Marcos Angelides’ Post

A single image can tell an entire story. But marketing teams have been taught to prioritise video. They believe that to land a brand message they need at least 30 to 60 seconds of attention. A well crafted image can do that in the blink of an eye. This is why OOH is such an amazing channel. It’s also why display ads can be a wonderfully powerful medium, as long as teams put a little time into making them. (Photo: Todd Heisler, The New York Times)

I'm still impressed with how useful ChatGPT is for planning family holidays and summer activities. What used to take hours with an internet search now takes moments with Gen AI. My partner and I are planning a last-minute family trip to Holland, but we had no idea what to do. ChatGPT has quickly given us a great outline to work from. Use cases like this are still the best ways for people to become familiar with AI. Trust me. Figuring out how to apply the tech at work is easy once you're using it in your everyday life. And as a marketers, it will also give you a powerful insight into how your customers are using AI in their own lives.

Who'd have thought Deadpool and Wolverine would rewrite the rules of product placement? The Honda Odyssey features a key role in the movie, but it comes at a price. The car is mercilessly mocked, mangled and mutilated in every scene. It's not exactly the 'Apple approach' to product placement. The brand famously won't allow movie villains to use its products (only heroes get to own an iPhone). But the R Rated treatment of the Odyssey has sparked a tidal wave of interest. Owners of the car are proudly talking about it, car buyers are searching for it, and car sellers are shouting about their stock. If the goal of product placement is to boost desire, then maybe brands need to get braver with their movie choices.

I don't think we've seen the last of Prime drinks. I know, I know, LinkedIn decided the brand was dead back in April. But Prime's presence on YouTube remains huge, and they've continued to announce new sports partnerships, including Juventus FC last week. In terms of mental availability, Prime is still everywhere. Year-on-year sales took a hit in Q2, but could that be due to the unprecedented demand at launch? Now that things have settled down, Prime still have extensive physical availability, and bottles are consistently selling for £2-£3, which is a massive margin. LinkedIn might be obsessed with Liquid Death, but I wonder if it's actually Prime that will be the longer-term success.

McDonald's Japan have released an AI generated advert. The brand commissioned Kaku Drop, an AI artist with several hundred thousand followers to create the 16 second video. That's what I find most interesting about this news, the rise of artists who are embracing AI as a creative medium, just like creators did with Instagram images and YouTube videos. Why should this technology be any different?

This sounds counter intuitive but the best way to make your AI prompts more effective is to be lazy. Forget complex frameworks or pages of context. Just tell the AI to ask you 5 questions to understand what you need. If you can bothered, give it one line of context like "I need to plan a weeklong family holiday to Holland, ask me 5 questions to know how to help me". That's it. I promise, the outputs will be great and you'll save a ton of time. If you don't like the term 'lazy prompts' you can also call them 'reverse prompts'. But the moral of the story is, work smarter not harder.

I miss the Olympics even more after finding these beautiful images from photographer Geff Loewe. He uses a single frame and overlays one element, multiple times. The finished pieces create an incredible sense of movement and energy. His technique got me thinking. I remember when digital photography first burst onto the scene; critics were quick to point out its flaws. The fear was that people would just take an endless number of shots, without any thought or artistic purpose. What they failed to see was that digital photography offered entirely new ways for people to express themselves. That’s what technology does. It gives creative people more opportunities to be creative.

You can now haggle with ASOS to get extra discounts. Nibble is an AI feature that allows customers to negotiate personalised prices. This is just the start of the monumental changes we’re about to see in the world of commerce. But what does this mean for price elasticity and brand value? Are AI negotiators just another way for marketers to get hooked on price promotions? Well, there are several ways it could protect profitability. 1️⃣ Multi-savings: rather than offering discounts for single items, the AI might offer better rates when you ‘complete the look’ and buy the full range. 2️⃣ Paid returns: the AI might offer greater discounts if the customer waves the right to free returns. This will test their commitment, and dramatically reduce return rates, which is a killer for most retailers. 3️⃣ New categories: greater savings might be offered for ignored items. If a customer only buys clothes but not shoes, the AI has a chance to change their buying behaviour, and increase their lifetime-value. What I'm most excited about is that AI negotiators don't have to be a zero-sum game. They can be used to ensure both the brand and the customer win.

I don’t think we realise how big a shift we’re about to see in the creator economy. Meta and TikTok have both launched AI Avatars. This means creators can now build and customise their own virtual personas. This will unlock entirely new ways for them to engage with their fans, as well as reaching new ones who speak different languages. The only question is, monetisation. Creators will expect a fair share of the revenue, otherwise they’ll simply build AI Avatars offsite. Meta and TikTok know this, and will be doing everything they can to lure and retain the best talent. Get ready for YouTube to drop something very similar, very soon. As for fans, the idea of talking to an AI Avatar might seem odd to some, but there's growing evidence that people are very open to this. On a practical level, imagine watching your favourite food creator make a dish, but when you try to copy it, you keep burning the ingredients. In the past, you’d be on your own to figure out your mistakes. But now, you’ll be able to talk to the creator and have an in-depth conversation about where you're going wrong. Before long, you’ll even be able to point your phone at your stove and get them to guide you through the process. Imagine having a food creator essentially standing next to you in your kitchen, helping you to master your passion. Now imagine the same thing for any every interest you’re passionate about. This is how social media is going to evolve. Brands need to start rethinking their strategies.

My favourite social media trend is when creators find people with zero followers and help them share their stories. Kind Penguin 7 is a brilliant example of this. It finds Twitch streamers with no views and asks them about their lives. The stories they uncover are incredible, like the one below. Out_on_a_lim went from obscurity to having over 1m followers in a week, all because of one post. Wouldn’t it be lovely if brands started doing this as well? Rather than constantly chasing influencers to help the brand be more famous, what if they used their platform to celeberate the people who've been missed? What if they spent their time thanking fans who buy their products, even if they have no social clout? Imagine the good it could do (and the goodwill it would generate).