TWIS: Of all the inventions of the last 100 years, the dry erase board has to be the most remarkable.

Hi Strat Pack,

I've been reading Men Want to Wear Purses, They Just Don’t Know It Yet on High Snobiety and while I disagree with the conceit of the article, I really really really need everything going on in this photo to be part of my wardrobe. I will be starting a fundraiser on Venmo shortly, and any and all donations (nothing less than $50, please!) are kindly accepted.

Hard pivot: last Sunday, the New York Times asked "Subway Bathrooms: Are They as Bad as You Think?" (Spoiler alert: Yes) and the result is really quite enjoyable. Great Friday morning hangover read if you're looking for a chuckle. Harder pivot: if you know me, you know how competitive I am with the NYT mini crossword. Now we can compete! Join my leaderboard!

When Accenture Interactive bought Droga5, I got literally 8 email "breaking news" notifications. I won't be covering it because I trust that you will have read about it independently in-depth. And plus, Fishbowl / Strategy Twitter are far more clever & cutting than I could ever be. 

Alright, stop messing around on the Louis Vuitton website trying to preorder me that suitcase jacket (don't stop!). Let's jump right in.

The one thing to read this week:
1) Magpie marketing [Alex Murrell - Medium]
(For our American readers, magpies are basically crows that are bad omens. So...crows.)

“Today’s world of never-ending technological breakthroughs creates the illusion that jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon is moving us forward, when we are really going around in circles.”

To quote Zenith's Tom Goodwin, “I’m not sure when our industry became so obsessed with what’s shiny over what’s profound. I’m not sure when we became so keen to use buzzwords that we didn’t check what they mean — or that they even have any meaning at all.”

The industry is not a runaway train of uncontrollable change. Our fear is misplaced. By focussing on what might be important tomorrow, we miss out on what is important today.

Strategy, Planning and the fundamental needs of our consumers have not changed. I’d argue the same is true of almost all marketing. Sure, the channels in which our products and messages are distributed are evolving. But they always have been. Everything changes, and nothing changes.

We must stop fetishizing change. We must stop fixating on the futuristic and start focusing on the fundamentals. We must stop prioritizing that which might change and start prioritizing that which won’t.

2) Special Section: The wheels are coming off for influencers

Marinate in this line from a FastCo article: "A decade ago, the opposite of authentic influence was selling out; today, it’s the reverse. Selling out equals being an authentic influencer"

Apparently people didn't realize the extent to which the influencer industry was overhyped/a giant fraud/scam until those Fyre Fest documentaries came out. Better late than never I guess? Keep these articles in mind next time you see 'influencers' in your media plan...

The social influence market lacks transparency, ethics, trust, and, increasingly, humans. According to data from anti-fraud company Sway Ops, a single day’s worth of posts tagged #sponsored or #ad on Instagram contained over 50% fake engagements. Points North Group, an influencer marketing analytics specialist, revealed that a whooping 78% of Ritz Carlton engagement from its Instagram influencer campaign came from fake followers or bots.

  • Influencer marketing is already losing influence in India due to fakery [Quartz]

In India, influencer fraud is shockingly transparent. 

Almost 40% of Indian Instagram influencers use third-party apps to inflate their numbers and get noticed by brands. The average social media account has at least 8% bot followers. For people who buy followers, this can range from 20-70% of the total following.

A simple online search throws up innumerable websites offering easy ways to boost followers and likes. Some portals like iDigic offer 24x7 customer support and online payment options, too.

“We have maintained an excellent reputation over the past few years by delivering Instagram likes and followers through high-quality profiles. All the profiles have profile pictures, posts, and bio information. They look realistic and probably nobody will figure out that you have purchased likes and followers,” iDigic website reads. The company claims to deliver results within 30 seconds after the payment.

  • ‘It’s genuine, you know?’: why the online influencer industry is going ‘authentic’ [The Guardian]

A Guardian Long Read (or, perhaps, your Sunday Brunch Hate Read...?) following one influencer talent agency, Gleam something in London. What kind of article is this? Let me set the tone for you: In this new era of authenticity, influencers must display passion, a word that fills the air at Gleam. (It is the kind of office where instead of replying “yes” to a question, everyone says “100%!”)

The sheer volume of digital content has reached a point where everyone is becoming desensitized. “There’s been a million makeup tutorials and a million fashion hauls,” [the head of this talent Agency] told me. “People are a bit done with it.”

In this strange moment – when the Pope (@pontifex) writes a tweet describing the Virgin Mary as the “first influencer” and Kim Kardashian West is extravagantly paid for promoting an appetite-suppressing lollipop to her then 111 million Instagram followers – the word “influencer” has become a little soiled.

3) Dave Trott: Imagine talking to ordinary people [Campaign Live]

On the importance of plain speaking. As Mark Twain put it, "Don't use a five dollar word when a fifty cent word will do." Another great Dave Trott anecdote (I love his writing so much) of the power of persuasive language. 

Apparently Britons are terrified to be perceived as ordinary. They like to flag their intelligence with long, complicated words. Americans, on the other hand, think it’s their job to talk like ordinary people, it’s more persuasive. [Editors note: Americans, sure, but not most Americans that work in advertising.]

Before the US got involved in World War 2, Franklin Roosevelt knew that Great Britain needed military aid from us. But selling it in was tough, most Americans wanted to be neutral.

