Emotion + Science + AI = Profit

[00:00:00] It is Friday, May 17th.

[00:00:03] Today, thousands of TV shows paired with thousands of academic marketing papers.

[00:00:08] And what do you get?

[00:00:09] One television network says an insanely great audience targeting AI.

[00:00:14] Also, a new report says podcast listeners might be a dark horse.

[00:00:19] Print magazines are back and Samsung may have just pulled off the best ad campaign

[00:00:24] all year.

[00:00:26] I'm Tod Maffin.

[00:00:27] That's ahead.

[00:00:28] Before we get started, here is your invitation to our third annual Google Marketing Live

[00:00:36] tailgate.

[00:00:37] It is an unofficial event that myself and Jill Saskengales, our Google Ads correspondent

[00:00:41] host this year will be joined by ex Googlers Matthew Groton and Solange Abraham for a

[00:00:47] review of the last year of the Google Ads platforms and what we expect in this upcoming

[00:00:52] Google Marketing Live event.

[00:00:54] This is our most popular live event all year.

[00:00:56] If you do any Google Ads marketing, you should be at this.

[00:01:00] It'll be Tuesday.

[00:01:01] That's this Tuesday, May 21st at 11 a.m. Eastern time.

[00:01:05] And you can find links to either the YouTube live feed or the LinkedIn live feed

[00:01:10] in the show notes today.

[00:01:12] Go tap those links now because you will get a reminder when the event is live.

[00:01:16] Plus premium members are getting access to an additional private members only live

[00:01:19] show the day after we will be recapping all the announcements that happened talking

[00:01:23] about how those changes will affect your campaigns and have detailed analysis on the

[00:01:27] future of Google Ads.

[00:01:28] And you'll be able to ask Jill, who spent more than six years at Google Ads, all

[00:01:32] of your Google Ads questions that will be exclusive for premium members which you

[00:01:35] can join right now.

[00:01:36] Just tap the link at the top of the show notes that says go premium or go

[00:01:40] to today in digital dot com slash premium.

[00:01:47] Some things really don't change in the ad world.

[00:01:50] Take this year's upfronts, the annual pitch to advertisers by TV networks and

[00:01:54] now streaming services.

[00:01:56] All the usual was there.

[00:01:57] The celebrity cameos, the three martini lunches.

[00:02:00] But one thing of course was new, AI and how the networks believe their tech

[00:02:05] gives them a leg up in reaching better quality audiences.

[00:02:09] NBCU for instance has been working on AI generated audience segments.

[00:02:13] Something apparently so new it was only briefly mentioned on a PowerPoint

[00:02:17] slide.

[00:02:18] But the company later spoke to Digiday about the upcoming segment building

[00:02:21] technology and it's kind of amazing.

[00:02:24] Quoting that Digiday piece, quote, using large language models, NBCU trained its

[00:02:30] AI platform on every movie and show owned and created by NBCU along with

[00:02:36] hundreds of links to web based content.

[00:02:38] After having the AI write summary descriptions for every piece, it

[00:02:41] trained the LLM on data from academic research about behavioral science,

[00:02:47] human emotion and motivation theories.

[00:02:50] The team then had the AI assimilate a system and mathematically map the

[00:02:55] content descriptions with the academic materials to score similarities between

[00:03:01] human emotions and the episodes of each show.

[00:03:05] In an alpha phase last year, NBCU took a handful of clients across

[00:03:09] travel, entertainment, auto and quick service restaurants to test the AI

[00:03:13] generated audience segments.

[00:03:15] According to an executive, the AI generated audiences led to between

[00:03:20] 22% and 46% more sales than the existing machine learning models,

[00:03:27] unquote.

[00:03:28] NBCU wasn't the only one with AI on the brain, of course.

[00:03:31] Disney says its new Magic Words ad product can identify the mood of any

[00:03:35] given scene and match that mood to add creative.

[00:03:38] But don't get too drunk on the AI.

[00:03:40] A Forrester report this month said 60% of US senior marketers are

[00:03:44] concerned that using generative AI in their marketing could create false or

[00:03:50] inaccurate information.

