A TV for ants? When cookies collide with muddled funnel thinking

BY tim-burrowes, seja-al-zaidi and cat-mcginn

July 29, 2023 12:10

A TV for ants? When cookies collide with muddled funnel thinking

Welcome to Best of the Week, mostly written early on Saturday morning at beautiful Sisters Beach, Tasmania.

Today: The wrong end of the marketing funnel.

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How to mess up your marketing funnel

Tim Burrowes writes:

On Tuesday, I went online and bought a new TV.

After months of research and indecision, I went for Samsung’s The Frame – that’s the one that mounts flush to the wall and shows a carousel of art when the Today show finally loses its lustre.

Like many a consumer making a largish purchase, I had a couple of doubts. The Frame is a couple of years old, so I’m sure we’re weeks away from the launch of a newer, better version.

And the most difficult decision: what size? Although the TV will be in quite a big room, a larger than life Jonathan LaPaglia urging survivalists to outwit, outlast and outplay each other might be a little intimidating.

Over the last few weeks, I went down a rabbit hole, reading everything I could find (that wasn’t from self interested manufacturers) on the optimal set size, pacing out the likely space between screen and sofa, marking how different sizes would look on the wall using Blu Tac. And finally I made my decision.

In the end I went for 55 inches and bought it online. On the one hand, the biggest TV I’ve purchased in my life; on the other one of the smaller ones in the range. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d made the right call, but having committed, it was time to enjoy my purchase.

And then the onslaught of ads from Samsung began to chase me around the web.

The Samsung site had dropped a cookie or two on me when I bought it.

But not just any ad. Specifically, an ad telling me I was going to regret my decision.

It’s a weirdly art directed ad, by the way. What a horrible way to watch television from the chaise lounges, side on. Or squatting on one of those expensive cushions on the floor.

For the last four days, this ad has followed me around, taunting me. The TV has been delivered, but there’s not yet been time to take it out of its box. Samsung keeps reminding me there’s an even chance I’m going to regret it when I do.

It puts a twist on the Proctor & Gamble theorem that the two moments of truth are when the consumer makes the purchase and then when they use it for the first time. Sowing doubt about the product in the consumer’s mind between those two moments wasn’t in the original orthodoxy.

Just because you can use retargeting doesn’t mean you should.

Samsung marketers (or their digital agency) might argue that the opportunity of moving customers up the range in the days before they make a final decision, outweighs the cost of disillusioning those who have already committed. After all, it’s not as if they’re going to ask for their money back.

When it comes to white goods, the idea that the final, narrowest part of the funnel should be ongoing customer loyalty is outweighed by the need to do the numbers right now. Somewhere out there, there’s a Samsung marketer looking at their attribution modelling telling them that the campaign is working a treat because they got to some of the consumers in time to got them to buy that bigger TV.

End-of-funnel blunders don’t just occur in the digital world. The TV is probably the second biggest product purchase I’ve made in the last five years. The biggest was a car, and exactly the same thing occurred between the two moments of truth.

Five years ago, after selling Mumbrella, I bought my first (and probably only) brand new car. Not being into cars, I started where the marketing funnel was at its widest. I’m pretty sure my first search was “new car”, which didn’t narrow things down much. Eventually though, when I got down to the other end of the funnel, I settled on a Land Rover Discovery.

There was a lot that surprised me about the purchase experience. Naively, I’d expected to walk into the Sydney dealership and drive one away an hour later. After all, I’d already made my decision. I was at the end of the funnel.

But the thing I remember better than the salesman, was the call I got from the Land Rover “delivery co-ordinator” a few days before I was due to pick up my car.

She wanted to sell me upgrades like tinted windows and special paint. It gradually dawned on me that this was not a delivery coordination call, but a sales call. One giveaway was that she wasn’t unable to actually answer questions about the coordination of the delivery.

When I turned down down the tinted windows and special paint, she became a lot less charming. This was somebody who was on a commission and didn’t give a fuck about doing brand damage to get it. She demanded: Why on earth would I want to own a car that would get too hot, or have paint that would fade in the sun?

That certainly takes the gloss off a new car purchase.

Incidentally, I did complain at the time. By way of apology, they gave me a golf umbrella. Not going to buy another car from them though.

The best thing a brand can do between between the two consumer moments of truth is get out of the way.

The Week in AI: Frog reports water is lovely and warm

Cat McGinn writes:

Model behaviour

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft launched the Frontier Model Forum, claiming to ensure safe and responsible development of frontier AI models. Frontier models are advanced machine-learning models capable of a range of tasks. The Forum’s core objectives include advancing AI safety research, identifying best practices, collaborating with stakeholders, and supporting applications to address societal challenges. Organisations committed to frontier model safety are invited to join and contribute to the Forum’s efforts. This initiative was promised to The White House in their tech companies’ shared commitment to establishing standards and best practices for frontier AI safety.

A Hideous Replica

Hollywood’s proposed AI technology of using digital replicas or alterations of performances to replace background actors with AI was being criticized by the SAG-AFTRA union. AI technology is already being used to create images, render scenes, and even generate entire films, but experts caution against replacing background actors. The companies behind AI-driven software like Wonder Dynamics claim these tools empower independent filmmakers by allowing them to replace on-screen actors with other characters.

Empathy consultant on aisle three

Streaming giant Netflix sparked anger from Hollywood actors and writers for advertising a job for an AI expert on its Machine Learning Platform team. Striking unions are taking a stand against AI’s impact on the entertainment industry and pay. The job pays up to $900,000 annually, fuelling outrage over inequality amid the strike.

Coin Operated Design

According to leaked communication from Adobe employees, debate raged internally over the ethics and impact on design jobs resulting from the company’s investment in AI tools like Firefly.

“The ‘slot coin operator’ model of creativity is not a world I want to live in, randomly cycling outputs from a plethora of mashed together concepts,” wrote one staff member. Concerns were also raised at a company town hall over cannibalizing the company’s own revenue sources. Adobe’s share price has increased by 50% this year with a US$240bn market valuation.

Campaign of the Week: Period drama

In each edition of BOTW, our friends at Little Black Book Online highlight their most interesting advertising campaign of the week.

LBB’s AUNZ reporter Casey Martin writes:

This week’s campaign comes from Howatson+Company for ModiBodi.

The agency created a modern day ‘period drama’ for TikTok featuring comedian Samantha Andrew. “I’m Dying Inside” features four housemates navigating modern period experiences and taboo topics.

Unmade Index flattens after big week

Seja Al Zaidi writes:

There was no clear direction on the Unmade Index yesterday with an equal number of stocks rising and falling. The index, our measurement of the performance of ASX-listed media and marketing stocks, rose 0.11% to finish the week at 693.5.

The flatter finish comes after a bullish week during which the index rose by nearly 5%.

Seven West Media led the charge yesterday with a 1.32% increase in its share price, while ARN Media and Nine followed with a modest 0.97% and 0.94%, respectively.

The smaller stocks on the Index – B2B publication house Aspermont and Pureprofile – also saw lifts in share price of 6.25% and 6.45%.

Enero Group fell 4.59%, while Domain, the second largest stock on the Index fell 1.20%. Southern Cross Media dropped 1.60%, and Ooh Media fell 0.72%.