🍱 An Exciting Offer; The truth about Amazon, Manly Therapy; Writing as AI know it
🍱 An Exciting Offer; The truth about Amazon, Manly Therapy; Writing as AI know it
We're all in this together
Hello and welcome back to The Marketing Kable, where we're inspiring you with ideas, voices and campaigns we've curated just for you.
something to read
who run the world? girls. I'm keeping it in the family today.
Here's our sibling, The Kable, a daily newsletter that examines the day’s news and events at the intersection of human and animal health, climate change and environmental science and sends them straight to your inbox.
Why do I, who ditched the Sciences way back in Grade 8 (and may or may not have made disparaging remarks about those who chose it as a career), read The Kable every day?
Well, The Kable has the best sense of humour.
Oh, and also because it's the easiest, most accessible (and non-boring) way to stay updated about the Life Sciences.
The cherry on the cake? The Kable's offering a FREE one-year subscription to women in the life sciences to celebrate International Women's Day. No strings attached. Head on over and sign up!
something to watch
behind the scenes at amazon. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite writing this, but check out this parody ad telling the truth about Amazon's oppressive policies!!!
Amazon, the tech giant known for fast deliveries and forcing workers to pee in bottles, hired one of Hollywood's most attractive couples, Scarlet Johansson and Colin Jost, to advertise their (creepy) AI assistant, Alexa.
In the original ad, the couple imagines what it would be like if Alexa could actually read their minds (a suspicion many have harboured because of Alexa's uncanny ability to predict your desires. Oh, don't worry. It's just what happens when you live in a world where your every move is tracked, documented, studied and analysed).
In the parody, instead of reading their minds and saying what they're thinking out loud, Alexa notifies them of Amazon's problematic practices - colluding with the LAPD, preventing worker unionization by using infrared heat mapping (what even?!) and other horrendous policies.
The parody is a powerful example of using a brand's own content to share with audiences the "real" story of the said brand, as opposed to the manufactured, sanitised story the brand itself wants to project.
This also brings us to activism marketing, a rising trend since 2020.
Activism marketing is a clever and effective way for companies to show their support for social and environmental causes while also promoting their brand. It's like killing two birds with one stone, except in this case, the birds are corporate responsibility and marketing goals (okay, maybe not the ideal metaphor for this topic).
By aligning their brand with a particular cause, companies can improve their image and reputation and attract customers who share their values. It's a win-win situation if, and this is a BIG if, it's done sincerely and with authenticity.
Because let's be real, nobody likes a company that uses social issues as a marketing ploy. You can only gimmick your way into something for so long before the world calls you out on it. So, if you're a marketer looking to jump on the activism marketing bandwagon, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons and not just to cash in on the latest trend
something to listen to
your brand and you. Today we're tuning in to a podcast called 'Brand Tuning', hosted by Shireen Smith. The episode in question features Emmanuel Probst, a Global Lead for Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos and an adjunct professor of consumer market research at UCLA. Probst provides insights into the process of building a brand that is capable of driving transformation.
If you're marketing a brand looking to make it big in the world, just selling products won't cut it anymore. You need to have a bigger impact on people and the world they live in. But here's the thing - brands can no longer control the narrative, so you gotta work with the community to build something sustainable and impactful. Teamwork makes the dream work, amirite?
It's important to keep tabs on what other brands are doing in the market and find ways to create something fresh and exciting in the same category.
This is where having a unique market positioning comes in. But it's not just about being different - you have to understand the market and your audience like the back of your hand.
something to inspire
putting the 'men' in mental health. When there's an entire genre of memes making fun of a gender's reluctance to go to therapy - you know something's up.
Yes, I'm talking about those memes that go, 'Men will literally X instead of going to therapy'. X usually stands for activities, practices or events typically associated with men.
If this is the first time you're hearing of this, check these out:
So yeah, men's famous reluctance to go to therapy has wreaked havoc on humanity (you can quote me on this).
Today's inspiration is Man Therapy, an initiative that targets this reluctance. It does a stellar job of turning stereotypes on their head to convince men to address their mental health issues.
The copy is witty, funny, relevant and cheeky. The interface is reminiscent of a campaign selling a typically 'manly' product like beard oil or whatever it is that men use.
I wanted to list examples from their copy, but it's ALL SO GOOD. So go check it out.
something to learn
AI till we die. There's no denying it - Chat GPT has set the world's pants on fire. Pessimists are ruing the end of creativity as we know it, while optimists are hailing a new era of human-machine collaboration.
I'm neither, so I've decided to keep my eyes and ears open. As a writer, I see the advantage of taking AI's help for tasks like writing social media captions about Independence Day.
I also dread the onslaught of 'content writers' who think The Immortals of Meluha is a great book and use Chat GPT to churn out homogenous nonsense (I know I sound like a snob. It's only because I am).
Anyway, today we're learning from Animalz, a stand-out content marketing firm that caters to VCs, enterprises and start-ups.
Angela Rollins and Ryan Law, both senior members of the firm, have been experimenting with AI tools for two years. Their conclusion? It's a good thing - if you use it right. How do you do that?
Be picky: AI models have limitations, so be selective in their use. Generative AI is helpful for well-represented topics in its dataset, but check if it provides concrete detail and covers the topic in useful depth.
Also, it's not great for complicated narratives; SEO content that presents clear ideas in an organized way is best. It can create convincing first drafts but struggles with strong end-to-end narratives. Or with creating something unique to you and your business context.
Be wary: Generative AI creates human-like text by combining ideas, but it can be problematic. AI will happily make stuff up. There's no fact-checking mechanism or policing of incorrect source data.
These models are designed to keep writing at all costs, even when the dataset is limited. This can lead to false confidence and lies without any indication that they are false.
Be original: Good articles offer "information gain" by bringing something new and original to a topic. Generative AI struggles to do this as it mainly relies on existing literature. It may occasionally suggest a unique angle, but it often generates many uninteresting or nonsensical ideas.
This makes it difficult to create memorable content that stands out from the competition. So it's the human's job to add original inputs, new information and novel insights.
That's it for this edition of The Marketing Kable. If you received this newsletter as a forward, do consider signing up. It's forever free and just for you.
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