Search and Destroy: The Imminent Threat to Google's Existence

[00:00:00] It is Friday, May 10th. Today, things are about to get real. AI is poised to take on the fight

[00:00:08] of its life Monday and the battle could shape the future of search advertising forever. Also

[00:00:14] the surprising price of virtual influencers, Google is planning to reveal your sales data

[00:00:20] to the public and exactly how much brand damage have I done to this very podcast with the

[00:00:27] high ad frequency on the free feed. An expert weighs in. I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead,

[00:00:35] Today in Digital Marketing. Monday could be a pivotal day in the history of the internet.

[00:00:43] Google's dominance as the de facto search engine for the world has been in place for

[00:00:46] decades now and while competitors have arrived, Microsoft's Bing probably being the most

[00:00:52] notable, there really hasn't been a challenger big enough to shake Google off its perch.

[00:00:59] Anyway, sure, AI is able to look stuff up on the web and give you a summary of what it finds.

[00:01:04] And sure, sometimes it even gets it right. But AI's like chat GPT have never been

[00:01:10] a search engine in the true sense of the word. And industry analysts have said if companies

[00:01:16] like OpenAI do manage to put an actual search engine together, that could have disastrous

[00:01:21] consequences for Google's entire business model. Well, if reports are true, that's what's about

[00:01:28] to happen. Reuters quoting two sources saying that OpenAI will announce the launch of its AI-powered

[00:01:35] search engine on Monday. Both Bloomberg and the information previously reported that OpenAI

[00:01:40] had been working on this. But does Google understand the significance? At a staff meeting

[00:01:45] recently, Google's head of search told employees quote, people come to us because we're trusted.

[00:01:51] They may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with, but they still come to Google

[00:01:56] to verify what they see there because it is the trusted source. Unquote.

[00:02:02] Okay, sure, that was certainly the case in the earlier days of chat GPT, but the engine is

[00:02:07] getting smarter with fewer hallucinations and new models like Meta's challenger are also

[00:02:13] jumping the industry forward. To be fair, that executive also told his team, it's not

[00:02:19] like life is going to be hunky dory forever. Certainly not, especially when OpenAI has been

[00:02:25] actively hiring Google search engineers for months now. Oh, and one more small kick in the teeth,

[00:02:30] OpenAI's rumored search engine launch Monday is scheduled just one day before Google's big

[00:02:37] IO conference. Quoting the Verge quote, if OpenAI is planning to enter the search game on the

[00:02:43] eve of Google's IO event, then it's likely doing so to send a message. One that Google would do well

[00:02:50] to take seriously given that chat GPT is one of the if not the fastest growing services the world

[00:02:58] has ever seen unquote. And that'll bring us to today's trivia question. What was the first

[00:03:05] ever search engine? Was it Archie, Lycos, Alta Vista, Web Search or Yahoo? I'll have the

[00:03:12] answer for you on Monday yesterday's trivia question, which was not a Walmart store format.

[00:03:17] Most people in the newsletter guessed the right answer and that was Walmart Mega Center.

[00:03:26] You don't need to be in this business long to realize that picking the right influencer to

[00:03:30] rep your product could make a huge difference in sales until now they've really only been

[00:03:35] two choices influencer or no influencer. Now though marketers have another option, fake

[00:03:41] influencer or perhaps more charitably AI influencer. These aren't new, people my age might remember

[00:03:49] Max Hedrum pitching Coca Cola. It's true. One of the people are as we

[00:03:54] co-cologists say catching the waves. Catch it if you can, catch the wave. Coke.

[00:04:00] A great piece this morning in DigiDay has the pros and cons of using a virtual ambassador

[00:04:05] in your marketing campaigns. Among the pros cited, more control over content, lower

[00:04:10] production cost and perhaps for agencies the biggest benefit, more flexible scheduling.

[00:04:17] Quoting that DigiDay piece, quote, virtual influencers aren't limited to the same 24-hour

[00:04:22] day as humans. Factor into the typical human also has a schedule that gets filled up quickly

[00:04:27] and frustrations can mount up. I've managed human influencers for years said one executive

[00:04:32] from an AI talent agency and one obstacle I always kept bumping into was availability.

[00:04:37] There's nothing wrong with having a schedule. Everyone has one, but with a virtual influencer,

[00:04:43] they can do anything at any time, unquote. You might also think that a pro would be the cost

[00:04:48] of the AI talent, but that's not quite what it used to be, quote. Whenever I quote for a human

[00:04:55] influencer versus our bot, again, this is quoting the AI talent executive, the bot is a lot higher

[00:05:02] because there's so much involved. And by that he means his team of three,

[00:05:05] which includes two women alongside himself, one of whom acts as the bot's voice and the other,

[00:05:11] her body movements, the trio digitally map and build out the virtual influencer as though she

[00:05:16] were a real human, unquote. Other cons include a lack of authenticity or emotion. And the piece

[00:05:23] also discusses how AI influencers can drive human influencer rates down. One small note

[00:05:29] on the topic of AIs with emotion in the coming weeks, watch for an interview I did

[00:05:33] with the author of several books and scientific papers on how marketers can teach emotion to their

[00:05:38] AI bots. Definitely an interesting, if slightly eerie conversation that will be coming your way

[00:05:44] in a couple of weeks. The whole digit A piece is worth a read though. You'll find it on their

[00:05:48] site. Look for the post called Inside the Debate Among Marketers For and Against Virtual Influencers.

