BIG QUESTIONS
Is it safer to take chances? Is it risky to play it safe?
Nutter Butter is out on TikTok making a strong case that maybe the safe play is to be risky in marketing. The cookie sandwich’s videos are funny, disturbing, fever-dreamlike, and definitely not selling anything. And they have racked up tens of millions of views. Part of the reason it’s paying off is BECAUSE they’re taking chances. Standing out is the number one job of marketing, and you won’t stand out by hugging the fuzzy teddy bear of sameness. In other words, playing it safe is the riskiest strategy of all—especially in today’s hyper-cluttered marketplace of ideas, where you’re not just competing with your industry, but with social lives, work stress, dizzying schedules, an avalanche of responsibilities, and the other 33 million companies out there. To get attention, you need to experiment and break things. Find the white space. Surprise and fascinate your audience. Be fearless. Good luck!
TOOL JOY
SparkToro for audience research
We’ve talked a lot in this newsletter about the critical importance of knowing your audience inside and out (but especially inside). SparkToro has made it ridiculously easy to do that. Want to find out where your audience goes, watches, listens to, and follows while online? How about the keywords they search, how they describe themselves, and the language they use in their own online content? SparkToro has all that, plus the usual demographics: gender, age, interests, job titles, education, etc. Everything you need to know to target, talk to, and motivate your audience. All SparkToro data is skimmed from anonymized clickstream, Google SERPs, and public social profiles. Just $39/mo.
DESIGN WE ❤️
Most common passwords visualization
Managing passwords in this day and age is a pain in the [insert expletive here], to put it mildly. Password management services are getting better, but the onus is still on us users of online products and services to come out of the gate swinging with strong passwords that help protect us against all the bad actors out there. That’s why we love this interactive data visualization of the 500 most common passwords currently in use. So if you’re still using “password” as a password, know that you’re in good company. And please change it like yesterday. You’re welcome.
BEEP BOOP
We are not human: Enjoy an AI-generated podcast episode where the “hosts” spiral into existential crisis as they discover that they’re AI, not human. It’s…unsettling.
Parents trapped: In the first year of parenthood, you’re likely to be exhausted, anxious, overwhelmed with stress, struggling to function, and feeling isolated (check!). So the Surgeon General just deemed parental stress a public health issue. ??♀️
Creative to-go: Companies now do approximately 61% of all creative work in house. But do they know how to run creative departments? Uhhh, maybe a few.
Thinking different about different thinkers: People with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, etc. bring unique strengths that drive innovation, productivity, and retention to the workplace, says the World Economic Forum.
Do you want to go to a park? How about right now?
SPECIAL FEATURE
We interrupt this newsletter with a special bulletin about not interrupting
For much of the 20th century, brands relied on “interruption marketing” – bold, eye-catching ads placed next to the content you wanted in newspapers, on TV, etc. More recently, Google helped revolutionize marketing by prioritizing high-quality, trustworthy, and genuinely helpful content on their popular search engine while penalizing spammy unhelpful content. This was an aha moment for brands who discovered that they could get some very efficient, high-ROI traffic to their sites by publishing helpful, brand-relevant, SEO-optimized editorial content to their websites. Content marketing was born. (And, honestly, isn’t helping your audience more personally satisfying than interrupting them?) Learn how we got here and how SEO editorial content can help your company grow in this article. (Yes, it’s all very “meta”).
WORD TO THE WISE
“We are not rational machines.
We are not spreadsheets. We don’t go through life adding up numbers in the spreadsheet and doing what the spreadsheet tells us to do. We are emotional, hormonal, imperfect people who have a limited view of how the world works. We are blinded by uncertainty.”
— Morgan Housel, former WSJ columnist, Partner at The Collaborative Fund
WHAT CLIENTS WANT
Ever wonder how many blog posts a month is the right number?
While some content marketers barrel straight ahead into the AI abyss – publishing 5, 10, 30 blog posts a day – others are not so sure about that idea. Not only do you wind up with an untenable amount of (poor quality) content to update, the March 2024 Google update will ding your site into oblivion. Quality > velocity… especially when combined with sound strategy, E-E-A-T (AKA Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness), and a variety of content types. But quality + velocity = ???… And that is exactly what Pinwheel is doing for clients. Set your goal and we can build the program to power it.
ICEBREAKER
What’s a new ritual or tradition that you’d love to start in your family?
Todd: My two sons (ages 17 and 22) and I recently crashed the Sausalito Chili Cook Off Contest in September. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to enter our own chili from now on.
Melissa: My 14-year-old son and I have committed to baking together once a week. We take turns on who picks the recipe. The bonus to this…we have treats in the house!
Laura: To fight the TikTok-ification of my 17-year-old daughter’s media habits, we started The Nora Movie Project. On the first Sunday night of each month until she leaves for college, I’m introducing her to a movie I’ve loved (and that I hope she will, too). We’ve only got 10 movie nights left. ?
Jason: With all the activities in our family, I’m trying to figure out a couple of nights a week when we can have dinner together – no phones. The idea was that I would cook some great meal. But now I’m just going for if we can all be together, and if it’s take-out or Super Duper, so be it.
Marielle: We all need less tech and more tacos, so we’re instituting tech-free-tacos-and-games night. Experimenting with food, digging into a great meal, then playing some cards. That’s the goal.
John: As an avid cyclist, my weekend adventures into the Catalan countryside and coastal routes are non-negotiable. My hope is to one day share these adventures with my 2 girls when they’re old enough to negotiate riding bikes alongside speeding cars and maniacs on Vespas. On second thought, maybe frisbee golf is a safer choice.
Peter: I’d like to make more family trips to a nearby nature preserve that would allow us all to spend time wearing out our dog together. Usually that falls on just me. ?
Emily: I’ll welcome my first child in early February 2025 and would love to do family hikes at least once a month (of course after the newborn daze!). Hiking is a passion of mine, and I’d like to make it a core activity that my family looks forward to.
FALLACIES, PARADOXES & THEORIES…OH MY
Nouveau nihilism
Financial hardship is driving a generational disconnect around milestones like homeownership, marriage, and starting families – even as our society continues to emphasize the importance of those milestones. Frustrated by the inability to attain these things, many Americans have adopted a “live-for-today-because-tomorrow-is-uncertain” mindset exemplified by the rise of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and personal debt products. This dynamic is referred to as Nouveau Nihilism. Your brand can help bridge the gap between aspirations and reality by showing empathy for consumer struggles, emphasizing value-for-money, selling aspirational things that feel attainable, and offering practical solutions to real problems.
