Today in Digital Marketing - To Plural or Not to Plural: That is the Question(s)

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, April 16th. Today, what a difference an S makes. Why one single letter could change the future of your brand. Also, Amazon runs in where others have bolted out. DMs are coming to threads, only they're not. heavily SEO'd article, and the brilliant reason McDonald's latest billboards have nothing on them, literally not even their logo. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. So you are launching a brand, a laundry detergent, and you can't decide on the company name. Should it be Stainbuster or Stainbusters? One letter could make all the difference, and some new research in the Journal of Consumer Psychology says there is a right answer. The study looked at more than 12,000 brand names

Starting point is 00:00:56 and found that plural names like Stainbusters tend to garner more positive attitudes among consumers compared to non-plural names. Names in plural form were preferred by 13% more people than the singular version. For example, consumers were more inclined towards Urban Elves over Urban Elf for a delivery app. Plus, big brands with plural names like Snickers and Staples enjoyed a 12% better brand perception on average than those with singular names like American Express. So why does this happen? The plural form suggests a larger unified group, which psychologically appears more substantial

Starting point is 00:01:40 and inviting. This effect is particularly strong with names that relate to groups or teams like the Los Angeles Lakers or the Smiths, enhancing the brand's appeal as part of a larger, cohesive collection. But the study also found that this plural advantage diminishes for premium brands focused on high quality, where the naming convention has less impact. The findings were predominantly based on English names with similar experiments in other languages not showing the same effect. So if you're aiming for broad market appeal, consider adding an S to make your brand name plural, but for high-end markets, the choice between singular and plural

Starting point is 00:02:17 may not significantly sway consumer preferences. The paper is called More the Merrier. It was published earlier this year in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Another day, another batch of AI stuff dropped into an ad manager. Today, Google added more generative image tools into its DemandGen campaign interface. DemandGen, formerly known as Discovery Campaigns, are primarily top funnel placements across platforms like YouTube, Discover, and Gmail. This new tech in question is its ability to create images from text prompts. We've seen this in other campaign types, so it's nice to see it come over to DemandGen. More interestingly, I thought, is that you can use it to generate similar images

Starting point is 00:03:01 to successful ones you've previously used. But be sure to mix it up. Google says advertisers using both video and image ads in their DemandGen campaigns get 6% higher conversion rate per dollar than those only using images. Specifically, the company advises using a mix of at least three images and videos in different formats, vertical, square, and landscape. These tools are available today globally in English, with additional languages expected later in the year.

Starting point is 00:03:35 God help them, they're trying. Platforms desperate to get a slice of the huge success seen in Asia of live stream commerce keep bashing their head against the wall, hoping that someday, somehow, they too can crack the code. Many platforms have tried, TikTok and Instagram being the most notable, and in both cases, those platforms have downscaled the priority of those efforts after adoption was low in the Western markets. But that won't stop Amazon, which says it plans to launch Amazon Live, a free ad-supported shopping channel on Prime Video and Freebie. Amazon Live has existed before,

Starting point is 00:04:12 but was really only a web and mobile thing. Given the large consumer adoption of connected TV, Amazon wanted to put something there as well. Quoting TechCrunch, quote, Amazon Live's channel will feature 24-7 programming from popular creators and celebrities, Quoting TechCrunch, and The Bump will also host streams to sell their products. Viewers can browse and buy the items influencers show off by using the Amazon Shopping app on their mobile device. When entering Shop the Show into the search bar, users are directed to a shopping carousel featuring the products they see on TV in real time. Amazon Live has been around for about five years now. It'll be interesting to see if there's any uptake now that it's on the big screens.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Last year, live shopping accounted for less than 3% of total U.S. online retail sales. Meta's Twitter competitor Threads will soon add DMs to their offering, one of the most requested features among early adopters. But don't expect to see a dedicated inbox in your Threads app, because Threads is built on Instagram's codebase, which means DMs will go to your brand's Instagram inbox instead. Tests in the wild show a message button on profiles, which when tapped open a little message window that says, Send on Instagram. Honestly, this is probably a good thing for brands. Many of us use third-party tools like Sprout Social or Agorapulse or Hootsuite to monitor incoming messages.