[00:05:58] From January through April this year, e-commerce spending in the US rose

[00:06:02] 7% from the same period last year. The numbers from Adobe Analytics, which it should be noted can

[00:06:08] only measure those sites which use its measurement tools. This upward trend is expected to help push

[00:06:14] total online spending for the first half of the year over a half trillion dollars. Steady

[00:06:19] spending on electronics and clothing along with a big rise in online grocery shopping led to this

[00:06:24] growth. Electronics and clothing accounted for 34% of total online spending. Adobe says it's

[00:06:31] noticed that people are buying cheaper goods online because of inflation, particularly in personal

[00:06:37] care and electronics. Also the buy now pay later option is becoming more popular up about 12% over

[00:06:44] last year. Yesterday we reported on Threads' plan to expose your post's view count publicly.

[00:06:54] Now Google says it will do the same with your sales data, but not quite as drastically

[00:07:00] as it sounds. Some merchant center managers have been receiving emails from Google saying that

[00:07:05] search results might start showing how many people who searched for a product you sell

[00:07:11] went on to buy it from you. Google said it would probably read something like

[00:07:16] 1000 shopped here recently. In that email Google said, quote, will use your conversion data

[00:07:22] to create a customer history signal that highlights your online store's popularity to

[00:07:26] Google shoppers, helping build shopper confidence in your business. In case you're thinking,

[00:07:32] wait I actually don't want that, Google will provide an opt out in your settings. It says it'll

[00:07:39] still use your data to power various annotations, but it won't display your exact number of conversions.

[00:07:48] An update on the story we did yesterday on the Apple ad. The company has apologized now for

[00:07:53] that ad, the one where dozens of creative tools are crushed into a thin iPad. Creatives took to

[00:07:59] social media to tell Apple they found the ad offensive to their profession. Apple told media

[00:08:04] that it agrees that the spot missed the mark. The ad was viewed by millions online, plans

[00:08:10] to run it on TV have been scrapped. And finally, those of you on the free podcast feed of an

[00:08:20] sending us messages in the last couple of weeks about the high frequency in our ads,

[00:08:24] it's the same ads, mostly programmatic I think that are starting to get a little irritating.

[00:08:29] I get it. But I did wonder after all, I'm a marketer like you, how many ads can I

[00:08:38] you know, get away with before people actually start leaving? On Monday, a deep dive interview

[00:08:44] with the author of a scientific paper on how marketers can exploit someone's personal

[00:08:50] attachment to a brand to mitigate the effects of high ad frequency. I asked him how much damage

[00:08:56] he thought I did to our brand with all these ads. Here's a clip. It depends on who it is that's

[00:09:02] listening to the ads. It's a relationship that you have with the brand. What if you're a big

[00:09:07] fan of BMW? Could you expose those people to advertisement over and over and over, even

[00:09:15] if it's the same ad and not see what has been well established by researchers and practitioners

[00:09:22] over about 40 or 50 years? This phenomenon called brand wear out. I want that number though,

[00:09:28] because there's been other research of course on ad frequency. Some studies have found that high

[00:09:32] frequency helps people remember the message. There's some research that has found that

[00:09:36] repetition can make a claim more believable. But I guess what I'm asking is, what is

[00:09:41] the number? For a super fan or the term you used is someone with high personal brand attachment,

[00:09:48] how many ads can I get away with in repetition? When I'm looking at my Meta ads manager and it's

[00:09:54] reporting a frequency number of 11 over the course of, I don't know, seven days. Is that too many?

[00:09:59] Give me the magic number. The answer to that question and a whole lot more about the nitty

[00:10:04] gritty of combating the negative effects of high ad frequency on your targets. That is

[00:10:11] coming on Monday. And if you too hate high ad frequencies, switch over to the premium podcast.

[00:10:15] Remember it is on sale only until the end of this weekend. These are the last few days it hardly ever

[00:10:20] goes on sale. It's 50% off. That's five bucks a month. There's no annual lock in. There's no

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[00:10:29] show notes to take advantage of that or go to todayindigital.com slash half off.

[00:10:35] That will do it for the week. Today in digital marketing is produced by engage cue digital

[00:10:41] on the traditional territories of this new namek first nation on Vancouver Island.

[00:10:45] Our production coordinator is Sarah Gild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis ad coordination

[00:10:50] by Red Circle. I'm Todd Maffin have a restful weekend. I'll be back Monday with that interview

[00:10:56] and Tuesday with the regular format. That's not just the sound of that first sip of morning

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