This week I gave a lecture at the American Marketing Association’s Data and Analytics Conference.

Here’s a quick recap of the lecture - Data to Decision: The Science of Advertising. The presentation demonstrated how to apply the scientific method to your advertising.

The scientific method is humanity’s best way for ascertaining truth.

An advertising campaign can be thought of as a hypothetical experiment brought to life. You are theorizing that a particular set of messages, creative, and media spend will increase sales.

You don’t know it will work. Until you prove it.

There are five steps to setting up an advertising experiment. I reviewed those five steps, examined advertising science through a real case study, and took questions.

You can view the recorded session here.

3 Stories Dominating Media and Tech Headlines

Google announces launch News Showcase product in U.S. Following many delays, News Showcase is designed to increase the presence of high-quality news sources and articles in Google’s search engine results, driving more traffic to the participating publisher’s websites.

Why it matters: The product has been around since 2020, and debuted in Brazil and Germany. The U.S. launch comes as potential legislation may force big tech companies to pay for news. The launch also coincides with a growing push for tech regulation around misinformation. 

Salesforce is betting big on AI, pledging to invest $500M in generative AI startups. The expansion of the fund coincides with the debut of Salesforce’s AI for Impact accelerator program, which is pledging $2 million to increase equitable and ethical uses of AI.

Why it Matters: Several large enterprise companies like Comcast, Dentsu, Meta, Redbull, Vayner, and others have set subsidiary VC funds or venture partnerships. This is an emerging model in the industry that allows large companies to gain equity holdings and insight into emerging tech companies.  This gives them the ability to foster innovation outside their larger bureaucratic org structures that they can later acquire. 

Netflix reportedly plans first live sports event with celebrities playing golf. Netflix is set to expand into the sports world, via a celebrity golf tournament. The tournament would include cast members from Netflix documentary series Full Swing and Formula 1, alongside other celebrities. 

Why it Matters: As the streaming giant has started experimenting with live comedy and cast reunion events, expanding into live sports and special events holds incredible promise. Live events could increase subscriber retention, decrease churn, and provide a platform to cross promote other content on their platform. 

Creativ Strategies Goes to Cannes

I’m attending advertising’s biggest festival with several clients. Please reply directly to this email if you’ll be in attendance as well!

I’d love to connect over a glass of rose (or two).

Stat of the Week - In Tech We Trust

We rely heavily on the products and services of big tech companies around the world, meaning we must trust them to a certain extent.

According to the most recent Axios Harris report, we trust some more than others.

Samsung, Amazon, and Apple all scored the highest this year with a 81 Reputational Quotient score.

The social media giants scored poorly compared to the hardware and service companies, with TikTok, Meta, and Twitter scoring 61, 60, and 59 respectively.

One Fun Thing - VR Notifications? 

Will Apple Vision Pro be a groundbreaking revolutionary product, or just the same apps and annoyances but closer to our faces?