THIS WEEK SUMMED UP
Oops. Brands Messing Up (and Trying to Make It Right!), what Boy Bands mean for Books, and AI here to help your feelings.
Reading Time: 1 minute 25 seconds
THREE PARTS THAT MATTER
Marketing
Brands like Apple and Bumble learned a tough lesson this week: it's super easy to alienate your target audience. *Apple's crush ad for iPad* accidentally offended creatives, while *Bumble's anti-celibacy billboard* in LA totally totally (two totally’s) missed the mark. The takeaway? Test your campaigns, apologize when you screw up, and remember - sometimes a simple *"We messed up"* goes a long way.
Culture
Amazon is blurring the lines between reality and fiction with their book-to-band strategy. First Daisy Jones and the Six’s chart topping Aurora, now *August Moon* - the boy band at the center of The Idea of You, headed by Anne Hathaway’s swoon-worthy love interest.
They're using this tactic to activate multiple fandoms for each release. In the case of The Idea of You – readers who read the book first, Princess Diaries stans who would follow Anne Hathaway off a cliff, and music listeners who discover that August Moon is actually a band from a movie.
In the age of streaming where views are the measure of success, activating a fandom - or three - is the key to getting more eyeballs on your content.
Technology
We’re still digesting this weeks’ Gen AI updates. Monday brought multimodal chatGPT with (semi-seamless) handoff from voice to visual - delivering the world of ‘Her’ IRL. *NYT’s Kevin Roose and his AI friends* will be excited and per Hackernoon, this increase in capabilities could be wildly supportive for people using agents to support their mental health.
On Tuesday, Google‘s updates doubled down on AI in search. This is the *most concise rundown* we’ve seen of these features. In a nutshell - they are inserting Gen AI everywhere into the Google search journey. It’ll be available to all searchers next week, and yes, this will have big implications for SEO. If you’re not already at the top of relevant searches expect to see a decline in search and if you are looking to be included in Google’s AI responses, Google’s guidance is simply to continue to implement Google search best practices.
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