BIG QUESTIONS
Does your company talk about itself too much?
Author and Chief Strategy Officer at Adobe, Scott Belsky recently wrote, “We always think people buy products because they understand the value of those products. But what if they buy products because they themselves feel understood. Empathy is a powerful and nuanced thing.” Oddly, many companies don’t come off empathetic in their marketing. In fact, they spend 99% of the time talking about themselves. Their features. Tech. Unique solutions. There’s no mention of the human aspect of what they’re selling. The drama and conflict. The pain and the triumph. The story – the deeply human story – at the intersection of what they do and their audiences’ lived experience. It’s that intersection where a company can say, “We see you. We understand what you’re going through. So we made this for you.” And customers, well, they love that.
TOOL JOY
Copy Count does the character counting
Fitting copy into a zillion formats can be like puzzle-solving. And puzzles can be fun. But puzzles you don’t have time for are certainly NOT fun. When under the gun, it’s annoying to have to edit, check character count, edit again, check again, edit, check, edit, check. CopyCount is a simple tool to help you write copy that fits both maximum and best practice character counts for multiple platforms. And it helps prevent the dreaded “Read More” cutoffs on channels like Instagram or LinkedIn.
DESIGN WE ❤️
Google Material Design
A design system is a set of building blocks and standards that help keep the look and feel of products and experiences consistent. More and more organizations use them, and if done well, a design system is a single source of truth that makes the lives of its users and creators better, and the products they create more consistent and usable. So what happens when a company like Google, with its near limitless resources, sets out to create a design system? Enter Google Material Design, now in its 3rd iteration. It’s open source, very, very deep, and well worth exploring if you want to learn how a mature design system is built and used.
BEEP BOOP
Double-edged swords: With the first debate down and a high stakes election weeks away, politics has permeated workplace chatter. And that’s making people pretty uncomfortable.
A new confidence index: You’ve heard of the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI). Pinwheel client Glassdoor offers the Employee Confidence Index reflecting things like employee burnout, confidence in their employer’s business, layoffs/hiring, etc.
Sexy Siri: Your iPhone will be getting some hot new AI features like note-taking, rewrites, smart photo search, and snap-to-search where you can simply take a photo of something to learn everything there is to know about it. ?
X-Out: A new study reveals that advertisers no longer think X (Twitter) is safe for brands. And 26% of them plan to slash spending on the platform. Apparently, they are NOT so easily bullied.
I’m out: Maybe you’ve done enough for the day.
SPECIAL FEATURE
Meet Jason, our new Partner/Head of Growth and Strategy
We’re thrilled to announce the addition of Jason Woodley. A dynamic marketing leader with 20+ years experience in both small and large agencies, Jason has led high-profile accounts for global brands like Starbucks, Nike, Disney, and Microsoft. With expertise in P&L management and business operations, Jason excels in driving strategic initiatives and delivering results. His agency leadership expertise and deep understanding of the marketing landscape make him a priceless asset in growing clients’ business and innovating across a diverse group of Pinwheel clients. He lives in Marin, CA with his wife, son, daughter and cat “King James.”
WORD TO THE WISE
“In our work, it’s not a matter of dumbing down to the lowest common denominator, but of opening up to the broadest intelligence. We open up a mental space and let our audience into it.”
— Bruce Mau, legendary designer
WHAT CLIENTS WANT
Marketers vs. customers: living in two different worlds?
A new report from iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries highlights the gap between U.S. consumers and marketers endeavoring to persuade them.
- 44% of Americans feel ignored by media and advertisers. 75% are willing to pay more for brands that reflect their values.
- Consumers take weeks or months to make purchases of $100 or more whereas marketers can make decisions for purchases over $1,000 in just hours.
- Many consumers enjoy playing the lottery, a habit marketers find cringeworthy. On the other hand, marketers embrace health and diet trends (e.g. cold plunges), which consumers often reject.
- Consumers emphasize religion and law and order twice as much as marketers, while both groups value family, health, and safety.
- While marketers define luxury as designer labels and high-end accessories, consumers see luxury in practical indulgences, such as premium household items or high-quality food products.
ICEBREAKER
What is your favorite cognitive bias?
Todd: The Bizarreness Effect because it underscores just how forgettable common ideas are. Bizarre or unexpected ideas are distinctive – and it’s this distinctiveness that makes it easier for us to encode them in our memory. In contrast, the brain will disregard information that seems familiar. It has a very direct application to marketing.
Laura: I put a lot of stock (maybe too much?) in the First Impression Bias. I go into first meetings with clients intentionally projecting as much warmth, competency, and optimism as I can. Ideally, it helps make both of us feel good.
Sarah: All things Snoop Dogg, athletes like Simone Biles speaking openly about mental health, and 2024 marking the first time women have had equal representation in the games.
Marielle: I love the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, which is when you notice something for the first time, and suddenly you see it everywhere. I know, intellectually, that it’s just my brain selectively focusing on something new and filtering it into my awareness more often, but it still feels eerie – even mystical. As if the world is somehow conspiring to tell me something.
John: I think the Selective Perception bias is massively relevant in our day-to-day lives. As an American expat, my own selective perception biases surfaced quickly after moving into a new and unfamiliar cultural milieu. Being forced to reconsider fundamental aspects of life that we take for granted because they’re ingrained from an early age is a healthy, albeit uncomfortable, undertaking.
FALLACIES, PARADOXES & THEORIES…OH MY
Narrative Identity Theory
At about the age of 10 or 11, we start to become historians of ourselves. Autobiographers. And out of our pasts, we each patch together a story to make meaning of our past and reconstruct it in a way that helps us understand where we may be going and who we’re becoming. And throughout our lives, we develop our stories in conjunction with friends, peers, teachers, coaches, parents and siblings, etc. Then we tell our “self stories” to new people and get feedback. Our stories are generally ever-changing (though can become fixed) and often guide our decision making.
We’re not just storytellers. We’re also the stories themselves.
