A.I. this. Blockchain that. The latest in the tech wars. You'd think we're living in the future. In some ways we are, but our route here is an interesting and essential one to understand. Rooted in so much of what we need to address today – in marketing, business, and technology – is where we came from.
You've often heard the saying "those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it." It's not quite as bleak as that. But if you stop to observe, history has lessons that can actually provide a roadmap for us as we forge through the wilderness of the future.
In this episode, I'll take you to the steps of the National Archives in Washington, DC for a history lesson and a preview of things to come.
We're seeing shifts in the use of technology, but it's nothing new; A.I. will results in more net jobs; how humans can tell if you're not a robot; Alibaba's autonomous car goals; the future of advertising; Amazon's play for media, advertising, retail, and whatever else it wants; Chatter Matters takes a look at word of mouth; the most relevant brands in the U.S.; retail vs. e-commerce (again, and more); Instagram is getting out the vote; why absentee ballots are a pain for college students; the Old Twitter is here; Slideshare is dying; audio captions to a print magazine; the EU's approach to copyright is dangerous; Airbnb wants hosts to own part of the company; Adobe buys Marketo; celebrating Mister Rogers; "look at your fish," and other sage advice; plus the podcast pick of the week and more in the As the Pendulum Swings edition of The Full Monty for the week of September 24, 2018.
The Full Monty saves you time and makes you smarter by curating the essential business intelligence every week. Links are below with commentary in italics. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And check out The Full Monty on Flipboard.
In just a few weeks, I'll be making a switch to a tiered subscription model. Some content will always be free, and the full version will be accessible via a reasonable monthly fee. If you'd care to let me know what a fair price is to you, I'd be grateful to hear from you.
Also, each Monday at 1:00 pm ET, I'm hosting The Weekly Tease, a 5-minute preview of what you'll hear in The Full Monty podcast and what I'll write about on ScottMonty.com this week. I hope you'll tune in.
Top Story
We like to think that the developments we're seeing today are unique. Thanks to the incredible innovation and advanced technology, we're seeing business and consumers change in ways we've never seen before.
Except when we have.
Whether it's personalized content (hello, letters and postcards, anyone?), or grocery delivery (tell that to the milkman and grocer from the early 20th century), or a move to more private conversations away from public social networks (private phone lines that evolved from party lines), we've seen it all before, just in a different format.
Watch the trends. See the pendulum swing wildly in one direction, then head back for a correction, before finally settling in the middle. It'll happen.
“Read it up—you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet
“The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It’s all been done before, and will be again.”
I hand-curate all of the content you see below (plus other stories on Flipboard that don't make the newsletter). If you've got something you think I should see, @ me on Twitter, Facebook, or email.
The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.
Aʀᴛɪꜰɪᴄɪᴀʟ Iɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ / Mᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ Lᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢ
According to the World Economic Forum, machines and algorithms could displace 75 million jobs by 2022...but demand for new tasks might create 133 million jobs over the same time period, a net gain of 58 million jobs. (CNBC)
SAP is looking at the softer side of artificial intelligence, as it brings in a theologian to help with the ethics of A.I. (Telegraph) We've long said that the humanities need representation just as much as STEM in the creation of the next generation of technology.
Alibaba is developing a microchip for autonomous vehicles as part of its Made in China 2025 plans. (Business Insider) The technology giant from China has the power to make a large impact with such an advance, putting China into a very competitive position.
The one autonomous vehicle that seems to be making headway: the bus. (The Hustle)
Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy
Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.
Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢʏ / Mᴀʀᴋᴇᴛɪɴɢ / Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ
Experts weigh in on the future of advertising. One take-away: budgets will shift to more controlled environments, with targeting that looks at context versus just demographics. (CMO.com) Contextual relevance is everything.
WPP's new CEO Mark Read has said that he will unveil a strategy update by the end of the year and has said merging creative and digital firms makes more sense than combining creative agencies. (WSJ) The time has come for digital and creative to leave their own swim lanes.
