Thursday, November 30, 2017
10 of the Best Ads from November: Elves, Llamas, and a Business Cat
If you think November is too early to be dreaming of sugarplum fairies and hanging the stockings with care, then consider this your official warning: this post is heavy on the holiday cheer.
To everyone else, hello. November brought us a delightful crop of festive ads, including the much-anticipated annual Christmas spot from UK retailer John Lewis -- which dependably goes viral every year. Other highlights include a modern day #Cinderella story, a pack of friendly llamas, and a snowed-in dinner with strangers.
So grab a cup of hot chocolate, crank up Mariah Carey's timeless 1994 album Merry Christmas, and let's unapologetically indulge in some much-needed holiday spirit.
10 of the Best Ads from November
1) Samsung
An apartment building's thoughtful concierge goes above and beyond to ensure his tennants feel festive when they arrive home -- no matter what holiday they're celebrating.
Set to Ella Fitzgerald’s "Give a Little, Get a Little," the 60-second spot was produced by London based agency adam&eveDBB.
2) Waitrose
After getting unexpectedly snowed into a busy pub, a group of strangers make the most of the situation and hold an elaborate holiday feast. The ad for the British supermarket chain was inspired by true events, and produced by adam&eveDDB.
3) Volkswagen
Another adam&eveDDB-produced ad, "Born Confident" follows a rebellious (and absolutely adorable) young ram as he intimidates other farm animals. The production team used custom 3D software to develop a character that struck just the right balance of cute and realistic.
4) John Lewis
Brits love the annual Christmas spot from John Lewis -- like, really love it. The ads always seem to strike the perfect balance of childhood whimsy and heartache (and the adorable animated creatures that usually take on a starring role don't hurt either).
The 2017 spot follows a similar formula: a little boy befriends the delightful, non-scary monster under his bed, and spends his nights playing with him. Naturally, there's a lovely twist at the end that just might make you shed a few tears at your desk -- I certainly did.
5) Heathrow
Last year, Heathrow Airport introduced us to a snuggly pair of traveling teddy bears (they appeared as #6 of our November ad round-up last year). This holiday season, they're sharing the backstory of how the diminutive bears -- named Doris and Edward Bair -- first met, and spoiler alert: it's very adorable.
The two-minute short, produced by Havas London, follows the couple from their first meeting in the 1960s (on a plane, of course).
6) Cost Plus World Market
Here's a pro marketing tip: when in doubt, cute animals and children generally perform well in ads. In this extended spot for Cost Plus World Market, produced by barrettSF, a young boy rehearsing for his big Christmas recital finds a perfect practice audience in the form of a friendly, attentive herd of llamas.
7) ZTE Axon M
To promote their new dual-screen smartphone, ZTE worked with Energy BBDO to bring together two inherently incompatible things: productivity and cat videos. To illustrate how cat videos and business simply don't mix, we're introduced to Business Cat, a cat who, well, is not very good at business. You get it.
"One screen for business, another for cat videos," the voiceover declares -- right after Business Cat knocks over a fresh coffee and blinks apathetically at the screen.
8) BMO
If I told you to picture a startup founder, who do you see?
This ad series from BMO Bank of Montreal gently exposes our unconscious biases when it comes to women in leadership roles traditionally held by men. Using unisex names and some clever twists, the ads play right into our expectations of what a leader looks like, and then show us the women hiding in plain sight. Developed by FCB Canada, the ads were produced by a predominantly female team led by Chief Creative Officer Nancy Crimi-Lamanna.
9) Debenhams
Have you ever thought, if Cinderella had a smartphone, that story probably would have been a lot shorter?
That's pretty much the plot of Debenhams's Christmas ad, a modern day retelling of the classic fairytale featuring hashtags and a voice-over by Ewan McGregor. Produced by J. Walter Thompson London, the ad follows a pair of star-crossed lovers as they attempt to reconnect after a chance meeting with some help from the internet.
10) Argos
In this cinematic ad for Argos, a particularly dedicated elf realizes a toy shipment is missing a special gift -- and goes to great lengths to make sure it makes it to the intended child.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
The Complete Guide to Direct Traffic in Google Analytics
Posted by tombennet
When it comes to direct traffic in Analytics, there are two deeply entrenched misconceptions.
The first is that it’s caused almost exclusively by users typing an address into their browser (or clicking on a bookmark). The second is that it’s a Bad Thing, not because it has any overt negative impact on your site’s performance, but rather because it’s somehow immune to further analysis. The prevailing attitude amongst digital marketers is that direct traffic is an unavoidable inconvenience; as a result, discussion of direct is typically limited to ways of attributing it to other channels, or side-stepping the issues associated with it.
In this article, we’ll be taking a fresh look at direct traffic in modern Google Analytics. As well as exploring the myriad ways in which referrer data can be lost, we’ll look at some tools and tactics you can start using immediately to reduce levels of direct traffic in your reports. Finally, we’ll discover how advanced analysis and segmentation can unlock the mysteries of direct traffic and shed light on what might actually be your most valuable users.
What is direct traffic?
In short, Google Analytics will report a traffic source of "direct" when it has no data on how the session arrived at your website, or when the referring source has been configured to be ignored. You can think of direct as GA’s fall-back option for when its processing logic has failed to attribute a session to a particular source.
To properly understand the causes and fixes for direct traffic, it’s important to understand exactly how GA processes traffic sources. The following flow-chart illustrates how sessions are bucketed — note that direct sits right at the end as a final "catch-all" group.
Broadly speaking, and disregarding user-configured overrides, GA’s processing follows this sequence of checks:
AdWords parameters > Campaign overrides > UTM campaign parameters > Referred by a search engine > Referred by another website > Previous campaign within timeout period > Direct
Note the penultimate processing step (previous campaign within timeout), which has a significant impact on the direct channel. Consider a user who discovers your site via organic search, then returns via direct a week later. Both sessions would be attributed to organic search. In fact, campaign data persists for up to six months by default. The key point here is that Google Analytics is already trying to minimize the impact of direct traffic for you.
What causes direct traffic?
