#89: Fueling the flame, capable ovaries, Mailchimp's weird rebrand, stuntin at Dreamforce, and AI hype
Good morning.
Believe women.
In this edition of The World's Best Newsletter:
1. Russia stoking the fire
2. Marketing perpetuating the AI hype
3. Mailchimp rebrands, and it's weird (in a good way)
4. Trying to disrupt the incumbent - Freshworks at DF18
5. Quote of the week: Capable ovaries
1. Russia stoking the fire
via WIRED -- What drove the online "backlash" against Nike in the beginning of the campaign w/ Colin Kaepernick? Russian bots fueling the flames.
Twitter activity around the protests also shows accounts believed to be linked to Russia's ongoing disinformation campaign helped to amplify the anti-Nike sentiment. "They were definitely participating in the Nike hashtag and in particularly driving it at the beginning," says John Kelly, the CEO of Graphika, a social media analysis firm that uses machine learning to monitor state-sponsored disinformation.
The brilliant Kate O'Neill (whose GREAT new book Tech Humanist is out now!) had a pithy take on matters on Twitter:
At this point just start from a baseline assumption that a certain amount of any public controversy is being stoked by bots, many of which are Russian, and let that inform the way you proceed in your interactions with others.
2. Marketing perpetuating the AI hype
via MIT Technology Review --
AI is overhyped—and that’s dangerous. It has huge potential to transform our lives, but the term itself is being abused in very worrying ways, says Zachary Lipton, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
“It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish what’s a real advance and what is snake oil... Policymakers don’t read the scientific literature, but they do read the clickbait that goes around. The media business, he says, is complicit here because it’s not doing a good enough job of distinguishing between real advances in the field and PR fluff.
This is one space in which truth would be more helpful. But, marketers gon' be marketers...
3. Mailchimp rebrands, and it's weird (in a good way)
Why re-brand? To tell the world you've changed.
"Mailchimp started out doing email, but these days we do a lot more," the company said on Twitter this week as they announced their new branding.
Katharine Schwab at FastCo says:
"It’s the kind of weirdness you wouldn’t expect from a company with Mailchimp’s success–last year it brought in $525 million in revenue–and that’s exactly the point."
The team has published a whole manifesto behind the design that's worth a read. Truth be told, it reads like one of those parody scenes from Portlandia. A bit overwrought but hey, that's how the rebrand game is played, right?
4. Trying to disrupt the incumbent - Freshworks at DF18
This past week, Freshworks launched an anti-SFDC campaign at Dreamforce with a blimp labeled with #failforce, a live band, protestors with signs, and more. (Pics with sources here.)
The landing page failsforce.com urges SMBs to switch from SFDC -- citing Forrester's findings that most CRMs are complicated, frustrating, and expensive.
On one hand -- I applaud the move. From a standpoint of brand values, this stunt may have been intended to put a stake in the ground seeking to attract like-minded buyers; those willing to upset something as mission-critical as a CRM system have to be daring to do so.
If I am fed up and angry with my CRM I will appreciate their boldness to challenge the market leader, and they in essence become a way to channel that anger. In fact, that’s exactly what SFDC did to ignite its early growth. Benioff said “always go after Goliath.” In the early days of SFDC he was famous for doing similar stunts at his then-rival Siebel Systems conferences. Now he is Goliath, and as I've shared before, stealing just 1% of his revenue builds a $1B company.
On the other hand -- the campaign seems incomplete, especially if the intention was to rocket the brand to $1B unicorn status. Disclaimer: I wasn't there, I haven't spoken to their team. But I was chatting with my smart friend Wayne Cerullo yesterday on this topic -- he was on the ground at DF18 and spoke to a number of company reps.
The "big solution" to the noise created and the big enemy of SFDC and bloat? A product pitch.
Womp womp.
If that's the payoff, it was a missed opportunity to truly build an enemy out of "bloat" -- and with it, a hero in whatever the opposite might be. Wayne suggested it be called the "bloat blimp" -- to really characterize the problem and open the door to much more future content/thought leadership in a way that demonstrates what Freshdesk stands for in contrast.
The solution to a buyer's problem is never a product. It's a way of seeing their world differently -- enabled by your product. That's what endures over time, and perpetuates brands into long-term value. Stunts are short-term. A clear POV is enduring.
I'll keep an eye out to see how Freshworks continues from this. What do you think? Did you see it? Would you switch? Was the blimp worth it?
5. Quote of the week: Capable ovaries
"Actually some incredibly capable ovaries."
This week's quote of the week comes from the director of marketing and brand design at the aforementioned newly re-branded Mailchimp, Brandy Porter.
In response to somebody on Twitter saying the bold new direction must have taken "some big balls boardroom decisions..." Brandy said:
Atta girl.
Thanks for reading, as always.
Katie
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