Sunday Shuffle v. 12

Happy Sunday! With Halloween coming this week I thought it would be fun to dig into the creepier side of marketing and explore some of the spookier elements of AI. So without further a-boo, let's hop in and Shuffle into it.

Inside this week's Shuffle:

• Featured Story: Mr. Big Ears
• Creepiest Marketing Techniques
• The Creep Corner
• Bite-sized Nuggets & Treats
• The Nightmare Machine

Watch out for Mr. Big Ears

It's happened to many of us. You're chatting with friends about something—then later see an ad for that very thing online. Your head swivels to the Amazon Alexa sitting innocently in the corner. "You little #@#, you're listening to me!" We've all wondered - are these devices eavesdropping to target ads? In a word: yes.

Researchers from Northeastern University and in partnership with Consumer Reports created fake user personas on Amazon Alexa, Google/Home Assistant, and Apple’s Siri assistant and them asked them questions intended to give hints about the personas’ demographics. They found evidence that Google and Amazon—but not Apple—use our voice interactions to draw conclusions about us. [More]

Why It Matters: Voice assistant data gives Google and Amazon yet another avenue to target ads. As online advertising saturates and regulations tighten, their ad tech is tapping "conversational" data - from voice and chat. This dynamic, personal data powers AI to make presumptions about us—for better or worse.

The Takeaway: Most people have no idea how all this works behind the scenes. They just get creeped out by the end result. There's a fine line between personalization and creepiness, so it's important that we consider the tradeoffs between hyper-targeting and violating brand trust.

One Final Note: All the platforms assert that full conversations are not stored and analyzed, but some may argue that based on historical evidence. If you're at all concerned about it, you can see what Google knows about you by going to My Ad Center and see how they tag you; or turn off personalized ads altogether. Apple and Amazon make it harder where you have to request them to email it to you.

Creepiest Marketing Advertising Techniques

Not surprisingly, being targeted with an ad based on a voice conversation got top billing for creepiest advertising technique. But other mainstream techniques like retargeting and using CRM data are not too far behind according to consumers.

The Takeaway: Per Edelman's Trust Barometer, 71% factor trust into purchases. The esteemed PR agency also says we're in a "Cycle of Distrust." As marketers we need to carefully navigate how we engage customers with all this abundance of data and technology. As I tell my kids, "just because you can, doesn't always mean you should." (Edelman Trust Barometer)

The AI Creep Corner

• OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) is offering $25K for the best ideas on how AI could potentially wipe out humanity. [More]
• Google AI boss called AI an Existential Threat to Humankind, saying, "we’re at a pivotal moment." [More]
• This company is paying users to create a community of AI-based 'synthetic' micro-influencers. [More]
• Gartner predicts that by 2035, the "digital human economy" will become a $125-billion market and continue to grow. [More]

Bite-sized News Nuggets

• A group of 42 attorneys general is suing Meta, alleging that features on Facebook and Instagram are addictive and aimed at kids and teens.
• Details of Google’s new Gemini large language model (LLM) were leaked on a blog post. Rumor has it Gemini is trained on all their data - including YouTube transcripts -- and will surpass the power of GPT-4.
• Apple is expected to spend $4.75 billion on AI in 2024 in an effort to catch up with other big platforms.
• Tune in at 8PM EST on Mon, 10/30 (Halloween Eve) for Apple's "Scary Fast" event, which many say will be when they announce their next-gen chip, M3.
• According to TikTok, 62% of users who made a Halloween purchase said they were inspired/got new ideas from TikTok.
• TIME Magazine's "Best Inventions of 2023" features 14 AI tools worth checking out.

Halloween Treats

• Sam Jacobs, Founder/CEO of Pavillion, shared his 4 hard-won lessons from starting his seven-figure consulting practice. But more than that, he has generously (and fearlessly) shared his consulting frameworks for free. He posts daily and offers so many pearls of wisdom that I enjoy.

• CMO Liza Adams has immersed herself into AI and developed a workshop on applying AI into strategic marketing planning. You can find more details here if you're interested in learning more and connecting with Liza. [More]

The Nightmare Machine

It seems that some really smart people at MIT have been researching ways to train computers to scare the he** out of us!

Way back in 2016, LiveScience published a story on Halloween titled, "AI 'Nightmare Machine' Knows What Scares You." What seemed like a fun little puff-piece at the time was sorta oddly prescient looking at where we are today.

Teaching a computer to be more terrifying — what could possibly go wrong?

Have a Happy Halloween, Shufflers! Try to remember - there's a fine line between being spooky and being creepy. Try to stay on the right side of spooky.

I am very grateful for everyone's interest in this newsletter. Thank you for all the likes, comments and reposts. It lifts my soul to see some small signs of engagement.