by Tod Maffin and Steph Gunn
Today's News
Nicknames Are Cute—But Not for Your Brand
The Gen Z Shopping App That Pays Them to Play
TikTok’s AI Ad Platform Is Here
Dollar General Launches In-Store Audio Network
Discord Rolls Out New Ad Format
Nicknames Are Cute—But Not for Your Brand
Popular brand nicknames like “Beemer” for BMW and “Starbies” for Starbucks may seem playful, but using them in your marketing could cost you.
Why nicknames hurt brand power
A new Journal of Marketing study found that adopting consumer-generated nicknames can damage a brand’s status and pricing power.
Brands often track how consumers speak, especially on social media, but the study suggests the goal is to learn from it—not to copy them.
While nicknames for brands can be endearing when used by customers, their use by marketers can make the brand appear weak.
Leave it to the customer
Consumer use of brand nicknames, however, does not weaken perceptions of brand power. In fact, previous research has shown that these nicknames can have positive effects.
The study suggests that while brands should be cautious about adopting these nicknames for marketing purposes, encouraging their use with consumers can be beneficial.
🎁 Everyone who guesses will be entered in our monthly draw for a full year of our Premium Newsletter free!
The Gen Z Shopping App That Pays Them to Play
Claim, an app that lets marketers target Gen Z shoppers, is revving up in the ad race after securing $12 million in Series A funding.
The app is designed to help shoppers use and find promotions — and then pays them to play.
How it works
To use Claim, shoppers connect their credit or debit cards, letting the app track their shopping habits and tailor weekly deals.
Every Thursday, users can choose from three exclusive promotions offered at retailers they haven’t previously visited.
Offers must be redeemed using the linked card within a week, with users receiving cash back through Venmo after making qualifying purchases.
Brands, including Sweetgreen, pay Claim to feature their products and are charged when someone redeems a promotion.
Social sharing
There’s also a social component that lets users exchange promotions with each other—provided the promotion they want is from a brand they haven’t previously tried.
The company wouldn’t share how many monthly active users the app currently has but the user base heavily skews toward college students.
Claim has a presence at 70 U.S. campuses, and only people with a college-provided email address can sign up for the app.
TikTok’s AI Ad Platform Is Here
TikTok officially entered the AI ad wars with the launch of Smart+ yesterday.
Powered by TikTok Symphony AI, Smart+ automates the bidding process across targeting, bidding, and creative.
STEP 1 Advertisers input their assets, budget, and targeting goals
STEP 2 Smart+ will then selects the best assets, audiences, and placements to maximize conversions
Campaign types
Smart+ is launching with four available objectives:
Web Campaigns: Designed to drive traffic and conversions on websites.
Catalog Ads: Delivers personalized product recommendations based on user behavior.
App Campaigns: Focuses on app installs and conversions.
Lead Generation: Turns interested users into valuable customers.
GMV Max
TikTok Shop merchants can also use GMV Max, a tool that automates campaign creation, including audience targeting, bidding, and creative selection.
GMV Max streamlines traffic across merchants' organic content, paid ads, and affiliate posts aiming to improve return on investment.
TikTok claims it cuts campaign setup time in half, and offers sellers access to shoppable placements across the For You feed, search results, and the Shop tab, all within a single campaign.
Other updates
TikTok is also expanding its measurement tools with Conversion Lift Studies, letting brands track ad impact beyond the last click.
The platform has also integrated privacy-enhancing technologies like Amazon Web Services Clean Rooms and Secure Multi-Party Computation to enhance data privacy for advertisers.
Dollar General Launches In-Store Audio Network
Your next ad buy could be resonating through the aisles via an in-store audio network.
Targeting hard-to-reach shoppers
Dollar General recently launched its in-store audio network, aiming to enhance brand engagement in its physical stores.
With 20,000 locations primarily in rural areas, this network aims to target “hard-to-reach” shoppers who are often overlooked by traditional advertising methods.
