Fr 5/12 - Twitter Names A New CEO | Zuckerberg Is Penetrated By AI | Mother's Day Feels

It's Friday, May 12 2023. It's time to nerd out.

The ad nerds podcast delivers ad industry news every weekday. We are the go to source for people who spend money on advertising, covering Big brands, small businesses, and of course, the latest marketing trends. It's me Spanky Moskowitz, the show's host in the nearly 40 year vet of the ad industry. I've created campaigns for Budweiser m&ms, Frito Lay the NFL and NBA, I've created over 100,000 ads generating hundreds of billions in client revenue. If you're in or interested in the world of advertising and want to stay up to date with the latest news. The ad nerds podcast is the perfect place to start.

And starting us off breaking news from Twitter. That's right, NBC Universal advertising chief, Linda yakka Reno has been named the new CEO of Twitter. This comes straight from Elon Musk, who mentioned yesterday that he's hired a new CEO for the social media platform. Just moments ago, he tweeted I'm excited to welcome Linda yakka Reno as the new CEO of Twitter. He said she will focus primarily on business operations while I focus on product design and new technology. Yakko Reno is well known in the ad industry, having spent over a decade at NBC Universal and playing a key role in the launch of their ad supported streaming service peacock. Her appointment could potentially help restore advertisers competence in Twitter, which has been a little concerning lately. It'll be interesting to see though how she navigates the balance between advertiser needs and Elon Musk's commitment to free speech absolutism.

Gen Z and millennials are shaking things up when it comes to Mother's Day gifts. Sure flowers and cards are nice, but Gen Z and millennials are all about giving experiences that will create lasting memories for their mom. Back in 1944 Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day complained about how the holiday had become too commercialized. She wasn't happy with the telegraph company's the florist in the candy manufacturers who turned her heartfelt idea into a money making frenzy. So fast forward to today 2023 Americans are projected to spend $36 billion on Mother's Day gifts this year, according to the National Retail Federation, florist alone are going to blossom their bottom line to the tune of nearly $3 billion in sales. And approximately 113 million greeting cards will be sold. But here's the thing. Despite these eye popping numbers, people are actually changing the way they celebrate Mother's Day. Thanks to spending so much time cooped up. During the pandemic 57% of survey respondents said they plan to take their mother's on a special outing this year. It could be a nice dinner or brunch tickets to an event a cooking class or even a hike. It's all about spending quality time together without breaking the bank. And believe it or not, that's what Mother's Day was all about from the beginning. So while we may not see a return to pen and ink, we do see a surge in phone calls on Mother's Day. In fact, if you didn't know this, it is the busiest calling day of the year with a 37% increase in phone conversations according to history.com.

But let's talk a little bit about the Y and Z effect Gen Z and millennials. They're making their mark on Mother's Day celebrations. According to Consumer Research study from collage group, they found that Gen Z and Millennial celebrate Mother's Day at higher rates compared to Gen X and Boomers. And it's not surprising when you consider that young Americans often move away from home they start their careers in big cities, and it makes it harder for them to see their moms in person. So what do they do? They compensate by buying meaningful gifts. And these gifts are all about experiences. Because young folks really don't they're not into the cliched presence like flowers and candy and cards. They want something that's going to create lasting memories for their mom. So if you're a last minute shopper heading into the Mother's Day weekend, make it an experiential gift. Okay, that would be the best thing to do. Coming up let's keep the mother's day feeling rolling by device by diving into some of the heartfelt creative that's being put out there by some of the biggest Most brands in the world

Well with Mother's Day, just two days from now, unless you're hearing this after Mother's Day, in which case you missed it. Big brands are tapping into a motion to connect you to them this year. So let's check out some of the heartwarming campaigns from brands like McCain Foods, Walmart and a couple more. McCain Foods Canada Notice too that moms are primarily missing from photos. Like you can see family photos, but most of the time you don't see mom in them. So they partnered with an award winning photo journalist to capture candid moments of real moms with their families in their homes. The results are incredibly emotional and remind us the important role moms play in bringing families together. They're calling on partners, kids, friends and family to put mom in the picture and show her just how much she means.

The campaign is in partnership with the Pampers hospital GIFT program, providing gift bags for new moms. It's also a fantastic add. They're all so moving and amazing. And well done. Also my friend Ellen Latham, who I met at Tony Robbins business mastery many years ago, founder of Orangetheory. Fitness is offering free classes to moms giving them a chance to take a well deserved break and focus on themselves now. Okay, Ellen, if you're listening to the podcast today, come on. That's going to orange theory is not a break. It's a workout for God's sake, what are you talking about? But I love her Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez is supporting this movement and calling on other companies to pledge their support to you know,

And again, you can see all of the ads on the ad nerds YouTube channel. T Well done heartfelt production coming up the robots have penetrated sucks kingdom that sounds wrong. Where am I writers like God, that's terrible.

I see what the writers did their Facebook and Instagram are are bringing generative AI into their platform, meaning the AI has penetrated Xbox Kingdom got it. So what does that mean? Well, it means that ads on the platform could soon feature text and images created by artificial intelligence. Meta has now been talking about this development for a while. But AI is starting to make waves in other areas of the marketing world so they decided to fast track things. And they've created a program called AI sandbox which serves as a testing ground for brands to experiment with generative AI in their campaigns. Advertisers can use AI to automatically touch up images, like changing backgrounds and product ads. But meta has even bigger plans in mind. They want AI to help personalize messages and ads by generating text. So imagine being able to use AI to enhance your creative process right? Meta is trying to expand that and the capabilities into video as well. Now it's not done yet. Like who knows it's a future thing right? We might see AI generated videos in our feed at some point to give us a taste of what's possible meta showcased. Jones road beauty a brand that has been playing around with generative AI in its ads. Using the AI sandbox tools. They created text and background images for their ads. And it works similarly to the popular generative a AI platforms out there like chat GPT and Dolly, where you give the machine a prompt, and it generates a result. And metas AI even helps crop the ads to fit the different formats like feeds, reels and stories. So, you might be wondering how many advertisers are actually using generative AI? Well, I'm glad you asked. Meta. Meta didn't give an exact number. But they referred to it as a quote, small group for now. They plan to expand its availability to more advertisers coming this July. And although like I said, videos haven't been touched yet by generative AI, meta is actively exploring this. But wait, meta isn't the only player in the AI sandbox. Google has recently released a bunch of new AI capabilities, which could have significant implications for advertiser advertisers. So it seems like AI is becoming a popular tool in the advertising industry across the board with let's see, we got Microsoft using it. Snapchat, Google meta, tic tock it's they're all exploring what the potential of AI is in advertising. So I would just buckle up peeps, because the advertising world is gonna get a taste of the AI revolution, whether you like it or not, or buy into it or not.

Hey, if you like the ad nerds podcast, please subscribe on Apple Spotify or wherever you listen, give it a five star rating, or I'm gonna come hunt you down and give us a review as well. That's the app nerds podcast are Friday, May 12 2023. Spanky out thanks for listening and have an amazing weekend. Happy Mother's Day.

Attribution Links:
https://www.businessinsider.com/linda-yaccarino-named-by-elon-musk-twitter-next-ceo-2023-5
https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-gen-z-millennials-changing-mothers-day-gift-list/
https://adage.com/article/digital-marketing-ad-tech-news/meta-adds-generative-ai-ad-platform/2494291
https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/mothers-day-2023-mccain-foods-walmart-orangetheory-and-more-campaigns/2494266