MarketingDojo #12: Who's your favorite animal?🏇🐘🦌

What a zoo can teach us about acquiring customers, can ChatGPT catch a break?, cancel that creative refresh! and a lot more.

Mar 22, 2023

Hello hello, everyone,

I hope this week has been fantastic so far! I had the most brutal Monday morning blues since I just returned from a break (more on that in the P.S. section).

There’s a lot happening in the marketing world this week. Here’s what we will dig into.

🐘Mover over ICP. Do you know your target audience’s animal spirit?

🕊️Dove’s new campaign is clever and timely.

😴 Are customers tired of seeing your ads?

🌿New trend alert: Greenhushing 🤫

And a lot more.

Before we start, if you find value in this newsletter, please share it generously.

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A zookeeper’s guide to customer acquisition.

When it comes to customers, there are all kinds of them - big, small, and varying in numbers. The marketing team’s role and setup will differ wildly basis this information.

In one of my roles, we often referred to the “zoo slide” framework.

This zoo slide clarifies the kind of customer you are after and the role that the marketing team can play in acquisition.

If the customers you are chasing are elephants -

They are big customers who come with a big ticket size per transaction.
A handful of these customers will ensure your company remains profitable
Typically have a long, complex sales cycle with key account management support from the sales team.
The marketing team is likely to focus its attention on Account-based marketing.
Outbound > Inbound

If the customer you are chasing are gazelles -

These are many in number, nimble & agile
Unprofitable if managed thru a key account strategy due to low ticket size
Customer acquisition requires a marketing-led full funnel experience & a robust self-serve option (e.g. E-commerce)
Inbound > Outbound

So are your customers an elephant or a gazelle?

A lesson in creative excellence: Dove’s latest campaign against “Bold Glamour”.

The Bold Glamour filter on TikTok has faced recent backlash due to concerns about its impact on users' self-esteem and self-image. The filter is a marked improvement over the existing beauty filters that are glitchy. If you haven’t caught on to the trend - here’s a TikTok to show how effective it is.

@notsophiesilva WHY AM I SCARED

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Enter Dove’s new campaign against these filters that create unrealistic beauty standards - #turnyourback.

Dove’s ads have always been clutter-breaking, focussed on a singular message of promoting real beauty.

There’s much to appreciate about the latest campaign: The speed of execution, staying on top of beauty trends and being their customer’s voice. This campaign is bound to win lots of customer love & awards.

Have you ever wondered when ads lose their effectiveness? 🤔

Well, surprise - they never really do!

According to a study by System1, advertisements do not have an expiry date, and audiences do not get tired of seeing them repeatedly.

A couple of more interesting points:

Ad effectiveness does not go down with time; some ads can perform well even after 19 years! 😲

Ads with catchy tag lines or jingles do even better with repeated exposure over time.

So, instead of constantly refreshing your creatives, it's best to let your top-performing ads run longer. They can deliver outstanding results for much longer than you might expect!

As a marketer, this is music to our ears, right?

Top 30 Youtubers: How many do you know?

This list of the 30 most popular Youtubers in 2023 is an eye-opener. Of course, I know Mr Beast & PewdiePie, but I was largely unaware of everyone else on this list.

A few things I noticed

The list of Youtubers is geographically diverse.
There are very few females in the top 30 😔. Three of the five females featured on the list are under 13 (kids category)👧🏻👧🏼👧🏽.
Gaming attracts big subscribers and loyal fan-base

This list caught me by total surprise. Please go check it out and share your observations in the comments.

Now hiring: Chief Content Authentication Officer.

There’s a new generative AI-related announcement almost daily these days. There is zero doubt that we are all going to be drowning in a tsunami of content soon.

Creating fake content has become a lot easier these days, from deep fakes to voice simulations and even cloning an author's writing style.

That's why Gartner predicts that content authentication will be a top priority for marketers in the future.

By 2027, 80% of enterprise marketers will establish a dedicated content authenticity function to combat misinformation and fake material.

The other two that I could resonate with:

One-in-three businesses without a loyalty program today will establish one by 2027 to shore up first-party data collection and retain high-priority customers.
By 2025, organizations that use AI across the marketing function will shift 75% of their staff’s operations from production to more strategic activities.

New Trend Alert: Greenhushing

Picture created by Dall-E. Prompt: Oil pastel painting of earth putting a finger to its mouth to keep quiet.

We have all heard of greenwashing - when companies claim that their products are eco-friendly to attract environmentally-conscious consumers.

The number of companies being called out for greenwashing is increasing. Take, for example, this long list of companies accused of greenwashing maintained by Truth in Advertising. In 2021, European Commission found that half of the green claims lacked evidence.

Fearful of being labelled greenwashers or getting cancelled, companies are keeping quiet about their sustainable goals and environmentally friendly endeavours. The new trend is called Greenhushing.

How prevalent is green-hushing? A South Pole study across 1200 organizations found that one in four companies surveyed has set science-based emission reduction targets, but they do not plan to publicise them.

Greenwashing comes with a great reputational cost for most brands. Large brands are increasingly erring at the side of caution by underplaying their green initiatives.

Publicly sharing bold environmental goals drives accountability; green hushing is going to cause more harm in the future.

Meme: ChatGPT takes over my social media feed.

I am bummed! Quantumania is the first Marvel movie that I haven’t gone and seen in the theatres. Somehow phase 4 just doesn’t excite me all that much.

So this week’s meme is to reminisce about the epic Marvel moments and to complain for a hot second that my entire social media feed is overflowing with ChatGpt chatter.

Short Stuff:

Netflix is evaluating build-or-buy options for its ad-serving platform. It is considering moving away from its Microsoft partnership. (Advertising money is too good to share)
Discord's new AI feature roll-out caused consumer backlash due to sneaky changes in the data privacy policy. (Ctrl Z those changes).
Roblox will not serve ads to half its customer base i.e. kids below 13 years of age. (Prioritizing child safety).
TikTok is dangerously close to getting banned. (Paywalled WSJ)

That’s all for this week. Thank you for your time and attention; it means the world to me. If you have any suggestions or feedback, please leave a comment or reach out to me at garima.mamgain@gmail.com.

Marketing Dojo