[00:03:51] A new report finds podcast audiences may be a hidden gem in the media

[00:04:00] buying world.

[00:04:00] Edison Research's Podcast Consumer 2024 report found that podcast

[00:04:05] listeners are more affluent and receptive to brand messages than

[00:04:08] others.

[00:04:09] 56% of monthly podcast listeners have an annual household income of

[00:04:14] more than $75,000.

[00:04:16] 56% is that group that compares to 48% of the overall population.

[00:04:22] Almost half are college educated.

[00:04:24] More than two thirds of Americans over the age of 12 have now listened to a

[00:04:27] podcast.

[00:04:28] 34% tune in weekly.

[00:04:32] Perhaps more importantly, to marketing audiences, the report found that

[00:04:35] nearly half of weekly listeners have bought a product or a service as a

[00:04:38] result of hearing an ad on a podcast.

[00:04:41] We have a link to the full report in today's email newsletter, which is

[00:04:43] free.

[00:04:44] You can sign up at todayindigital.com slash newsletter or tap the

[00:04:48] link at the top of the show notes.

[00:04:53] Who said QR codes were dead?

[00:04:56] Pinterest and the print magazine Real Simple have launched a new digitally

[00:05:00] shoppable issue.

[00:05:02] Quoting marketing dive, quote, central to the experience are QR codes

[00:05:06] within each section which consumers can scan to be brought to a

[00:05:10] corresponding Pinterest board where they can explore more than 120 items

[00:05:14] and make instant purchases.

[00:05:16] Nearly every page of the issue is shoppable.

[00:05:20] The effort is live on realsimple.com and on Pinterest's exclusive shoppable

[00:05:25] board and will be in the publications June issue that hits newsstands May 17th.

[00:05:30] This latest move from Pinterest continues a years long effort by the

[00:05:33] platform to court publishers, unquote.

[00:05:37] Pinterest says it gets more than 6 billion searches each month on the

[00:05:40] platform.

[00:05:41] The company reported a 23% increase in year over year revenue for the

[00:05:45] first quarter.

[00:05:46] Gen Z now makes up more than 40% of its users and that is its fastest

[00:05:51] growing demographic.

[00:05:56] And finally, last week we reported on Apple's controversial iPad ad which

[00:06:01] showed a number of creative objects, musical instruments, filmmaking

[00:06:05] tools and so on being crushed by a giant flattening machine.

[00:06:10] At the end, the machine lifts up and reveals a thin iPad.

[00:06:15] Creatives around the world posted on social media how they found it

[00:06:18] offensive.

[00:06:19] Well now, Samsung has jumped on board with a video ad of its own.

[00:06:22] It shows a person wandering through what looks like the set of the Apple

[00:06:27] ad after all the crushing has happened.

[00:06:30] She picks up a damaged guitar and starts playing it.

[00:06:34] At the end, text appears reading, creativity cannot be crushed.

[00:06:40] The ad was produced by agency BBH USA.

[00:06:46] Don't forget this Tuesday our third annual Google Marketing Live

[00:06:49] official tailgate with me and our Google ad correspondent Jill Saskin-Gales

[00:06:53] along with ex-Googlers Matthew Groton and Solange Abraham.

[00:06:57] This is our most popular live event each year.

[00:06:59] Do not forget to join.

[00:07:00] It is live, it is free and the links are at the top of the show notes.

[00:07:04] Again that will be Tuesday May 21st at 11 o'clock Eastern that is 8

[00:07:08] o'clock Pacific time.

[00:07:10] I'm Todd Maffet and thanks for listening.

[00:07:12] See you tomorrow.

[00:07:16] This is the story of the WAD.

[00:07:18] As a maintenance engineer he hears things differently.

[00:07:21] To the untrained ear everything on his shop floor might sound fine but he can hear gears

[00:07:26] grinding or a belt slipping so he steps in to fix the problem at hand before it

[00:07:32] gets out of hand and he knows Grainger's got the right product he needs to get the

[00:07:36] job done which is music to his ears.

[00:07:39] Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.