Lab Weekly - 03/24/2023
What Luxury looks like in 2023; plus, the latest news on Bard, Bing, Fortnite, and Snapchat, along with some cool stats to know
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New Luxury Mindset Shifts In 2023
From the impact of a “rich-cession” to turning luxury consumption into creative expressions and feel-good investment, see how things have evolved for luxury consumers and brands.
In case you missed it…
Four Ways Consumer Behaviors May Evolve Amid Recession Fears
Beyond some of the more obvious behavioral changes in the face of a potential recession, here are four emerging trends in consumer behaviors that brands should pay attention to.
Outlook 2023: APAC POV
Written by Sharon Soh, Chief Planning & Audience Officer at UM APAC, this comprehensive POV examines how the four trends highlighted in our Outlook 2023 report is playing out across the dynamic and diverse APAC region, and explains how brands can navigate the interregnum.
Outlook 2023: The Canadian POV
Written by our Canadian team led by Kelvin Mak, Senior Director, Digital Strategy and Partnerships at UM Canada, this POV digests our Outlook 2023 trends and offers unique insights into how Canada is dealing with the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation.
Google Opens Early Access To Bard AI For Select US And UK Users [9to5Google]
The generative AI arms race continues with a major milestone for Google, as it adds its Bing rival named Bard, powered by its own LaMDA large language deep learning model, to Google search and opens early access to selective users. One interesting thing about Bard, in comparison to ChatGPT-powered Bing, is that Google is far more cautious about presenting the answers that Bard comes up with. For example, for each inquiry, Bard would come up with three drafts of answers, selectable using the “view other drafts” drop-down menu. Bard also comes with disclaimers to users to treat its replies with caution.
Funny mistakes made by Bard are already circulating on Twitter, just as the early days of the Bing rollout, but so far, no major controversy has broken out over this rollout, partly thanks to the enormous caution that Google is taking with this rollout — or perhaps we’re all quickly getting numb to the seemingly nonstop bombardment of AI-related announcements these days.
Still, it is interesting to consider how Google might just be cannibalizing its biggest ad revenue stream by going down this route of integrated AI search in order to stay competitive. There’s no concrete plan to monetize Bard without potentially degrading the user experience. (Although, to be fair, neither does Microsoft know what to do with Bing beyond gaining market share in search.) Perhaps that’s why Bard would provide three draft answers — more answers would mean more space to potentially place a sponsored search result. And considering the amount of personal information that Google already has on its users, if users are asked to opt in to allow Bard to access their personal data so as to offer more personalized answers, that’d probably be Bard’s biggest competitive advantage over Bing in the near future.
Related: Google is giving some Pixel Superfans early access to Bard [9to5Google]; A simple prompt can generate a three-second video on a new AI tool from the startup Runway [Bloomberg]; OpenAI says ChatGPT could disrupt 19% of US jobs [PCMag]
Microsoft Rolls Out AI Image Creator For Bing & Edge Browser [The Verge]
Microsoft is not slowing down on the AI arms race this week either, as the company started rolling out a new AI image generation tool to select users on Tuesday. The new “Bing Image Creator” is powered by an “advanced version” of OpenAI’s DALL-E model and will let Bing users create images by simply writing text prompts. This rollout reflects how quickly Microsoft has been building on its OpenAI partnership. Considering DALL-E’s main competitor Midjourney has recently selected Google Cloud as its cloud service partner, the battle line seems to be drawn when it comes to the text-to-image generation tools.
Needless to say, adding this new format dramatically expands the creative capability of Bing, which is now so much more than just a search engine. Last week, Microsoft also launched with much fanfare the new AI Copilot feature that boosted its productivity suite. If anything, the ability to ask for a specific image by simply writing a prompt may be the next frontier for AI search, as that would require heavy indexing and adding alt-text metadata to the vast amount of images online.
Of course, another way of incorporating text-to-image tools into a search engine would also open the doors to more creative ways of presenting search results and news. AI could become an on-demand illustrator that creates, say, an Instagram Story-style image card for each answer in order to help visualize the search results. Microsoft is certainly trying out this route with the new set of Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0 features added to Bing along with the Image Creator, but it still remains to be seen whether these features will gain traction among users that have gotten used to receiving search results in text form, even though the rest of our digital media feeds have been largely overtaken by images and short-form videos.
Related: Microsoft is also bringing its Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0 features of Bing to all users [BigTechWire]; Journalist who made AI images of 'Trump arrest' banned from service [MSN]; OpenAI is massively expanding ChatGPT’s capabilities to let it browse the web and more [The Verge]
Fortnite’s Unreal Engine Editor Lets It Compete With Roblox [Polygon]
At Epic Games’ State of Unreal 2023 keynote, the Fortnite maker unveiled a peek at the new Unreal Editor, which will give creators a suite of new tools to create custom Fortnite maps and experiences. In a demo, the company showed off some bright Fortnite characters in a gritty environment that looks distinctly different from Fortnite. In addition, Epic announced that, as part of its Creator Economy 2.0 initiative, it is going to give 40% of Fortnite’s net revenues back to creators.
This is a notable development, as it is part of a growing initiative aimed to take game development past the hands of the skilled few, and fully unlock the democratization of 3D creation — a crucial building block in the development of the metaverse. Roblox is somewhat ahead of the curve here as the game itself is envisioned as a platform where players can build and create their own games on top. So this new 3D creation tool will be crucial in not only expanding the worlds on Fortnite, but also in laying the groundwork for enabling the next generation of creators and brands to build out their own virtual spaces.
Related: Heinz highlights soil degradation with Fortnite Island [MarketingDive]; Epic’s hyperrealistic MetaHumans can soon be animated using an iPhone [The Verge]
Snap Launches New Business To Help Retailers With AR Shopping [The Verge]
Snap announced AR Enterprise Services (ARES), a new SaaS venture aimed at helping retailers use and monetize their AR and AI shopping tools on Snapchat. ARES will do so by focusing on assisting retailers in boosting conversions and lowering return rates through their shoppable AR lenses and tools.
Along with the Shopping Suite, which includes virtual try-on features that allow customers to try on products, ARES will also offer customers professional services such as product marketing and customer support to help brands activate on the opportunities that AR unlocks. Overall, a great addition to the Snap portfolio as it continues to expand its AR capabilities and realize its commercial potential as a valued brand partner.
Related: Denny's dishes up AR technology with release of new menu [AdWeek]; This is Meta’s AR / VR hardware roadmap for the next four years [The Verge]; Microsoft Teams will let you transform into a 3D avatar in May [The Verge]
Netflix plans to launch 40 more video games before the end of 2023, as it pushes forward with its plans to be a global force in gaming, company reps tell Axios. The global streamer already has 70 games in the works from external partners and 16 games in various stages of development from Netflix’s growing roster of internal game studios.
TikTok is still growing its user base. The short video app announced its monthly active users (MAUs) has hit 150 million in the US, up from 100 million MAUs in August 2020; in September 2021, TikTok reported over 1 billion MAUs globally.
After a slow start, Netflix’s advertising business has gained some momentum. The company’s advertising-supported service reached about 1 million monthly active users in the US after its second month, according to internal data seen by Bloomberg. Netflix has also fulfilled its forecasted deliveries to advertisers, according to people familiar with the deals.
If you find our insights valuable and would like to have a deeper conversation on technology and media innovations, or need to sound smarter in a client meeting or a pitch, please feel free to reach out to our Group Director Josh Mallalieu!
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