😒Weekend Links 1/9
It's been such a slow news week: The Neal Ungerleider Newsletter #69
LOL WTF is happening right now.
Really—That’s the only rational response on tap right now. There was a mob and a weird invason of the Capitol thing kinda-sorta happened.
None of that’s normal and it’s a waste of time to even try to rationalize it and fit it into your reality tunnel of choice.
Anyway… On to this weekend’s links.
New Futures:
2021 PREDICTIONS: It’s a new year and here are some tech industry trend predictions (not that you can predict more than a quarter out nowadays, but that’s a whole separate story…) from Kara Swisher/New York Times, Fred Wilson/AVC, and Fjord/Accenture.
Neal’s takeaway: These predictions emphasize how the shift from in-office to remote work will continue to dominate product development for consumer and business markets in 2021.INSIDE THE CDC’s FAILURE: A massive ProPublica investigation shows how political interference from the Trump administration prevented the Centers for Disease Control from effectively manging the COVID-19 pandemic.
Neal’s takeaway: The CDC suffered a massive loss of effectiveness, reputation and institutional power due to political interference.RACIAL BIAS & PULSE OXIMETERS: A letter to the New England Journal of Medicine documents how pulse oximeters show less accurate results for patients with darker skin… Because designers didn’t account for how sensors would work differently with darker skin.
Neal’s takeaway: Not testing your product with diverse audiences can lead to unintended consequences.TV LOBBY OPPOSES DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME: It might sound like a crank conspiracy theory, but Brick House’s Donald Shaw explains that the National Association of Broadcasters has been lobbying against letting states stay on daylight savings time year-round since 2018… Because getting dark earlier means more television viewers.
Neal’s takeaway: Industry groups lobbying over very random things may have important real-world consequences.DYSTOPIA AS CLICKBAIT: Science fiction author Christopher Brown looks at the symbiotic relationship between dystopian science fiction and mainstream media coverage of current events.
Neal’s takeaway: News stories aren’t headlines, and framing non-dystopian stories with dystopian headlines helps noone. Now let’s talk about dystopian stories…
Advertising/Marketing/PR:
KFC’S GAMING CONSOLE: In a publicity stunt for the ages, KFC has released an actual gaming console that doubles as a fried chicken warmer.
Neal’s take: Gamers love fast food, and creating DIY consoles is easy in our homebrew tech age. This is an easy, smart way to get attention from a target audience.BRANDS COPE WITH CAPITOL ATTACK: The peak 2020’s aesthetic is Coca-Cola and Axe body spray decrying the attacks on the Capitol while the National Association of Manufacturers publicly urges invoking the 25th amendment.
Neal’s take: It’s increasingly impossible for brands and corporations not to take explicit political stances. However, do their public stances align with their PAC donations?BEER EXEC ALLEGEDLY SUPPORTING ANTI-LOCKDOWN GROUPS: A report in industry newsletter Beer Business Daily alleges an executive whose name rhymes with “Eat Doors” contacted the newsletter advocating for “mass civil disobedience” by businesses, urging them to defy government COVID-19 shut down orders.
Neal’s take: If true, this is a surprising public move by any executive associated with any companies with names similar to Nolson Zoors.HOTEL BRANDS DEVELOPING IN-HOUSE AGENCIES: Marriott and Hilton are among the latest hotel brands launching their own in-house creative agencies. The move is part of an enhanced emphasis on branded products and novel launches to help weather the COVID storm.
Neal’s take: In-house creative agencies are becoming more and more popular, and a pandemic isn’t going to stop that particular trend.FOOD LABELS AND MARKETING: From the intersection of legal and marketing, industry group the Association for Dressings & Sauces is lobbying the FDA to stop regulating the ingredients in French dressing and an appellate court ruled Parmesan cheese with fillers can’t be marketed as ‘100% grated parmesan.’
Neal’s take: Marketing matters, brand positioning matters.
Media:
GRAMMYS DELAYED: The Recording Academy has postponed the Grammy Awards from January 31 to March 21 as Los Angeles continues to suffer from a massive COVID outbreak.
