Belmondo Studios

Yep, Meta's CTO is talking VR/AR and I went down the rabbit hole (again) so you don't have to. Here are my takeaways: 1) Wide adoption of AR/VR is *still* five years away, but this time it's different, right? Thompson is uncharacteristically excited about the demo he saw (a $10k prototype) and sees this as the first legitimately "post phone" device. Bosworth's guess on GTM? 3-5 years. 2) Why have one hype train when you can have two? Now it's AI + XR. This does feel like a legitimate unlock: AI will speed XR development and custom environments. Building 3D environments is hard, and it’s a big blocker for app development in the XR space. Generative AI can do this on the fly and give users the ability to create worlds in real time. 3) Now you can get judged by a computer *and* strangers at the same time. AI can use XR’s sensing capabilities to deliver agentic experiences. Even with the displays turned off, XR glasses can record everything in your environment and provide insights. (e.g., “What was the breed of that dog I saw on Mission street?”) 4) The endless scroll, now populated with your own virtual self AI will inevitably personalize your News Feed and take you way outside of your social network, and XR is the logical next step for delivery. Advertising could be based upon the user’s environment and generative content could be tailored to the user’s profile. (e.g., an ad with you wearing the shirt) What do you think? Are we headed towards a Singularity powered by Luxottica? Link in comments to the original interview with Ben Thompson and Andrew Bosworth. #AR #VR #XR #Meta #Orion #AI

WHAT WOULD DAVE DO? At the time, I didn’t realize how influential he’d be. A little back story: Long before we started Belmondo, I was working in-house at a big tech company. Out of many creative agencies we hired, one was quite unusual. The founder of this boutique studio was a guy we'll call Dave. (Not his real name—because he's retired, doesn't do social media... so we'll let him enjoy his privacy.) He had a novel way of doing business. Unannounced, he’d visit headquarters and roam the hallways, striking up conversation with anyone. Salespeople, developers, PMs, you name it... Eventually everyone got used to it. He had a way of disarming you with his deadpan humor and asking you about your life, your work, and how things were going in general. I liked the way he treated the in-house creatives and marketing folks. He treated them as equals and involved them in his agency’s design process. So what did this actually do for us? The truth is, we didn’t work with Dave because he did great work at a decent price. (Even though it was excellent work, well scoped, well priced) It was because he took the time to get to know our people and our business, and he brought *joy* to the process of collaboration. Looking back on it, it's funny to see how my younger self was getting a masterclass...without even realizing it. At the time, I had no way of knowing that in ten years I’d be co-founding an agency... and signing up for the biggest rollercoaster ride of my life. Along the way, we've helped innovative companies find their brand voice and connect with audiences in all kinds of media, from ads shot on film to interactive kiosks. We love what we do, but it's not without challenges. Sometimes the solution to a problem doesn't reveal itself right away. You have to roll up your sleeves and work hard, side by side, with your client and see the world through their eyes. Whenever I find myself needing a little inspiration, I ask myself: What would Dave do?

Well, the Mr. Beast documents are loose. What did we learn? (If you don't know Mr. Beast, ask your friendly local Gen Z/Alpha) I was surprised to see that these onboarding docs were sort of...normal. He's running a tight ship, with an Amazon-like focus on employee performance, efficient communication, and the bottom line. What else? The most notable thing is that he is not interested in making great cinema, or great videos for universal audiences. He's dedicated to making the best YouTube content on the planet. Which means a maniacal focus on the KPIs that are essential for success on YouTube. Some of these will be familiar to any marketer (CTR) and others are more specialized—?Average View Duration, Average View Percentage. What this means tactically: ?? Every piece of content is optimized for its thumbnail and its headline before a moment is spent in production. ?? Videos are designed with pacing that drives audience retention. In a 6 minute video, there are notable drop-offs at minute 1, 3, etc. Design your narrative to create suspense and (yes, he really did use this word) "wow" for your audience. ? Speaking of "wow," the subjective wow factor is defined as "anything that no other YouTuber can do." What can marketers learn from this wildly successful YouTuber? ?? Don't create video content that is one-size-fits-all for every channel. (We've all done this— re-cropping the same video for TikTok, etc.) ? Take your time to learn the unique metrics and performance profiles of your target channel and design your video for that audience. ? Delight your audience with so much wow that is uniquely yours.

I just stumbled upon something that I wished I had seen earlier. If you’re about to do a brand relaunch, you’ve probably spent most of your time thinking about the external-facing assets. The new positioning and advertising that your customers will see. But what about the internal-facing assets? Change comes from within, and you’ll need to get buy-in at all levels of your organization— marketing, sales, product, customer care. How do you know if you’re creating the right internal brand book or an effective internal brand launch video? On a recent project with an enterprise software co, we were debating how to evaluate some of the new internal-facing creative, and one of the executives said that he saw these new brand assets existing on a spectrum. On one end, you have the external-facing assets like advertising and product content. On the other, you have the internal assets designed to help your departments organize and buy into the new brand positioning. And in-between, you may have some assets that straddle both audiences. The simple question to ask is: on one end, do customers recognize themselves in the story? And on the other, do employees recognize themselves in the story? It seems obvious now, but this simple diagram helped many people to understand the challenge: If you want your teams to fully champion the new brand positioning, you can't simply use your external-facing language as a rallying cry. You need to create a story that puts your employees' shared experience at the center of the narrative. Acknowledge where they’ve come from, and where they’re going. If you can do this well, it’ll work better than any amount of swag bags and company parties would ever do. #rebrand #branding #launch #changemanagement #employees #activation