Hey there!

Today’s opening day of the U.S. Open in NYC 🎾

Don’t worry, you’ve still got time to catch up on their TennisTok content.

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🤯 How sending free products to Micro-Influencers has helped brands 5X revenue in 2 months

TL;DR - Tap into the power of social media Micro-Influencers with Stack Influence, which automates influencer collaborations at scale (with hundreds of promotions a month).

💡 Insight - With Stack Influence, Amazon brands like Unilever, Magic Spoon, and Blueland have been able to grow their monthly revenue by 5X, decrease their ad costs using a war chest of influencer UGC, and build an army of affiliate marketers to consistently drive new customers.

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⚡️Today’s Headlines⚡️

💰 Meta’s offering up to $200k in ad credits for shopping campaigns

🎨 Figma launched its own AI-powered widget, Jambot

👴🏻 WordPress launches 100-year domain name registrations

🎥 Twitch tests a TikTok-like clips discovery feed

☁️ X’s block button removal news showed an influx of users to Bluesky

🔦 Reddit launched first-party measurement tools

😎 Netflix is the new ‘coolest’ brand among Gen Alpha

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🛠️ Things Worth Checking Out

🗣️ AGENCIES - It’s Marketing Max here 🙂 If you’re a marketing agency of any kind and want more clients, I wanna [plug you to my audience] via a new project I’ve been working on. Click here to learn more.

🦾 AI SKILLS - According to a new study from IBM, 40% of workers will have to reskill in the next three years to keep up with AI implementation. 87% of execs said chatbots like ChatGPT will augment roles, not replace them.

🎞️ SHORTS - YouTube’s Creator Insider channel launched an interview with Shorts Product Lead Todd Sherman detailing the YouTube Shorts algorithm and how to use the platform to its highest potential.

👀 TRACKING - According to new research from Tinuiti, Gen Z consumers are more likely to be okay with getting targeted ads (37% allowed tracking compared to the vast majority of baby boomers).

🚀 Today’s Deep Dive 🚀

Don’t stray too far from your brand

📰 TL;DR - There’s creating a fun extension of your brand, and then there’s creating something else entirely. Netflix recently announced it’s debuting its first pop-up restaurant in LA featuring “a special tasting menu curated by chefs featured in some of its most popular culinary shows.”

Netflix Co-Founder and Former CEO Marc Randolph argues that the company has lost its focus by expanding into the restaurant biz… but he also points out that he was wrong about Netflix’s forays into merch and gaming as well as their password sharing crackdown. But, he maintains, “Netflix has one thing to be good at: content.”

💡 Insight - This is a fun reminder that, often, no one person has control of what the brand is. If Netflix’s Co-Founder – one of the reasons the company even exists in the world – doesn’t know if something’s brand-focused, then who does? Well, the teams that make decisions that solidify what the brand is.

But Randolph has a point. At what point do fun marketing opportunities distract from the true essence of the brand? It’s always important to take a moment to truly gut-check a brand opportunity. Could a pop-up restaurant make Netflix some money? Sure, probably. But it could also dilute the brand and cheapen the message.

That said, there’s still room for brand-focused, fun opportunities. Netflix has bought and reinvigorated two movie theaters – the Egyptian Theatre in LA and the Paris Theater in NYC – to showcase their exclusive film releases. Fun, functional, and brand-focused.

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