Contrary to popular belief, there are actually many reasons why a session might be missing campaign and traffic source data. Here we will run through some of the most common.
1. Manual address entry and bookmarks
The classic direct-traffic scenario, this one is largely unavoidable. If a user types a URL into their browser’s address bar or clicks on a browser bookmark, that session will appear as direct traffic.
Simple as that.
2. HTTPS > HTTP
When a user follows a link on a secure (HTTPS) page to a non-secure (HTTP) page, no referrer data is passed, meaning the session appears as direct traffic instead of as a referral. Note that this is intended behavior. It’s part of how the secure protocol was designed, and it does not affect other scenarios: HTTP to HTTP, HTTPS to HTTPS, and even HTTP to HTTPS all pass referrer data.
So, if your referral traffic has tanked but direct has spiked, it could be that one of your major referrers has migrated to HTTPS. The inverse is also true: If you’ve migrated to HTTPS and are linking to HTTP websites, the traffic you’re driving to them will appear in their Analytics as direct.
If, on the other hand, you’ve already migrated to HTTPS and are concerned about your users appearing to partner websites as direct traffic, you can implement the meta referrer tag. Cyrus Shepard has written about this on Moz before, so I won’t delve into it now. Suffice to say, it’s a way of telling browsers to pass some referrer data to non-secure sites, and can be implemented as a <meta> element or HTTP header.
3. Missing or broken tracking code
Let’s say you’ve launched a new landing page template and forgotten to include the GA tracking code. Or, to use a scenario I’m encountering more and more frequently, imagine your GTM container is a horrible mess of poorly configured triggers, and your tracking code is simply failing to fire.
Users land on this page without tracking code. They click on a link to a deeper page which does have tracking code. From GA’s perspective, the first hit of the session is the second page visited, meaning that the referrer appears as your own website (i.e. a self-referral). If your domain is on the referral exclusion list (as per default configuration), the session is bucketed as direct. This will happen even if the first URL is tagged with UTM campaign parameters.
As a short-term fix, you can try to repair the damage by simply adding the missing tracking code. To prevent it happening again, carry out a thorough Analytics audit, move to a GTM-based tracking implementation, and promote a culture of data-driven marketing.
4. Improper redirection
This is an easy one. Don’t use meta refreshes or JavaScript-based redirects — these can wipe or replace referrer data, leading to direct traffic in Analytics. You should also be meticulous with your server-side redirects, and — as is often recommended by SEOs — audit your redirect file frequently. Complex chains are more likely to result in a loss of referrer data, and you run the risk of UTM parameters getting stripped out.
Once again, control what you can: use carefully mapped (i.e. non-chained) code 301 server-side redirects to preserve referrer data wherever possible.
5. Non-web documents
Links in Microsoft Word documents, slide decks, or PDFs do not pass referrer information. By default, users who click these links will appear in your reports as direct traffic. Clicks from native mobile apps (particularly those with embedded "in-app" browsers) are similarly prone to stripping out referrer data.
To a degree, this is unavoidable. Much like so-called “dark social” visits (discussed in detail below), non-web links will inevitably result in some quantity of direct traffic. However, you also have an opportunity here to control the controllables.
If you publish whitepapers or offer downloadable PDF guides, for example, you should be tagging the embedded hyperlinks with UTM campaign parameters. You’d never even contemplate launching an email marketing campaign without campaign tracking (I hope), so why would you distribute any other kind of freebie without similarly tracking its success? In some ways this is even more important, since these kinds of downloadables often have a longevity not seen in a single email campaign. Here’s an example of a properly tagged URL which we would embed as a link:
https://builtvisible.com/embedded-whitepaper-url/?..._medium=offline_document&utm_campaign=201711_utm_whitepaper
The same goes for URLs in your offline marketing materials. For major campaigns it’s common practice to select a short, memorable URL (e.g. moz.com/tv/) and design an entirely new landing page. It’s possible to bypass page creation altogether: simply redirect the vanity URL to an existing page URL which is properly tagged with UTM parameters.
So, whether you tag your URLs directly, use redirected vanity URLs, or — if you think UTM parameters are ugly — opt for some crazy-ass hash-fragment solution with GTM (read more here), the takeaway is the same: use campaign parameters wherever it’s appropriate to do so.
6. “Dark social”
This is a big one, and probably the least well understood by marketers.
The term “dark social” was first coined back in 2012 by Alexis Madrigal in an article for The Atlantic. Essentially it refers to methods of social sharing which cannot easily be attributed to a particular source, like email, instant messaging, Skype, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.
Recent studies have found that upwards of 80% of consumers’ outbound sharing from publishers’ and marketers’ websites now occurs via these private channels. In terms of numbers of active users, messaging apps are outpacing social networking apps. All the activity driven by these thriving platforms is typically bucketed as direct traffic by web analytics software.
People who use the ambiguous phrase “social media marketing” are typically referring to advertising: you broadcast your message and hope people will listen. Even if you overcome consumer indifference with a well-targeted campaign, any subsequent interactions are affected by their very public nature. The privacy of dark social, by contrast, represents a potential goldmine of intimate, targeted, and relevant interactions with high conversion potential. Nebulous and difficult-to-track though it may be, dark social has the potential to let marketers tap into elusive power of word of mouth.
So, how can we minimize the amount of dark social traffic which is bucketed under direct? The unfortunate truth is that there is no magic bullet: proper attribution of dark social requires rigorous campaign tracking. The optimal approach will vary greatly based on your industry, audience, proposition, and so on. For many websites, however, a good first step is to provide convenient and properly configured sharing buttons for private platforms like email, WhatsApp, and Slack, thereby ensuring that users share URLs appended with UTM parameters (or vanity/shortened URLs which redirect to the same). This will go some way towards shining a light on part of your dark social traffic.
Checklist: Minimizing direct traffic
To summarize what we’ve already discussed, here are the steps you can take to minimize the level of unnecessary direct traffic in your reports:
- Migrate to HTTPS: Not only is the secure protocol your gateway to HTTP/2 and the future of the web, it will also have an enormously positive effect on your ability to track referral traffic.
