Weekly Marketing Dip #2
Soap brands talk AI, reviewing bad products, and naming this newsletter.
In case you missed it, here’s last week’s email.
This week, we were busy trying to find a good name for this weekly newsletter. The newsletter is a collaborative effort. So rather than just voting ourselves, we thought we ask you guys for help.
Leave any other creative ideas in the comments.
Ok, now let’s get it.
Growth law of the week
➡️ “Systems, not hacks”
Not all growth is created equal. Some growth is temporary, while other growth lasts. Growth marketing is about unlocking structural, compounding growth. To acquire millions of users, marketing needs to become predictable, systematic, automated and repeatable.
Losers are forever attracted to shortcuts, "growth hacks" and ways to game the system. Forget about that. The essence of growth marketing is to build systems that drive user acquisition, activation and retention at scale.
— Pieter
Lessons in growth
(1) Reducing anxiety about subscription renewals
The biggest conversion killer is anxiety.
As brands, we gain our buyer's trust if we can pinpoint exactly what makes them anxious. Netflix recognised the very real anxiety caused by forgetting to cancel a subscription in time.
Rather than avoiding any mention of cancelling their subscription, Netflix addresses it head-on.
Result: the buyer feels seen.
(2) Brand = person = brand?
The best way to build a brand from scratch is to recreate the personality of a real person and then lean 100% into it. Ditch the "Archetypes" and model it on something— or someone— real.
The person in this instance is Matty Matheson; chef, restaurateur, father. The design is loud and nostalgic and the initial product line is exactly what you'd expect from him; comfort food + punchy flavours, inspired by his family.
It’s unapologetically ‘Matty’.
5 things we consumed this week
(1) One of our favourite marketers out there,
, recently shared the monetisation playbook he used during his time at Eventbrite. This tweet sums it up pretty nicely:
(2) I just finished reading ‘Read Write Own’ by
(partner at a16z). If you’re looking for a comprehensive—yet technical—breakdown of web3 and blockchain, this is the book for you. I recommend sharing it with your crypto-sceptic friends and family members.(3) This Dove ad addressing the impact of generative AI on our beauty standards 🕊
(4) Earlier this week, Pieter wrote about why most marketing teams are mediocre.
(5)This video of a guy anonymously redesigning the banner for local dog walker, Marya. Oh, what a little design magic can do for your marketing.
Spaces our nerds are watching 👾
(1) These guys created a cure for tooth decay, using bacteria (via Astral Codex).
This reminds me of one of our clients that created an acne treatment using live bacteria. Their biggest challenge was packaging live bacteria so they could maintain their working effects.
(2) One day until the Bitcoin ‘halving’. Will this make BTC the least inflationary asset ever?
Unlike traditional fiat currencies that central banks can print indefinitely, Bitcoin has a fixed supply limit of 21 million coins. Every 4 years, the amount of rewards that crypto miners get for each block is cut in half (‘the halving’). This slashes the rate at which new bitcoins are created and enter circulation by half. Less coins created = less inflationary pressure.
We’ll just leave this here
Marques Brownlee, a popular YouTuber with 18.7M subscribers, posted a video a few days ago critiquing the much-hyped Humane AI pin for not being that cool.
People on Twitter found it distasteful, that a YouTuber would tell his millions of subscribers that a product wasn't good to his taste. Other people found it distasteful to find this distasteful (you following?) — after all, Marques is doing consumers a favour by giving his honest opinion. Plus, he has his own reputation—built around honesty—to protect.
In either case, it shows how large the impact of influencers is on brands nowadays. We think Marques is in the green. He has no obligation to Humane to say nice things about them. He merely has his audience to serve.
So, are you team Marques or team “that’s distasteful”?
Leave us your thoughts in the comments.
‘til next week
— Louise (on behalf of Double)