The Friday Five: Cookie-Less Future Crumbles Again, Instagram Pauses Tik-Tok-Esque Updates, and Initial Findings Show Benefits of 4-Day Week

Happy Friday everyone, welcome to this week's Friday Five! WHAT a week it has been... it finally came home! The Lionesses saw off Germany to win England's first trophy since, well, you know since when. I don't know about you but I could barely contain my emotion when Georgia Stanway scrambled the ball over the line with just a few minutes to go in extra time - what a day!

Fast forward to today and it's been another busy week at Embryo with client meetings, pitches, and all sorts of shenanigans going on, including a new episode of Never Mind The Keywords. In it, Charlie and Megan chatted to Abigail Bryant Spolar, a Customer Success Leader at Notabene. This episode is packed with insight and thoughts about Crypto, working in leadership, and how to find your tribe. Check out this clip, and head to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen to the full episode.

All of which leads us to today's Friday Five, which we're going to head into in a Jill-Scott-shouting-down-a-German-player kinda way.

1. Google’s Cookie-Less Future Crumbles Yet Again

A world in which third-party cookies can no longer track users has been delayed for a second time.

After a fair amount of consternation and concern from marketers across the world, Google has announced that it's postponing its switch to the 'Privacy Sandbox' yet again, until at least the second half of 2024. In a statement, Anthony Chavez, the Privacy Sandbox VP, said: "The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome.

"For these reasons, we are expanding the testing windows for the Privacy Sandbox APIs before we disable third-party cookies in Chrome."

Google first announced this end to Cookies in 2020, with a view to rolling it out in January 2022, but had to quickly row back in June of last year to postpone it to late 2023.

A world in which Cookies can no longer track user activity is coming, there's no doubt about it. Brands and businesses should, to quote Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) CEO Jon Mew, "use this time wisely".

Read more reactions in Marketing Week here.

2. Pinterest’s Q2 Results Show a Company That Is Picture Perfect

It may always feel like Pinterest is simply playing catch up with the big boys - your Instagrams and Twitters - but, their investment in eCommerce and subsequent Q2 results show a very different picture.

Despite suffering from the same advertising restraints as its aforementioned rivals, Pinterest has seen a 9% increase in revenue globally, with Europe and the Rest of the World (RoW) increasing by 10% and 71%(!) respectively. The reason? More than likely it's the 1 billion shoppable products that they have on their platform - a phenomenal number, far outweighing the eCommerce sector of other apps who are seemingly vying to all look the same (more on that later).

To coincide with these results, Pinterest ran the numbers and found that users who visit Pinterest weekly out-spent non-users twice every month and have an 85% larger basket size. The intent of people on Pinterest is unmatched on any social media channel. These results and stats underline the power of the platform. Incidentally, we recently wrote a report about Pinterest which, if you're looking to invest in the platform, you can read here.

The Drum features more quotes from relevant stakeholders here.

3. Kardashian-Led Backlash Causes Instagram to Halt New Tik-Tok-like Updates to Main Feed

There's a time in everyone's life when they feel the need to change their image to fit in. They do and soon find that they are alienated and lose a sense of who they were, only to realise the reason they were liked by the people that they were trying to imitate was that they were who they were in the first place.

This is Instagram right now.

They recently announced new features that would genuinely change how the main feed looked. From full-screen videos to recommend posts - it could legitimately be claimed that these updates would turn Instagram into a Diet-Tik-Tok.

This caused a huge uproar amongst the IG community, who like the platform for what it is/was - a place where they could share photos with followers, nothing more, nothing less.

This backlash was spearheaded by, among others, the Kardashians, including Kylie Jenner, who shared a viral post created by @illumitati which said: "MAKE INSTAGRAM INSTAGRAM AGAIN (stop trying to be TikTok I just want to see cute photos of my friends.) SINCERELY, EVERYONE.)"

As a result of this, Adam Mosseri, the top dog at IG, has announced that they will be walking back some of the main features in the new update and will reduce the number of suggested posts that appear in people's feeds.

Frustratingly, it doesn't appear that this pause is permanent. Mosseri refused to confirm that these updates wouldn't be rolled out in future. As ever, money talks. Meta announced this wee that Reels ads have helped created $1 billion in revenue over the last year.

It's hard to imagine a world where Meta gives up that kind of revenue stream, even if a post protesting these changes gets 2.2 million likes. Tech Crunch goes into more detail here.

4. Biggest 4-Day Working Week Trail’s First Findings Revealed 

Those avid Fivers may have noticed us talking about the biggest trial into the benefits and logistics of the four-day working a few months back. The trial involves 3300 workers from 70 different companies and sees them all work four days a week without losing any pay or reducing their productivity.

The trial has been running for eight weeks now and the initial findings are very positive, but not without difficulties.

People involved in the study have already reported feeling happier, healthier, and delighted with what they can do with that extra day, be it errands, exploring hobbies, or just spending time with family. The CNN Business article (linked below) quotes Lisa Gilbert, an employee of Charity Bank, who says: "I can really enjoy my weekend now because I've got my Friday for my chores and my other bits and pieces or... if I just want to take my mum out for a walk I can do that now without feeling guilty."

The trial is set to run until the end of November, so there is still plenty of time for opinions to change, or reaffirm. The trial has not been completely smooth sailing though, another person quoted is Samantha Losey, managing director at Unity, who called it 'chaotic'.

She said: "To be totally honest with you, those first two weeks — really a mess. We were all over the shop. I thought I'd made a huge error. I didn't know what I was doing."

It's a fascinating, seismic topic and it's equally as interesting to view these initial findings. To learn more, check out the aforementioned CNN Business article.

5. It Pays to Invest in Media Spend... Even in a Recession

We are living in uncertain economic times, wow, not exactly the most groundbreaking thing to say, is it? The reason we are saying it is because there is often a tendency for businesses to pull back media/marketing spending during a recession. Its seen as the first thing they can cull and something they can do without.

However, a new report by Analytics Partner looks to flip the narrative on this and paint media spending as something that is not only essential but should be increased during a recession.

Their study found that 60% of brands that upped their media spend during the previous recessions actually saw ROI improve! And, more alarmingly, those that cut spending risked losing 15% of business to competitors that increased theirs.

Along with the report was a press release penned by Mike Menkes, senior VP at Analytics Partner. In it, he said: "The best way to get through a possible recession and prosper on the other side of it is to think long term by investing in your brand and your relationships with customers".

The report analysed billions of dollars of marketing spend across more than 50 countries and the report concludes that marketers should avoid short-term thinking and think about the long-term impact of cutting spending. It echoes a lot of what we say at Embryo about marketing, particularly SEO, being a running cost, as opposed to something that has a beginning and end.

Marketing Dive takes a deep dive into it here.

Now that was a beefy Friday Five, right?! We hope you enjoyed it! Have a great weekend Fivers, and we'll see you next week.