- Manage your use of redirects: Avoid chains and eliminate client-side redirection in favour of carefully-mapped, single-hop, server-side 301s. If you use vanity URLs to redirect to pages with UTM parameters, be meticulous.
- Get really good at campaign tagging: Even amongst data-driven marketers I encounter the belief that UTM begins and ends with switching on automatic tagging in your email marketing software. Others go to the other extreme, doing silly things like tagging internal links. Control what you can, and your ability to carry out meaningful attribution will markedly improve.
- Conduct an Analytics audit: Data integrity is vital, so consider this essential when assessing the success of your marketing. It’s not simply a case of checking for missing track code: good audits involve a review of your measurement plan and rigorous testing at page and property-level.
Adhere to these principles, and it’s often possible to achieve a dramatic reduction in the level of direct traffic reported in Analytics. The following example involved an HTTPS migration, GTM migration (as part of an Analytics review), and an overhaul of internal campaign tracking processes over the course of about 6 months:
But the saga of direct traffic doesn’t end there! Once this channel is “clean” — that is, once you’ve minimized the number of avoidable pollutants — what remains might actually be one of your most valuable traffic segments.
Analyze! Or: why direct traffic can actually be pretty cool
For reasons we’ve already discussed, traffic from bookmarks and dark social is an enormously valuable segment to analyze. These are likely to be some of your most loyal and engaged users, and it’s not uncommon to see a notably higher conversion rate for a clean direct channel compared to the site average. You should make the effort to get to know them.
The number of potential avenues to explore is infinite, but here are some good starting points:
- Build meaningful custom segments, defining a subset of your direct traffic based on their landing page, location, device, repeat visit or purchase behavior, or even enhanced e-commerce interactions.
- Track meaningful engagement metrics using modern GTM triggers such as element visibility and native scroll tracking. Measure how your direct users are using and viewing your content.
- Watch for correlations with your other marketing activities, and use it as an opportunity to refine your tagging practices and segment definitions. Create a custom alert which watches for spikes in direct traffic.
- Familiarize yourself with flow reports to get an understanding of how your direct traffic is converting. By using Goal Flow and Behavior Flow reports with segmentation, it’s often possible to glean actionable insights which can be applied to the site as a whole.
- Ask your users for help! If you’ve isolated a valuable segment of traffic which eludes deeper analysis, add a button to the page offering visitors a free downloadable ebook if they tell you how they discovered your page.
- Start thinking about lifetime value, if you haven’t already — overhauling your attribution model or implementing User ID are good steps towards overcoming the indifference or frustration felt by marketers towards direct traffic.
I hope this guide has been useful. With any luck, you arrived looking for ways to reduce the level of direct traffic in your reports, and left with some new ideas for how to better analyze this valuable segment of users.
Thanks for reading!
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Tuesday, November 28, 2017
8 of the Biggest Marketing Mistakes We've Ever Seen
Everyone makes mistakes. Even (especially?) marketers. Usually, we learn from them and move on with our lives, maybe escaping with just a touch of public shaming. But what happens to those companies that make mistakes on a much greater scale and cost their company millions in clout or (gulp) dollars?
They go down in history as the biggest marketing mistakes of our time. It's hard to move on when you're being cited as the example of what not to do, huh?
We looked into the biggest mistakes from many popular brands -- but glossed similar instances of faux pas from smaller companies, because, well, we don't want to hurt the up-and-comers.
Keep reading for a little entertainment, and some reminders of what you should never do to ensure you don't repeat these mistakes yourself.
8 Legendary Marketing Mistakes to Avoid Replicating at All Costs
1) Guerilla Marketing Without Due Diligence
In 2007, Cartoon Network launched a guerrilla marketing campaign in which it set up LED signs in various places throughout cities to promote one of their cartoons.
A resident in Boston, however, thought the devices were bombs and called the police. This turned into a terrorism scare, resulting in the shut-down of many public transportation lines, bridges, and roads.
The problem cost the head of Cartoon Network his job, and the broadcasting company $2 million in compensation for the emergency response team.
This campaign is a symptom of thinking in a silo -- marketers must always be aware of current events and public sentiment when crafting campaigns. Most people, particularly city dwellers, are on high alert for signs of something fishy. I guess you can say hindsight is 20/20, but large-scale guerrilla marketing campaigns of this nature should really consider all possible outcomes before launch.
2) Tone Deaf Tweets
In early 2011, a tweet was sent out from Kenneth Cole's Twitter account trying to promote their new spring collection. No big deal, right? Except when it's offensive, insensitive, and offends millions of people. The tweet was a poor play on the political turmoil happening at the time in Egypt:
The tweet came from the Kenneth Cole corporate Twitter account -- actually, from the chairman himself, as indicated by the "KC" in the tweet.
The company received negative feedback immediately, and they soon took the tweet down in response and apologized to anyone offended by the tweet. The lesson social media marketers can learn from this awful mistake is that humor doesn’t work if you're newsjacking something contentious.
3) Lackluster New Logos
In October 2010, Gap launched a new logo in an attempt to be more modern. Guess how long that lasted?
Source: Vanity Fair
A whopping two days.
Gap quickly put the old logo back into place after unbelievable backlash from the public.
Gap, known for everyday basics, tried to redo their image to appeal to a more hip crowd. Unfortunately, the brand didn’t understand who its target market is -- the people who want the basics and aren't interested in trendy styles. Its loyal customers felt that Gap was changing their image for the worse, and lost a connection with the brand.
Gap was also unsuccessful at attracting the younger, trendy generation with the redesign (albeit, only a two-day redesign), resulting in a failure on two fronts with this new logo.
While it wasn't so awful for Gap to pursue a logo redesign, the lesson is simply to stay in touch with your buyer personas so you can ensure your new design reflects them. Marketers focus a lot on metrics -- for good reasons -- but never underestimate your audience's feelings towards your brand. They're harder to quantify, sure, but boy will people speak out when their sensibilities are offended.
