Today in Digital Marketing - Shiny Happy Products

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, January 24th. Today, got a flashlight? You've just increased sales. WhatsApp for boomers is here, a big change in Disney ad targeting, agencies brace for a slow year ahead, a big update for one of the top SEO plugins, and LinkedIn is about to give you up.

Starting point is 00:00:20 I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead on Today in Digital Marketing. Researchers have found a simple and cost-effective trick to boosting product sales. Make it shiny. A recent study showed that when creating images, adding a reflection to your product to make it look shiny increases its attractiveness and boosts how likely consumers are to buy it. So why are we attracted to shiny objects? The study's researchers suggest that it's because the reflection reminds us of pure, clean, shiny, fresh water, which we need to survive.

Starting point is 00:00:52 It also makes the product look cleaner, newer, and in better condition. The researchers noted, though, that this effect is weaker for products with more intricate designs. Complex designs have more features that attract attention beyond the shine, making the reflection less likely to be noticed and influence people. The study recommends adding shine to your relevant product images in ads, product pages, packaging, emails, and so on. Reflections can also be added to existing images to get the same benefit. The paper was published in the Journal of Consumer Research. It's called Examining the Effect of Product Reflection on Product Aesthetics. The U.S. Supreme Court has delayed the decision on whether to take up a pair of cases challenging

Starting point is 00:01:37 social media laws in Texas and Florida that could change how platforms decide which posts they remove and which ones they promote on their services. Yesterday, the court asked the U.S. Solicitor General for input on the two cases, which were both filed by tech industry groups. Those groups claim that the laws violate the First Amendment rights of companies to determine what speech they host. CNBC is reporting today that Republican leaders in both states have promoted the legislation in response to what they perceive as unjust censorship of conservative viewpoints on social media. Major platforms maintain they simply enforce their terms of service. The groups warned that if allowed to take effect, the laws would force platforms to keep messages even if they make false claims about

Starting point is 00:02:20 sensitive subjects. The Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the temporary block on the Texas law, and an appeals court also blocked Florida's law from taking effect. Now, the laws remain in limbo, pending a decision by the high court. Meanwhile, Google is being sued by the U.S. Justice Department and eight states over its alleged monopoly on digital ads. The Justice Department this morning accused the company of abusing its dominance of the digital ad business and said Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite. In response, Google said the lawsuit is, quote,

Starting point is 00:02:55 doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow. This could be a handy update for all of you desktop marketers. WhatsApp's new Mac OS app is now available. Until now, Mac users had to use WhatsApp for the web or its web-based WhatsApp client, both of which are not ideal in terms of performance or features. The new app is optimized for Mac hardware, built with Mac Catalyst, which makes it a little bit of a faster and more efficient user experience. The app's also been designed to look and feel more like a traditional Mac app by introducing a sidebar and the ability to drag and drop files.

Starting point is 00:03:38 The app was previously available on Apple's testing platform called TestFlight, but only for select users. Now it is widely available for download on Apple's testing platform called TestFlight, but only for select users. Now, it is widely available for download on WhatsApp's official website. That said, it is still in beta, so there might be some issues. You can report glitches and share feedback by using the bug icon located at the lower part of the app. Good news for advertisers, bad news for fans of digital privacy. Welcome to the Mickey Mouse Data Club. Gizmodo reports Disney's ad-supported tier has some new ways marketers can show ads to you and your kids. At first, according to Disney's advertising president, the new ad targeting system will include options like age, gender, and geo-targeting. But in July, that executive said that will expand to the full suite of targeting options available on Hulu,

Starting point is 00:04:28 which is also owned by Disney, including a more robust automated bidding system and third-party data integration. Advertisers can also select targeting options by characteristics like demographics, purchasing behavior, and psychographics. So what's new here? Well, until now, Disney Plus only let marketers set broad targeting parameters to show ads to everyone in the P2 Plus segment, any viewer over two years old.

Starting point is 00:04:51 But now that's set to change. A spokesperson for Disney told media that Disney does not allow targeting for users 17 and below, nor does it show ads on preschool content or to users watching via kids' profiles. However, if you fall asleep watching Mona for the 700th time on your user profile, anyone in the room with you will see those ads.

Starting point is 00:05:17 A new survey finds that agencies actually don't anticipate significant growth in ad spend this year, even after most increased services last year. According to a new report from Digiday, the percentage of agency pros who expect advertisers to spend more this year plummeted from last year. This year, a third of respondents said they agree advertisers will spend more in 2023 compared to 2022 when three quarters said so. Despite the doom and gloom for 2023 ad spend,

Starting point is 00:05:48 many agencies actually added to their service offerings. Last year, 60% of agencies increased their services. None decreased them. An update from LinkedIn could help your newsletter gain more subscribers and maybe let nosy people peek into your interests. The Professional Network is introducing a new feature that will let users see the newsletters that other users are subscribed to. Starting on February 11th, whenever someone visits your profile, they will be able to see all of your newsletter subscriptions, just as they can see your shared interests, pages, and groups.

Starting point is 00:06:24 If you prefer to keep your subscriptions private, just as they can see your shared interests, pages, and groups. If you prefer to keep your subscriptions private, you're out of luck. The change will automatically make all newsletter subscriptions public, and users cannot opt out. The only option to prevent a newsletter subscription from being publicly available is to unsubscribe. And finally, Yoast SEO has released version 20 of its SEO WordPress plugin today with some big changes to the user interface. A few of the updates to the new settings interface include a search feature that will help you find the most relevant SEO settings,

Starting point is 00:06:59 granular SEO controls for every template and page type, controls for how the software integrates with other plugins in software, and some more advanced settings for managing crawling and indexing. So hello to everyone who has found this podcast via TikTok. Yesterday, after not posting to my TikTok account for, I don't know, months anyway, I put up a video about the story that we ran as our lead story yesterday about TikTok's algorithm having a helping hand by some human interveners through the process they call heating. Anyway, long story short, that video of mine went viral. It is up past 880,000 views right now.

Starting point is 00:07:36 By far my best TikTok. Even beat out the Facebook ad skits that I did a couple of years ago. So if you're new here, welcome. We do this podcast every single day. It's just like this. It's, you know, eight, 10 minutes or so. We also have an email newsletter, which you can find at todayindigital.com slash newsletter. It is essentially what you hear on the podcast, but in email form, you can learn all about both by tapping the links in our bio. On the show tomorrow, TikTok's program for advertisers it calls Pulse is falling to pieces.

Starting point is 00:08:06 I'm Todd Mappin. Thanks for listening. See you then. 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. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca.

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Today in Digital Marketing - Shiny Happy Products

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