Lab Weekly - 09/20/2024
Snapchat’s big bets on AI & AR; Plus, the latest news on YouTube, Lionsgate’s AI deal, & more must-know stories and cool stats
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What Brand Marketers Need To Know about Snap Summit 2024
Let’s take a close look at Snapchat’s new drivers for ad revenue, its big bet on AI, and its even bigger bet on AR glasses.
In case you missed it…
What Apple’s New “Visual Intelligence” Means for Brands
Apple announced its latest product updates on Monday via a pre-recorded keynote video. Indeed, despite it being a hardware event, the real star of the show is undoubtedly the set of AI-powered features that Apple is set to unleash with the new iPhone models.
The Crucial Differentiator in the AI Search War
The burgeoning AI search war carries far-ranging implications for the future of the web and digital advertising. Everyone needs the latest news content to keep their AI search engines up-to-date, and access to quality content has become an increasingly important differentiation point.
Apple Intelligence Could Usher In A New Era For Ai
In this article published on The Drum, Adam Simon (managing director at IPG Media Lab) outlines the way digital advertisers must adapt by integrating with AI ecosystems, enhancing personalization, optimizing for voice search, and building brand loyalty to avoid disintermediation from traditional touchpoints as AI assistants like Apple Intelligence gain prominence.
YouTube Is Rolling Out Ads On Paused Screens [The Verge]
I’m leading with this self-explanatory news item here to talk about the key announcements from the latest Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, which largely falls into three categories: AI tools, community-building features, and TV app revamp.
On the AI front, YouTube adds an Inspiration tab in the YouTube Studio app that lets creators use LLMs to generate video concepts, create titles and thumbnails, and write scripts. It is also integrating Veo, Google DeepMind’s AI video generation model, into YouTube Shorts to allow creators to generate high-quality backgrounds and six-second clips.
On the community-building side, YouTube unveiled a Communities feature that allows creators and fans to have Discord-like channels to interact with one another, along with a new Community Hub, which gives creators a combined view of all the activities on their channel. For the up-and-coming creators, YouTube also introduced a new promotional system called Hype, which encourages users to promote videos from smaller creators (with less than 500,000 subscribers) by clicking a "Hype" button. The most “hyped” videos will be ranked on a weekly leaderboard to increase visibility, and fans can feel they directly contributed to the rise of these emerging creators.
Lastly, YouTube also announced that it is planning a major revamp of its connected TV app, a new UI that allow creators to organize their shows into series and seasons, similar to the standard layout on a regular streaming service, as well as features like immersive previews for creator pages and a more prominent subscribe functionality to boost engagement. The pause ads mentioned above is also an idea clearly borrowed from streamers like Peacock and Amazon Prime Video.
Taken in totality, these latest updates from YouTube signal its growing ambition to conquer the living room screen. While TikTok and its ilk are still tied to smartphones as their primary viewing platform, YouTube has already made the leap to big-screen viewing and solidified its dominance in cross-platform viewing, which gives it a unique advantage over other UGC-driven video platforms. The post-streaming wars landscape increasingly boils down to a competition for eyeballs between Netflix and YouTube. While Netflix has the advantage of being the default streaming choices for many, platforms like YouTube remain highly competitive, especially due to its widespread reach across devices and high engagement rate.
Related: Why sports organizations are investing in their own streaming services [Digiday]; Roku introduces self-service ad platform with Shopify integration [Investing]
Lionsgate Inks Deal With Runway to Mine Its Massive Film and TV Library [Holywood Reporter]
Elsewhere in the entertainment industry, the intrusion of generative AI and its endless appetite for training data has led AI video firm runway to Lionsgate, which has been rather financially beleaguered lately after releasing a series of box office bombs including Borderlands, a reboot of The Crow, and Aurthur the King. Not to mention the upcoming Megalopolis is tracking poorly too. So, perhaps we could understand the absolute desperation that Lionsgate decided to sign their entire library away and feed it to Runway’s video generating model.
Expectedly, the backlash from the creative community has been strong and swift, with many criticizing Lionsgate for setting a dangerous precedent for other Hollywood studios and content owners. The deal comes amid evolving regulations around AI in entertainment: Recent legislation in California aims to protect performers' rights regarding AI-generated likenesses. The partnership is a lawsuit waiting to happen as the creative industry grapples with the ethical and legal implications of AI use.
Related: Runway debuts API for its video-generating AI model Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, allowing enterprises to build apps, products atop its realistic video AI model [VentureBeat]
Amazon Releases A Video Generator, But Only For Ads [TechCrunch]
Amazon debuted an AI-powered video generator, available for some U.S. advertisers in beta, which turns a single product image into a few-second video showcase. It would also allow for customization of elements like font, soundtrack, and branding. It’s part of Amazon's broader push to integrate generative AI into advertising, similar to efforts by Google and Adobe.
Amazon's competitive advantage lies in its retail insights, allowing it to tailor ads more precisely to consumer behavior. Combined with its vast e-commerce ecosystem, this AI-powered advertising innovation positions Amazon ahead of competitors in creating efficient, high-impact ads. But, as TechCrunch’s reviewer notes, the videos generated by this model are all rather formulaic and bland. To truly win over the customers, more thoughts and efforts will have to be put into fine-tuning the AI output.
Related: Amazon launches Amelia, an AI tool designed to help third-party sellers resolve account issues and fetch sales and inventory data [CNBC]
Situational Awareness:
Amazon’s new ‘Shark Tank’-style show gives winners top billing in its store [WSJ]
Winners will get their items promoted on the new “Buy It Now” store and $20,000 to start their own business. In hindsight, it’s surprising that it took Amazon this long to turn entrepreneurs into entertainment content and convert those eyeballs directly into sales.
iOS 18 finally adds support for RCS [The Verge]
Apple is now finally resolving the texting compatibility issues now that the green bubble stigma is part of the antitrust case against Apple. Still, I’m confident that we Apple users will soon find other ways to feel superior to Android users.
Apple Pay now integrates with Affirm on iOS 18 [9to5Mac]
By partnering with Affirm, Apple can continue offering BNPL services to its users while mitigating risks associated with them in a shifting regulatory environment. This approach lets Apple maintain control over the user experience while leveraging Affirm's BNPL expertise.
Apple Music adds playlists for iOS 18's new 'music haptics' feature [MacRumors]
This is a cool way to turn an accessibility feature as a way to better experience music for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, accessible and fun for everyone else too. Talk about “vibing” with a song!
Decentralized social network Bluesky said on Monday that it now has more than 10 million users. This is largely thanks to the rapid growth of the network in the past few weeks after Elon Musk-owned X was shuttered in Brazil.
Microsoft’s AI assistant is gaining traction with enterprise customers. The company said Copilot customers increased by more than 60% in the most recent quarter, compared with the previous period, while the number of clients with more than 10,000 users doubled, Bloomberg reports.
Source: Nielsen
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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