Thoughts

GamesBeat brought together several hundred video game executives to the Marina Marriot this week. It was quirky. It was fun. I wore a VR headset adorned with rabbit ears.  

Here’s three trends that stood out. 

The annual CMO survey was published this week by Deloitte, Duke Business School, and the American Marketing Association. The broad study measures priorities amongst marketing leaders in over 300 companies, across industries, and multiple revenue brackets. 

The best products solve a problem. 

The swirling tempest of AI assaulting tech news obscures a major disconnect between AI products and problems. Every tech, media, and agency firm has recently incorporated AI into their products or services. Most of them have done so without even stopping to think about the problem they want to solve. 

Advertisers, media, and partners gather in NYC this week for NewFronts, the largest digital media conference in the United States. 

We attended with partners and clients. Here’s what we heard and learned. 

TikTok is going to fight the recent legislation. At the outset to a room of 500 advertisers, TikTok’s head of business affairs plainly said the recent legislation signed by the Biden administration violated their constitutional rights which they’d fight in court. Advertisers seemed unphased. The presentation continued with a new feature for planning and buying media on the TikTok platform, an awkward panel about Vaseline ‘slugging’ with the CMO of Unilever, and a performance by a musical artist. 

The novel branches of neuro and behavioral science have ascribed our innate human ability to learn by doing, collaborate in groups, and even story tell to metacognition. 

The vast majority of new year resolutions fail. 

According to the IHRSA, the health and fitness association, 12%, more than 1 and 10 new gym members join in January. 80% of those people will cancel their membership within 5 months. 

The statistics reveal a massive discrepancy between ambition and will in most people. The remedy? Make your goals easy to accomplish. 

I discovered Jungle, the British electronic music project founded by J & T. 

I discovered the band on TikTok. 

Then I texted my musically versed friend the clip. She said ‘how do you not know about these people, check this music video out.’

Lyft and Uber recently announced they are bringing advertising to their platforms. 

For the ridesharing apps the calculus to add advertising was simple - the app boasts millions of users, consumer specific datasets on credit card type, location, and spending habits, and a captive audience.