NFR - Thumb-Stopping DTC Creative, Klarna AI & Google Ads Strategy 2023

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In today's edition:

• ???eCommerce news
• ???Trends to watch
• ???Thumb-stopping AD creative
• ???Interesting posts & threads
• ???Meme of the week
• ???Hot jobs
• ??Weekly recommendation

*Bonus*

• My ultimate growth swipe file?here

???eCommerce news:

???Yelp rolls out AI-powered search updates and the ability to add videos to reviews

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???Facebook Ad Systems Error Causes Significant Overspend on Many Accounts

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???Spotify passes 500M users, but its premium subscriber portion falls to 40%

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???Klarna’s latest update introduces a personal shopping assistant and new creator tools

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???Shopify adds direct bill payments in bid to be a single-stop fintech for merchants

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??Super.com targets its $85M equity, debt raise into new savings super app

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???Pinterest brings on Google Pixel VP to fill chief product officer position

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???Evermile raises $6M seed to make local deliveries more economic for small businesses

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??Twitter Says That All Advertisers Will Now Have to Pay for Verification in Order to Run Ads in the App

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???YouTube Looks to Improve Live Shopping with Scheduled Product Drops

???Trends to watch:

In this section I cover interesting market or culture trends that I think should be on your radar at the moment.?

IKEA plans new US stores in $2.2 billion push to challenge Walmart and Wayfair

"As consumers spend less, big-box retailers Walmart and online furniture?retailer Wayfair?are cutting jobs and?shutting stores, creating an opportunity for IKEA to pick up cheaper store and warehouse space. The IKEA expansion will create 2,000 jobs, Ingka said.

"There are locations available that have not been available before, there are opportunities for us to speed up investments in acquiring land and existing locations to bring IKEA closer to the many people," ?ncü said.

The planned stores would increase the number of IKEA locations in the U.S. by around a third, from 51 stores and two "plan and order points". Ingka Group had revenues of 5.5 billion euros ($6.03 billion) in the U.S. in its 2022 financial year."

What is Auto-GPT and why does it matter?

"Auto-GPT, basically, is GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 paired with a companion bot that instructs GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 what to do. A user tells Auto-GPT what their goal is and the bot, in turn, uses GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 and several programs to carry out every step needed to achieve whatever goal they’ve set.

What makes Auto-GPT reasonably capable is its ability to interact with apps, software and services both online and local, like web browsers and word processors. For example, given a prompt like “help me grow my flower business,” Auto-GPT can?develop a somewhat plausible advertising strategy and build a basic website."

EU lawmakers eye tiered approach to regulating generative AI

“We think that there needs to be a level of rules that says ‘entity A’ puts on the market a general purpose [AI] has an obligation towards ‘entity B’, downstream, that buys the general purpose [AI] and actually gives it a purpose,” he explains. “Because it gives it a purpose that might become high risk it needs certain information. In order to comply [with the AI Act] it needs to explain how the model was was trained. The accuracy of the data sets from biases [etc].”

A second proposed layer would address foundational models — by setting some specific obligations for makers of these base models.

“Given their power, given the way they are trained, given the versatility, we believe the providers of these foundational models need to do certain things..."

???Thumb-stopping AD creative

In this section I will be highlighting a few stand out ads I came across during the week.

Covering:

• What stood out
• My takeaways

AD 1:?Lovevery

"Lovevery’s early learning program supports families with stage-based play essentials for children and multi-channel content for parents. The company is best known for its award-winning subscription Play Kits program. Lovevery was launched in 2017 by Cofounders Jessica Rolph and Roderick Morris with the introduction of the company’s first product, The Play Gym. Today, Lovevery is a Certified B Corporation"

Link to AD?here

What made this creative stand out?

• Native -?The AD looks natural and uses the Tik Tok font and similar to any video you see on the platform
• Emotional hook:?"Here's something I wish I would've DONE sooner as a first time mom".?Plays on the power of fomo. Any soon to be parent or recent parent will be drawn in by this hook as it plays on the heartstrings. Everyone wants to be the best parent they can be.
• Editing of UGC:?The short clips that kept changing were really engaging and having the voice over the top meant I wasn't distracted and was immersed in the product demonstration.

