John Drake

This Week January 29, 2018

- Ursula K LaGuin had a brilliant take on what defines hi tech. “Could I make this myself?” No, and yes, is the answer. Love this short piece.

- Net neutrality was a big topic on This Week a few weeks ago—-in the spirit of that check out what Burger King just did to guests to explain net neutrality with Whopper ordering.

- In not surprising news:  according to the Trust Barometer consumer trust has largely dropped for news media, but... trust went up among journalists and journalism. So that’s interesting.

 

- Apple Watch is now selling as much as Mac. Here’s a smart take on why the watch is key for Apple and how it’s betting on a slightly different future than Google and Amazon.

- Did Lana Del Rey copy Radiohead? Original music is difficult.

- In 2018 the ad market is forecast to grow at its strongest rate since 2011. Nice. 

- Why doesn’t Taco Bell make fries? Deutsch is out with a timely new campaign around the conspiracy.

- Amazon’s first cashier-less convenience store opened last Monday just down the street from the Seattle office and DC was there the day after to experience it. Did you catch the Instagram story?

- Emerald City Comic Con is March 1. We'll be there. Anyone else coming?

 

-Margit Wennmachers is a rock star. Fascinating story about how she leads the media to form the narratives of Silicon Valley and her firm, Andreessen-Horowitz.  

This Week January 22, 2018

"This—this right here—is what democracy looks like. It doesn’t happen automatically. It demands our action and participation. It challenges us, but it also empowers us. Because, at the end of the day, it is us."

From John’s Pinboard:

- There are very few things better than one great athlete giving props to their competitors; here Hakeem Olajuwon, who played center in the NBA, talks about all the greats he played against. Classy.

- Beats is out with some nice work last week. Note: While this is big $ it was also done in-house.

- Blockchain is going to be used by DeBeers. Notable is that this was the top story on JCK, the jewelry industry trade, last week. The blockchain conversation is now stretching far beyond the fringes.

- A favorite of the week: Japanese words for “spaces”. My favorite was the principle of “ma”.

- Wonderful piece on how to bring down giants. From famous fables and beyond. Key bit: Giants cannot be defeated on their own ground.

- Amazon works in what’s called “two pizza teams”.  (When solving problems the team on the case should be no larger than 2 pizzas can feed.)

- Wonderful to see Bud Light ads back to making us laugh.

- Don’t miss Brad’s blog on DC Labs, went up last week and available for pass-around.

- Turns out people do want brands to take stand; but there are key areas where we give them more loyalty than others, such as human rights and labor laws.

Have a great week,

“Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.”

-Leila Janah

This Week January 15, 2018

If you didn’t catch Oprah Winfrey’s speech at The Golden Globes it's a must-watch. I watched it again on MLK. Then, following it up with Jenni Avins’ stellar piece on Quartzy was great. This bit stuck out

 

In an interview, Oprah says she long avoided having politicians on her show because they were too practiced in their messaging and difficult to reach personally, which meant she ceded her platform and with it, her power. She talks about how that changed in 2000, when she gave both Al Gore and George W. Bush equal time on her show.

 

Many credited George W. Bush’s casual demeanor on the show with a corresponding jump in his electoral support, which Oprah didn’t deny.

 

“George Bush was more comfortable in his own skin, in a way that he could be more of himself sitting in that seat. And that is what everybody is looking for, whether it’s television or politics or business who you decide to align yourself with is the person who feels most like the truth to you. Either you feel it or you don’t.”

 

Oprah rocks; feels like the truth to me. 

 

From John’s Pinboard: 

 

- As many have heard, Facebook made a big change to their algorithm which will maximize to friends and not engagement. This will reduce the effect brands and media have seen on the channel. They released this news the day before a 3-day weekend which is always a sign that the market won’t like something. Insights & Analytics will be closely following this one.

 

- AND, this algorithm change maps to Facebook’s big trust problems.  

 

- Great work from Blue Apron--an ad for every day of the week is a great blend of media planning and creativity. They played the emotion beautifully here across the spots.

 

- If 2017 bummed you out, check out this list of 99 great things that happened last year. Here are 10 for quick scrolling:

 

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than 2 million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

19. The United States, Russia, China and the European Union reached a deal to make the Arctic off-limits to commercial fishers for the next 16 years. Science Mag

37. The United States’ official poverty rate reached 12.7%, the lowest level since the end of the global financial crisis. And the child-poverty rate reached an all time low, dropping to 15.6%. The Atlantic

38. Between 2005 and 2017, Afghanistan built 16,000 schools, the nation-wide literacy rate increased by 5%, and the youth literacy rate increased by more than 16%. USAID

44. Deutsche Bank, one of the coal industry’s biggest financiers, announced it would stop financing all new coal projects. Ouch. Mining.com

57. General Motors believes “the future is all-electric” Volkswagen announced it’s investing 70 billion euros and “putting its full force behind a shift into electric cars” and Volvo said that starting in 2019 it will only make fully electric or hybrid cars “the end of the combustion engine-powered car.” Atlantic

62. On the 21st January 2017, the Women’s March became the largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history. Washington Post

69. As plunging crime closed prisons across the Netherlands, the government started turning them into housing and cultural hubs for ten of thousands of refugees instead. Fast Company

81. Rates of violent crime and property crime have dropped by around 50% in the United States since 1990, yet a majority of people still believe it’s gotten worse. Pew Research

97. Gucci announced it would go fur-free in 2018 and auction off all remaining fur items. It follows in the footsteps of Armani, which went fur free in 2016. Harper’s Bazaar

 

- Here’s Martin Wiegel—tearing apart the question of ‘is advertising radical enough?’

