Insights
Published:
August 23, 2024

Cuppa 32: Brand Differentiation, YouTube CPMs, Shopify Updates, Peak Girl

Sasha Jeppesen
Head of Creative

Welcome to the latest issue of Cuppa, a quick-fire newsletter for internet-first brand builders. Filled with analysis on the art, science and culture of building breakout brands in a digital age, it's quick enough to read over a cuppa. (Or something stronger if you need it...no judgement!). To get it direct to your inbox every other Wednesday, subscribe here.

ART

Bend the will of the market

For all my brand strategy nerds, the Concept Bureau is my new favourite resource to prompt strategic thinking. I've binged almost every article on their blog (they're all stellar), but I think their most recent post really echoes the challenges emerging digital brands are trying to navigate right now: longevity and differentiation.

All Cannes Lion's cases for free

Typically you have to pay for a subscription to see the archive of Lion-winning campaigns, but the legends at LoveTheWorkMore, have made it simpler (and free!) with a not-so-microsite that compiles and constantly updates all Lions-winning creative works, spanning across Cannes Lion’s entire history! So pass this link on to your creative team so that they can soak up all the juicy insights and inspiration.

The ultimate visual inspiration tool

Finding good reference imagery that accurately brings to life your creative vision can sometimes take way too long - that was until I discovered Eyecandy, the ultimate visual technique library. If you're briefing content agencies or videographers, it will also help you to speak the same language as it provides all the film technique names too!

You're measuring influencers wrong

Introducing our new Cuppa video series - bite-sized growth insights from the CO vault.💡 This week, Sasha digs into why so many brands fall victim to undervaluing Influencers as a powerful growth lever.👇

SCIENCE

How brands are YouTubing their way to the top

Ever wondered how you can reach more than half a million potential consumers a week for less than the price of a month's rent in London? Well YT might just be the answer.

The Data:

100+ new Shopify product updates

Shopify's Summer's Editions ‘23 is now live! There are a lot of features our team have our eyes on to help improve the performance of our clients, but we're particularly excited about the new Subscriptions App and the AI functionalities.

TikTok has an ad library - finally!

TikTok has recently released an updated version of its Ad Library in the EU, which provides searchable insights into all of the ad campaigns running in the app. Main takeaways are:

COmpass Insight

From beauty and health to pet-care and luxury fashion, COmpass is being implemented across industry verticals, helping brands to understand where to invest for profitable growth. Here are 4 key growth trends COmpass has recently revealed for our clients:

  1. Helping brands understand the value of upper funnel support to help drive conversion campaign performance. TV campaigns improve paid search performance by up to 23%.
  2. Helping brands to understand WHY influencers campaigns are working is just as crucial as understanding HOW they are performing. COmpass lets us break down influencer contribution to revenue to specific influencer types, with targeted influencer types (eg Fitness and Foodies) performing up to 4.5x better than wider reach Lifestyle influencers.
  3. Seeing strong incrementality from Meta ASC campaigns, with a blend of prospecting and retargeting we had concerns about potential incrementality of ASC campaigns (similar to Pmax performance unless you exclude brand keywords), but we continue to see incrementality in line with prospecting campaigns along with strong in platform performance.
  4. We also continue to help brands understand the value of non paid channels, with PR activity continuing to show strong revenue contribution particularly when focused on promotions or new product development.

If you need help navigating your attribution, book a call with our Chief Data Officer, Dan, and he'll chat you through how COmpass works and how it can help improve your brand's marketing performance.

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TV campaigns improve paid search performance by up to 23%

CULTURE


We've reached ‘Peak Girl’

There are hundreds of articles analysing Barbie's brilliant marketing activations, however, if you look more broadly, whether it's Taylor Swift's Eras tour or TikTok's #GirlDinner, Barbie is just another extravaganza that's further reinforcing the world's current obsession with girlhood.

Was saying goodbye to the Bluebird a smart branding decision?  

Was is it to distract everyone from the Threads hype? Probably. Was it Elon Musk wanting to yet again signal his power? Probably. But the debate I find most interesting is whether or not ditching a brand with decades of capital was the right decision to make.

Sasha Jeppesen
Head of Creative
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