Markets, and therefore consumers, operate on a pendulum principle. A meme is created, becomes popular and turns into a trend.
A given company on the stock exchange, a new technology or product, starts almost vertically upwards until finally some market participants – financial, market of ideas or fashion – realize that it is time to play a counter. Suddenly a reverse force is created, which, if timed correctly, begins to gather energy from the people who follow it.
Extreme consumerism must lead to a retreat from shopping, a bear market will bring a boom, and the omnipresent technologicalization of our lives must result in an escape to nature.
In recent years, we have added new elements to this memetic pendulum, such as hundreds of thousands of influencers (versus hundreds of trendsetters before), much faster, more viral media (versus the mass media of past decades), and a lower threshold for entering new trends – most consumer goods are becoming cheaper after all.
From this set of factors emerges a take telegram advertising service complex, undulating consumer world, governed by exponential functions, the nature of which has been brought to us all by the pandemic. A world in which jumping into a trend is the life or death of brands.
Although the “underconsumerism” described today is gaining strength, let’s remember that it is taking place against the backdrop of still-thriving services with millions of products for $4, such as Temu or Shein. So the question is: at what height is the consumerist pendulum currently?
Contents:
- Anti-consumerism on the rise
- AI as a Business Risk Factor
- Gaming is increasingly using AI
- Google update: smaller people will have it easier
- Walmart makes billions from advertising
- Google Play Store will face the competition
- Imagen 3: new quality of graphics
- Beauty never ages
- Virtual customer menu
- Democrats spend more on ads
- Shorts
- Weekly Tool
- Knowledge from the blog
Anti-consumerism on the rise
A “dangerous” trend has emerged on TikTok. Users fed up with sponsored content, shopping hauls, and consumer pressure are starting to rebel against glamour.
In videos labeled “underconsumption” and “normal consumption” they expose the humdrum of everyday life: modest interiors, furniture from exhibitions, clothes from second-hand shops and worn-out cars.
The phenomenon is new and it is not known whether it will gain wide popularity. AdAge points out that brands that would like to jump on the bandwagon should do so with great caution.
Building a message (ultimately) aimed at sales by appealing to anti-shopping ideas requires advanced narrative acrobatics.
AI as a Business Risk Factor
AI as a business support? Opinions are divided.
More than half of the largest U.S. companies see artificial intelligence as a potential threat to their businesses, according to a study by Arize AI, a company that monitors and optimizes artificial intelligence models.
56% of Fortune 500 organizations listed AI as a “risk factor” in their latest annual reports, a huge increase. In 2022, just 9% of surveyed companies had similar concerns.
Moreover, of the 108 companies that referred to the potential of generative AI (text and graphics creation tools) in the study, only 33 see it as an opportunity to obtain specific benefits, such as cost reduction or increased efficiency and innovation. The remaining respondents from this group see AI mainly as a risk.
Concerns include increased competition from companies that use this technology more effectively, as well as image and “operational” issues. These include the need to address ethical issues related to AI’s impact on privacy, employment, and human rights.
Gaming is increasingly using AI
In the Middle Kingdom, ethical concerns about AI are less common. Chinese tech companies are leading the way in using AI to design video games. The use of AI has enabled significant cost reductions—allegedly without compromising or even improving quality.
This path is being taken by Tencent, the owner of the WeChat messenger and a gaming giant (it has shares in Epic Games, among others). The company has long a perfect combination of design and content used AI to generate scenography and animations in computer games. Other applications of AI in this industry include creating scenarios, missions, simulating games, and conducting developer tests.
With less work to do, designers can focus on finer detailing and creating more engaging stories.
Google update: smaller people will have it easier
There is light at the end of the tunnel for sites affected by the helpful content update (2022) – a mechanism rewarding “original and useful” content created with the recipient in mind, which has sunk many small and independent websites. Google has decided to take into account the voices of criticism and implement corrections to its australia data algorithm as part of the August 2024 core update – the latest update of its search engine.
It’s a continuation of the company’s efforts “to improve the quality of search results by showing more content that people actually find useful and less content that feels like it’s just there to do well in search,” said John Mueller, a longtime Google expert who now serves as a search advocate.
The full rollout will take about a month, but some smaller publishers are reportedly already seeing improvements.