Marketing Minute — July 2024
An unprecedented presidential exit. Alphabet’s enormous about face. AI-driven search engines exploding. Soccer chaos in Miami. And our favorite new parody series.
It wasn’t just your electric bill that was on fire this month.
Here’s the July Marketing Minute.
Cookies are Here to Stay
In a surprise move, Google announced it no longer plans to eliminate the cookie. A few months ago, the tech giant postponed the exit of cookies for the third time after a wave of concern around antitrust implications and widespread industry resistance. With cookies here to stay, for now, the advertising world is letting out a collective sigh of relief. We’ll be watching to see what might try to usurp the cookie next.
Newest In the AI World
Say hello to a new search engine. This month, OpenAI announced SearchGPT, “a new search feature designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web.” Unlike Google or Bing, SearchGPT attempts to organize and synthesize information for the user rather than presenting a long list of links. SearchGPT might be the newest AI-based search engine, but it’s not the only one. Perplexity has received major buzz in the tech industry, and Google and Bing are experimenting with AI overviews in their search engines. Although it’s in preliminary stages, AI-based search engines have the potential to upend the way we search for and receive information.
Speak Gen-Z’s Language
Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has made major headlines for its unique social media strategy. The campaign’s approach? Lean into meme marketing, pop-culture references and Gen-Z humor to galvanize young voters. As outlined by Time magazine, the campaign has leveraged her funniest and awkward moments into, “profile-boosting symbols and soundbites that youth voters, in particular, can get behind,” which have become a major topic of interest to outlets like CNN and The New York Times. In communications it’s extremely important to strategically engage with your key audience and with 41 million Gen-Zers eligible to vote in November, Kamala HQ is off to a great start winning their vote by speaking their language.
Who Needs a Crisis Communications Plan?
If you’re a soccer fan (or should we say football) you most likely witnessed the chaos of the Copa America final. Ahead of the match played by Columbia and Argentina, ticketless fans jumped fences and turnstiles causing destruction and discord around the stadium. The tournament organization and host stadium fumbled the security and their crisis communications plan. The lackluster response and weak statements left fans feeling wary about the 2026 World Cup set to take place across North America.
Make Marketing Fun
We love The Office here at CTP. We also love a good spoof. Which has made us big fans of Mohawk Chevrolet, the dealership in upstate NY that’s blown up TikTok with its parody of The Office. Inspired by real life events around the dealership, two digital branding creators jumped on an off-the-cuff idea to make a mockumentary style video. The success of the video series is a good reminder that marketing doesn’t have to be filled with big budget productions or overly branded creative. Focus on good quality, creative content to drive visibility and interest. Now if Dwight just stops by to sell them some paper…
See you in August!