For all of the coverage of Facebook and Google, here's a look at social ad spending on other platforms. How has a dip in user growth affected Snap’s ad revenue potential? What’s behind Twitter’s rebound? And how much money does Pinterest make from digital advertising? (eMarketer)
We often get stuck in the same kinds of updates, or simply can't decide what to create. Here are 105 ideas to add to your editorial calendar. (Convince & Convert) Bookmark this post and refer to it when you need inspiration.
Word of mouth—online and offline—impacts every business, organization, candidate, and cause. Chatter Matters is a report that contains the results of a proprietary study of 1,001 individuals about how they decide what to buy, how to vote, and more. (Convince & Convert)
These are the brands considered most relevant by Americans in 2018, according to Prophet. Four characteristics generally shared by the most relevant: customer obsession; ruthless pragmatism; distinctive inspiration; and pervasive innovation. (MarketingCharts)
Retail Apocalypse
Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is — is undergoing a historical metamorphosis.
Walmart says more than 17,000 Oculus Go headsets will be used in its U.S. stores by the end of the year to train its employees, in an expansion of a pre-existing program. Employees will be trained on technology, compliance, and soft skills like empathy and customer service. (ZDNet) I witnessed these firsthand last summer at a visit to Walmart's training facilities. It was impressive.
Macy's CEO says that it's more difficult for an e-commerce player to tackle physical retail than it is the other way around. (Recode) It's certainly more capital-intensive. The question for physical retailers is build or buy the technology to catch Amazon. Walmart has done a solid job with Jet.com and its other purchases.
Product search is shifting from Google to Amazon, and Amazon's sales growth trails its rivals. These are some of the interesting points about Amazon shopping behavior. (MarketingCharts)
It's a good thing, since officials in Fairfax County, Virginia learned that college students were failing to send back their absentee ballots because they didn't know how to get a stamp. (Business Insider) I wonder what Stamps.com thinks about all of that podcast advertising they spent in the last couple of years?
Mobile social network Path is officially closing. (Techcrunch) You probably didn't even know they were still open (or if you're new enough to the industry, that they even existed).
Pinterest has given SMBs the ability to access Shop the Look pins, a free product-tagging tool for organic search. (MarketingLand) Any business or influencer can use a self-service tool to tag home decor and fashion products, putting Pinterest in square competition with Facebook, Instagram, Amazon and more.
The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.
Vɪᴅᴇᴏ
Given the Emmy battle between HBO and Netflix, it should be no surprise that Amazon is aggressively pushing into entertainment. (Axios) From devices to content to technology, the company seems to be clearing the way for its growing advertising network.
Comcast outbid Fox in a $39 billion takeover of Sky. (CNBC) Suddenly, Comcast has a foothold in international markets.
SiriusXM is buying Pandora in an all-stock deal worth $3.5 billion. (Yahoo Finance) This puts the largest streaming service inside of millions of vehicles.
With a sponsorship from GE, The New York Times Magazine’s “Voyages issue” this weekend featured stories told through audio that corresponded with full images without captions in the magazine. (AdWeek) A bold and different approach to content consumption. Exclusive content is a great driver to technology you want consumers to use.
Program of the Week: Our pick this week is Last Seen: The Largest Art Heist in History. It's a look at the notorious theft of artwork from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It's a great true-crime pod without a corpse.
And don't forget about The Full Monty podcast, our own brief weekly business commentary.
And so, he started PlayFreeBird.com and the donations started rolling in.
Uber is in talks to acquire food-delivery company Deliveroo, one of Europe's largest startups. (Bloomberg) Once again, the marriage of food delivery and ride sharing is irresistible.
Lyft has logged one billion trips in six years – the same amount of time it took Uber to reach that level. But Lyft is only in North America. (The Verge)
Airbnb wants to give its hosts equity in the business. Specifically, Airbnb is seeking a change to the SEC’s Rule 701 — which governs ownership of equity in companies — to allow a new kind of shareholder class for workers who participate in gig economy companies and their services. (TechCrunch)
Measurement / Analytics / Data
The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.
Adobe announced that it's acquiring Marketo for $4.75 billion. (CNBC) This sends shockwaves through the marketing technology industry, particularly toward competitors like Hubspot, Salesforce, Oracle, and SAP.
