 24, 2024

Hello, and welcome to the 63rd edition of the Marketing Dojo- Your five-minute cheat sheet to mastering the marketing world each week. Haven't subscribed yet? What are you waiting for? Jump on board!

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Creative Excellence: Goodbye AI, hello real customers.

If you are a marketer, there's no way you have missed the several use cases of AI in marketing.Yet, one brand is bucking the trend with a firm "No thanks."

Dove announced its decision never to use AI-generated photos in its advertising instead of sticking with its real customers' images.

Dove deserves credit and kudos for its consistency with its Real Beauty platform. In 2017, Dove took the Real Beauty Pledge to feature real, diverse women without digital manipulations and promote body positivity.

From battling social media filters to shunning AI in ads, Dove's commitment to authenticity isn't just commendable—it's groundbreaking.

While most brands try their best (and often fail) in adopting AI, Dove's no-no to AI for its creatives is a big win.

Coming soon: Digital billboards to a Roblox experience near you.

Is your brand aiming to capture the attention of younger audiences—like Gen Z or even Gen Alpha? Then, you'll want to tune into last week's buzz about Roblox and Pubmatic.

The two companies have teamed up to launch programmatic media buying on Roblox's platform. Later this year, advertisers will be able to tap into Roblox's video ad inventory, strategically placed in high-traffic areas within games—think eye-catching video billboards in prime virtual real estate.

As of Q3 2024, Roblox boasts 71.5 million daily users, of whom over 40% are under 12 years old. These ads will target users older than 13 on the platform.

This partnership with Pubmatic, a leader in programmatic advertising, opens a direct channel to these elusive younger demographics.

Hiring now: Chief TikTok Officer.

Job advertisements have been having a moment lately. First, McDonald's job opening for its social media manager went viral, and then there's this job opening to "hire" Tiger Woods right after his breakup with Nike.

The latest head-turner comes from an unexpected quarter: John Deere.

John Deere is America's leading agriculture equipment company.

Its latest marketing campaign centres on advertising for "The Best Job Ever". The iconic company is seeking a Chief Tractor Officer to create TikTok content.

So far, John Deere has been absent on TikTok. Its content on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and X has primarily focused on product videos, educational videos, brand content, and how-to guides. Not too differentiated for its segment.

The 187-year-old company's content pivot to crowdsourcing its search for a fun-loving, brand-crazy content creator & brand ambassador is clutter-breaking for the category.

I cannot wait to see where the new CTO takes John Deere's presence on TikTok. My hopes are high with this one.

John Deere is looking for our first-ever Chief Tractor Officer (CTO). And this isn’t some honorary position—it's a real job where you can make a real impact. You’ll travel the U.S. creating thumb-stopping, brow-raising (in a good way) social media content to illustrate the incredible and unexpected ways farming and construction work impacts us all.

The Reel deal: The power of short-form video content.

Meta's move to copy TikTok and introduce Reels feels like a good idea. Overall, creators have been quick to adapt to the new content format. However, Stacked Marketer's engagement numbers for Instagram are eye-opening.

Instagram started rolling out Reels, its short-form vertical video content stream, in August 2020. A couple of years later, the average daily time spent on Instagram has doubled from 2019 to 2022.

Whether IG's Reels or YouTube's Shorts of the OG TikTok, the consumer demand for short-form video content is insatiable. Even with its increased numbers, Instagram still trails both TikTok & YouTube as a platform of choice for the younger generation.

Short Stuff:

Meta expands its policy of labelling AI-generated content (Human v/s Robot-made).
Amazon introduced shoppable live streams on Amazon Prime. ( Can Amazon catch up on livestreaming?)
The bill to ban TikTok in the US moves ahead. (Is this even a possibility?).

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.

Once again, thank you for your time. See you in your inbox next Wednesday.

Regards,

Garima Mamgain

P.S:

I've been honing my writing skills with a David Perell course. This week's prompt tormented me, and I almost gave up—until I didn't.

The prompt: What's the one thing that is missing in this world, and how does it matter?

Every idea I considered felt too cliché. Could it be empathy? Or could it be the missing incentives for clear thinking over busy work? I couldn't convince myself to start writing. I was all set to give up.

Then, I got on my flight from St. Paul to San Francisco. I had had a long, draining week and wanted to do nothing.

That's when I experienced it—a rare moment of boredom. It was a eureka moment: In this hyperconnected world, where our smartphones have an endless supply of dopamine hits, boredom and its benefits have gone missing.

I am still editing the article. But here is version 1.5.

Missing: Boredom, Last Seen in the Pre-Smartphone Era.

To whomsoever it may concern.

This is an open letter to my long-lost friend - Boredom.

Boredom and I lost touch over the years. I felt like Boredom's company was not great for me. I avoided him at all costs. Podcasts, TikTok of cute cats and dogs, memes and more - I filled up all my free time to elude my dear old friend.

Today, my friend, Boredom, paid me an unexpected visit while I was looking out the aeroplane window on a long flight from San Francisco to Singapore. Our short rendezvous cured my writer's block and left me with a perfect response to the third prompt of the Write of Passage.

This letter is my apology to my dear old friend. I hope it is not too late to mend our old friendship.

Will you read this, share and help me reach out to him?

Dear Boredom,

It's been so long since we met!

Do you remember our time together during the summer holidays? Don't you?

I spent most of my summer holidays at my grandparents' house in New Delhi, nestled in an area built by the old Mughal emperors. You were my true friend who turned up regularly to keep me company daily. You and I would spend our days idling at the Lodhi Gardens, built in the 16th century by the emperor Sikander Lodhi.

Lying on the grass for hours, we would look up at the sky and feel the rotation of the earth.

Sometimes, you and I would look for loose change that might have slipped off the pockets of visitors who would take a break from the perverse heat under the shade of 1000-year-old trees. Do you remember our joy when my voice would echo from the dome built in the centre of the vast tomb constructed in the centre of the park? That trick never got old.

You were my constant companion all day long.

I am sorry that I complained to my parents that I was tired of being bored. The truth is - I miss you.

We lost touch slowly and then quickly.

Our distancing started when my father got a Nokia mobile phone from his office when I was twelve. I became obsessed with the Snake game on his phone. Then, I started spending much of my free time on Facebook, deriving the voyeuristic pleasure of getting a peek into other people's lives.

More recently, I have been filling pockets of my free time with endless scrolls of TikToks of food recipes, funny kids and cute cats.

I have been far too busy to make some time for you. Worse, I am not alone. I read that an average person reaches out for their mobile phones 47 times daily! My friends in the Philippines spend over 11 hours a day glued to their mobile phones.

I am afraid my daughter and her generation will never know you at all.

Yet you were more than a childhood playmate. You deserve more credit than you get. You were with Sir Isaac Newton when he was lying in the garden and saw an apple fall. You helped Archimedes when he came up with the Eureka moment in his bath. Without you, our understanding of gravity or the hydrostatic principle wouldn't be the same.

Boredom (yes, you) and creativity are intricately related. Your presence sets the mind free to wander and daydream. This mental wandering is not aimless; instead, it is a fertile ground for creativity. When we are bored, our brain is not inactive. It is reorganising thoughts, solving problems subconsciously, and exploring ideas.

Over the years, my relationship with your frenemy, Busyness, has gotten unhealthy. Busyness is just so accessible. All I need to do is reach out for a screen near me—my phone, tablet, or laptop—and I get glued for hours. But this companionship with Busyness has made me distracted, unfocused, and addicted to my screens.

My friend, I hope we can rekindle our old friendship. I promise to treat you better. Me and many others like me need you more than ever. Will you come to visit us more often?