🍱 Permission marketing; Buzzfeed's little ball of fur; Kill Social Media

A survival guide to constant craving

Hello and welcome back to The Marketing Kable, where I'm taking you along on my journey to discover ideas, voices and campaigns that can inspire us.

something to read

disable notifications forever and always. This is our first-ever comic strip on The Marketing Kable, and I'm so thrilled! This comic perfectly depicts the unhinged nature of delivery app notifications - that mosquito buzzing in your ear. Pointless messages that offer no real value.

But wait, it gets even better. Some brands believe it's totally cool to force customers to accept notifications as part of their Ts & Cs. 

Talk about a major marketing fail. So unethical.

Listen up, my marketing comrades: it's time to step up our game. Prioritize consent and respect choices. Give your customers the freedom to choose how much or little they want to hear from you. Make the default "Not at all".

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something to watch

soft kitty, warm kitty. I've been watching this Buzzfeed ad for what feels like nine lives, and I still can't get enough! The writing is fierce, the humour diabolical, with jokes that'll have you grinning like a Cheshire. It's feline purrfection, delivered with the grace of a leaping cat.

I make no apology for my excessive cat references. THESE CATS ARE JUST SO DAMN ADORABLE. 

something to listen

This video kept popping up on my Youtube (ironic, I know), and I was avoiding it. Because my relationship with social media is...complicated. And I didn't want to give the critical voices in my head more fuel. Eventually, the algorithm nagged me into giving it a listen. Turns out should have listened to it long ago!

Here's a summary
More Boredom: Social media apps on your phone lead to constant distraction and prevent moments of boredom. Embracing boredom allows for self-reflection, personal growth, and pursuing things that make you happy.

Lower Anxiety: Social platforms create a skewed and anxiety-inducing worldview. Disconnecting from social media can mean a calmer, slower, and more realistic environment. 

Privacy: Being constantly active on social media requires sharing personal information and can be unsettling. Staying away from social media protects privacy and maintains a sense of trust within close-knit communities. 

Lower Sense of Self-Importance: Social platforms manipulate folks into feeling important through likes, shares, and metrics. This inflated sense of self-importance isn't sustainable or fulfilling.

That said, social media is here to stay. It's a rare company that chooses to be absent on social platforms. So as a marketer, how do you step away from social media? Do what I did - Deactivate your personal account and, in its place, open a work-only account. Follow only pages and accounts relevant to your work. Check it every couple of days as part of your research on the job. Don't follow people you know or accounts that suck you in. 

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Epilogue

If not social media, then what? There are lots of things to do on the Internet where YOU are not the product. JUST ONE THING is just the thing to help your discovery.

Also, we're taking a short break from The Marketing Kable while we work on something special in stealth.