Lab Weekly - 04/26/2024
Aligning Meta’s AI & VR strategies, Plus, the latest news on the TikTok “ban,” the expanding Ozempic Economy, and more
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Meta’s AI & VR Strategies Are Aligning At Last
Meta has had a busy fortnight between launching the Llama 3 models and opening up its VR platform Horizon OS to third-party manufacturers, to bringing Meta AI to its smart glasses. Taken together, these moves represent a concerted push by Meta toward building out key components of the metaverse as open and interoperable layers. At last, Meta is aligning its VR strategy to its open approach to AI, and it paints a fuller picture of the type of long game that Zuckerberg is playing.
In case you missed it…
How Climate Anxiety Is Upending Business As Usual
Climate anxiety’s impact on consumer behavior extends far beyond EVs and sustainable products — from emerging travel trends such as “cool-cationing” and “last-chance tourism” to fortifying our home to be a sanctuary from worsening weather conditions, climate anxiety is manifesting in unexpected ways.
Kids These Days: What Marketers Need to Know About Gen Alpha
As the children of Millennials, these digital and AI natives burst onto the scene with a unique sense of humor, attitude, and slang, reshaping where and how brands seeking after a younger audience conduct their campaigns and craft their media strategies.
What's Old Is New Again for Hollywood
Is the streaming model broken? Instead of an ad-free, cheaper-than-cable, on-demand viewing experience initially promised by the streaming revolution, we're now being treated to a gradual revival of features typically associated with linear TV, such as ad-supported viewing, procedural shows, and so on. Is Hollywood truly out of ideas? Or is this what the audience wants?
Episode 156: Decoding Gen Alpha & Millennial Parenting
In this episode of Floor 9, the Lab’s strategy team (Adam Simon and Cheslea Freitas) and partnerships team (Ryan Miller and Tom Trudeau) join forces to analyze the youngest generation on the scene and their Millennial parents. Together, the team tackles topics that include:
Gen Alpha’s key media behaviors
How Gen Alpha socialize digitally
Gen Alpha as “AI natives”
The major concerns of Millennial parents
The recent “no phone childhood” movement
Key takeaways for brands looking to reach kids and parents
If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening!
President Biden Signs TikTok “Divest or Ban” Bill Into Law [The Verge]
The Senate passed a bill—appended to a $95 billion foreign-aid package—that would compel ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell the app within about nine months or face a ban in the U.S. The timing of the bill puts the deadline after the upcoming presidential election, and there are still too many variables at play for anyone to make a solid prediction on how the dust will settle on this issue in nine months. The Information reports that ByteDance is exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok US, preferably to a non-tech company, and without its core recommendation algorithm that powers the For You page.
As Casey Newton summed it up in his Platformer newsletter, debates remain among legal scholars on how the TikTok divestment bill could survive a First Amendment challenge and why the US will likely rely on a national security argument. But perhaps it’s besides the point whether the ban will eventually take effect or not. As analyst M.G. Siegler puts it, while the sale or ban may ultimately be put on ice, the chilling effect on TikTok’s creator base and its ad business will no doubt linger.
Besides the presumed potential buyers like Oracle or Microsoft, analyst Ben Thompson suggested Walmart as a potential buyer, given that the company was part of Trump’s plan to separate TikTok from ByteDance in 2020, and the retail giant could reap the benefits by potentially integrating TikTok into its growing ecommerce business and retail media network.
Related: TikTok has promised to sue over the potential US ban [AP News]; The great conundrum of campaigning on TikTok [The Verge]; Imagining an US internet without TikTok [Vox]
Ozempic is Coming for the Alcohol and Tobacco Industries Next [Quartz]
As I noted in my piece on the booming Ozempic Economy last month, the impact of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs goes far beyond weight loss and fitness. Taking Ozempic is also reportedly effective at suppressing some common addictive cravings, such as those for alcohol and nicotine. Now we have new data to back up the claim.
A new survey from Morgan Stanley found that people taking GLP-1 weight loss medications are giving up their vices. The percentage of respondents who say they smoked cigarettes at least weekly fell from 40% pre-treatment to 24% once they started treatment. Meanwhile, weekly e-cigarette usage dropped from 30% of respondents to 16% after they started taking a GLP-1 medication. As for alcohol consumption among GLP-1 users, approximately 56-62% of those who drank alcohol noted a reduction in their intake since they started taking the medication, while around 14-18% say they’d quit drinking alcohol altogether.
