Tuesday, July 30

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• Google isn’t showing X carousels as often in search results

• Pinterest wants news publishers to help sell its ads

• LinkedIn is settling a class action suit with advertisers for $6.6M

• 📊 Stat of the Day: Women are 9% more likely than men to make a purchase after watching a TikTok video. (Source: DISQO)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: About that Google Gemini Olympics ad…

🤯 How 1 Agency Turned $7k Into $1.2m

A niche travel agency that has never spent on ads before came to First Class Ads hoping to find a profitable ads strategy since their service is just too niche for Meta ads.

The team at FCA used their signature “Conquesting Ads” strategy to bid on hyper-relevant, low-volume keywords which ended up driving $1.2m in revenue in the first 365 days since launching the ads.

The ad strategy and campaign even won "Best Search Campaign" at the 2020 Drum Ad Awards!

👉🏼 Let FCA run your Google Ads too!

💡 Today’s Insight 💡

Let’s talk about that Google Gemini Olympics ad…

🗞 TL;DR - Google released a commercial during this year’s Olympics for its Gemini AI product. In it, a little girl tells her dad she wants to write a fan letter to an Olympic gold medalist and needs help. The dad gives the prompt to Gemini, and the AI spits out a picture-perfect fan letter. But audiences have felt like the pitch is cold and takes the heartfelt feelings out of such an endearing task.

💡 Insight - Reading the reactions to this ad evokes a similar feeling to Apple’s ‘Crush’ ad. Google simply missed the mark. People want to use AI to automate and take care of mundane, boring tasks – not replace our humanity. Fan letters, particularly those from little kids, don’t need to be perfected. The imperfections are often the best parts.

Which brings us to the takeaway here for brands: your campaign is only as strong as the way people react to it. If all people are doing is talking about how this ad falls short, then it paints Google’s Gemini in a negative light. Similar to Apple, while Google may have good intentions, they need to be mindful of how the ad and messaging sits with audiences.

Lastly, while ads often exist in their own ideal world, we shouldn’t lose sight of reality here. If people really did decide to take to AI to write heartfelt letters like a fan letter, the Olympian here would end up with a stack of near-identical letters. Letters are built more on the ability to fulfill a query rather than actually provide value. Sometimes, brands need to be realistic.

🛠 Things Worth Checking Out 🛠

🎨 DESIGN - Looking for next-level branding/rebranding for your business? Get high-quality designs with 99designs by Vista! Write a simple brief, receive concepts from pro designers worldwide, and choose your favorite. Get a $50 discount here →

💡 SOCIAL MEDIA - I've been loving Matt Navarra's Geekout Newsletter. It's how the social media teams at Netflix, Apple, Disney, and others stay ahead! 32,000+ social media pros get it in their inbox every Friday. And it's 100% FREE! Sign up in one click/tap here →

🏆 OLYMPICTOK - Speaking of the Olympics… are you on OlympicTok? Many lesser known Olympic athletes are taking center stage as creators providing a behind-the-scenes look at the games.

⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

🫥 Google is showing the X carousel less often in search results

📰 Pinterest is asking news publishers to help them sell ads

👻 Snapchat is adding new AR experiences to the 2024 Olympics app

💰 LinkedIn is settling an advertiser class action suit for $6.625 million

🇲🇾 Malaysia is requiring licenses for social media apps with 8M+ users

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