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  • NFR #66 - Shoppable Video, Musk Layoffs & 400 Million iPods

NFR #66 - Shoppable Video, Musk Layoffs & 400 Million iPods

5-minute marketing newsletter providing you latest events across eCommerce, NFTs, culture & more every Wednesday morning on Linkedin & sub-stack.

October 26, 2022

Never Fully Read

Joining 1,000 readers from companies such as Klaviyo, Shopify, Recharge, Amazon, HubSpot, BrewDog, IBM and Canva.

Never Fully Read is a 5-minute marketing newsletter providing you latest events across eCommerce, NFTs, culture & more every Wednesday morning on Linkedin & sub-stack.

Newsletter in a flash:

🤖 eCommerce news:

📦Amazon says fear of Google putting off vendors from TV hardware partnership Amazon says over half a dozen hardware vendors have indicated that they cannot enter into a TV manufacturing relationship with the e-commerce group over fear of retaliation from Google, escalating tension with the search giant with whom it competes on several businesses.

😎 Bolt launches virtual Shopper Assistant for easier access to personalized experiences Rather than dealing with pop-ups or other disconnected methods of obtaining a customer’s email address, retailers, like its customer Tyler’s (an athletic and lifestyle apparel retailer), want a full end-to-end connected experience for shoppers that would enable them to log in friction-free while also providing product recommendations and turning first-time customers into lifetime customers.

🚀 Elon Musk reportedly wants to lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff according to a new report from the Washington Post, Musk plans to purge 75% of Twitter’s workforce, or around 5,600 employees. If Musk’s vision for a much leaner platform comes to fruition, Twitter would be forced to operate with a sliver of its current staff.

👻 Snap stock down 25% as the social network struggles. The company, which has seen its stock price plunge to a fraction of what it was worth during 2021’s highs, missed analyst expectations on revenue, bringing in $1.13 billion compared to the $1.14 billion anticipated. Snap’s stock dipped from around $11 per share to $8 in late trading following the report.

⛓ Zapier extends its automation service with first-party database and UI tools. Today, at its ZapConnect conference, it’s taking the next step in this journey with the launch of Zapier Tables and Interfaces, a database service and a UI builder for allowing end users to interact with existing Zapier workflows.

🛍 Klarna launches new creator features and shoppable video As consumers turn to content creators to influence their online shopping habits, Klarna, the buy now, pay later platform, today launched a new Klarna Creator app for retailers and influencers to collaborate on brand campaigns and to track earnings, performance and sales.

📍 Pinterest partners with record labels to bring popular music to its TikTok rival, ‘Idea Pins’ The company announced today its video-focused “Idea Pins” feature will now include the ability to add popular tracks from top artists, thanks to new licensing deals with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Merlin and BMG. This will expand upon the music already provided through Pinterest’s royalty-free music library from 7Digital, the company noted.

🔎 Google misses earning expectations as YouTube ad sales drop Alphabet reported YouTube garnered $7.07 billion in ad sales for the quarter, a 1.9% decline. It's the first year-over-year drop in at least two years.

📈 Top trends:

“Things are looking up for Netflix this quarter. The streamer added 2.41 million subscribers, bringing the total to 223.09 million. Netflix expected a net gain of 1 million subs in the third quarter, so today’s results far exceed its own expectations and analysts’ expectations. The company reported earning $7.93 billion in revenue in Q3 2022, whereas analysts predicted $7.85 billion.”

Link to read the guide here

📈 Big Demand for Short-Form Video Help

Source: Google Trends

Opportunities include:

  1. Creator marketplaces

  1. Editors specialising in short form

Source: CrunchBase

🙉 NFT download:

“Being one of the most web3-savvy and metaverse-focused multimedia giants so far, Disney keeps scaling its presence in the realm with the announcement of the new significant milestone. Thus, one of the company's major subdivisions, Disney Music Group is joining efforts with the leading experiential e-commerce platform Obsess to roll out the Disney Music Emporium online store.

The initiative arrives timed to Disney’s upcoming 100th anniversary. As part of the celebration, Disney Music Group’s Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records, Disney Music Publishing, Buena Vista Records, and Disney Concerts are planning to showcase a 3D 360 century-long timeline of Disney's iconic soundtracks in the web3 format.”

Link to read in full here

🏆 WTF moment:

“A hacker who stole two unreleased songs from Ed Sheeran and sold them on the dark web has been jailed for 18 months.

Adrian Kwiatkowski traded the music by Sheeran and 12 songs by rapper Lil Uzi Vert in exchange for cryptocurrency.

The 23-year-old, from Ipswich, managed to get hold of them after hacking the performers' digital accounts, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Kwiatkowski admitted 19 charges, including copyright infringement and possessing criminal property.

He had made £131,000 from the music, City of London Police said.

Ipswich Crown Court heard that when the defendant's Apple Mac laptop was searched, 565 audio files, including the songs by Sheeran and Vert, were uncovered.”

Link to the article here

🐤 Twitter thread of the week:

TL; DR The sales story framework Steve Jobs used to sell 400 million iPods: 

1/ Introduce an alternative reality

2/ Present the problem with a story

3/ Tie the benefit to their daily life

4/ Break your idea into three

5/ Hook your idea to an existing concept

Link to the thread here

🤝 Hot jobs:

Ogury → Digital and Brand Marketing Director As Ogury’s Digital and Brand Marketing Director, you will spearhead an integrated marketing approach ensuring campaigns are aligned across multiple regions and locations maintaining our leadership in the adtech ecosystem. You will lead a best in class team of marketers who manage our brand, website, digital campaigns, content, tech stack and marketing operations. The brand marketing team is a truly global one consisting of two content managers, two graphic designers, and one web developer located in the US, France, London, and Belgrade.

Vidsy → Product Marketing Director Vidsy is looking for a creative and experienced Director of Product Marketing to own our positioning, messaging, and product go-to-market strategy initiatives. The person in this highly strategic role will be a key driver for the growth of the business, outlining the value proposition and unique selling points of core offerings and products, enabling internal/external sales teams, ideating go-to-market strategies and evangelising Vidsy’s solutions internally and across our clients and partners. You will be a strong storyteller able to embody the voice of the customer and bridge the gap between what our solutions can do and why that matters to a different range of audiences, thus differentiating our offering from the market alternatives.

Shares → VP of Marketing  We are looking for an experienced and passionate VP of Marketing to join our expanding Global Marketing team. We're mission-driven and aiming to democratise investing with our social investing app - with exponential growth planned over the next few years. Therefore, we need a strong leader that will play a key role in the overall marketing organisation and that has the demonstrated ability to generate results in a fast-paced, ambitious environment. Mostly, we need someone that can operate at both a strategic and operational level; someone who’s happy to roll up their sleeves and get things done