Lynette Reeves

Here's how we're beating creative fatigue on Meta in 2024, without needing to pump out a ton of brand-new creative... This is a graph of profit margin on a lead gen campaign we're running in NZ. Not a pretty WoW trajectory over the Summer... but look how quickly margins recovered when we tweaked things a bit. Let me explain... 💥 We had a BIG, new creative win in July 📉 But NZ is a SMALL market, and creative fatigue hits hard ...rather than completely ditching the creative & moving onto something new (which if you ONLY do this, is a big time & resource drain), we tweaked it with 3 tiny iterations... 1️⃣ Ad Copy test (exact same video) 2️⃣ Change the visual on the hook (other than the visual tweak, exact same video) 3️⃣ Audio test (often overlooked, but we changed up the music, otherwise, exact same video) The result? 2 out of 3 delivered a significant profit margin increase, which we're now scaling out horizontally 📈 To summarise: Don't throw away a creative just because it's stopped performing for you. Simple, little iterations are all you may need to get a second (or third) life out of it. This will also save you MASSIVE amounts of time & resource in the long run, particularly if you're making lots of short form video creative. Special shoutout to Amelia O’Brien for these results, you're crushing it! 👏 Anyone else seeing results with this?

44

8 Comments

I got the ick. Have you seen Google's new TV ad about AI? I rarely get passionate about advertising messages. But their commercial DOES NOT represent the way we should be promoting the use of AI to our children. And we should be vocal about it. TLDR: In it, a father suggests his daughter use Google's Gemini to help write a letter to her hero (and one of the best Olympic runners). Why not ask Gemini to help her edit her letter? Why not ask Gemini for cool facts about Sydney to include in the letter? Why not ask Gemini ways the girl can support Sydney at the Olympics? Why not ask Gemini when Sydney will be running? (Watch her shatter the world record on 8/8!) I want my children to learn how to write, to think for themselves, to express their thoughts. Those are fundamental skills for life and business! AI can do a lot, don't get me wrong. But not those things. What do you think? Article for reference: https://lnkd.in/enRM3_BK Shelly Palmer

5

4 Comments

Charlie Chaplin said "Simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve." Our rebrand is a representation of simplicity not only in our new name KAL (formerly KAL Design Co.) but also in how we work. WIth this announcement we intend to get a little louder about our convictions. To us, every single initiative is an opportunity for a brand to create an authentic connection, engagement and experience with their consumers. There is a right way to approach creativity and design... ❌ It's not size of the agency ❌ It's not revenue growth ❌ it's not about being the "most creative" ❌ It's not the amount of awards won Its about delivering the right solution that solves the business challenge, building inclusive relationships that leads to trust and enabling our clients to do more in their ever evolving landscapes. We have one goal...help our clients brands grow sustainably. Discover more at www.kal.agency

30

10 Comments

AdNews Australia asked for my opinion on a recent Google Gemini ad for the Olympics. While I'm a fan of some of the potential AI can deliver, there is a time and a place for it and it should not be used to encourage taking away the development of human creativity - especially in children. You can read my thoughts in the article link. #ai #creativity #advertising

1

‘Let’s quickly jump on a call.’ Could be one of the most destructive sentences ever uttered. I’m all for being quick and nimble. But these impromptu ‘catch-ups’ give cover to chaos and only enable more bad work. It’s where the brief becomes a chain of consciousness. It can’t be noted, minuted or referred back to. It lives and dies in its own window of existence. Doing more damage than good. Worse still, it engages none of the deeper cognitive thought that forces us to stop, think critically, explain, detail and justify. As I’ve said before. Don’t explain the ask to me. Explain it as if I was someone coming in completely cold. With no context or inherited knowledge, no forgiveness curve. Processes are there for a reason. Like brakes, they’re designed to make the machine go faster. So next time, don’t reach for the phone because it’s expedient or convenient. Stop. Think about what you’re asking. Write it down.   Then think about it some more. And hit send. If there’s grey area, explain it on a follow-up. When it comes to a quick call, that may be the best call to make. I'm a strategically minded writer turned brand articulator helping others on their journey. Like for more posts like this. Done any internal benchmarking recently? Take a look at our FREE brand assessment here: https://lnkd.in/dZetpiY3