Neal’s take: The Grammys won’t be the first major event postponed or canceled this year due to COVID or a volatile political situation… in a year full of major events which have already been postponed or canceled.PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TWITTER FEED SHUT DOWN: Twitter corporate specifically cited that “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021” as a contributing factor to their decision.
Neal’s take: Even with the Trump presidency ending this month, other leaders and politicians worldwide understand that the magic formula for building personality cults involves trolling and outlandish threats on social media. That genie will never be put back in the bottle.UNDERSTANDING SUBSTACK: Applied Divinity Studies has compiled the best online writing against, for, and on Substack.
Neal’s take: Substack is such a popular platform exactly because it’s much easier to use than its rivals… but that ease of use may become a liability as users become more experienced.MRBEAST OPENS FAST FOOD CHAIN: YouTube personality MrBeast has opened a ghost kitchen fast food restaurant, MrBeast Burgers, at 300 locations nationwide.
Neal’s take: Most YouTube influencers love attention, but don’t follow through on their ambitious plans. MrBeast is one of the exceptions.TWITTER ACQUISITIONS: Twitter has acquihired creative agency Ueno to develop in-house products, and also acquihired the team behind podcast app Breaker.
Neal’s take: Twitter has some extra money to spend, and they’re investing it in social media’s mobile future.TIMESHARE COMPANY BUYS TRAVEL + LEISURE MAG: Wyndham Destinations, a vacation rental and timeshare company that spun off from Wyndham Hotels in 2018, is purchasing Travel + Leisure magazine and rebranding as Travel + Leisure Co.
Neal’s take: Thanks to digital disruption, iconic magazine brands are a relatively cheap commodity these days. Marketers can use them for a range of purposes, with the readers on the receiving end unaware of any ownership changes.
Tech:
AN AI THAT CAN DRAW ANYTHING: OpenAI’s new neural network DALL-E can generate images based on any text caption entered into it from a large database. In other words, it’s an AI that draws anything you ask it to draw.
Neal’s take: Holy s*** this is amazing.THE RECIPE SEO PROBLEM: Caitlin Dewey writes that online recipe sites are increasingly publishing content whose main audience is bots (namely Google’s search algorithm), leading to low-quality search results dominating Google search results.
Neal’s take: One unintended quirk of Google’s search engine dominance is that there’s a decent chance a black box algorithm is figuring out how you prepare your dinner.SOLORIGATE HACK DETAILS: Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center and Microsoft 365 Defender Research team have a detailed analysis of the massive SolarWinds hack.
Neal’s take: Espionage these days doubles as computer hacking.NEW COMPUTERS @ CES: Two big product launches from this year’s weird online-only CES: Samsung’s $549 deluxe Chromebook and Lenovo’s all-in-one with a swivel screen.
Neal’s take: Software and SaaS gets all the buzz these days but the sharply declining price of higher end consumer electronics=awesome.HYUNDAI PARTNERING WITH APPLE CARS? Bloomberg reports that Hyundai stated they were working with Apple on self-driving car technology, and then walked that statement back twice.
Neal’s take: Apple is a notoriously coverage-averse company, and something happened between the two firms to make Hyundai’s comms department revise the public narrative quick.
Fun:
Seattle’s Schitt’s Creek replica motel.
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian on how to (hypothetically!) smuggle and money launder expensive works of art.
How to build a bar in your background.
Musician Jason Isbell starts a Twitter thread on Americans saying dumb things in foreign countries.
Things I’ve Enjoyed Lately:
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) on The Bulwark Podcast explaining why Republican politicians have to take pro-Trump stances if they want votes from the Republican rank-and-file.
Ancient Civilizations of North America on Prime Video.
Hunter’s huge database of templates for cold call emails.
Reddit showing me the best way to write a work email.
Michael Rothman of Fatherly on how to build a media monetization model that doesn’t include advertising.
Robert Sapolsky’s Stanford class on YouTube about the relationship between biology and human behavior.
That’s it for this issue. Email me here and please don’t hesitate to contact if I can be of assistance. Thank you for taking the time to read this damned thing.
Love and coffee,
Neal
About This Newsletter: Neal Ungerleider is a strategic communications consultant who works with individuals, brands and agencies. He writes this weekly newsletter about the media communications industrial complex and hopes you find it useful. Check out his bio, his portfolio, and current projects.
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