Instead of trying to use impressive language, Roosevelt spoke like a human being. And that’s what Roosevelt can teach us about advertising. The Lend-Lease act was passed by 317 votes to 17.

That’s how we should be talking to people. Because that’s what Bill Bernbach meant by: "Simple, timeless, human truths."

4) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.

  • Retail Therapy: Amazon is going to Coachella [Retail Dive] The e-commerce giant will deliver Pedialyte and sunblock to festival goers listening to music about the trappings of capitalism.

  • Stretching the creative canvas: Why marketers need to let go of the brand strategy helm [The Drum]

  • If you're serving cheap vodka, why spend money on real lemons? [Twitter]

  • Comscore Leaders to Depart After Less Than a Year [Wall Street Journal] What the hell is going on over there?

  • David Ogilvy's 1982 Advice on how to write [Twitter] Point 4, using jargon is the “hallmark of a pretentious ass"

  • Adobe plots mobile ramp-up after bridging the agency/in-house binary with community [The Drum] The argument against in-housing tends to lean on the belief that creative minds work best when challenged by multiple briefs across multiple brands – put simply, they get bored and lackadaisical in-house, especially if they’re building a portfolio. That case does not apply to Adobe, CMO Anne Lewnes contends.

  • "Your manuscript is being returned", A Succinct & Brutal Silent-Film Era Rejection Slip [Twitter] h/t Rosie & Faris

5) Deep Dive on Gen Z

Its good news/bad news that Millennials are no longer dominating industry trend reporting. Though I really don't appreciate how Gen Z is being portrayed as the community/caring/world saving foil to the Millennial "me me me" entitlement generation. Because we're not entitled. And if we are, its because that's how YOU raised us. Gah! Alright - reign it back in Jordan.

This is actually a very cool very useful infographic that looks at much more than Gen Z. I recommend clicking through and playing with it. And yeah I know it includes NPS in the analysis even though we've already agreed that it's a harmful, bad metric.

Notably: 52% of Gen Z’s top 25 “most loved” brands don’t appear in other generations’ top 25 picks at all. Boomers are the next-most differentiated group, with 44% of their favorites nowhere to be found among the other groups’ picks. Thanks, boomers.

  • I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me [Fast Company]

Gen Z cares about privacy. A lot. As disappointed as I am that my fellow millennials have just accepted that privacy (in its traditional sense) is dead and have acculturated to that new reality, Generation Z seems to be pushing back. And reestablishing boundaries about what goes into the public sphere. 

When 8th grader Sonia Bokhari joined social media for the first time, she discovered that her mom and sister had been posting about her for her entire life.

"When I turned 13, my mom gave me the green light and I joined Twitter and Facebook. The first place I went, of course, was my mom’s profiles. That’s when I realized that while this might have been the first time I was allowed on social media, it was far from the first time my photos and stories had appeared online. When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed."

A 995 tile (seriously) infographic with 995 actual quotes from Gen Z. Well curated, pretty site design. Click through if you have a few minutes. Click through if you don't.

6) Department of Great Work
Moar work! Moar! A lot from advocacy groups, some interesting April Fools stuff. Note: I did think that Tinder height verification thing was clever but definitely not deserving of all the press it got.

  • Apple’s Ad About a Scrappy Group of Coworkers Is Honestly Better Than Most Sitcoms [AdWeek] Honestly it is. 

  • Sobering Posters Turn Humans Into The Very Animals That Eat Their Plastic [DesignTaxi] Work by McCann Prague

  • KFC’s latest ad reminds you it’s not AFC, BFC, or even CFC [It's Nice That] Apparently this is a problem outside the US. Work from Mother London

  • Chilean Memory Dial Project Helps New Generations Appreciate Human Rights [Little Black Book] Watch the case study. Really powerful work from Wolf BCCP

  • The best and worst April Fools' jokes from the tech world [TechCrunch] Google Tulip & Shtterstock stock IRL were really clever. Roku missed the Mark and T-Mobile wasn't clever. It was just bad.

7) Platform Updates
So many updates, so little time. Let's get right to it.

  • Google is deleting your Google+ profile today [FastCompany] This article was actually from Tuesday, it's already gone.

  • Subway’s new tuna sandwich is made out of a secret ingredient: Facebook [also FastCompany] How mining TasteMade for insights helped them create a hit sandwich on their first go. Data is useful, guys!

  • ‘A battle for the top of the funnel’: Pinterest’s long road to becoming a commerce platform [Digiday]

  • Facebook launches searchable transparency library of all active ads [TechCrunch] Useful!

  • Instagram tests letting you scroll through videos [The Verge] Also useful!

  • Walmart partners with Google on voice-enabled grocery shopping [TechCrunch] Voice shopping for grocery pickup will be offered at more than 2,100 Walmart stores and for online delivery at more than 800 stores.

  • Instagram considers ad products to compensate stars in IGTV [AdAge] Advertisers familiar with the talks around IGTV say that the ad product will likely be similar to branded content.

  • There Are Five Different Races in Streaming TV. Here’s Where Apple Fits In. [Wall Street Journal]

Phew! That was a marathon, not a sprint.  Was this email forwarded to you? Want to start getting this on a weekly basis? All I need is your email, everything else is optional. And as always, the full archive is available here
Now that's a full email. Thanks for sticking around as always. Have a great weekend!

Jordan Weil