4) Losing Sight of Loyal Customers
In 2011, Netflix had a $16 billion market value with its mail-order rental. But then, the brand decided to enter the digital streaming market with a brand called “Qwikster,” an easy alternative to mail order DVDs.
Source: Idea Lemon
Unfortunately, splitting the company between Netflix's mail-order DVDs and Qwikster's DVD streaming made things more complicated -- not to mention, it resulted in a 60% price increase for those who wanted both services.
Even worse, current customers weren't grandfathered into the new price structure at the old rate, causing serious negativity amidst all the general confusion. Plus, the Qwikster Twitter handle was already owned by someone else: a pot smoker who discussed boredom, smoking, and partying.
According to CNET, the company lost 800,000 subscribers and its stock price dropped 77% in four months.
Businesses need to remain agile and fast-moving to stay relevant, but make sure you communicate those changes to your audience clearly before making them. Oh, and don't forget to show gratitude to your current customers, instead of giving them the short end of the stick.
5) Being Too Speedy With Sends
In December 2011, the New York Times sent an email to people who recently canceled their subscriptions asking them to reconsider, and giving them a discount to sweeten the deal.
Sounds like a good idea to get a customer back, right?
Too bad an employee accidentally sent it to 8 million subscribers -- instead of the list of 300 that it was meant for. Whoops.
Source: Daily Beast
Subscribers instantly assumed that the email was spam as a result of hackers. Some were even mad that they weren't getting the same discount as a loyal customer.
Of course, employees responded immediately apologizing and telling people it was an unfortunate human error.
Still, this type of mistake is every email marketer's nightmare, and it serves as a much-needed reminder to always double check your list before clicking 'Send' on any campaign!
6) Promising Free Stuff -- and Running out of It
Timothy’s Coffee did what many brands have done to increase social media reach: offer a coupon or free sample for following them on social media.
Unfortunately, Timothy’s offered more than it could deliver, depleting its supply of free K-cup packs after only three days.
Get this: It wasn't until two weeks later that Timothy's sent out a message saying that coupons and samples were issued on a first-come, first-serve basis. Talk about too little, too late.
Source: Sparker Strategy Group
Despite an apology video and the potential for receiving a free coupon in the mail, Timothy's is still trying to recover from the fan backlash on social media.
When running a contest on social media, don’t underestimate the impact of your offer -- especially if it's meant to grow reach.
Think about it: If your contest works -- and you're designing a contest based on the premise that it will work, I hope -- your reach will get bigger with each new participant. If you can't actually back up your end of the contest bargain, all that new reach will be used to hurt your brand, instead of singing its praises.
7) Fixing Something That Isn't Broken
In 1985, Coca-Cola tried to introduce a new, sweeter version of their beverage to combat its (then) new competitor: Pepsi.
Those of us who were around at the time remember the Pepsi commercials boasting that, in blind taste tests, people preferred its taste over Coke's.
Coke, for its part, felt the need to regain market share with a new recipe. So, how did that turn out?
Not well. Public response was so negative, in fact, that people were actually hoarding the old Coke flavor, and selling it on the black-market for grossly inflated prices.
Why were people so upset? Coke’s brand embodied classic American traditions -- so, Coke drinkers didn't want a new flavor. They wanted that classic beverage whose secret recipe was guarded under lock and key in Georgia.
Finally, after retiring the “New Coke” recipe, sales of the old classic -- actually renamed “Coca-Cola Classic” to make it extra clear to consumers -- rose significantly.
So, what do we take away from this marketing mistake? Learn what your customers want before spending time and money on a top-secret product or service change.
8) Getting Lost in Translation
Coke wasn't the only major beverage to blunder, though. When Pepsi expanded its market to China, it launched with the slogan, "Pepsi brings you back to life."
What the brand didn’t realize, however, is that the phrase actually translated to, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”
Source: Glantz Design
Okay, maybe this mistake is kind of funny. But, when you're a brand that's working toward major international expansion, a mistake like this one might not exactly have you in stitches.
If you're launching a new market, be sure to do some cultural research. And please -- ask native speakers of the language what your slogan actually means.
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A strong SEO strategy will help your business generate more leads and get found by potential customers, but search engines are constantly switching up and tightening up their criteria for high rankings. If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of search engines and their algorithms, how will you know what steps to take to help your business get found?
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How to Write Marketing Case Studies That Convert
Posted by kerryjones
In my last post, I discussed why your top funnel content shouldn’t be all about your brand. Today I’m making a 180-degree turn and covering the value of content at the opposite end of the spectrum: content that’s directly about your business and offers proof of your effectiveness.
Specifically, I’m talking about case studies.
I’m a big believer in investing in case studies because I’ve seen firsthand what happened once we started doing so at Fractl. Case studies were a huge game changer for our B2B marketing efforts. For one, our case studies portfolio page brings in a lot of traffic – it’s the second most-visited page on our site, aside from our home page. It also brings in a significant volume of organic traffic, being our fourth most-visited page from organic searches. Most importantly, our case studies are highly effective at converting visitors to leads – about half of our leads view at least one of our case studies before contacting us.
Assuming anyone who reads the Moz Blog is performing some type of marketing function, I’m zeroing in on how to write a compelling marketing case study that differentiates your service offering and pulls prospects down the sales funnel. However, what I’m sharing can be used as a framework for creating case studies in any industry.
Get your client on board with a case study
Marketers shy away from creating case studies for a few reasons:
- They’re too busy “in the weeds” with deliverables.
- They don’t think their results are impressive enough.
- They don’t have clients’ permission to create case studies.
While I can’t help you with #1 and #2 (it’s up to you to make the time and to get the results deserving of a case study!), I do have some advice on #3.
In a perfect world, clients would encourage you to share every little detail of your time working together. In reality, most clients expect you to remain tight-lipped about the work you’ve done for them.
Understandably, this might discourage you from creating any case studies. But it shouldn’t.
With some compromising, chances are your client will be game for a case study. We’ve noticed the following two objections are common regarding case studies.
Client objection 1: “We don’t want to share specific numbers.”
