Lab Weekly - 08/25/2023
Dissecting brand-centered cultural trends; plus, the latest news about ChatGPT, new PlayStation console, YouTube’s AI Music incubator, along with some must-know stats
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The Ongoing Renaissance of Brand-Centered Trends
2023 has been a chaotic year for culture, but a great year for cultural marketing. Between the Barbie movie and the Grimace shake, brand-centered trends enjoyed a renaissance; two of the biggest pop stars to walk the earth (speaking of Renaissance) launched global tours with an economic impact so strong the Federal Reserve felt compelled to comment on it;. Our associate director of Strategy, Katy Geisreiter dissects how marketers stopped worrying about keeping up with TikTok memes, and learned to work with the chaotic cultural trends of 2023.
In case you missed it…
Decoding The Barbenheimer Phenomenon
The viral Barbenheimer trend revived mass passion for going to the movies, but whether or not this is a one-off depends on whether Hollywood will learn the right lessons from its success.
Sportsbooks as Media Companies
Brands can reach sports audiences via online betting platforms, which are increasingly trying to become media companies themselves by incorporating sports content. Still, interested brands need to beware of the potential brand safety concerns associated
Meta Enters The AI Race With An “Open” Approach
What Is LLaMA 2 and what does Meta’s open-source approach mean for the competitive landscape of generative AI
ChatGPT Expands “Custom Instructions” Feature To Free Users [TechCrunch]
OpenAI has expanded its custom instructions feature for ChatGPT to free users. The feature allows users to add preferences and requirements that they want the AI chatbot to consider when responding. Custom instructions were previously only available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, who pay $20 per month. Extending this feature to its massive base of free users is no doubt a way for OpenAI to make ChatGPT more accessible to a wider audience. But it also raises the question of whether OpenAI will be able to create enough differentiation between paid and free access to ChatGPT in order to efficiently monetize the demand without halting its user adoption momentum among unpaying users.
Regardless, this expansion is good news for brands and marketers who are curious about exploring the AI use cases that ChatGPT can help unlock. The custom instructions feature can be used to specify things like the tone of the chatbot's response, the level of detail, and the type of information that the chatbot should provide. This means that brands can use ChatGPT to create personalized chatbot experiences that are tailored to their specific needs. For example, a brand could use ChatGPT to create a chatbot that answers customer questions in a friendly and informative way, or a brand could use ChatGPT to create a chatbot that generates leads for their sales team.
Related: College professors are going back to paper exams and handwritten essays to fight students using ChatGPT [Insider Intelligence]; OpenAI says AI tools can be effective in content moderation [Reuters]
Sony Unveils New Handheld Console PlayStation Portal [The Verge]
This is not a new PSP or PS Vita. As it turns out, Portal is not a really standalone gaming console. It does not support local play or bluetooth connection. Instead, it is essentially an extension device that has to be connected to a PlayStation 5 to function. What’s even odder is that, as a portable console device, it does not support cloud gaming via the premium tier of the PlayStation+ subscription. Considering that Sony has recently started testing the ability to stream PlayStation 5 games from the cloud to the console, as its key competitor Microsoft steadily extends its Xbox Cloud Gaming service via the premium tier of its Game Pass subscription. Perhaps support for cloud gaming will be added to the Portal down the road, but it is rather baffling as to what use cases Sony is aiming for with this $200 gaming device other than “go play PlayStation in another room.”
Related: Sony unveils the $200 Pulse Explore earbuds and $150 Pulse Elite headset [The Verge]; Amazon launches cloud gaming service Amazon Luna on LG's smart TVs [TechCrunch]; Discord on Xbox will soon let you stream your gameplay to friends [The Verge]
YouTube Launches “Music AI Incubator” with UMG [Variety]
YouTube is launching a Music AI Incubator program in partnership with musicians and producers from Universal Music Group (UMG) to explore the potential of music creation assisted by generative AI. At launch, UMG’s music talents such as Anitta, Ryan Tedder, and the Estate of Frank Sinatra, have been tapped to give their input on how to use generative AI in songwriting and music production.
Interestingly, this marks a heel-turn from UMG’s previous stance on AI-generated music. After an AI-generated Drake x The Weeknd song went viral, the record label sent a letter to music streaming platforms, and asked to stop AI training on the melodies and lyrics of their copyrighted songs. But as more tech companies start to release music-generating AI tools, record labels realized that trying to block AI music is no longer a viable option.
It’s too early to tell what this incubator program would produce, but this partnership certainly sets an industry precedent for how record labels may collaborate with music streamers to ensure that they will have a say in how their copyrighted content is used to train music AI models and create new music.
Related: YouTube Music debuts Samples, a TikTok-style feed for music discovery [Engadget]; Meta released AudioCraft, a set of open-source AI tools for developers to create text-to-audio creation features [Mashable]
Netflix had more sign-ups than any other in July, potentially thanks to its continued crackdown on password sharing.New report from Bloomberg cites data from TV research firm Antenna found that the global streamer added about 2.6 million new US users in July, more than any other paid streaming service but down 26% from June 2023; among them, about 23% signed up for Netflix's ad-supported tier.
Gen Z favors social media over TV for CPG purchases and accepts personalized ads more than other groups, a new study on Gen Z shoppers by Tinuiti claims. Almost twice as many Gen Z shoppers discovered new products they went on to purchase later on TikTok (34%) vs. Instagram (18%), and more than three times as many did so on TikTok as Facebook.
Barbie surpassed The Super Mario Bros. Movie on Thursday to become the highest-grossing film at the domestic box office so far this year, Variety reports. The Greta Gerwig-directed doll comedy has earned $575.4 million so far in U.S. theaters, surpassing The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which has earned $574 million. Globally, Barbie’s box office sales now sits at $1.3 billion.
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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