1024 Drop - Verify To Trust

Lets dive into 1024 Must Reads ↓

→1 Police Influencers Going For More Power - Who knew police influencers were (A) a thing and (B) so popular they go for higher power and go into politics from their fan base. I am not surprised and although this is more specifically a Brazilian niche, we will see many political parties look to leverage influencers and creators to go into their parties and influence the younger demos. I worry that many are set up for a fall and the political parties know this and will pray on this tactic for the next few voting cycles. We are 3 elections into the true power of social media and until there is change (Meta are attempting to help here) we will see anyone with a large audience being wooed into politics. Not so sure…Just look at TikTok and count the politically charged videos.

→2 Being More Than A Food Brand - Going from a food brand to a lifestyle brand is something very few manage, Chick-fill-A are (despite what is being suggested) smartly going into the lifestyle space and becoming what I call ‘an everyday brand’ - trying to connect to their audience every day away from having to advertise and gather information from their customers on every visit/order. This is likely going to reduce the need for new and increasing food meal deals like so many of their FMCG competitors. Don’t expect many to try it but being in your customer’s lives daily is the holy grail for so many brands.

→3 365-Day Exec Plan Outline - If you are a manager or more senior in your career and thinking about a new job or inline for a promotion, this 365 day plan will help you to rethink how you plan out your year and the activities to take to be more successful.

→4 30+ Actionable Ways To Improve Your Leadership Skills In Simple Steps - Is your company underperforming or making big changes that your colleagues aren’t brought into? Here are 30+ ways you can make recommendations to help. With stack ranked

→5 How Algothrimic Social Media Has Blindsided Society - Social media has changed so many people’s lives, some for the better but many for the worst. I was lucky to meet my better half on social media and have met great friends and business connections on social. But on the other hand I know many people who have been bullied, and their children suffer 247 attacks from kids from how many friends they have, how little engagement they get on their posts to falling for a DM from a bully.
Having worked in brands that rely on social media and being hindered with tiny algorithmic updates it can be stressful.
Most people are still unaware of the power and external influence of social media platform and we are only just learning about foreign actors influencing our day to lives to modern day elections (it suggested this US election is the TikTok and podcast election)

» An interesting observation recently is how TikTok and Reels are becoming trusted far more quickly than ever before and now they serve content bundles (the same content themes being served every few swipe) far more aggressively.
One prime example of this is conspiracy theories being served and then spreading like wild fire via DM’s. Tom Cruise’s love for specific fish (be careful of searching for this!) being one I never knew (i) I wanted to know anything about (ii) have so many opinions served at me…

→6 Netflix ReJig - Netflix are on another push, (i) from growing users in ad+ subscriptions to (ii) closing its AAA gaming studio (these make blockbuster games) and then relying on causal games (think games on phones and connected to Emily in Paris or Stranger things) and (iii) struggling to grow their advertising program despite the growth in subs. All of these changes impact us as the more shifts they make, the more these companies rely on customers to fund changes or reshuffles through subscription increases.

→7 Arc’teryx’s Moment - Arc’teryx has become a fashion stable and maybe a surprising one. The price tag and quality combination has helped it to be seen as the luxury must have, especially in the fashion industry. They have made many smart moves including going into retail through D2C (they are a touch to trust brand and high end prices means customers usually want to feel the quality first).

→8 How Conflict & Appetite Is Impacting Chinese Tourism - Travel was supposed to boomerang back, it did in part and now it is normalising again. What the industry is seeing with the Ukraine conflict is closure to Russian airspace meaning a much longer flght path from the US. It’s negatively impacting travel to China, alongside many people not open to going that once where. I suspect we are going to see this continue and many potential visitors make alternative plans. With the way Chinese media is pushing more national travel in China we may see ripple effects from lower levels of tourism.

→10 Red Bulls Marketing Engine To Sell 12Billion+ Cans - Red Bull is a machine, still the most dominant energy drink on the planet and much of this is driven by their wide side of marketing in extreme sports and events and then their increasing footprint in sports ownership in football/soccer teams (RB have 42 sports teams connected to them in total). Red Bull is a brand that has worked out if its mentioned and seen repeatedly (like Coca Cola’s former be in the eyeline every 6 seconds rule) it will sell more cans and keep marketshare. (This is a paid for article, hit reply and i’ll share an alternative open version).

→11 10 Years Of Digital Payments - If you like podcasts, here is a great interview with the VP of Apple Wallet and Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey discussing how wallet came about, how they planned and leveraged internal usage data to make it a default payment method for so many people, with a hint to the future replacing physical wallets.

Bouns From Me → Battle Of The Supermarkets - I was invited onto a panel reviewing how supermarkets offer discounts via their loyalty programs, it is UK focused and the TLDR is many supermarkets need to think about their c-store (local and metro style stores) strategy to reduce costs and offer their points on delivery orders from the likes of JustEat & Uber Eats (props to Co-Op for offering this)

Have a great weekend and i’ll see you in a couple of weeks

Danny Denhard

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