Marketing Minute — June 2024
The arrival of summer is so special here. Sun. Longer days. Day trips to the beach. But it also comes with a disclaimer: Wear Your Sunscreen. In that spirit, June was something of a warning label month – from social media consumption to news digestion to what is actually training those AI models.
Ahead of the upcoming short week, here’s the June Marketing Minute.
Where Do You Get Your News?
Back in April, we talked about waning trust in the media and the importance of fair reporting, especially when misinformation runs rampant across social media. According to a Pew Research Center survey, TikTok is the top social media app that Americans trust for news. Respondents felt TikTok was less likely to influence news or provide inaccurate info than its peers. Whether the news received on TikTok is accurate or not is another discussion, but this trend continues to point to a change in our country’s media landscape.
Social Media is Bad For Your Health
The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for a warning label on social media platforms, an effort reminiscent of putting warnings on cigarettes. His POV on this topic doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise. For years, doctors and researchers alike have been studying the effects social media has on mental and physical health — with inconclusive takeaways — especially after the pandemic. As social media is ingrained in our daily lives as individuals, and livelihoods as professionals, it presents us with some food for thought.
All Eyes on Adobe
The software company came under fire this month for a series of missteps. The U.S. Department of Justice sued Adobe for “allegedly hiding expensive fees and making it difficult to cancel a subscription.” This filing comes after an influx of user discontent after Adobe updated its terms of use around training AI models by using creators’ work. Adobe tried to save face with a series of blog posts providing an explanation to customers, which promptly backfired.
Declare for Team Marketing
We’re big George R.R. Martin fans here at CTP, and want to give a shout-out to the House of the Dragon and its “Raise Your Banners” campaign ahead of the season two premiere. Popular landmarks across the world raised physical and CGI banners to declare for Team Green or Team Black, culminating with the installation of the dragon Vhaghar on the top of the Empire State Building. With extensions into social, local NYC businesses and more, this is a prime example of a well-executed marketing campaign.
The Wild West
Another month, another reason that X is becoming an even more questionable place for our clients. And it’s not just the increasing amount of spam and bot accounts. Elon Musk this week announced plans to eliminate public likes, obscuring what’s really happening on the platform and incentivising even more bad behavior.
AI Additions
Two AI moves of note in June. 1) Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, launching a new company, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), after he left OpenAI in May after a dramatic falling out with leadership over how to approach AI safety. @) Apple debuted Apple Intelligence, a new AI system that is set to make Siri more useful, introduce a proofreading tool and an image generator and incorporate ChatGPT into iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia.
Chat to you in July!