8

Before I make the next post about dfcu Bank, I’d like to acknowledge a few things. Firstly, I think their new brand look and feel is significantly better than the previous one. This video is the evidence. Let’s start with the visuals. The old branding was outdated, period. Anyone familiar with design could tell dfcu Bank was stuck in the past. We had almost forgotten who they were and what made them special as a bank. It wasn’t even showing up on most people’s radar when considering opening an account. So, when the new refresh came, it was surprising. It caught our attention. But we weren’t just asking, “What has dfcu Bank done?” We were asking, “Who is the new dfcu Bank, and how different are they now? What do they have to offer?” It wasn’t just about how new they looked; it was about whether they had truly changed. With this new perspective, no one paying attention to dfcu Bank wants anything to do with the old brand. That’s because the old brand carried everything we associated with them before—and those associations, whether true or not, were not positive. That’s the nature of branding: it’s about the gut feeling people have toward you, whether they’re drawn in or repelled without a second glance. For dfcu Bank, this rebrand made us start paying attention. We were seeing promises in their social media ads. There was a new, slightly more dynamic visual system, bold billboards, and even a new logo - and they changed the name on the logo! It felt like they wanted to be a completely different entity, and that’s the “person” we wanted to get to know. But when I go to meet this “new friend” and I still find the old one lurking around, I feel pushed away. It’s like realizing maybe nothing has really changed after all. My point is this: the new dfcu is miles ahead of the old one. Visually—YES! Copy-wise, Definitely! The new logo? Super solid. The colors? Bolder and stronger. They were doing something right, and we were embracing it. dfcu Bank, you had us for a moment there. Please, don’t lose us! I’m saying this because I genuinely love to see brands thrive, especially when they’re putting in the effort. I don’t want to see them feel like they’re punching the wind. So, this is to say - I appreciate what dfcu is doing, and I’m here for it. I want them to exploit their rebrand to its highest potential fully. No fumbling. Now onto my actual post later on.

25

6 Comments

There are some really fab insights here from Creative Boom about what we can expect in the next 15 years - everything from AI to ingenuity to being humans (I have that last one mastered!). Some good news in an otherwise scary outlook? https://lnkd.in/gmymFXYU

4

1 Comment

This was an interesting read and I think they hit the nail on the head with this statement summing up what I feel about ai. Would a casual reader notice the difference? "It’s sort of like comparing a woodworking artisan’s table to one from IKEA. The artisans invest immense time and effort into their high-quality pieces, while IKEA produces things quickly and cheaply, and most people probably can’t tell the difference (or don’t care). Which is kind of sad for us artisans. With AI, we can expect a rise in superficially appealing but low-quality content. But that doesn’t mean there’s no place for craftsmanship. We still find meaning in the bespoke, at doing all the little things right, and in creating things that feel like they have a real person at the other end of it. And we can only hope that others do too." #ai #creativewriting Read about the experiment below. https://lnkd.in/eAfv79mV

2

Vintage Stop-Motion: Embracing Nostalgia, Humour and the Right Imperfections Australian animators, Mighty Nice Sydney, use old-school aesthetics to let animation do what it does best

3

1 Comment

AI Privacy Alert! 🚨 LinkedIn has a new setting called 'Data for Generative AI Improvement' that has been automatically switched on for Australian users, giving permission for LinkedIn and unnamed “affiliates” to “use your personal data and content you create” on the social network “for training content creation AI models”. You can turn it off by going to your profile, look for "Settings", click on "Data Privacy", scroll down to "Data for Generative AI Improvement", you will see that the default is "On", clicking on that will take you to the permission question, click on the green slider button to switch it from "On" to "Off". Share this post with others in your network. #Privacy #AI #Training #ArtificialIntelligence

8

1 Comment

How is the job market at the moment? I'm having a lot of conversations with both creatives and clients at the moment, and here are some of the top observations for what I'm noticing in the market right now. #creativerecruiters #creativerecruitment #creativeindustry

23

13 Comments

Progress work on one of the court cards for the Professor Witney's miracle cures deck of playing cards. Dragon Scales for instant pain relief. I need some relief, after the hour or so sketching, the six hours doing the line work and colour, and I still have the water and sky to lay in! I sometimes wonder if it might not have been quicker had I just used pens and paint. I guess with the amount of tweaks and changes I make, no. #snakeoil #directmarketing #salestechnique #presentations #advertsing #vintage #catalogue #marketing #sales #poker #playingcards #design #illustration #games #kickstarter