At first it you may think, “Why bother?” if a client tells you this, but don’t let it hold you back. (Truth is, the majority of your clients will probably feel this way).
In this instance, you’ll want your case study to focus on highlighting the strategy and describing projects, while steering away from showing specific numbers regarding short and long-term results. Believe it or not, the solution part of the case study can be just as, or more, compelling than the results. (I’ll get to that shortly.)
And don’t worry, you don’t have to completely leave out the results. One way to get around not sharing actual numbers but still showing results is to use growth percentages.
Specific numbers: “Grew organic traffic from 5,000 to 7,500 visitors per month”
Growth percentage: “Increased organic traffic by 150%”
We do this for most of our case studies at Fractl, and our clients are totally fine with it.
Client objection 2: “We don’t want to reveal our marketing strategy to competitors.”
A fear of giving away too much intel to competitors is especially common in highly competitive niches.
So how do you get around this?
Keep it anonymous. Don’t reveal who the client is and keep it vague about what niche they’re in. This can be as ambiguous as referring to the client as “Client A” or slightly more specific (“our client in the auto industry”). Instead, the case study will focus on the process and results – this is what your prospects care about, anyway.
Gather different perspectives
Unless you were directly working with the client who you are writing the case study about, you will need to conduct a few interviews to get a full picture of the who, what, how, and why of the engagement. At Fractl, our marketing team puts together case studies based on interviews with clients and the internal team who worked on the client’s account.
The client
Arrange an interview with the client, either on a call or via email. If you have multiple contacts within the client’s team, interview the main point of contact who has been the most involved in the engagement.
What to ask:
- What challenge were you facing that you hired us to help with?
- Had you previously tried to solve this challenge (working with another vendor, using internal resources, etc.)?
- What were your goals for the engagement?
- How did you benefit from the engagement (short-term and long-term results, unexpected wins, etc.)?
You’ll also want to run the case study draft by the client before publishing it, which offers another chance for their feedback.
The project team
Who was responsible for this client’s account? Speak with the team behind the strategy and execution.
What to ask:
- How was the strategy formed? Were strategic decisions made based on your experience and expertise, competitive research, etc.?
- What project(s) were launched as part of the strategy? What was the most successful project?
- Were there any unexpected issues that you overcame?
- Did you refine the strategy to improve results?
- How did you and the client work together? Was there a lot of collaboration or was the client more hands-off? (Many prospective clients are curious about what their level of involvement in your process would look like.)
- What did you learn during the engagement? Any takeaways?
Include the three crucial elements of a case study
There’s more than one way to package case studies, but the most convincing ones all have something in common: great storytelling. To ensure you’re telling a proper narrative, your case study should include the conflict, the resolution, and the happy ending (but not necessarily in this order).
We find a case study is most compelling when you get straight to the point, rather than making someone read the entire case study before seeing the results. To grab readers’ attention, we begin with a quick overview of conflict-resolution-happy ending right in the introduction.
For example, in our Fanatics case study, we summarized the most pertinent details in the first three paragraphs. The rest of the case study focused on the resolution and examples of specific projects.
Let’s take a look at what the conflict, resolution, and happy ending of your case study should include.
The Conflict: What goal did the client want to accomplish?
Typically serving as the introduction of the case study, “the conflict” should briefly describe the client’s business, the problem they hired you to work on, and what was keeping them from fixing this problem (ex. lack of internal resources or internal expertise). This helps readers identify with the problem the client faced and empathize with them – which can help them envision coming to you for help with this problem, too.
Here are a few examples of “conflicts” from our case studies:
- “Movoto engaged Fractl to showcase its authority on local markets by increasing brand recognition, driving traffic to its website, and earning links back to on-site content.”
- “Alexa came to us looking to increase awareness – not just around the Alexa name but also its resources. Many people had known Alexa as the site-ranking destination; however, Alexa also provides SEO tools that are invaluable to marketers.”
- “While they already had strong brand recognition within the link building and SEO communities, Buzzstream came to Fractl for help with launching large-scale campaigns that would position them as thought leaders and provide long-term value for their brand.”
The Resolution: How did you solve the conflict?
Case studies are obviously great for showing proof of results you’ve achieved for clients. But perhaps more importantly, case studies give prospective clients a glimpse into your processes and how you approach problems. A great case study paints a picture of what it’s like to work with you.
For this reason, the bulk of your case study should detail the resolution, sharing as much specific information as you and your client are comfortable with; the more you’re able to share, the more you can highlight your strategic thinking and problem solving abilities.
The following snippets from our case studies are examples of details you may want to include as part of your solution section:
What our strategy encompassed:
“Mixing evergreen content and timely content helped usher new and existing audience members to the We Are Fanatics blog in record numbers. We focused on presenting interesting data through evergreen content that appealed to a variety of sports fans as well as content that capitalized on current interest around major sporting events.” - from Fanatics case study
How strategy was decided:
“We began by forming our ideation process around Movoto’s key real estate themes. Buying, selling, or renting a home is an inherently emotional experience, so we turned to our research on viral emotions to figure out how to identify with and engage the audience and Movoto’s prospective clients. Based on this, we decided to build on the high-arousal feelings of curiosity, interest, and trust that would be part of the experience of moving.
We tapped into familiar cultural references and topics that would pique interest in the regions consumers were considering. Comic book characters served us well in this regard, as did combining publicly available data (such as high school graduation rates or IQ averages) with our own original research.” - from Movoto case study
Why strategy was changed based on initial results:
“After analyzing the initial campaigns, we determined the most effective strategy included a combination of the following content types designed to achieve different goals [case study then lists the three types of content and goals]...
This strategy yielded even better results, with some campaigns achieving up to 4 times the amount of featured stories and social engagement that we achieved in earlier campaigns.” - from BuzzStream case study
How our approach was tailored to the client’s niche:
“In general, when our promotions team starts its outreach, they’ll email writers and editors who they think would be a good fit for the content. If the writer or editor responds, they often ask for more information or say they’re going to do a write-up that incorporates our project. From there, the story is up to publishers – they pick and choose which visual assets they want to incorporate in their post, and they shape the narrative.