There's still a lot of variability out there on just how to calculate video metrics. This ROI / Attribution Providers guide offers A Comparison of Leading Providers of Media Performance Analyses via a study by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement. (CIMM).
Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.
The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine, is one of the most in-demand restaurants in the country. It accepts reservations one way only — by mail. (The Washington Post) via Ann Handley
One of the few things that could raise anger — real, intense anger — in Mister Rogers was the willful misleading of children. He thought superheroes were the worst culprits. (LongReads)
Digital minimalism is all about how to simplify your digital life. (Medium | The Startup) They might tell you to unsubscribe to this newsletter. Don't listen to them.
For the curious: this is how much VCs are paid. (TechCrunch) That's of course without successful exits.
This 1999 interview with David McCullough captures the wisdom behind the work of this historian and biographer. Most poignant advice for writers and creators: look at your fish. (The Paris Review)
Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to get essential digital news, hand-curated, and delivered to your inbox each week. And why not share this with some colleagues?
"You have the grand gift of silence, Watson. It makes you invaluable as a companion." So said Sherlock Holmes said in "The Adventure of the Man with the Twisted Lip." The emotionally intelligent leader knows when to be silent as well. Yet we often forget that, in the heat of the moment.
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and FDR were all tested by adversity, which informed their empathy, self-awareness, humility, and ability to reflect. Leaders of all stripes should heed the same advice as those leaders, and also recall some wise words from Cicero and John Calvin.
If you only knew the power of Dark Social; humanity is unprepared for A.I.; health and wearables; shared vehicles need an emergency plan; The Weather Channel's impressive work under stressful conditions; social media accounts for 1 in every 8 marketing dollars; the negatives of negative and positive reviews; Walmart continues its e-commerce push; what's killing Sears; the restaurant industry under threat; Zuckerberg needs to step up; Google employees resign in protest; Roku's unfair advantage; iHeartMedia hearts stuff; authentication via phone and reputation; the sharing economy is hollowing out cities; Uber gets its first CMO; personalization is okay, with some limitations; data quality is job #1; energizers have three things in common; the story behind Two Buck Chuck; creepy Victorian advertising; plus the podcast pick of the week and more in the Dark Skies edition of The Full Monty for the week of September 17, 2018.
The Full Monty saves you time and makes you smarter by curating the essential business intelligence every week. Links are below with commentary in italics. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And check out The Full Monty on Flipboard.
A couple of years ago, I experimented with Facebook's Live Video feature when they gave me beta access. I hosted Sundays with Scott, where I covered a few topics from the newsletter each Sunday night.
That became a little too much – partly because of prepping the newsletter for the next day, the competition of TV shows (sports, awards shows, and content that fans couldn't wait to binge), and the family routine.
So, I've decided to relaunch on a different day and time, with a slightly different twist.
Each Monday at 1:00 pm ET, I'll be hosting The Weekly Tease, a 5-minute preview of what you'll hear in The Full Monty podcast and what I'll write about on ScottMonty.com. I hope you'll tune in.
Top Story
Have you heard of Dark Social? It's not the seedy underbelly of the Internet (there are other places for that). It's the term used for the social sharing of content that can't be measured by traditional methods. Think WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter DMs, etc.
Businesses need to be respectful of these decisions and make their digital and social efforts less intrusive, in terms of interruption and of data requirements. Enabling more private conversations may be a way into the hearts of the young.
Thanks this week to these fine folks who poked around in the darkness to find some of the links in this week's edition: Ryan O. Emge, Jeremiah Owyang, Tory Starr, David Armano, Kris Hoet, and Chris Poterala.
I hand-curate all of the content you see below (plus other stories on Flipboard that don't make the newsletter). If you've got something you think I should see, @ me on Twitter, Facebook, or email.
The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.