1

🤯My Pros & Cons lists (uncensored) from working for global advertising agencies in the early 2000s. I did 9 years in big agencies in London & Auckland. Sometimes I loved it. 💜 Sometimes I had to roll my eyes. 👀 PROS: 🧠 I worked with some uber-talented folk who were incredibly clever from creative to business minds. 😍 I found a tribe of good people where I felt I belonged. They were the quirky and clever outliers (my favourite kind of people). 🎓 Learned real-life lessons about business and marketing, that I still benefit from today. ☕️ There is ALWAYS a good espresso machine on hand. 🎤 Working on pitches - I used to love doing these. CONS: 🕰️ Brutally long hours. 😩 Arrogant people – they are in every industry, but I did work with my fair share. I learned the higher the level of arrogance, the lower emotional intelligence. 🍻Alcohol – how to get people to work night after night? Ply them with alcohol. Drinking culture was rife, it is hopefully different now because that sh*t breaks people in the end. 🌟 Every work experience there are pros and cons. It's how you decide to work inside of that industry that makes the difference. But for anyone interested in a career in marketing, doing the hard yards in a big advertising agency is the best training you can do. What are the pros and cons of your industry, I would love to compare? 🤔 #traininground #marketingcareers #workculture

2

3 Comments

This is a good article by Darren about uptake of AI in media and creative agencies

6

🫣 Yeah, that’s pretty s3xy. It certainly made the hair on my arms stand up when I heard the news. 🐵 Intuit Mailchimp now supports SMS campaigns in Australia from the very same Mailchimp you’re already using. 👍🏻 If you want to chat about how to start using it or ask some questions about how it works, drop me a DM. #smsmarketing #emailmarketing #threebites #emailcampaigns #smscampaigns

1

CAN BRAND-BUILDING IMPROVE PERFORMANCE MARKETING? Like, does performance marketing perform better if you have a big strong brand? Tracksuit worked with TikTok to find out. They studied 3 years of TikTok data from AUS/NZ for 11 brands running ads for at least 10 months each. Aided brand awareness ranged from 10% - 60%. They measured conversion in a few different ways, including actions & sales on brand websites, to make a combined conversion number. It turns out that brands that had higher awareness didn’t just have more total conversions (we’d kinda expect that, since they’re usually bigger brands too) — they also had a higher conversion RATE. In other words, having a well-known brand makes your performance marketing dollars go further. This seems to be yet another way Big Brands Win (aka the Tyranny of Market Share, of which Double Jeopardy is one formal example.) Caveats galore, but read the report: “The Awareness Advantage.” Good stuff. SO some lessons: 🍊 If your brand is small, anticipate lower-than-average conversion rates (all else being equal, which it never is). 🍊 Don’t skimp on brand-building awareness-building activities. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✴️ SIGN UP for the Irregular News at appliedbrandscience : com/signup ✴️ REACH OUT if you'd like us to speak at your next event. Now planning international speaking engagements for Winter & Spring 2025.

260

35 Comments

From Charli XCX's #bratsummer and iconic memes like the symphony dolphin, to the playful antics of Nutter Butter and the gamification of online lore, The Liveable Web brings a new era of self-expression online and IRL. Read our full report now  https://lnkd.in/gfNFnrZA #ThinkForward2025 #TheLiveableWeb #TrendReport

9

📊 Insights from Sked Social "Social Media Trends Report 2025" - micro-influencers are reshaping digital engagement in remarkable ways. A major finding reports that Micro-influencers are generating 60% higher engagement rates than celebrity influencers. Why? Because authenticity and genuine connections matter more than follower count. Key findings that caught my attention: 📣 Audiences trust smaller, more "real" creators over big names 👍 Brands are prioritising long-term partnerships with micro-influencers 🧑‍💻 Authentic, relatable content consistently outperforms polished celebrity posts 💵 Community engagement is becoming the new currency. If you're curious about turning these trends into actionable strategies, my new book offers practical insights and real-world experiences. What's your take on the rise of micro-influencers? Are you seeing this shift in your industry? https://lnkd.in/gE_iPrZg #DigitalMarketing #MicroInfluencer #SocialMediaTrends #ContentCreation

3