It’s Friday. How is it the 17th of April already?

There a number of fascinating must-reads this week and the popular new segment includes 5 tips by James Marketing & Brand lead from Nestlé.

I saw the below on one of my favourite shows ridiculousness and had to recreate it for you. I wonder what Halloween will look like this year…

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👍Hit Of The Week 👍

Virtual volunteering therapy dogs spreading joy - what is not to love about this?

🗣 The Must-Reads Of The Week 🗣

This week's handpicked Must Reads newsletter is just over 1000 words, about enough time to drink your morning wake me up ~ 8 or so minutes

💯 Actionable Tips: A couple of weeks ago I wrote some practical tips, here are a few more quick & smart tips from me on Marketing and Testing you should be using right now.

And for TikTokers, here is how to get the voice over the button on TikTok 👏

💪 Leadership: Here is a good thread on AirBnB and how their annual struggles have raised questions on their leadership.

With that said, this Masters Of Scale podcast with Brian Chesky (co-founder & CEO) is inspiring and a must listen.

👩‍💻 Your favourite…Video Calls:

• Apparently with all of the other issues with Zoom, breaking up (zumped) is now a thing. There are apparently exclusive zoom rooms like nightclubs with DJ’s, if your name’s not down - you can’t zoom in.  

• Zoombie: If you have zoom, hangout or facetime fatigue or anxiety here’s a good article on why and how to improve it 🧟‍♂️

👍 Humans Vs Social Media:

• Something to learn from the last few weeks, teens aren’t addicted to "social media" or platforms, they crave socialising with their friends and being creativeThis is a great way to think about addiction, we all had the tech that enabled us to connect, even as old as me with MSN messenger and forums. That’s why boomers also love zoom and even your older siblings downloading the cool again app houseparty (which has seen usage spring up 70%).

• Here is a reminder when using a free platform (in this instance Instagram) anyone can embed your content on their site and use it (think once shared, free to use = not your license)

💳 Business: 

• Do you struggle to say no to people? Or find it hard to say no? Here is a dedicated site to help you say no.

• Does your calendar feel like a war zone? Here is the Product Lead (Kevin Yien) from Square’s guide to battling calendar warzone and productivity 

• “Mission-driven” companies are now showing their true colours? 

• “Defensiveness” is the number 1 blocker of teamwork, here is an article on how to change this bad habit 

• YouTube usage has increased hugely, but with recent events advertising has dropped, it is causing a large impact on creators and influencers. Ad inventory pricing dropped 20% . YouTube is taking inspiration from DVDs and introducing chapters to skip forward.

• Arguably Disney’s most successful modern-day leader Bob Iger stepped back a few weeks ago and has to step back in, even with Disney+ hitting 50m subs, there are questions over Disney future Disney owns a lot of properties that are shut or struggling to offer full programming, news outlets, sports stations like ESPN which shut down UFC’s plans to fight on an island, it goes to show even the biggest brands have the power to shut down what seems an unstoppable business & market leader.

• You might find Agency leader/adman supreme Rory Sutherland’s latest interview/video; funny, interesting, provocative.

👑 Pop Culture Reads

• Video explainer: Here is why comedies and sitcoms stopped the canned laughter

• Video explainer: With the popularity of Carol Baskin and Joe Exotic, here is why there are so many tigers in 🇺🇸

• There has been a lot said and written about 5G here (pic below) is something that has been useful recently

• Finally, do you need some relaxation? If you are struggling to relax or need a two-minute break here is a soothing 360degree video of a pool (pod) of Dolphins

✋ 5 Tips ✋

This week’s 5 tips come from James Sinfield. James is a beverage lead at Nestlé (and is the king of iced coffees) and is a wealth of knowledge on Marketing and Brand.James and I have known each other for a couple of years and always enjoyed chatting with him. 

1. Marketers should focus on making consumers feel an emotional response to brands. Avoid trying to persuade people to use the product.

2. Unless you have a brand that can genuinely differentiate, marketers should prioritise on creating integrated campaigns that get people talking about their brands.

3. Media budget is as important as creative. Marketing plans should aim for the 60/40 rule (with some variance depending on the sector), but use relationships with the board or leadership team to get more investment to grow market share.

4. If you want your consumers to purchase more, drive more consumers into your brand. Better to cast the net as wide as possible rather than expect to get more from existing consumers.

5. Buyers of your brand are likely to be identical in the attitudes and demographics to your competitors. If a brand has a large base and product range then segmenting it is still important, but do not always tightening targeting.

➡️ Go and connect with James on LinkedIn

👏 You Made It To The End 👏

Thanks again for reading this week’s Must Read’s. Please have a good weekend! Take care of yourself, please.

About Danny Denhard - About Me: 19 years in Marketing, Product, Growth and recently as a Crowdfunding business leader. You will want to see my RIP to the CMO role presentation and I will be speaking at the Festival Of Marketing, read my Q&A interview. Most importantly, I write this weekly Must Reads Newsletter.

I have limited availability for advisory or consultancy work

Disclaimer: All views & recommendations are my own until you click through on the stories.This week’s gifs are from Giphy.