MarketingDojo #27: Nouns Speak Louder Than Verbs. 🤔
The teething troubles of AI-generated images, Apple Vision Pro's luxury experience & more.
Hello,
How's your Wednesday going so far?
Did you sign up for Threads yet? It feels busy to start with - chaotic like a new social media channel should.
What's refreshing about Threads is that there are no waitlists or invitation codes. Everyone gets to join at the same time (unless you are in the EU), which is awesome.
The growth numbers are crazy, of course.
Do you remember Google+? It was meant to be Google’s Facebook killer in 2011. Thanks to Google’s user base and seamless login, it amassed 10 million users in just 16 days and 20 million within three weeks of its first day. That story didn’t end well. Facebook is still alive, and Google doesn’t have a social app. Threads have a great start - now comes the harder part of keeping the party going.
I'm still trying to decide if I want to build up MarketingDojo's audience on Threads. What do you think about the platform? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Here's what we will cover this week:
👩Nouns, not verbs🏃🏻♀️
🥽Apple's bespoke experience with the Vision Pro headsets
👋GenAI images have an issue at hand
⚔️Are you #TeamBarbie or #TeamOppenheimer?
And lot's more.
So let’s dive right in.
Say My Name: Why We Need to Replace Verbs with Nouns.
I read two awesome books back-to-back: Magic Words by Jonah Berger and The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton.
A common takeaway from both books is that when trying to persuade people, it's better to use nouns instead of verbs.
Verbs represent what we do, while nouns represent who we are.
Here are some examples to illustrate the difference between the two.
Although the distinction may seem subtle, nouns work like labels that classify things, while verbs suggest what someone is feeling or doing. By using nouns, we can turn desired actions into customer identities.
Bespoke Twist To Tech Shopping with Apple’s Vision Pro.
Not two Porsches are the same. Buying a Porsche involves visiting the retail store where a salesperson helps a customer personalize a car with options for engines, rims, interior-exterior colour and texture, monograms & logos etc.
Louis Vuitton is also famous for offering services for personalizing the products, such as hot stamping, choosing the colour of the strap, the buckle, and personalizing LV with your initials.
And now, Apple is following suit with their newly launched mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro. To get your hands on one, you'll need to make an appointment and get a head scan and eye prescription, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The headset comes with a hefty price tag of $3,500, and Apple is being cautious with the launch, offering limited quantities.
The by-appointment-only, personalized experience of buying the Vision Pro serves two purposes
The headsets are for a niche audience of developers & early enthusiasts. The bespoke experience will help brands craft a luxury-like experience. Apple Stores are known for their innovative retail experiences, and they're the perfect setting to introduce early adopters to Apple's latest leap in spatial computing.
The Vision Pro is also a test & learn for the company. The bespoke experience will help gather customer feedback & identify product improvements in a controlled environment.
When it comes to AR/VR/MR technology, Apple is definitely going for the high-end, luxury option with the Vision Pro. Meanwhile, Meta is aiming for gamers and mass market adoption with its more affordable Quest headsets. Of course, these two approaches will probably converge at some point down the line. But for now, seeing how Apple's bespoke experience plays out will be interesting.
Is Snapchat cracking the Subscription Code?
While Threads v/s Twitter took away all the attention last week, Snapchat remained consistent with its comeback this year.
Snapchat now has 4 Million paid subscribers for Snapchat+. At $3.99 monthly, Snapchat+ offers subscribers exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features. Snapchat rolled out the subscription in July last year.
Snapchat is GenZ's preferred channel for communicating with their friends. This milestone in the subscriber base is fantastic news for Snapchat as they try to reduce their reliance on advertising dollars and expand outside the US.
Meme-time: Barbie v/s Oppehnheimer
I have to admit, I've hit a bit of a creative block with creating memes. But you know what? The two big Hollywood releases are the push I needed.
Two new movies are releasing this week, and they couldn't be more different from each other. Barbie is easier on the eyes, but I am team Oppenheimer all the way.
AI-Generated Images Have a Problem at Hand.
Clothing brand Giordano used AI-generated images for its national day campaign. How do we know that? Because some of the models have more than five fingers!
Here are a few snapshots from the internet:
AI has made significant progress in generating realistic images, but it still needs to work on accurately recreating human hands in images. Human hands are complex, with different shapes, sizes, and combinations due to multiple joints.
The 2-dimensional training data isn't enough to capture the complexities of the human hand.
So here's a lesson for us marketers - When working with AI-generated images, use human intelligence to check for the hands!
Short Stuff:
Pizza Hut is testing underground pizza deliveries in preparation for the release of the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (I would order one for nostalgia).
GenZ’s interest in using TikTok as a search engine is declining. (GenZ is one fickle generation).
Traffic to Twitter is down due to the frenzy around Instagram Threads. (Twitter’s having a bit of a bad month).
Temu’s paid marketing-led acquisition, a vast array of cheap products & in-app gamification has fuelled its growth in the US. (Yet another Chinese app that’s winning over the US markets).
That’s a wrap for this week. I hope you found some value in this week’s issue. I hope to see you in your inbox next week.
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Once again. Thank you for your time and attention. I appreciate it. ❤️❤️❤️
Ciao
Garima
P.S.: I live in a house full of Swifties, which made the last week stressful. Taylor Swift is visiting Singapore for six days for the Eras tour. Millions of Swifties across Asia are competing for about 300,000 seats! That was a nightmare in the making.
We tried borrowing a friend's UOB cards for preferential access and even signed up for an extra hotel night for the ticket, but clearly, our efforts weren't enough to get us in!
What an incredible marketer Taylor Swift is! Wall Street Journal wrote this piece about lessons in management from Taylor Swift. It's a must-read.
The photo here is a snapshot from Singapore's local tabloid. United Overseas Bank (UOB) cardholders had a small window to grab concert tickets before the gates were opened to the broader audiences. The sign-ups for the UOB debit card went up by 130% y-o-y in Singapore and Vietnam & the single UOB cardholders got date requests! What a strange world.
