🗡️ Memory Wars: Winning Attention When Every Message Counts

On the Menu🔎

• 🎮 Discord's Ad Play: New virtual rewards for engaged audiences.

• 🎶 TikTok's Songwriter Beta: Empowering creators and brands with music.

• 🎭 WhatsApp's New Reality: Rethinking every customer message.

• 🗡️ The Memory War: How to truly capture and retain audience attention.

• 🎙️ Podcast: Why the old performance marketing playbook is broken with ft. Andrew Platt.

• 🚨 Tool Spotlight: Descript, an all-in-one audio and video editing software that operates like a word processor.

• 🛠️ Weekly AI tools that will save you hours every week..

Takeaway: Discord's Orbs signal a future where advertising is less about interruption and more about integrated, rewarding experiences within digital communities.

TikTok Announces the Beta Launch of TikTok Songwriter Features 🎶

TikTok, the undisputed king of short-form video, is deepening its commitment to music creators and, by extension, brands, with the beta launch of its Songwriter Features. This initiative likely provides tools for musicians to manage, promote, and potentially monetize their original compositions directly on the platform. For marketers, this means an even richer, more diverse audio library to leverage in campaigns, and new avenues for collaboration with emerging artists. As music continues to drive virality on TikTok, empowering songwriters directly creates a more fertile ground for trending sounds and authentic brand-creator partnerships.

Why it matters:

• Richer Audio Content: Increased availability of original and diverse music for campaign use.

• Creator Collaboration: New opportunities to partner with songwriters and leverage trending audio.

• Enhanced Virality: Music-driven trends are amplified, offering brands a chance to ride cultural waves.

Hook Tip: Monitor the trending sounds on TikTok closely. With new songwriter features, be on the lookout for emerging artists and tracks that align with your brand's message. Consider commissioning original music through these new features for unique brand campaigns.

Takeaway: Music is the heartbeat of TikTok. By empowering songwriters, TikTok is strengthening its core offering, which in turn provides fertile ground for creative and impactful brand storytelling.

Takeaway: WhatsApp's new pricing signals a maturity in the direct messaging channel. Marketers must become masters of context and value to ensure every communication generates a clear return.

The New Marketing War Isn’t for Clicks - It’s for Memory 🧠

In an increasingly noisy digital landscape, the ultimate battle for marketers isn't just about capturing clicks or impressions; it's about winning a share of customer memory. With endless content vying for attention, brands that truly stand out are those that create indelible experiences and narratives that stick. This involves crafting compelling stories, fostering emotional connections, delivering consistent value, and building strong, recognizable brand assets. In a world saturated with information, being remembered is the new competitive advantage, influencing long-term loyalty and purchasing decisions far beyond a single click.

Why it matters:

• Long-Term Impact: Focuses on sustained brand recognition and recall, crucial for enduring success.

• Emotional Connection: Emphasizes storytelling and experience over transient promotions.

• Brand Equity: Builds a stronger, more resilient brand that resonates deeply with consumers.

Try this: Review your recent marketing campaigns. Beyond click-through rates, consider how each campaign contributed to brand recall or emotional connection. Brainstorm new ways to incorporate sensory elements, unique narratives, or surprising delight into your next campaign to make it more memorable.

Takeaway: Don't just chase the click. Design experiences and messages that embed your brand deep within your audience's memory, creating a lasting impact that transcends fleeting attention.

🧰 Framework of the Week: The Contextual Messaging Framework

This framework guides marketers in creating highly relevant and impactful messages across various channels, especially in a world of evolving platform costs and user expectations.

1. Audience Intent Mapping: Understand the specific intent, needs, and context of your audience at each touchpoint. Why are they engaging, and what value are they seeking?

2. Channel-Fit Optimization: Choose the right channel for the right message. Not all messages are suitable for every platform, especially with changing costs.

3. Value-First Communication: Prioritize delivering immediate, undeniable value in every message, ensuring it solves a problem or offers a clear benefit.

4. Personalization at Scale: Leverage data and automation to personalize content, timing, and offers, making each interaction feel tailored and relevant.

5. Call to Value, Not Just Action: Frame your calls to action around the value the user will receive, rather than just the task they need to perform.

6. Measure & Refine Conversation Quality: Track not just message delivery, but also engagement rates, response quality, and conversion stemming directly from messaging, then iterate based on these insights.

Try this: Take your brand's top 3 customer support questions. Design a contextual message flow for WhatsApp (or another direct channel) that proactively addresses these questions, focusing on providing immediate value and a clear path to resolution.

🛠️ Featured AI Toolkit for the week

Stella AI

What it does: Stella AI is a conversational AI solution purpose-built for automotive dealerships. It handles inbound customer calls using intelligent voice assistants that can answer questions, schedule service appointments, and provide dealership-specific information. Stella integrates seamlessly with dealership systems to offer 24/7 voice support that’s fast, reliable, and scalable.

Fast payoff: You can immediately reduce missed calls, free up staff from repetitive scheduling tasks, and improve the customer experience without hiring additional personnel. It lets dealerships automate phone engagement while maintaining a high-touch feel, resulting in more appointments, higher customer satisfaction, and measurable time savings.

Hemingway Editor

What it does: Hemingway Editor is a web-based and desktop writing assistant that helps users simplify, clarify, and tighten their writing. It highlights complex sentences, passive voice, adverbs, and other readability issues in real time, making it easy to refine content for clarity and impact.

Fast payoff: You can instantly improve your writing by pasting in your text and making quick edits based on color-coded suggestions. Whether you're writing blog posts, reports, or emails, you get clearer, more persuasive content without needing a human editor—perfect for anyone who wants clean, bold writing fast.

Lexica Art

What it does: Lexica Art is an AI-powered image generation and prompt search platform built on Stable Diffusion. It allows creators to search thousands of AI-generated artworks, remix them, or generate their images using refined prompts. It’s especially useful for designers, marketers, and creatives exploring concept art, mood boards, or visual storytelling.

Fast payoff: You can immediately tap into a vast visual library for inspiration or generate customized images within seconds. No design skills needed—just type a prompt and Lexica delivers high-quality visuals, saving hours in early-stage design ideation or creative brainstorming.