BIG QUESTIONS
Is your brand starting to sound like a robot?
ChatGPT, Jasper, Copy.AI, Anyword – yes, machines are pretty good at writing B+ ad copy, blog posts, emails, social media posts, etc. The downside: it all sounds roughly the same. Coherent, but generic. Now our job, as humans, is to prove that we’re NOT language models. That, unlike machines, we can reason, feel, sense, and experience. We can tell rich, detailed stories grounded in our experiences. Language models can’t fake that. We can be insightful, original, and creative with the language. LLMs can’t. We can tap into the “la parole” – the speech of everyday life. LLMs can’t. As brands try to prove their humanity amidst the ocean of machine-crafted, college-essay-quality content, having sophisticated, original human writers writing like humans, FOR humans, will be a powerful differentiator.
TOOL JOY
Knak, the no-code landing page and email creator
As a marketer, it feels like time is never on your side (is it on anyone’s side?). The perpetual time-crunch has inspired a long parade of tech promising to claw minutes back. Take Take Knak, a first-of-its-kind, codeless campaign creator that makes it simple, easy and, yes, FAST to create professional-looking, on-brand emails and landing pages. It’s like Canva,but more sophisticated. Knack works with Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Eloqua, Pardot, Adobe Campaign, and other marketing automation platforms. And it includes the collaboration, permission levels, and template tools you’d expect, plus it has 95% 5-star reviews on G2.
DESIGN WE ❤️
Undiscovered rebrand
Undiscovered, a Berlin based recruitment agency specializing in creative roles, was recently rebranded by Hyperfocus, a Hamburg-based boutique agency. We appreciated the playful and modern execution, especially the detective mascot, who goes to extraordinary lengths to find the best talent, and dons a rockin’ pork pie hat.
BEEP BOOP
Welcome to rock bottom: Global staffing firm Adecco predicts that falling hiring volumes in the U.S. tech sector had probably hit a trough.
Uh oh, AI: Using the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in product descriptions reduces brand trust and purchase intent, according to a recent Washington State University study.
Buck up, buttercup: 59% of Americans mistakenly think we’re in a recession. Behold the power of disinformation. As Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman recently said, “The truth is that the U.S. economy is a remarkable success story.”
You sound inefficient: 43% of employees reported being burned out in 2022. Now a new device can help detect that in your voice. (Let’s keep that out of the hands of CEOs, shall we?)
The Funny Papers are back! That’s right, the satirical publication known as The Onion is bringing back its print edition. Bongo bingo boingo!
SPECIAL FEATURE
8 Ways to Get the Most Value from a Creative Agency
A good agency partner can make a big difference in your success. But there is a role that you play that can make or break that relationship and, importantly, keep your costs down. Former Pinwheel client and current Sr. Writer and Content Strategist, Marielle Leon, takes you through eight ways to squeeze maximum value out of your agency – without squeezing your agency.
WORD TO THE WISE
“The hallmark of innovation is surprise. No surprise, nothing new. Nothing new, no interest. No interest, no value. Therefore, creating surprise is a crucial step in creating value through innovation.”
— Marty Neumeier, The 46 Rules of Genius: An Innovator’s Guide to Creativity
WHAT CLIENTS WANT
The smart way to sell your 2025 marketing plan
If you submit a list of activities and a bill to your CFO, they’ll look for ways to trim it. That’s their job –which is why Jim Lecinski, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, suggests you sell in the outcomes instead.
- Start with your company’s desired growth and your CFOs preferred metric for that.
- Determine what customer outcomes or changes would be required to deliver that growth. Net new customers? Order size? Frequency of purchase? Net new purchases per customer?
- Roughly calculate the marketing investment needed to hit those outcomes, based on the historical data and industry benchmarks for your average customer lifetime value and customer acquisition cost.
- Present the results as an investment proposal to your CFO.
- Talk to Pinwheel about how we can help you save money on your agency spend.
ICEBREAKER
Who is your favorite fictional villian?
Laura: Tom Ripley. Just watched the incredible Andrew Scott in the series, Ripley (based on the book and original movie adaptation). He’s quiet, calculated, cold-blooded, totally lacking conscience. Chilling!
Emily: Hans Landa from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Bastards. A master manipulator, he uses charisma and intelligence to enter the minds of his victims. It’s never the ax-wielding lunatic that gets my heart pounding…it’s the quiet, calculating, polite, charming villain that makes me the most uneasy.
Melissa: Raymond “Red” Reddington from The Blacklist – there’s something so glorious in watching James Spader just have fun being bad with a heart of gold-ish.
Todd: I think villains can single handedly make a good story. I can’t get “Teddy Rensen,” played by Marton Csokas from the movie “The Equalizer” out of my head. He’s got that perfect blend of strategic intelligence, attention to detail, sociopathology, and casual, but ruthless brutality that scares the crap out of me.
Marielle: +1 to Andrew Scott as Ripley. But cartoon villains are generally more my jam, so Gru.
John: “Daniel Plainview” from “There Will Be Blood.” Daniel Day Lewis put in a brilliant performance – the captivating aspect about Plainview is that he was a greedy, manipulative misanthrope to the core, but had aspects to his character that made him more complex and at times, contradictory. I like villains that reflect the ambiguities and gray areas of real life.
Sarah: As they say in Mean Girls, “Evil takes a human form in Regina George.” It’s no wonder this iconic leader of The Plastics makes just about every bada$$ villain list.
FALLACIES, PARADOXES & THEORIES…OH MY
Mere Exposure Effect
This is a psychological phenomenon particularly relevant to marketing. It’s when people develop a preference for something merely because it’s familiar to them (including people). In marketing, this effect can tend to conflict with one of the primary goals – to differentiate one’s company from its competition. That’s why original, unique creative ideas are often rejected. Because they are not as familiar.