What we discovered was that, in the marketing niche, publishers preferred to feature other experts’ opinions in the form of guest posts rather than using our assets in a piece they were already working on. We had suspected this (as our Fractl marketing team often contributes guest columns to marketing publications), but we confirmed that guest posts were going to make up the majority of our outreach efforts after performing outreach for Alexa’s campaigns.” - from Alexa case study
Who worked on the project:
Since the interviews you conduct with your internal team will inform the solution section of the case study, you may want to give individuals credit via quotes or anecdotes as a means to humanize the people behind the work. In the example below, one of our case studies featured a Q&A section with one of the project leads.
The Happy Ending: What did your resolution achieve?
Obviously, this is the part where you share your results. As I mentioned previously, we like to feature the results at the beginning of the case study, rather than buried at the end.
In our Superdrug Online Doctor case study, we summarized the overall results our campaigns achieved over 16 months:
But the happy ending isn’t finished here.
A lot of case studies fail to answer an important question: What impact did the results have on the client’s business? Be sure to tie in how the results you achieved had a bottom-line impact.
In the case of Superdrug Online Doctor, the results from our campaigns lead to a 238% increase in organic traffic. This type of outcome has tangible value for the client.
You can also share secondary benefits in addition to the primary goals the client hired you for.
In the case of our client Busbud, who hired us for SEO-oriented goals, we included examples of secondary results.
Busbud saw positive impacts beyond SEO, though, including the following:
- Increased blog traffic
- New partnerships as a result of more brands reaching out to work with the site
- Brand recognition at large industry events
- An uptick in hiring
- Featured as a “best practice” case study at an SEO conference
Similarly, in our Fractl brand marketing case study, which focused on lead generation, we listed all of the additional benefits resulting from our strategy.
How to get the most out of your case studies
You’ve published your case study, now what should you do with it?
Build a case study page on your site
Once you've created several case studies, I recommend housing them all on the same page. This makes it easy to show off your results in a single snapshot and saves visitors from searching through your blog or clicking on a category tag to find all of your case studies in one place. Make this page easy to find through your site navigation and internal links.
While it probably goes without saying, make sure to optimize this page for search. When we initially created our case study portfolio page, we underestimated its potential to bring in search traffic and assumed it would mostly be accessed from our site navigation. Because of this, we were previously using a generic URL to house our case study portfolio. Since updating the URL from “frac.tl/our-work” to “frac.tl/content-marketing-case-studies,” we’ve jumped from page 2 to the top #1–3 positions for a specific phrase we wanted to rank for (“content marketing case studies”), which attracts highly relevant search traffic.
Use case studies as concrete proof in blog posts and off-site content
Case studies can serve as tangible examples that back up your claims. Did you state that creating original content for six months can double your organic traffic? On its own, this assertion may not be believable to some, but a case study showing these results will make your claim credible.
In a post on the Curata blog, my colleague Andrea Lehr used our BuzzStream case study to back up her assertion that in order to attract links, social shares, and traffic, your off-site content should appeal to an audience beyond your target customer. Showing the results this strategy earned for a client gives a lot more weight to her advice.
On the same note, case studies have high linking potential. Not only do they make a credible citation for your own off-site content, they can also be cited by others writing about your service/product vertical. Making industry publishers aware that you publish case studies by reaching out when you’ve released a new case study can lead to links down the road.
Repurpose your case studies into multiple content formats
Creating a case study takes a lot of time, but fortunately it can be reused again and again in various applications.
Long-form case studies
While a case study featured on your site may only be a few hundred words, creating a more in-depth version is a chance to reveal more details. If you want to get your case study featured on other sites, consider writing a long-form version as a guest post.
Most of the case studies you’ll find on the Moz Blog are extremely detailed:
- How We Ranked #1 for a High Volume Keyword in Under 3 Months walks through the 8-step process used to achieve the impressive result called out in the headline.
- The Anatomy of a $97 Million Page: A CRO Case Study offers much greater detail and insights than the case studies featured on the Conversion Wizards site.
- The Roadmap for Creating Share-Worthy Content with Massive Distribution used one of our campaign case studies to illustrate our overall process for creating shareable widely-shared content.
Video
HubSpot has hundreds of case studieson its site, dozens of which also feature supplemental video case studies, such as the one below for Eyeota.
Don’t feel like you have to create flashy videos with impressive production value, even no-frills videos can work. Within its short case study summaries, PR That Converts embeds videos of clients talking about its service. These videos are simple and short, featuring the client speaking to their webcam for a few minutes.
Speaking engagements
Marketing conferences love case studies. Look on any conference agenda, and you’re sure to notice at least a handful of speaker presentations focused on case studies. If you’re looking to secure more speaking gigs, including case studies in your speaking pitch can give you a leg up over other submissions – after all, your case studies are original data no one else can offer.
My colleague Kelsey Libert centered her MozCon presentation a few years ago around some of our viral campaign case studies.
Sales collateral
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, many of our leads view the case studies on our site right before contacting us about working together. Once that initial contact is made, we don’t stop showing off our case studies.
We keep a running “best of” list of stats from our case studies, which allows us to quickly pull compelling stats to share in written and verbal conversations. Our pitch and proposal decks feature bite-sized versions of our case studies.
Consider how you can incorporate case studies into various touch points throughout your sales process and make sure the case studies you share align with the industry and goals of whoever you're speaking with.
I’ve shared a few of my favorite ways to repurpose case studies here but there are at least a dozen other applications, from email marketing to webinars to gated content to printed marketing materials. I even link to our case studies page in my email signature.
My last bit of advice: Don’t expect immediate results. Case studies typically pay off over time. The good news is it’s worth the wait, because case studies retain their value – we’re still seeing leads come in and getting links to case studies we created three or more years ago. By extending their lifespan through repurposing, the case studies you create today can remain an essential part of your marketing strategy for years to come.
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Monday, November 27, 2017
12 of the Sassiest Brands on Social Media
Brands use social media for a lot of things: to distribute content, to share news, to provide customer service.