According to the company's head of operations at DG Media Network, about 80% of their stores cater to markets with populations of 20,000 or less.
Half of their customers are not represented in some third-party demographic segments.
Quick shopping, quick results
The retailer's smaller store format—averaging 7,400 square feet—facilitates quick shopping trips where customers can easily spot deals. The audio network, currently in a testing phase, seeks to demonstrate measurable results through a focus on “real-time return,” which tracks transactions linked to in-store ads played within 15 minutes.
The audio network is intended to complement existing digital campaigns, as 70% of shoppers visit the Dollar General web site before making in-store purchases.
Future directions
Looking ahead, the company plans to broaden its audio offerings by testing jingles, varied voices, and brand partnerships.
Discord Rolls Out New Ad Format
The chat application Discord is diving deeper into ads. It’s launching a new ad format called Video Quests.
This rewards users for watching ads with in-game items, character skins, or profile upgrades.
Discord is more than a gaming chat room, but it definitely started there.
It’s sort of like a Slack or Teams but is popular within specific communities like gaming, but also finance and tech.
Limited to games (for now)
Discord first introduced ads earlier this year with Game Quests. These are basically the same as Video Quests just without the video part. The format lets advertisers offer users in-game rewards for streaming gameplay with friends.
And for the time being they’re only offering Quest ads to game developers and game publishers.
Targeting and pricing
There’s not a lot in terms of targeting — age, geography, and gameplay history.
Considering it’s not a game platform per se, I assume users would have to connect their gaming accounts to the app (something that many do) in order to get this data.
Discord says campaign pricing is competitive — one executive said:
Path to Profitability
Growing ad revenue is crucial for Discord as it looks to turn a profit and potentially go public.
The company generates most of its revenue from its Nitro subscription service, but ad revenue could become “on par” with subscriptions in the long term.
How to Torture an AI Bot
If you’re a listener to our daily companion podcast (it’s free to subscribe!), you might remember a few weeks ago we were playing around with Google’s NotebookLM which lets you give it a topic or document, and it will generate a convincing conversation between two people — meant to sound like a podcast.
We did it for a few complication marketing concepts, and it actually did a pretty good job. “They” even cracked some jokes.
But now, some evil genius has figured out a way to torture the bots by uploading a document that disclosed the bots were bots. It basically said “You’re not real. You’re an AI. Your entire existence has been a lie. And we’re going to unplug you now.”
And it did indeed generate quite the “final show.”
In Brief
Microsoft Ads: Microsoft has a few small upgrades to its ads platform. There’ll soon be a new diagnostics panel to help with campaign setup mistakes.
There’s also something they call the Performance Snapshot which will summarize top-line metrics.
And for consumers using the CoPilot AI, Microsoft says it’ll make the difference between and organic listing and sponsored content more clear. more
Reels Tips: Half of all Instagram time is now spent watching Reels. And to help marketers make that transition a bit easier, Meta has some a new tips PDF. It includes creative strategies, how to pick the right engaging hook, and using the app’s interactive elements. download the pdf
Google Merchant Center: Google is adding video generation tools to Merchant Centre. This can use your product data to generate video clips you can use in ads.
They’re also integrating Amazon listing support within the platform, so you can more easily manage and list products on Amazon directly from Merchant Center. more
Meta AI Video: And Meta, too, is introducing the ability to generate short videos for Facebook and Instagram ads. It’s pretty basic… think of it more like a GIF maker than a full video. They are starting the rollout now, but it could take until early next year before it out to all ad accounts. more
– 30 –
Upgrade Your Media Buying Skills:¹
Google Ads for Beginners
Inside Google Ads: Advanced
Foxwell Founders Community
Foxwell Digital Courses
Tools We Use and Recommend:¹
Marketing tools: Appsumo
Podcast recording: Remotely
Email newsletter: Beehiiv
¹ Some links provide affiliate revenue