Of course, we are still at an early stage of understanding the full potential of the Ozempic economy, and already it is raising some interesting questions about the implications of medical interventions on lifestyle and consumption patterns. It prompts reflection on how advancements in healthcare and pharmaceuticals not only address health issues, but also how they intersect with broader societal concerns, such as addiction treatment and accessibility of such medications.
Related: Sanders launches Senate investigation into ‘outrageously high’ pricing of Ozempic [CNN]; Pharma giant plans to cash in on 'Ozempic Face' craze with fillers [Business Insider]
Sony in Talks to Join a Bid to Buy Paramount [New York Times]
The Hollywood consolidation rumor mill continues, as the New York Times reports that Sony Pictures Entertainment is in talks with Apollo Global Management for a potential joint bid to buy Paramount Global. It is worth noting that Sony and the Apollo-backed Legendary Pictures, which produced the latest Dune and Godzilla franchises, already have a distribution deal.
Merely two months after Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly backed out a potential merger with Paramount, it is a bit puzzling as to why Sony decided to step up as a potential buyer, especially given that Sony made a conscious decision in 2019 to get out of the streaming business, selling its streaming service Crackle. Considering 2024 is not a great time to get into the streaming business, one would have to assume that Sony’s interests in Paramount may lie in the latter’s significant presence in the broadcast and cable business, not to mention Paramount’s impressive content catalog.
Related: Paramount Plus is trying to carve out a safe streaming space for kids [The Verge]; The Disney Plus password-sharing crackdown starts in June [CNET]
Situational Awareness:
Amazon wants to host companies’ custom generative AI models [TechCrunch]
Not a bad strategy for Amazon actually — since the company clearly can’t keep up with the latest AI models, it might as well leverage the massive cloud computing infrastructure of AWS and its cutting edge capabilities to lure more LLM owners into mutually beneficial partnerships.
Spotify says about a quarter of paid subscribers in the US, UK and Australia have started an audiobook [Bloomberg]
25% may not sound like a lot, but it’s still a pretty impressive sample rate for a relatively niche business like audiobooks. Spotify is certainly wishing to diversify its business beyond just music, which it has to pay a lot to record labels based on streams.
Nothing Phone (2) and Nothing earbuds get ChatGPT integration with latest update [9to5Google]
This integration probably still wouldn’t be enough to lift the Nothing brand of phones and earbuds out of niche obscurity, but I do like that more hardware makers are making a bid in this direction. All eyes on what Apple and Google decides to do with their next generation of mobile OS.
Elon Musk announces the integration of Grok, an advanced artificial intelligence, into Tesla vehicles [Tesla Mag]
Tesla does need to keep up on all the AI developments lately, but adding a “rebellious” LLM to Tesla’s interface is not going to reassure the drivers, nor will it be enough to turn the company’s faltering sales around.
Roblox rolled out real-time AI translation for all users to facilitate global multiplayer gaming [Tom’s Guide]
This is a great example of leveraging the latest LLM breakthroughs to add value to the customer experience and scale your operation.
The retention issue that many streaming services face seems to be escalating lately. Citing the latest data from Antenna, the New York Times reports that about 25% of subscribers to US streaming video services, or over 29 million users, canceled 3 or more streaming services over the past 2 years, as they increasingly jump between services in a cycle of “sub, binge, and cancel.”
Over a third of Americans traveling this summer plan to go into debt to finance their trip, Alex reports from a new Bankrate survey. 36% of aspiring summer travelers plan to finance their trips, compared to 64% of those who won't take on debt to travel. Specifically, 47% of millennials taking a summer trip this year plan to finance it, compared to just 22% of baby boomers. That said, it is worth noting that the survey also found that only about half (53%) of U.S. adults are planning summer travel in 2024.
About 53% of U.S. consumers have tried a generative AI-powered tool such as ChatGPT, according to a new survey of 3,000 participants from Adobe Analytics. More importantly, the people that tried it are quite happy with the results, with 82% of respondents agreeing with the idea that gen AI is a tool that will enhance their creativity and simplify their lives.
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 Chelsea Freitas, our VP of Strategy, at chelsea@ipglab.com.
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