My takeaways:

• FOMO is such a powerful trigger, getting to the bottom of the fears of your target audience and positioning your product as an alleviation and solution to them is a winning strategy
• Lovery's use of raw clips and their gentle tone of voice makes the AD feel & look genuine, authentic and really convincing

AD 2:?Life Supplies

"We didn’t create Life Supplies after a life-changing experience. We created Life Supplies because we were fed up. We were stuck in the same old routine of buy, use, bin, repeat. And it didn’t feel good. Take the bathroom. There’s stuff it just needs – the essentials. But each time we dragged ourselves to the shop (yep, run out of deodorant, again), we were met by a sea of single-use plastic, harsh chemicals and shouty packaging. There had to be a better way."

Ad creator:?Lewis Hamilton, Marketing Executive Life Supplies

Link to AD?here

What made this creative stand out?

• ASMR:?Bottle dragging across the table, unscrewing sound, popping sound and suspenseful music had me hooked from the first second
• The hook:?"We created the UK's first refillable antiperspirant that works as well as your Mitchum"
• First of all the hook creates intrigue, this is something new, exciting and worth giving a few seconds more to
• Hits a pain point early on, a lot of people want to shop sustainably but worry about the products quality & effectiveness
• Editing:??The editing is epic, there is a transition every few seconds, the active captions match the beat and rhythm of the script and the video footage is a mix of product shots, web scrolling, animation and features actors. Something you rarely see in a Facebook AD. More similar to a movie trailer than a typical DTC AD!
• Storytelling:?
• Starts with the problem they spotted in the market
• "Over 30 million people use antiperspirant everyday, that's a lot of single use plastic bottles at landfill or clogging up our recycling centres"
• Power statement & listicle hook:
• "A year ago we noticed there wasn't an easy alternative, so got to work creating a sustainable option that achieves 5 key things:"
• Finishes with customer reviews, social proof and a strong call to action

A beautiful AD start to finish. Bravo Lewis?

?? Interesting posts & threads:

Link?here

Link?here

Link?here

Link?here

?? Meme of the week:

???Hot jobs:

Junior:

Urban Outfitters Performance Marketing Manager - London, UK

"Urban Outfitters started out as a single boutique in 1970s Philadelphia with creativity and uniqueness at its core. 50 years on, and 55 stores across Europe later, we’ve become a destination for emerging design, unexpected styling, One-Of-A-Kind vintage and homeware that makes you want to hit the share button.

We are looking for a highly skilled Digital Marketing Manager with a proven track record of driving growth across all elements of the paid marketing mix in the UK and wider European markets. This is a pivotal role within the business responsible for improving ROI and growing all digital marketing channels in line with business goals."

Senior:

Charlotte Tilbury - Head of Global Brand Marketing

"Founded by British makeup artist, Charlotte Tilbury MBE, in 2013, Charlotte Tilbury Beauty revolutionised the face of the global beauty industry by de-coding makeup application for every person, at any age, with an easy-to-use, easy-to-choose, easy-to-gift range. Today, Charlotte Tilbury Beauty, continues to break records across countries, channels, and categories. The company now employs over 1,100 people globally and is available to buy in over 76 locations via CharlotteTilbury.com.

We are looking to bring in 2x key roles at Head of Global Brand Marketing level in our Colour Make Up team and our Gifting, Animations & Collaborations team. The successful candidates will fuel the next quantum shift for Charlotte Tilbury to achieve #1 for ￡s & growth in the world. By shaping the vision, strategy, positioning and plans in either Lip, Cheek, Eye & Brows sub-categories or Gifting, Animations & Collaborations key brand moments based on sharp customer, product and market insights."

Executive:

Leading consumer goods business - Marketing Director UK

"Futures are excited to working on an Director of UK Marketing role on behalf of a market leading consumer goods business with a market leading portfolio. This business have a great reputation in the market for their impressive Company Branding and exciting, consistent New Product Development.?With a global turnover of 100m+ this business have strong values based around embracing change, striving for excellence, entrepreneur spirit and integrity.?Due to impressive YoY growth and successful EU expansion this business are hiring for a brand new role, Director of UK Marketing.

Reporting in to the Managing Director and sitting on the Senior Leadership team this role is a great mix of people management, strategic vision, collaborative working and hands marketing."

??Weekly recommendation:

In this section i'll be sharing a brand, website, app or tool that i'm using at the moment that I think more people need to know about.

Ad world conference

I just signed up yesterday and it's been an amazing experience so far.?

They've got a massive library of on demand talks from the best marketers in the world on all the hottest topics.

I'd 100% recommend checking it out!

Link?here

That's it for today's edition of Never Fully Read.

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