Dan Frommer of The New Consumer has published his latest food & drink trends report for us to have a rummage through. This slide in particular caught my eye:
Meanwhile, 13-17-year-olds from the U.S, Canada, U.K, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain have been asked by YPulse who the coolest brands are.
If you swap a real person for an AI one, do people buy more stuff? The good folk over at Thinkerbell have been finding out. They created two near-identical ads, the only difference being the endorser. One was human, one was AI. And the human won.
However, the product in question was a handbag disguised as a roast chicken bag. So, ya know, it depends…
“The Bachelor’s Handbag is not a utilitarian purchase. Nobody is evaluating it on performance metrics. The appeal lies in humour, cultural recognition and the sense that you are in on the joke. Research suggests that for hedonic or identity-driven products, perceived similarity and parasocial connection are stronger drivers of purchase intention, particularly when authenticity cues are present [...] It does suggest that when you are selling something deliberately ridiculous, like a handbag dressed up as a roast chicken bag, the person delivering the joke matters [...] This is not a rejection of AI. It is a reminder that in advertising, context matters.”
While it may have tied my brain into a double fisherman’s, I’m thoroughly glad to have read. The Technium’s piece on ‘the march of nines’. Achieving 99%, 99.9%, or 99.99% isn’t linear and each additional nine demands you rethink, reorganise or reinvent entirely:
“It seems as if we are adding only a tiny amount with each nine, smaller and smaller, but it is the opposite. The difference between having no electricity for 1 hour a year (99.99%) versus missing one whole working day a year (99.9%) is significant, and not just a little more [...] you cannot reach the next nine simply by doing more of what you have been doing. Extrapolation doesn’t work. The only way to reach the next nine is to do something in a new way, or to re-organize what you are doing, or to invent a new thing.”
Speaking of rethinking… Dave Trott (we like Dave) has been writing about what a broken bridge, the Tug river and foreign aid budgets can teach us about changing the problem.
“We stop trying to solve a problem we can’t solve, we get creative. We get upstream of the problem and change the problem to something we can solve. Then, in solving the upstream problem, the downstream problem solves itself. ”
Very British Problems published a nail-on-the-head parody reel about packaging fails. So naturally, we did the only responsible thing and made our own little spin-off.
How well do you remember colours? This short test shows you a colour for a few seconds, then asks you to recreate it from memory. Fancy having a go at beating my score? :-)
The Jurassic Park theme slowed down is utterly epic. The universe will start splaying out in front of you around the 9 minute mark. Although I’m not sure anything can ever compare to
Dolly Parton’s Jolene slowed down to 33rpm. We featured it in The100 many, many years ago and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve listened to it since.
Bon weekend,
Fran