Absurd AI, Apple vs NYTimes, & Hoto

If you haven’t read the newsletter in a while it’s my fault, not yours. Life and work have been too busy to deliver Marketing Clarity.

One thing that’s kept me occupied is trying to keep up and ahead of AI in the marketing and content space:

• I’ve been using AI for SEO (planning, content generation, and insights) with tools like Koala AI and Surfer SEO. I’ll share a lot of the wins and a lot of the overpromises around AI + SEO in an upcoming letter.

• I’ve been playing around with generative AI from Open AI and paying for Midjourney while diving into the insane Discord community that exists around it.

• I built Promptdrop, a Product Hunt for AI prompts, but realized that I’m not an expert enough to lead that community and shut it down.

• At soona, the company I’m CMO at, we’re deep into AI behind the scenes with our team building some great tools to come.

So yeah, I’ve been busy with AI but of course spending time with the family, meeting with peers, kicking off a few curiosity projects, and pushing it at the main job too.

But with Summer coming to an end, I’ve now got a lot to say.

So, let’s try writing again. LMK what you think of this one ← I think it’s my best one yet.

AI is not a fad

A lot of AI’s current capabilities are overpromised but AI is not like crypto, Bitcoin, NFTs, or blockchain. AI is not a fad or just a headline for 2023. AI is actually delivering on its hype.

1. AI is providing real value and unlocking immediate productivity, efficiency, and insight.

2. AI is becoming pervasive - deeply integrated into the products and tools we already use

3. AI has now become a race. Bitcoin was a bottoms-up groundswell movement. AI is a top down race. The largest players with the deepest pockets are not waiting on the sidelines, they’re throwing their entire might into leading this race.

This AI is Absurd! AI video translation 

Heygen released a video translation tool that combines multiple types of AI to create an immediately valuable tool. Check out it’s AI translation below:

There are gaps in their execution. A few attempts had a long turn-around time or said that the video was not a good candidate to apply their tech to.

I’ll give that a pass though. The idea is there which means that it’s only a matter of time for the reality to catch up.

Apple Goes For NYTimes

I’ve been playing the crossword puzzle on Apple News for over a month now. It’s been addictive and enjoyable. Much more than what I remember experiencing with the NYTimes’ puzzles.

It looks like Apple crossword is ready for prime time now with Apple announcing that it would now be daily instead of occasionally releasing it and making it a more prominent part of the News app.

As it turns out, my enjoyment while being challenged was by design. Of course it was, this is Apple. They’ve approached the crossword puzzle with intentionality and made it part of the brand differentiation that they want throughout their News experience…

My new brand crush: Hoto 

Finally. Talking about telling a brand story through product design this time I’ll turn attention to a physical product. I just purchases this electric screwdriver set and the whole experience with it was wonderful. The packaging, the form factor, the tactile feel.

There is it much information out there about Hoto other than it’s a female founded company, it’s based in China, it stands for Home Tools, and they’re surprisingly affordable.

But these products aren’t the Alibaba China products that get schlepped across Amazon stores. Unique, even award winning design is a core part of Hoto. Highly recommended.

Thanks again for reading.

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Rikin

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