Believe Me — January 28, 2019

Who can you trust these days? Is Alexa dangerous? What happens when new mobility meets the U.S. legal system? What concerns CEOs most in 2019? Why aren't DTC brands saying yes to Amazon? What 10 social media trends will matter most? What's the secret sauce of podcast advertising? How is streaming turning into cable's business model? Should you be able to monetize your own data? Is it time to regulate influencers? How are marketers changing their TV attribution strategies? Are digital detoxes solutions looking for problems? When can I come speak to your team? The answer to these questions and more await in the Believe Me edition of The Full Monty for the week of January 28, 2019.

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Top Story

"Can I be honest with you?"

That question should spark immediate suspicion. Because it connotes that the person asking the question (a) isn't usually honest with you, and (b) is about to bring down a hammer of sorts.

Here's the thing: we have a problem right now with the truth and trust. The #3 issue keeping CMOs up at night is establishing trust.

It's apt then that the latest edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer came out last week. Also ironic that Mark Zuckerberg's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal ("The Facts About Facebook") was the same untrustworthy stuff we've heard from him — such as the old canard "We don't sell people's data." No, you sell access to people by using their data. Semantics.

And entirely transparent that Zuckerberg used the WSJ as the medium for his message. Facebook has systematically weakened the news industry, and its CEO can't publish this on his own page? Oh, right: regulators don't necessarily follow him on Facebook, but they do read the WSJ opinion pages.

Ever since getting caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has said that its #1 mission is to establish trust (I won't say "restore," because that implies they had it in the first place). But gaffe after gaffe has seemingly obliterated that platitude.

As you read though the links this week, take a good look at how many of them have to do with a lack or breach or trust, or an absence of honesty.

It's an epidemic. And the brand that figure out how to be authentic, believable, and trustworthy stand to win.

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About this week's image:

The Procession of the Trojan Horse into Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1760) illustrates a famous passage from Virgil's Aeneid (Book 2). After a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse—the horse being the emblem of Troy—and hid a select force of men inside including Ulysses (Odysseus). The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war.

Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

The latest in A.I., machine learning, and bots; mobility and autonomous everything.
Aʀᴛɪꜰɪᴄɪᴀʟ Iɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ / Mᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ Lᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢ

We're just at the beginning of voice assistants. Soon, they may be much more than humble servants. Which leads some to ask: is Alexa dangerous? Which really stems from a wider question of trust. (The Atlantic) Alexa, are you dangerous?
Alexa is now delivering headlines in a "newscaster" voice. When U.S. users ask "what's the latest?" the device will use direct waveform modeling to respond in the tone used by anchorpeople. (TechCrunch) I wonder if we'll be able to pick the newscaster voice that's the most trustworthy to us? Imagine if Walter Cronkite or Sean Hannity answered.
Hey, if you don't trust your voice assistant, just do with this designer did: build a device to keep your home voice assistant from spying on you. (FlowingData)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing unit is open-sourcing Neo-AI for machine learning. This will serve as a framework for optimizing A.I. models on other platforms, such as Google's TensorFlow, Nvidia, and others. (VentureBeat)
The technology behind Libratus, the A.I. bot that defeated human poker champions in 2017, has been contracted by the Pentagon for $10 million. The technology will be used for military strategy, planning, and simulations. (Outer Places) But not for shutdown negotiations, obvs.

Aᴜᴛᴏɴᴏᴍᴏᴜs / Mᴏʙɪʟɪᴛʏ

What happens when a new mobility mode meets the American legal system? The anatomy of an electric scooter crash. (CitiLab)
Waymo will be assembling self-driving vehicles in Michigan. (Medium) Note: assembling, not building. Waymo relies on other auto manufacturers to integrate its own hardware and software.
Automakers may have overestimated how many people actually want electric cars. (Quartz) From the department of 'duh.' It's likely rooted in low gas prices and automakers' need to have a higher price point than consumers want.
Driver-assistance systems have too many different names. AAA found that there are 40 different brand names used to describe automatic emergency braking, 20 different names for adaptive cruise control and 19 terms of lane-keeping assistance. (Roadshow)

Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.

Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢʏ / Mᴀʀᴋᴇᴛɪɴɢ / Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ

Ad budgets in the U.K. are beginning to flow away from Facebook and to addressable TV. (Digiday) More on data-driven TV investments in the Measurement/Data section below.
For 2019, B2B tech marketers are most focused on lead generation, by a margin of almost 2:1 over brand awareness and product education and awareness. (Marketing Charts)
Under a threat of potential jail time, a group of British online influencers have agreed to change how they post online after their social media profiles were investigated by the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority. (CNN Business)

Jᴏᴜʀɴᴀʟɪsᴍ / Cᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴs / Rᴇᴘᴜᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer is out, and as you can imagine, there are huge drops of trust in every segment. (Edelman)

Notably, people said they trust their own employer to do what's right.
But major gaps of trust exist between the informed and uninformed public.
There was a massive rise in news engagement — to the tune of 22 percent.

Journalism took a major hit last week with over 1,000 layoffs in media jobs in one day, including from BuzzFeed, Gannett, and Verizon Media. (Axios) This comes amidst a battle for supremacy from tech giants like Facebook and Google, an already eviscerated local news landscape, and the ubiquitous availability of free content everywhere.

Here'a a great tweetstorm chronicling the decline of newspaper advertising from journalism professor Jeremy Littau. (Twitter)

Here's what concerns CEOs the most in 2019, including recession fears (external) and talent quality and leadership development (internal). (The Conference Board)
The top 10 public relations research insights of 2018. (Institute for PR)

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Retail Apocalypse

Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is — is undergoing a historical metamorphosis.

Amazon knows that direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands own the relationships with their customers (and the rich data that results from it). And Amazon wants a piece of it. But the DTC brands aren't falling for it. (Digiday)
Amazon will begin testing its robot Scout, for delivery of one- and two-day shipping. (Wired) We'll see how long it takes for thieves go from grabbing packages off porches to simply loading Scout into the back of a van.
Mall-based retailer Things Remembered is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and close most of its 400 stores. (Reuters) ♫ You must remember this...♪
IKEA gets you to impulsively buy more because it has mastered the “Gruen effect.” (YouTube)
Millennials have been credited with upending entire industries, and retail is no exception. Here's what retailers need to know about attracting and retaining consumers from a maturing generation of digital shoppers. (eMarketer) And technically, it's not just Millennials; it's anyone from any generation who is doing more online.
Did you ever send a package back to Amazon? Here's exactly where Amazon returns go to be resold by hucksters. (The Atlantic)

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Platforms

News to know about relevant social media and technology platforms that may affect your business.

How a Vermont social network became a model for online communities. (The Verge) The bad news for large players like Facebook is that it takes human curation, approvals, and interaction, and that it seems to work well in manageable numbers (Vermont's is about 160,000 members). The good news is that it serves as a model for brand- or interest-based communities.
Related: the 10 social media trends that will matter most this year. (Search Engine Journal)

Fᴀᴄᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ / Iɴsᴛᴀɢʀᴀᴍ / WʜᴀᴛsAᴘᴘ

The biggest news about Facebook dropped on Friday, with the announcement that the back ends of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger would be integrated, allowing users of any of those Facebook-owned platforms to be able to message each other across platforms. (The New York Times) This is widely seen as an effort to leapfrog regulators, to make it more difficult to break Facebook up.
Unsealed court records show Facebook encouraged game developers to let children spend money without their parents permission—what they called 'friendly fraud'—and Facebook knew some kids didn't know they were even spending money. (Reveal) Maybe they'll be hit with an exceedingly large 'friendly fine.'
Roger McNamee mentored Mark Zuckerberg, but can't stay silent any longer about what he calls the power, privilege, and abuse of trust going on there. (Time)

Tᴡɪᴛᴛᴇʀ

Twitter is beginning to roll out a redesigned interface for web users, including the addition of an emoji button and an update to its trending section. (The Verge) I've been using it for the last couple of weeks; it's very similar to the mobile app.

Oᴛʜᴇʀ

Google was fined $57 million for violating Europe's new privacy laws. (Recode) A drop in the bucket, but a message that the EU isn't kidding around.

Media

The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.

Vɪᴅᴇᴏ

How the success of Netflix's Bird Box, which was watched by 58% of its user base in its first month, drives Netflix's virtuous cycle as an aggregator. (Stratechery)
Hulu is lowering the price for its least expensive subscription plan while raising the cost of its live TV offering, a move that aims to bolster its subscriber numbers while increasing the margins on its most expensive plan. (The Wall Street Journal)
Internet video stream cord-cutting services started as cheap alternatives to cable television, but now they are duplicating cable's business models with similar costs. (ZDNet) What's past is prologue. The media industry has little imagination or variation on its models.

