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In today's edition:

• 🤖 eCommerce news

• 📈 Trends to watch

• 🎨 Thumb-stopping AD creative

• 🌏 Interesting posts & threads

• 🤣 Meme of the week

• 💰 Hot jobs

• ✚ Weekly recommendation

*Bonus*

• My ultimate growth swipe file here

🤖 eCommerce news:

📲 Facebook Adds Video Display Elements to Marketplace Listings (link)

🧴 L’Oréal buys Aesop in $2.5 billion deal, its biggest acquisition ever (link)

🏆 7th ANNUAL WEBBY AWARDS PEOPLE'S VOICE. You decide the best of the Internet Voting is open until April 20th. Vote here

❌FTC orders supplement maker to pay $600K in first case involving hijacked Amazon reviews (link)

💰 Visa partners with PayPal, Venmo and others to power interoperable digital payments (link)

📲 Instagram adds new features to its creator marketplace, expands access to brand agencies (link)

💬 WhatsApp users in Brazil can now pay merchants through the app (link)

🛠 Meta Previews Coming Generative AI Ad Tools, Prompts for VR World Creation (link)

📈 Trends to watch:

In this section I cover interesting market or culture trends that I think should be on your radar at the moment.

TikTok Users Less Likely To Be Bothered by Ads

Source: Statista

Samsung slashes chip production after 96% profit nosedive

"Samsung Electronics is taking steps to reduce its manufacture of memory chips, in a bid to counter the reduction in sales of the silicon components. The high manufacturing levels have led to a build-up of inventory, which also led to memory prices to drop.

In a Friday forecast, Samsung said its operating profit reached 600 billion won ($455 million) for the three-month period that ended in March. This was a year-on-year drop of more than 95% from 14.12 trillion won observed in the same period last year, and the lowest profit in 14 years, according to Japan Times."

Negative words drive higher CTR%

Credit: Gaston Turn CMO Curio

"A study published in Nature by Claire Robertson and Nicolas Pröllochs suggests that each additional negative word in a headline increases the click-through rate by 2.3%.While we often discuss the impact of social media on fake news, we tend to overlook the impact of digital platforms on traditional media and the proliferation of clickbait and anxiety-provoking content.I still find inspiration in this quote from Wittgenstein: "If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world."I wonder if it's time for the media industry to start learning new words."

🎨 Thumb-stopping AD creative

In this section I will be highlighting a few stand out ads that I came across during the week.

What I'll be covering:

• Why I chose it

• What stood out

• My takeaways

AD 1: PROSE

"At Prose, we know one size fits none. So we re-thought the entire model of mass-beauty to create haircare that’s one-in-a-million. It’s a radically custom approach: we create products that fit you alone, combining lab innovation, natural ingredients, and proven performance to create truly personal care. We are also a Certified B Corporation, a Public Benefit Corporation and Carbon Neutral, proving that good business is always sustainable."

Link to ad here

Why this AD?

• Prose are absolute killers when it comes to marketing and this whitelisting AD is done to perfection. Hidden in plain sight.

• In a competitive category with many companies bidding for the same customers, it's the marketing that doesn't feel like marketing which can really help draw attention to the benefits of a product without it being shoved in your face in a way that can put off consumers.

What made this creative stand out?

• A great hook. Everyone loves a competition. Instant intrigue as to who is the winner of the ultimate hair care product is.

• It looks completely native, this just looks like an educational piece written by an industry magazine

My takeaways?

• Native article advert + Whitelisting + Article as landing page = World class advertising

• The call to action takes you a landing page which contains an article which breaks down which of the three products wins across a number of areas.

  • Who won? You guessed correct. Prose.

  • A brilliant way of capturing the customer, highlighting the benefits over competition and directing warm traffic to your site where they are continuing with high intent.

AD 2: HISMILE

"In 2014, we launched our first Teeth Whitening Kit. The Kit ticked all the boxes. It was safe, easy to use, and completely peroxide-free. Every day we’re in the lab, learning from our community, and working with leading dentists to develop products to make you look good, and feel even better. As always, we’re backed by science, and driven by the belief that smile care can, and should, be both effective and safe.

We’re building the future of smile care, one step at a time."

Link to video AD here

Why this AD?

• For me it's a perfect example of how D2C ADs should be created

What made this creative stand out?

• The split screen screen is instantly engaging and fits in with the organic style of content we're starting to see across social media platforms.

• Brilliant use of an outcome hook. Simple, to the point and you instantly understand what problem this is going to solve.

• The use of multiple hooks throughout the video.

  • 5 seconds into the advert it cuts to someone handing another person the product and saying: "People want to know how the V34 colour corrector serum works, explain it to them in 30 seconds"

My takeaways?

• Showing the outcome as the hook is a great incentive to continue watching a longer advert. I'm now emotionally invested in the video instead of teasing the final state throughout.

• The use of multiple hooks throughout the video is a great way of improving the hold rate of the ad ( % of people who watch the first three seconds that make it to a thruplay 15 seconds< ) 

🌏 Interesting posts & threads:

Link here

Link here

Link here

Link here

🤣 Meme of the week:

Credit: Jay Schwedelson

💰 Hot jobs:

Junior:

💰Monzo Bank - Growth Marketing Executive, Paid social

"We’re looking for a Paid Social Executive that is ready to get into the weeds of campaign execution and optimisation across the most important social platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Snap, Twitter etc on mobile and web.If you’re also a TikTok, Snap and Instagram lover, and know the platform inside-out, then this role is for you!Your work will help us drive and scale our Paid Social activity by working with a multidisciplinary team across performance marketing to bring in new customers to our personal accounts in the UK (and other markets to come!)."

Senior:

📈 Media Monks - Head of growth

"Our EMEA team is hiring a Head of Growth with hands-on influencer marketing strategy and content experience to join our growing business development team. Reporting to the Chief Growth Officer, this role will be responsible for scaling Growth operations, driving strategy, setting priorities, expanding capability, and delivering on ambitious revenue goals with a focus on our Social category. You will build relationships within the company, cross-functionally with executives and as an effective people manager that is able to set goals and maximize effectiveness of the Growth teams. You will sit at the center of dozens of pitches, and will demonstrate the ability to guide with best practices on a variety of projects focusing on influencer marketing and social media but also will look for opportunities in other Media.Monks categories including e-commerce, experiential, emerging tech, and film projects."

Executive:

🎮 Tripledot studios - Director of Growth

"We are looking for a User Acquisition Associate Director to join our London Office. In this role you will lead and manage large scale UA activities covering several products within multiple marketing sources and channels. You will work closely with the Product and Operations teams, as well as other key stakeholders in the Business, in order to drive and grow our games’ acquisition strategy.

In this role, you will plan and execute marketing strategies and utilise your vast experience to identify the best actions to drive high-quality users and revenue for our games."

✚ Weekly recommendation:

In this section i'll be sharing a brand, website, app or tool that i'm using at the moment that I think more people need to know about.

ADBOX - The perfect place to find winning creative

Get 30 free ads a month!

"Every month, our team of experts select the best eCommerce ads (details about our process) +3500 winner FB ads to test today, boost your ROAS, and generate more sales."

That's it for today's edition of Never Fully Read.

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