MarketingDojo#32: Spooky AI 👻😱
Ethics in AI-supported creatives, bargaining with influences & a new bubbly social media platform.
Happy Frankenstein Day, everyone!
Mary Shelly’s classic novel about a dead person coming back to life was released over two-hundred years ago today. It’s ironic because I start with an AI-generated attempt at creating Frankenstein in today's newsletter.
What else do we have in the newsletter besides the walking crooning dead?
😂 Amazon made influencers laugh
🤔 Bing’s AI powers aren’t working
🍾 US campuses are experiencing a Fizz
🤯Youtube Ad’s fresh controversy
And much more.
I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter & feel generous enough to spread the word.
The Singing Dead: A Strange AI Use Case.
At first glance, the new VW Brazil ad looks standard - upbeat music, happy people, and VW cars. But something has been bothering people about it - the mother-daughter duo in the video is partially created using AI.
The mother, Elis Regina, was an iconic Brazilian singer who passed away in 1982. VW Brazil's ad featuring the deceased singer and her daughter Maria Rita (an accomplished singer in her own right) is causing a stir in Brazil.
Some people are happy that AI has helped create this iconic moment. System 1's ad testing system rates the ad a solid 4.6 out of 5, with a strong brand recall & high short-term sale spike potential.
But others are raising concerns about the ethics and standards around using AI in this way.
Brazil's advertising watchdog, Conar, announced it would investigate a possible breach of ethics after receiving complaints questioning whether it was right to use such methods "to bring a deceased person back to life" on screen.
Bringing iconic artists back from the dead isn't a case of Gen AI I had in mind. It makes me deeply uncomfortable thinking about the possibilities as this tech becomes more commonplace.
What do you feel? I would love to hear your views.
Google isn't dancing yet.
Whether it's Threads or Bing, the power of habits has been apparent this year. Despite all the resources, gaining market share from X and Google has been challenging for Meta & Microsoft.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about new Bing's inability to gain market share from Google. According to Statcounter and SimilarWeb, Bing's market share and monthly visitors in July have remained pretty much the same since the start of the year.
Despite much excitement around its launch & Microsoft CEO's confidence that the new Bing will make Google dance -not much has changed. The article sums it up succinctly in a one-liner.
"The new Bing is cute but not a game changer."
Speaking of cute - Here’s a meme dedicated to this interesting battle for search.
Will Influencers Accept Amazon’s Minimum Wage?
Amazon and Tiktok are in an arms race for discovery-led shopping.
TikTok is developing its TikTok Shop capabilities at breakneck speed, and Amazon is beefing up Inspire- its Tiktok-like feed to spark ideas on what to shop next.
However, Amazon had a slip-up last week when it contacted some influencers to create content for Amazon Inspire.
It sent an email inviting select influencers to create content on Amazon Inspire. The offer is miserly - $12,500 for a maximum of 500 videos or $25 per qualifying video!
As per some rough estimates, micro-influencers charge upwards of $200 per video. Amazon's offer is a lowball and garnered Amazon some lols from the creator community.
Amazon has had some issues with underpaying their delivery workers, so undercutting influencers isn't a good look for them, especially when most platforms are beefing up their creator funds.
Amazon has hit a self-goal and handed this round to TikTok.
New Social Media Kid on the Block, with a Familiar Origin Story.
Ivy League dropouts have created a social media app that is getting wildly popular across college campuses - it's a familiar origin story (Facebook, anyone?), but the social media platform is brand new - Fizz.
Fizz is only available on select campuses and allows college students to share messages, polls, and photos with classmates anonymously. It's been gaining popularity at schools like Stanford, Rice, Dartmouth, and William and Mary.
At a time when social media apps are in a deep funding winter, the app has raised $41.5 million in total funding through various investment rounds.
Fizz's anonymous posting is a unique selling point and an impediment when it scales beyond campuses. For now, this buzzy social media app might represent what social means for Gen Z.
The Controversy’s Child: Youtube is on the Radar Again.
Adanalytics, a research firm that previously uncovered Youtube's violation of its ad policies, has released another report highlighting Youtube's ad-serving policies regarding content for children. The report identifies two troubling issues:
YouTube served adult-focused ads on almost 100 videos made for kids. The ads included violent images, medical injuries and more.
Youtube allowed third-party trackers in advertisements served on content for children, enabling data brokers and ad tech companies to track children outside the platform.
These allegations are serious, as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) mandates that online services must obtain parental consent before collecting data for targeted advertising purposes from children under the age of 13.
YouTube was caught violating COPPA in 2019 and paid a record $170 Mn fine for illegally collecting personal information from children watching kids' channels.
For now, Youtube has denied all the allegations stemming from the Adanalytics report, but its troubles might mount soon - media agencies such as IPG have issued a "privacy alert", and US senators are taking note.
Short Stuff:
Roblox opens an immersive career centre within Roblox. (Recruitment in the Metaverse starts).
X shuts down its promoted accounts ad (Parting away from $100Mn).
Prompt engineering for marketers (Hubspot’s 190 prompts for marketers).
That’s all for today’s newsletter. I am writing this newsletter on my way to Thailand for a work trip. I dreaded the news of Wi-fi in planes, but I am thankful for it today.
If you learnt something new or found something interesting in today’s newsletter, please drop a comment or a simple like. It helps spread the word within the Substack platform.
Thank you so much for your time and attention. I will see you in your inbox next Wednesday.
Thank you (kop khun mak),
G
P.S.: Seeking recommendations - It has been a while since I picked up a course to upskill myself. Has there been any course that you took up (and loved) recently? Pour your suggestions here -all types of course suggestions are welcome.