Starting point is 00:05:54 With this setup, there's no need to connect anything additional, as long as you have your brand's Instagram account set up. Same with Meta's own in-house business platform. Even so, Andrew Hutchinson from Social Media Today thinks this might be temporary. Quote, Really, both apps, Instagram and Threads, serve a very different purpose. And the profiles and topics that people follow in each are logically also going to be very different. So they probably need to be separated, rather than having Threads as an offshoot of Instagram.

Starting point is 00:06:22 But there's also logic in building the app off Instagram's audience, as opposed to going in alone. Does that mean in the long term we'll eventually get threads DMs separate from Instagram? That still seems difficult, given Meta's messaging integration plan. And with speculation that Meta has sought to merge its messaging features in order to make it impossible to divest Instagram and WhatsApp if compelled to do so, which is still a possibility amid ongoing FTC challenges, the broader machinations at play do make it seem like a separate Threads inbox is a limited possibility. But maybe, if Threads eventually gets big enough to appoint its own separate CEO and

Starting point is 00:07:01 splits away from Instagram, that might still happen, though I'd expect it won't even be a consideration till Threads reaches at least 500 million users. Unquote. 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. Be Zen. One of the funniest things I read last week was a printer review from The Verge. Yes, I know, it sounds boring. It sounds like search engine spam.

Starting point is 00:07:48 And it was. Deliberately so. The Verge published a tongue-in-cheek piece which mostly mocked the fact that in order to be successful in Google, all you need to do is claim to test and review products, put lots of shopping links in them, and pretend to update the article every couple of weeks. Some sites literally only update the published date, but some people think that's enough to trick Google into thinking it's recent and therefore relevant. Anyway, his article did recommend a printer, Brother. Like, find the cheapest Brother laser printer you can find, buy it, and shut up. The editor-in-chief who wrote the piece has been the best printer for years now.

Starting point is 00:08:26 But then, the piece continues. Quote, I am including a box with buttons to buy a Brother Laser printer. The buttons kick back a small affiliate fee if you press them and buy a printer. Don't feel compelled to do it. My only ask is that you make this article go viral by sharing it in faux outrage that the editor-in-chief of The Verge has published an article partially generated by AI. And indeed, underneath was your typical gen AI output of pros and cons in bullet points. But here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:09:06 It worked. When you Google best printer for 2024, in the first few organic results, is this piece. This all happened last week. Google search engineer John Mueller was asked on social media why, if cheap AI garbage isn't prioritized by Google, why is this piece doing so well? His answer? People seem to really enjoy it. Yes, it turns out the popularity of the piece,

Starting point is 00:09:32 and in turn perhaps the number of social shares, is what's driving this to the top. The Verge says so far, through the affiliate link in the piece, they've sold more than 2,000 printers. The article is definitely worth a read. You'll find it on The Verge's site. The title is Best Printer 2024, Best Printer for Home Use, Office Use, Printing Labels, Printer for School, Homework Printer, You Are a Printer, We Are All Printers. And finally, there are lots of industries which chase the latest flashy technology to fight irrelevance.

Starting point is 00:10:10 But I've always thought movie theaters had the best tech. They've tried everything. Welcome to the movie theater of the future. If you thought 3D was cool, try adding moving chairs, bubbles, water jets, strobe lights, a feet tickler, and smoke. But I always thought their most interesting offer is the one that never really did get off the ground, so-called smell-o-vision. Smells like gunpowder and freshly brewed coffee are stored in canisters behind the theater

Starting point is 00:10:38 and piped in at the right time. Smell some burning rubber. Sure, it was tried in a couple of tester theaters and in showrooms of theater technology providers, but it's not like it's ever really been a thing. Which is why I was a little surprised to see McDonald's giving Smell-O-Vision a try using outdoor billboards. The billboards themselves, in McDonald's signature red or yellow colors, are completely empty. No words, no pictures, not even a McDonald's logo. But tucked away at the back of the billboard is a compartment where workers put freshly cooked fries in and hope the smell brings consumers toward it.

Starting point is 00:11:19 The billboards are in two Dutch cities right now, and both are within 650 feet of a nearby McDonald's outlet. It's about two football fields in length. This is, of course, probably as much about advertising agency award show nominations than actually trying to sell product, but still kind of fun. We have a bit of a sale on right now for our ad slots in the podcast and the newsletter. If you're interested in reaching more than 5,000 marketing executives, just go to todayindigital.com slash ads or tap the link at the top of the show notes. You can book them right online. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:11:59 Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - To Plural or Not to Plural: That is the Question(s)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.