Raffi's Round Up - w/c 27th January 2024
The five best Marketing-related nuggets across my desk this week
Welcome to the latest edition of my weekly Round Up!
Greetings from a Starbucks where I’m trying out the new and improved(ish?) vibe! Here are the five best Marketing-related nuggets that came across my desk this week:
ONE (if you want to understand the private label revolution, read this one)
Inflation is ripping through real wages and consumers are responding but chasing value at every turn. How do retailers respond? Cut out the middle-men…
As FMCG giants suffer from years of under-investment in their own brand equity, Walmart and the like reaped the rewards of their own, cheaper product lines (e.g. Walmart’s plant-based bettergoods offering)
Some of the data makes for stark reading…
TWO (if you want to know more about Starbucks’ future, watch this one)
Their new advert is strong. It’s got that ASMR-scratchy-pen thing going on. It’s got real human faces. It’s got that matte-nostalgia finish. Catchy tune too…
I’m here for it and I’m bullish on the direction taken by the new CEO.
THREE (if you’re trying to understand the drama around Hubspot, read this one)
@BuccoCapital shared this on X and it's one of the most concise/accurate summaries of the state of play…
“AI is breaking the B2B marketing model that worked for 20 years.
Companies wrote a ton of “thought leadership” content to capture as much traffic from Google across three categories of queries:
- Awareness: Problem discovery
- Consideration: Evaluating potential solutions
- Decision: Comparing vendors
But now:
- LLMs are eating “awareness” queries since that content is broadly commoditized
- “Consideration” and “decision” queries are moving to forums because you can trust the content is from a human
Breaks the demand gen model for a lot of these companies. Talk to the marketing teams at these places and they. are. freaking. out.
Random thoughts:
- Bullish for Reddit
- Buy companies with strong words of mouth effects
- A great product is the best marketing
- outbound sales matters a lot now
- lot of money shifting to brand marketing. Follow the money
- Look for brands with propriety distribution”
FOUR (if you are watching Lidl’s rise with admiration, read this one)
April Fool’s Day has not come early. Lidl is opening a pub inside one of its stores…
Details are still light on the ground, but they got past some legalisation, and have now secured planning permission for a tap room on their premises in Dundonald, just outside Belfast. They’re spending £410,000 for a new in-store pub alongside an off-sales area.
Who knows how it will turn out, but its stunning rise means it is now just behind Asda in terms of market share, and I’m not betting against CEO Ryan McDonnell’s exceptional track record.
FIVE (if you need a read to put a smile on your face, try this one)
So this is a beautiful story about how a random text started a decades-long marriage. I wish more brands would unearth and celebrate some of this joy. Anecdotally, it feels like people are craving more of it…
“When Donovan Shears sent a text message to a random number in 1998, it changed the course of his life.
He had been given his first mobile phone for his 18th birthday and had just discovered text messaging.
He made up a random number and sent off a message saying "hello", to which his future wife Kirsty wrote back "hi".
"That single moment led to over 20 years of love, laughter, and partnership," they said.”
Full story on the BBC here.
