Today in Digital Marketing - But Even With Nothing On, TikTok Made You Look

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, January 17th. Today, there's a media spend slowdown. Nobody told TikTok. Microsoft and Google both battled to become the kings of AI. A stock photo company, meanwhile, takes AI to court. Meta's oversight board sends another policy back to the drafting table. And the Twitter blue revenue, even Elon Musk probably doesn't want. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today

Starting point is 00:00:26 in digital marketing. Well, despite marketers' efforts to claw back ad dollars, TikTok keeps raking in marketing budgets. Interesting piece up today on Digiday that looks at why ad spend on TikTok is defying the ad slowdown. According to one agency executive they spoke with, TikTok ad spend increased by 20% between the first three quarters of 2022 and the last quarter. That executive expects this trend of investment in the platform to continue to increase throughout the year. Whether marketers are in a position to spend now or are planning for future campaigns, Digiday suggests TikTok is now considered alongside always-on media channels, particularly for driving brand awareness.

Starting point is 00:01:09 And as the channel continues to attract more advertisers, ads are getting less experimental. Rather, advertisers' moves are starting to look like tried-and-true strategies. According to the report, many advertisers find success running ads in conjunction with influencer marketing. Basically, they use paid ads to boost content they think will gain traction with users. Another agency executive that Digiday spoke with that works with clients like Procter & Gamble noted that advertisers that have tested TikTok generally see success in driving incremental revenue

Starting point is 00:01:39 and, as a result, keep doubling down on the platform. They added that many advertisers are testing the platform in Q1 with plans to scale exponentially throughout the year. Quoting the Digiday piece, which is to say TikTok is fast becoming a mainstay on the media plans of many advertisers. Granted, it isn't as big an investment

Starting point is 00:02:00 for those advertisers as Facebook or Instagram, but where advertising on those platforms is slowing, and in some cases, in actual decline, the complete opposite is happening on TikTok. Why? Because more often than not, the money that would have gone to those platforms is now going to TikTok. And it's not hard to see why. Marketers get a sound-on, full-screen video ad opportunity when they advertise on the app, which effectiveness research shows is most impactful, that's a world away from advertising on Facebook, Instagram, or even Twitter,

Starting point is 00:02:31 where that kind of efficacy is hard to come by with video ad formats that aren't as intrinsic to the wider feeds. Put another way, TikTok's growth is coming at the expense of its more established counterparts, unquote. And finally, another advantage for TikTok, cost. According to that agency executive quoted earlier, quote, it is still extremely cheap and competitive against other platforms,

Starting point is 00:02:55 still coming in cheaper versus YouTube, Meta, Snapchat, and so on. A rival to ChatGPT could be launched by Google's AI subsidiary DeepMind soon. According to DeepMind's CEO, Google is considering releasing its own chatbot called Sparrow sometime in 2023. Sparrow was first presented as a proof of concept in a research paper last year, described as a dialogue agent that reduces the risk of unsafe and inappropriate answers. Despite some concerns about the risks of AI chatbots, which DeepMind says include inaccurate or invented information, Sparrow seems to be ready for beta testing fairly soon. The CEO explained that Sparrow's launch has been delayed due to DeepMind's

Starting point is 00:03:43 desire to ensure it has critical features that chatGPT is missing, most notably citing specific sources. The research paper also suggests Sparrow will initially be more constrained and conservative than ChatGPT. The AI company also emphasized the behavior-constraining rules that its chatbot is built on, along with its willingness to decline to answer questions in contexts where it is appropriate to defer to humans. In early testing, Sparrow reportedly provided plausible answers and supported them with evidence nearly 80% of the time. Meanwhile, Microsoft will make ChatGPT available on its platform soon. The company says it plans to make the text tool available through its Azure OpenAI service. No date was given for its release. One thing is certain, the entire

Starting point is 00:04:31 digital marketing world, from creative production to copywriting to customer support, is about to undergo a massive sea change in how we do what we do. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. And now for the downsides of AI. Getty Images is suing Stability AI, maker of the popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, over alleged copyright violations. Quoting Getty Images, Getty Images provides licenses to leading technology innovators for purposes related to training artificial intelligence systems in a manner that respects personal and intellectual property rights. Stability AI did not seek any such license from Getty Images and instead, we believe, chose to ignore viable licensing options and longstanding legal protections in pursuit of their standalone commercial interests, unquote. Getty says they're not seeking monetary damages or even stopping the

Starting point is 00:05:49 development of AI art tools. Rather, the company is hoping to establish a favorable precedent for some future litigation down the road. While Getty Images works on its AI licensing terms, Shutterstock is opening up its image library to train Meta's AI. The two companies say they have expanded their partnership. Meta's oversight board is calling for more inclusive rules on adult nudity. The board overturned the company's decision today to remove two Instagram posts showing transgender and non-binary people with bare chests. The board said in a ruling that the company's adult nudity policy is based on a binary view of gender, making it unclear how it applies to intersex, non-binary, and transgender people. The posts feature images of a transgender and non-binary couple with bare chests and

Starting point is 00:06:40 their nipples covered, while their captions discussed transgender health care and gender-affirming surgery. According to Metis Policy, images containing female nipples are prohibited except for a few specified circumstances like breastfeeding or, indeed, gender confirmation surgery. The Oversight Board determined the removal of the images was in conflict with its community standards, values, and human rights responsibilities and that that the cases underline core issues with MEDIS policies. We've known now that for eight bucks a month, anyone can get a blue tick next to their name on Elon Musk's Twitter, including, it was discovered this week, Taliban officials, who have reportedly started subscribing to Twitter Blue. Yesterday, the BBC reported that two officials and four prominent supporters of Afghanistan's militant political movement

Starting point is 00:07:30 had been given the blue check. After that media report, Twitter appeared to cancel their subscriptions as the ticks on those accounts have now disappeared. We have a classified ad from friend of the podcast, Jill Taskengales. She writes, my fabulous virtual assistant has decided to move on with their career. So I am looking for someone new. Would love any referrals before I start looking more broadly. Time commitment is one to two hours a week.

Starting point is 00:07:56 Main tasks, repurposing and scheduling posts for social media, assisting with my email inbox, a few admin tasks, and if desired, a few creative tasks like writing a draft of my email newsletter. Thank you. Our email address is thegooglepro at jill.ca, and that is spelled J-Y-L-L. While I have you, my wife's company is also looking for a Ukrainian-speaking graphic designer for a small design and layout job, so let me know if you know anyone. If you'd like to book your own classified ad, it's just $20. Go to todayindigital.com slash classified or tap the link in the show notes. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. This is the moment when your bag is open. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes.

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Today in Digital Marketing - But Even With Nothing On, TikTok Made You Look

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