Hey there! It’s Erik from Double Agency. 🍯 The Dip is a weekly newsletter with fresh takes on marketing, growth and tech buzzzz. 🐝 Here we go!
Apple is crushing it - literally. The tech giant is releasing their new iPad Pro - the thinnest ever built.
But it’s not the product that’s getting most attention, it’s the video commercial.
The ad shows a massive industrial press destroying music instruments, a jukebox, camera lenses, a statue and much more in the name of... creative destruction? 🤔
Paul Graham commented "Steve wouldn't have shipped that ad. It would have pained him too much to watch." and it's hard to disagree.
The whole internet seems to dislike it…
How could this have happened? I would love to read your thoughts in the comments.
Moving on…
Meta is also launching it’s new suite of AI-powered tools for ad creation.
Advertisers can now create complete image variations inspired by their original ad creative, including different backgrounds, text overlays and adjustments to products shown. Meta’s AI will also suggest ad headlines and body text tailored to an advertiser’s brand voice and key selling points from previous campaigns.
My personal take: there is a lot of debate about the role of AI in creativity. But tools like this can help speed things up and save valuable time that I can then spend on other tasks that can’t be automated. More strategy and less execution. I like it!
Growth law of the week
➡️ “Outbound gets expensive as you scale”
Due to their low barriers to entry, outbound channels are attractive places to start. But this also makes them extremely competitive and expensive. As you scale, targeting quality also declines: you start off by targeting your ideal target audience, but scaling up forces you to incrementally widen your audience... leading to lower quality traffic. Ultimately, outbound channels allow companies to scale fast, but at a cost that eats away virtually all their margins. PPC bidding is designed to allow advertisers to pay exactly the maximum of what they can afford. Use outbound wisely and effectively, but also know when to stop spending.
— Pieter
Lessons in growth
(1) The best ads don’t look like ads
And this one by ad by AirBnb is a great example.
Under the name ‘Icons’ - consumers can now spend the night in fantastically styled houses, including a Ferrari museum, The X-men Mansion, and the flying house from the movie Up!
(2) Business in the front, party in the back - by Dan Nelken / Demand Curve
The Mullet (aka The Smile) is a simple and effective way to check those boxes in a single, powerful headline.
Business in front: Put the factual business message upfront.
“Follow me on LinkedIn.”
“People swear by it.”
“Please enjoy responsibly.”
Party in the back: Make them smile with a joke on the business message.
“Or I’ll keep following you in person.”
“And at it.”
“The Internet never forgets”
Some cool examples:
The Mullet is a powerful way get your message across and leave people with a smile on their face. It helps viewers:
“Get” what you sell
Feel positively towards you (which is rare for an ad)
Remember you (so they think of you after a Trigger Event)
And most importantly, more likely to take action
Dan even uses this technique for his copywriting newsletter 🤣:
5 things we consumed this week
101 examples and showcases of Google's new AI platform - a pretty impressive piece of content marketing, from a company we don't usually associate with content marketing;
How the World Really Works - a book by Vaclav Smil - a techno-optimistic take on how to solve the world’s toughest problems;
10 Ways to Write Hooks (with examples) - great for capturing those short attention spans;
Site-links are coming to Facebook - yup, similar to the ones in Google Ads;
4 websites that have portals to another dimension - because we hate dead ends.
Thanks for reading. See you next week!
Erik — on behalf of Double