And sometimes, brands use social media for jokes, burns, and unmitigated sass.
When brand accounts share personality and humor on social media, it's delightful -- and it captivates the collective internet. It's funny when brand accounts use social media like the real people behind the copy, and it breaks up the monotony of the negativity and mistrust that characterizes a lot of people's feelings about their social feeds.
So we've rounded up 12 brand accounts to share the burns, the jokes, and the GIFs that make these sassy profiles some of our favorites online.
12 of the Sassiest Brands on Social Media
1) MoonPie
No list of sassy brand social media accounts is complete without MoonPie -- the vintage snack cake that started garnering a lot more attention on Twitter for its quirky insights -- and burns -- after launching a Twitter beef with Hostess Snacks over whose treat was the official snack of the solar eclipse in the summer of 2017.
MoonPie is never afraid to wade into hotly contested debates, like the still-raging critique of Twitter doubling its character limit to 280.
This account has been asked to test Twitter's new 280 character limit, but as a 100-year-old brand, we believe our fans most enjoy traditional tweets with brevity, so we declined. We hope to continue to provide a fun, positive place to discuss MoonPies moving forward. Thank you.
— MoonPie (@MoonPie) September 27, 2017
But remember, it's not all fun and games -- MoonPie's witty social media manager has feelings, too.
"You're a social media manager who posts bad jokes about MoonPies all day anyone could do your job"
— MoonPie (@MoonPie) October 17, 2017
First of all I have feelings
2) Helper
... as in, Hamburger Helper. Helper likes to wade into the social media muck by savagely burning people back when they try to make fun of the quick and easy meal brand -- like so:
Simply put, Helper tells it like it is -- and helps followers confront critical conflicts within their families and their kitchens.
I don't eat hamburger, but even I can get on board with this level of hilarity from a brand on social media.
3) Tesco Mobile
Tesco Mobile is a mobile phone provider in the United Kingdom, and from what I can tell from customer complaints on Twitter, its cellular coverage might not be the best in the biz. It makes up for dropped calls, however, by coming back with hilarious takes and jabs in response to the haters.
Seriously, don't make fun of Tesco Mobile lightly -- be prepared for them to come into your mentions with a fiery reply that mocks everything about you.
4) Discovery
Normally, Discovery's social media content showcases stories about history, geography, and cute animals, like in this tweet:
Photo of the Day: Happy #HugABearDay! We don't suggest hugging any real bears. Leave that to the professionals, like these polar bears. pic.twitter.com/7bp2BjCu0G
— Discovery (@Discovery) November 7, 2017
Which is why it was so unexpectedly hilarious when, after the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team tried making a joke about the average height of a penguin to contradict Discovery's estimate, Discovery came back with a vengeance:
For context, the Penguins had just been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs ... ouch. We hope they had some ice on hand for that burn.
5) Brooklinen
Last week, Brooklinen sent this email to HubSpot Marketing Director Debbie Farese. At first glance, it appears to be a test email that Digital Marketing Intern Mark accidentally sent to Brooklinen's entire list, advertising its upcoming sale on sheets.
Our team gawked at the email, lamenting what we were sure would be a swift end to Mark's digital marketing career -- until we did some investigation on Twitter and found this incriminating tweet.
Mark right now. pic.twitter.com/lNNnxAd2PF
— brooklinen (@Brooklinen) November 17, 2017
We realized we had all been tricked by a clever marketing ruse designed to drum up attention -- and give subscribers early access to Brooklinen's sale.
Well played, Brooklinen. Well played.
6) Denny's
Denny's got in on a popular Twitter meme that tricks the viewer into repeatedly zooming in on spots on a picture to read secret messages -- try it for yourself.
zoom in on the syrup pic.twitter.com/omRBupjrXq
— Denny's (@DennysDiner) March 1, 2017
But Denny's also tweets clever remarks commenting on hot topics circulating -- like the running joke of 2017, when social media accounts kept creating different ways to copy Snapchat Stories:
waffles in 2017 will now have stories pic.twitter.com/7ouQS75PSq
— Denny's (@DennysDiner) April 6, 2017
But they always find a way to infuse breakfast foods into their sassy tweets and memes -- like this one.
you've heard of elf on a shelf now get ready for pic.twitter.com/NLYRvUw90n
— Denny's (@DennysDiner) September 18, 2017
7) Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster uses Twitter mostly to share interesting trends and articles about unique word definitions -- but most tweets are usually accompanied by a very niche GIF or reference to pop culture, like this one:
'Werewolf' is the #WordOfTheDay https://t.co/0oM3GoFoWh pic.twitter.com/gqpTzRJw7f
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) October 31, 2017
The dictionary's social media manager also likes to subtly comment-without-commenting on current events taking over the news by tying it into the context of word definitions -- see what I mean?
📈Both 'collusion' and 'indictment' are among our top lookups today. https://t.co/zSfW3Cf2rK
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) October 30, 2017
What's the definition of the word "shade"?
8) Charmin
Charmin has a hilarious series of tweets called #TweetsfromtheSeat about -- you guessed it -- sitting on the toilet. Its tongue-in-cheek bathroom humor will definitely make your day -- and make you remember Charmin the next time you go to pick up some TP.
#WithoutMyMorningCoffee tweeting from the seat would take a lot longer. 💩
— Charmin (@Charmin) January 19, 2017
But make no mistake, Charmin shares important news stories in its vertical, too.
If the #MadPooper turns herself in, we'll give her a year's supply of TP to help with her "runs" 💩 #EnjoyTheGohttps://t.co/GgEAyYp6aM
— Charmin (@Charmin) September 20, 2017
Who says 💩jokes are just for kids?
9) Wendy's
Wendy's became famous this year for starting beefs (get it?) with anyone and everyone it could on social media. It all started with this innocent tweet, advertising its policy of only serving fresh beef.
Our beef is way too cool to ever be frozen. 😎 pic.twitter.com/QuXECJtlq5
— Wendy's (@Wendys) December 30, 2016
This Twitter user tried to start a Twitter battle with Wendy's, and clearly, they had no idea what they were in for:
Owned.