Aʀᴛɪꜰɪᴄɪᴀʟ Iɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ / Mᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ Lᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢ
Average citizens see a revolution coming in the workplace, and they are concerned. Many fear robots and computers will eliminate jobs and increase inequality. (Pew Research Center)
Facebook has developed an A.I. tool that can read the text that appears in memes, images, and frames of video. The tool, called Rosetta, uses machine learning to recognize and identify text and can process more than a billion images a day in a variety of languages. (Mashable) Now if we could only get humans of the Internet to understand the sarcasm, subtlety and sub-context of such content.
Kaleido Insights introduces a framework for organizational preparedness in artificial intelligence—not only of data and infrastructure, but of people, ethics, strategy, and practicality needed to deploy effective and sustainable machine learning programs. (Kaleido Insights) A report worth checking out.
Aᴜᴛᴏɴᴏᴍᴏᴜs / Mᴏʙɪʟɪᴛʏ
UberpocaLyft Now: In a world of shared and autonomous vehicles, who gets priority when we have to evacuate millions because of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or a forest fire? Even if the evangelists are right, self-driving cars work perfectly, cost-per-mile plummets, and pollution, traffic and safety are solved, steering wheels and car ownership will survive, and deserve to. Why? Because history repeats itself, cultural memory is long, modern society is brittle, and the survival instinct doesn't care about efficiency or cost. (The Drive) An important longread on mobility, particularly as North Carolina experiences the effects of Hurricane Florence. And another vote for remembering what's past is prologue.
Google Street View cars will be driving with air quality sensors to determine how the planet is doing. (Techcrunch) Hey, as long as you're covering the Earth's roads, may as well, right? Now take a picture of all of the potholes that need fixing too.
Boeing is investing in artificial intelligence and products that will help manage our overcrowded skies and take the pressure off human pilots. (MIT Technology Review) Who says autonomous is just for cars?
Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy
Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.
Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢʏ / Mᴀʀᴋᴇᴛɪɴɢ / Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ
The Weather Channel made headlines with its use of IMR (immersive mixed reality) in showing what 3, 6 and 9 feet of flood surges would look like for residents of North Carolina threatened by Hurricane Florence. (Wired)
Websites, blogs and social media are perceived to be effective channels through which to market content to prospective customers, but none are quite as effective as email. (MarketingCharts)
As your team thinks about developing an app, keep this statistic in mind: on average, most apps get deleted only 5.8 days after their last use. (eMarketer) Keep your users engaged and make your app useful and valuable if you want to maintain phone real estate.
Most Americans continue to get news on social media, even though many have concerns about its accuracy. Reddit, Facebook and Twitter stand out as the sites with the most news-focused users. (Pew Research Center)
Pedialyte arrived on Instagram in 2017, inviting people to join #TeamPedialyte and post photos of themselves with its branded swag. #TeamPedialyte wasn’t staffed with your typical 10,000-follower Instagrammers, but real fans with fewer than 1,000 followers who genuinely liked the brand. Why? It turns out that Pedialyte is a pretty effective hangover remedy. (Vox)
Retail Apocalypse
Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is — is undergoing a historical metamorphosis.
Why do CPG brands need an Amazon strategy? According to several executives in the space, it’s not just about sales—it’s about testing, learning and prepping for the day when e-commerce becomes a significant source of retail sales. (eMarketer)
What's killing Sears? According to their CEO, it's the pension fund. (CNN Money) Let's not forget selling off Craftsman. And Kenmore. And failure to innovate. And being completely mediocre.
Speaking of apps, Instagram is building a standalone app for shopping. (The Verge) It's not clear how likely IGers will be to download another app versus the building of a commerce function within Instagram (cf. WeChat).
The restaurant industry has a Netflix-like problem. Restaurants are hurting from a combination of online grocery delivery, pre-made meals, meal kits and the rise of streaming services that keep more people at home. While restaurant sales may have increased, the rise is due to increased prices rather than more foot traffic. Expenses like rent and the cost of food and labor have forced restaurants, including cheaper fast food options, to raise prices, which makes eating at home even more financially friendly. (Bloomberg) Casserole and chill, anyone?
The 2018 Retail Forecast for Women's Footwear is here and moving quickly. If you want to be prepared in advance of the retail holiday season, now's the time to grab it and get all of the insights to make a measurable impact on sales.