 

- The author of How Brands Grow, our brand growth bible in I&A, is out with new research data reaffirming that, indeed, in most cases, bigger brands *still* attract more market share and more loyalty, even among young customers than smaller/niche brands. 

 

- This piece on Tonya Harding is very well done. A modern day interview and highlights how much of a disadvantage she had from the beginning. 

 

- Lovely story about an IKEA employee who helped this Dad track down his autistic son. An awesome public ‘thank you’ post about the issue and the encounter. 

 

- Our DC experience with WeWork has been phenomenal. This year in review by that company is very well done. 

 

- A real long-term trend to watch is voice search and how Amazon is beginning to charge differently for that. 

 

- Here’s the first cover of AdAge. 

 

- The Super Bowl is almost upon us. Sadly, it won't include the Saints, but hopefully it will include some good ads. Here are four trends to watch for. 

 

- Holiday sales are rolling out and the big department stores, somewhat surprisingly, did okay. JC Penney, Kohl’s, Target and even Macy’s were all up.

 

Have a great week,

This Week January 8, 2018

"We’re in a period of gradual change—not of wild volatility—in the ways US adults spend their time with media. “Wild volatility" would have been a fair way to describe the shifting landscape at the beginning of this decade, when rapidly growing smartphone penetration was a highly disruptive force. But that phase has passed. With smartphone penetration expected to gain less than a single percentage point per year by 2020, media consumption is in something of a lull until the Next Big Thing comes along.

Among the media categories for which eMarketer gauges time spent, there aren’t any we anticipate will see double-digit increases or decreases next year. (Mobile video comes closest, with an 8.7% rise expected.) Overall, time spent with digital media is expected to grow a modest 3.5%."

That was from eMarketer's just-released surprising facts about the way we spend time with media as we head into 2018. 

There will always be the new thing, the better way, a superior upgrade, an exciting development, a new way to look at something, an untapped need being filled. But the world has always operated that way as innovation and ideas, in whatever forms were appropriate for their times, emerged for people.

Now we’re settling into our new-normal and the best marketers should check their vocabulary...

The other day I read about a top company strategist who was referring to the ‘new digital era’ and it occurred to me that whenever someone talks like that today, it feels like a style from a bi-gone era and a moment where a person doesn’t realize they’re behind. Digital just is. Yes, it is heavier in certain places, and among certain people, but it’s our world.

Acting in the present without drama, without superiority, without flaunt, and without feeling the need to explain it to whoever happens to be listening is good.

Brands should live in this world and display their capabilities without calling out the amazing-ness of what they are doing. Just be it. And while they’re being it they should make sure that all user styles can find what they want without having to possess advanced knowledge, or be slowed down by poor experiences. It’s as easy, and as hard, as that.

From John’s Pinboard:

- @adweak was on fire all holiday.

- AP pointed me to this thought-provoking piece by David Byrne writing about a world that is becoming friction-less with so many services like Uber and Instacart. Favorite bit: 'Our random accidents and odd behaviors are fun—they make life enjoyable. I’m wondering what we’re left with when there are fewer and fewer human interactions. Remove humans from the equation, and we are less complete as people and as a society.'

- Why are some songs #1 hits? They are a little louder, and little longer, they repeat a chorus more frequently, and they move you physically.

- That great clown ad for Audi? It did pretty well when they measured brand lift. The direction from the newest CMO seems to be a good one.

- For you politically-interested people, here’s a monthly breakdown of each key Gallup survey that tracked 2017 American sentiments around all things gov.

- Instagram’s latest campaign, “Stories Are Everywhere” is one to catch.

- Holiday retail sales were up 5% this year. This is very strong and as many will recall this is up over an impressive 2016 holiday season.

- A favorite Year In Review piece was this rundown of Brand Identity. Some lovely stuff here. Jennie and I both enjoyed riffing on this piece the other day.

- Watching New Years on TV was really bad if you were tuning to CNN, and entertaining if you were on NBC. My favorite moment was “hot tea.”

- When people talk about economic inequality are they asking the wrong questions? According to this economist mostly, yes. Instead it’s 7 things that are at issue...

- My favorite type of interview are the ones with random questions that have little to do with someone’s expertise and everything to do with their personality. My WSU roots makes me especially love this one from their football coach.