Aᴜᴅɪᴏ

An infographic that demonstrates why 2018 was the year that podcasting went mainstream. (Fast Company)
Tom Webster of Edison Research has the answer for what everyone is wondering about: the secret sauce of podcast advertising. (Medium)
Listen Real-Time is like Google Analytics Real-Time, but for podcast episodes. These are the podcast episodes being listened right now. (Listen Notes)
Related: the best podcast search engine. (Lifehacker)
Program of the Week: Mo Rocca hosts Mobituaries, an irreverent but deeply researched appreciation of the people (and things) of the past who have long intrigued him.

Please subscribe to The Full Monty podcast, our own 5-minute weekly business commentary. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

Do try this at home: "Alexa, play the latest episode of The Full Monty."

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Privacy / Security / Regulatory

Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more. Pʀɪᴠᴀᴄʏ / Sᴇᴄᴜʀɪᴛʏ / Hᴀᴄᴋɪɴɢ

Will.i.am argues that consumers should own their data and be able to monetize it. (The Economist)
How to protect yourself from getting your Nest device hacked. (Tom's Guide) It's a simple matter of self-education that's necessary when you buy with connected devices.
Facebook may be facing a record fine from the FTC over its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. (Recode)

Rᴇɢᴜʟᴀᴛᴏʀʏ / Oɴ-Dᴇᴍᴀɴᴅ Eᴄᴏɴᴏᴍʏ

With so much money flooding into a largely unregulated, still-developing market, all sorts of ethical lapses are bound to ensue, and indeed they have. Is It Time to Regulate Influencers? (NY Mag)
The rise of Uber and Lyft caused a decline in public transit use, to the tune of -1.29 percent for rail use and -1.7 percent for bus use. Americans prefer more individualized transportation and being able to exercise more control over it. (StreetsBlog)
Didi says its global ride-hailing network had 550 million users, over 31 million drivers, and covered more than 1,000 cities around the world in 2018. (South China Morning Post)
A look inside Uber's Special Investigations Unit, a 60+ team handling severe reported incidents, nearly 1,200/week, often leading to stress and emotional trauma. (CNN Business)
Instacart admits that it uses tips to calculate how it pays workers. In other words, if a customer leaves a large tip, Instacart figures it doesn't have to add much in, so the tip becomes the wage. (Working Washington) Possibly illegal? Certainly unconscionable.

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.

With an increase in programmatic spending and more targeting, marketers are changing their TV attribution strategies. (eMarketer)
Amazon is adding customer acquisition metrics for display, video, and Sponsored Brands campaigns. The "new-to-brand" set of metrics are aimed at helping brands understand how well their campaigns convert first-time buyers. (MarketingLand)
If you use marketing automation, you're better positioned to be able to prove ROI. (Marketing Charts)

Speaking

How can you energize your team and give them actionable ideas for boosting customer engagement? It's all about applying Timeless Wisdom to your process — practical and relatable lessons drawn from historical and literary contexts.

Combine this with Fortune 10 executive experience and some great stories, and you'll be happy that you spent a fraction of what it costs to send your team to a major conference. I'll spend anywhere from an hour to a whole day with your team and give them the power to develop trusted, lasting relationships with your customers.

Let's chat and see if I can customize a session for you.

Mental Nourishment

Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.

The company that bought Necco, Round Hill Investments LLC, shut down the plant that produced Sweethearts last year. As a result, this will be the first year since 1866 that you won't be able to buy those candy hearts imprinted with messages. (The Guardian) Do they make one that says "TOO BAD"?

Fear not! Krispy Kreme will be selling conversation heart donuts. (Detroit Free Press)

Digital detoxes: are these well-meaning practices just solutions looking for problems? Technology isn't inherently bad, so detoxing isn't inherently good either. (Quartz) "Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison." —Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.
The secrets of the Harvard library that protects the world's rarest pigments. (Fast Company)
Wisdom doesn't automatically come with age, but being able to see patterns based on experience and having a willingness to learn can help older people thrive. (Knowledge @ Wharton)
Get uncomfortable. (Timeless Wisdom)
If you've been to New York, you've undoubtedly gone past the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue. Perhaps you've even gone inside for a bit. But have you really seen it? This video tour has the hidden details of the New York Public Library. (Architectural Digest)

Top image credit: (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

Monday, January 28, 2019