News to know about relevant social, virtual, and augmented reality platforms that may affect your business.
Fᴀᴄᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ / Iɴsᴛᴀɢʀᴀᴍ / WʜᴀᴛsAᴘᴘ
"These are not technical puzzles to be cracked in the middle of the night but some of the subtlest aspects of human affairs, including the meaning of truth, the limits of free speech, and the origins of violence." Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before it Breaks Democracy? (The New Yorker) Help us, Pale and Wan, you're our only hope.
Facebook has launched a range of holiday features for advertisers, including dynamic ad overlays that can be customized, as well as new holiday-related stickers and templates for mobile video ads. (Marketing Land)
Facebook advertisers can now manage where Instant Article, in-stream video ads appear. Advertisers are getting a more complete view of where their ads may be placed before a campaign, as well as more thorough publisher delivery reports. (MarketingLand)
Tᴡɪᴛᴛᴇʀ
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sat with with NYU's Jay Rosen and discussed how the company has been gamed by bad actors and what it plans to do. The full transcript of the conversation covers news, impartiality, abuse, misinformation, bad actors, and hiring an ombudsman. (Recode) Great frank conversation.
With virtually no attention paid to it and zero human support, Slideshare may just be past it. R.I.P. Slideshare. It was good while it lasted. (MarketingProfs) What do you use as an alternative? Personally, I think it may be like Flickr: still useful as a repository and sharing mechanism, but not so much as a community or a platform with ever-developing features any more.
Pinterest announced that it passed 250 million monthly active users, a growth point that seems in line with its booming sales, up 58% year over year. (VentureBeat) Don't count Pinterest out any time soon.
A Senior Google scientist resigned over plan to launch censored search engine in China. He said, "I view our intent to capitulate to censorship and surveillance demands in exchange for access to the Chinese market as a forfeiture of our values." (The Intercept)
Panoply is getting out of the content creation business, instead focusing on hosting, monetization and analytics. Slate will pick up the shows Panoply is dumping. (HotPod) Perhaps an interesting commentary on the high cost of quality content creation.
Serial is launching Season 3 that looks at the Cleveland criminal court system. And it will be exclusively sponsored by ZipRecruiter. (Hollywood Reporter) Get ready to hear about ZipRecruiter everywhere this fall.
Program of the Week: Our pick this week is The Oval Office Tapes. What if that soccer ball that Putin gave Trump was covered in microscopic listening devices? The result is this comedy podcast. Do you have a program to recommend? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts.
And don't forget about The Full Monty, our own brief weekly bit of business commentary.
While you may be getting a good deal on your Airbnb, one side-effect of the sharing economy: it's hollowing out our cities. Transient residents and occasionally vacant apartments mean less frequent customers at local shops and restaurants. (Guardian)
Uber hired former Beam-Suntory and Coca-Cola executive Rebecca Messina as its first CMO. (AdWeek) Fun Fact: Rebecca and I were on the board of the American Marketing Association together.
The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.
Fast, connected and personalized is how younger generations want their online experiences. Baby Boomers? Not so much. (MarTech Today) And once again, transparency is the key to trust.
Many consumers understand how companies use their personal data, but according to a recent study, not everyone is comfortable with it. (eMarketer) Let me guess: Baby Boomers?
Adobe is in talks to buy Marketo, a marketing automation company. (Reuters) This would be a strategic asset as Adobe comes up against Microsoft and Oracle.
Want to be as successful as Jeff Bezos? Try getting eight hours of sleep a night and holding all meetings until 10:00 a.m. (WSJ) And taking over every possible industry.
That Full Monty episode that incorporated The Great Gatsby. (SoundCloud)
Advertisers have jumped on the bandwagon since the industry's earliest days. A creepy Victorian adverting trend. (The Ephemera Society) Surprise and...delight?
Volkswagen announced they're discontinuing the iconic Beetle in 2019. Here's a classic Volkswagen ad that commemorates another passing:
Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to get essential digital news, hand-curated, and delivered to your inbox each week. And why not share this with some colleagues?
Top image credit: Hurricane by Winslow Homer, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