And while Wendy's sometimes uses social media for good, old-fashioned Biology 101 jokes ...
Powerhouse babyyyyyy https://t.co/RTUZXyVuSq
— Wendy's (@Wendys) October 20, 2017
... its social media sass is best reserved for people (and other restaurants) that dare hint its food is anything but #1.
10) Bangor Maine Police Department
I'm from a little town called Portland, Maine, so when I started seeing news stories about Bangor, Maine's charming Facebook account, I was overjoyed.
Police Sargeant Tom Cotton writes the Bangor PD's lengthy status updates, featuring long-winded stories that feature jokes, some friendly mockery, and all-around laughs.
You can click to expand this one, or you can just read my favorite line:
"It's your day on in the comment section of the world's most marginally famous Police Department Facebook page. We heard that Zuckerberg reads it (that's a lie)."
Or this one:
"For those of us in Maine? We will soon have the distinct privilege of leaving for work in the dark as well as returning to our homes in the dark. I also turn the analog bathroom scale back 10 pounds this time of year...or only look at it in the dark. Might as well make this enjoyable."
These updates all contain stories, warnings, and advice for Bangor, Maine residents -- all wrapped up in hilariously-written statuses.
"It should be noted that cats tend to come down out of trees when they make a decision to do so. Pleading with a cat to return to terra firma is done purely to please those standing around and looking up. It's a public relations move which makes people feel warm inside, but cats are cats."
11) BuzzFeed Books
BuzzFeed has nailed creating different profiles and outlet for its fans' myriad interests, and BuzzFeed Books focuses on news and stories in the literary world.
For the most part. The account had some words (but only a few) about the expansion of Twitter's character limit:
if you think 280 characters is exciting, try reading a book
— BuzzFeed Books (@BuzzFeedBooks) November 7, 2017
12) Pop-Tarts
I love Pop-Tarts. (Did you know they're vegan?) I also love the way the brand refuses to let anyone disgrace its name with unconscionable food preparation choices -- like this one:
Or this one:
Is AI Capable of Creativity? 4 Fails, and 3 Successes
The robots are coming here.
We know -- we've been over this. Messenger and live chat are quickly becoming customers' preferred methods of communication. And for both, bots are often the first line of defense: the triaging system that connects the user to the right human being who can solve the problem ... if it even needs to get to that point.
In other words, bots are eliminating some level of need for human labor.
It's a hotly-contested point, one that's met with a lot of questions rooted in concern.
"Is my job in danger?"
"A bot can't do everything -- what about the creative stuff?"
Aha. It's that last question that often sparks the most debate around here.
Is artificial intelligence capable of truly creative work?
As it turns out, there's no truly definitive answer. There have been cases when the response is, "Of course," and those where attempts to make an AI-powered presence creative fell completely flat.
So, we sought out to find instances of both. There are quite a few -- some amusing, and some horrendous. Here are seven of the best examples we could find.
Is AI Capable of Creativity? 4 Fails, and 3 Successes
The Fails
1) Microsoft: Tay
Oh, boy. Where to begin, with this one?
Here's the thing about machine learning: Typically, if it works properly, it's designed to function based on its users. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, like when Spotify's algorithm uses your listening behavior to curate playlists of songs it thinks you might like.
But in the case of Tay.ai, a Twitter bot designed by Microsoft to function like any "normal" teenage girl using the social media channel, things went terribly wrong.
The problem is that, as "smart" as it might be, AI isn't quite capable of establishing its own ethics. Its only sense of right and wrong is what's dictated by its algorithm, and even then, machine learning AI is still generally informed by the humans it's determined to engage with. That's why Russian ads on Facebook, for example, may have been so effective during the 2016 U.S. presidential election -- based on users' behavior on Facebook (likes, follows, comments, clicks, and more), its algorithm is "informed" enough for that content to accurately reach the people it was meant to influence.
Such was the case, somewhat similarly, with Tay. As the story goes, Tay began to emulate the behavior -- or in this case, the language used in tweets -- of the users engaging with it. Unfortunately, that language was charged with anti-Semitic and anti-feminist sentiment, causing Tay to tweet out such offensive content that Microsoft had to take it offline.
Source: Quora
2) IBM: Chef Watson
I like to call this one "The Great Chocolate Burrito Incident of 2015." That same year, Watson -- the IBM AI robot that once beat a reigning Jeopardy champion -- became "Chef Watson" and released its first cookbook. Watson developed the recipes almost completely independently using its flavor algorithm, with only a bit of help from Institute of Culinary Education human chefs to make a tweak here and there.
There was reason to be optimistic. Prior to the cookbook's publication, a few tech writers had been sent a complimentary bottle of BBQ that was also formulated by Watson, and earned positive reviews. But then came the Austrian Chocolate Burrito: a recipe with results that ranged from "a bunch of little balls of quasi-dryness in my mouth" to "so bad that I thought it had to be good."
(It wasn't all bad -- the Washington Post, evidently, had better luck with the same recipe.)
We have yet to test the recipes ourselves, but in the meantime, um ... bon appétit?
3) Research Scientist Janelle Shane: AI-Named Paint Colors
When someone pens an article about AI titled, "We’re Pretty Sure the Robot That Invented These Paint Colors Is a Stoner," our guess is that it's about an experiment that either went very well or very wrong.
In this case, it bordered on the latter. When research scientist Janelle Shane trained a neural network to create new paint colors -- which are already so interestingly named, like my favorite, Benjamin Moore's "Custis Salmon" -- the results were ... different. The AI was designed to create new shades, and assign names to them, but the two were often mismatched.
Case in point:
So, maybe that last one on the list is, um, fitting. But how does one explain the pinkish hue of "Grass Bat," or the bluish-purple one of "Caring Tan?"
Maybe we just don't have the artistic eye to appreciate these, but until we do, we'll go ahead and categorize this one as "not quite a success."
4) Oscar Sharp and Ross Goodwin: Sunspring
Have you ever wondered what would happen if scripts from classics like Ghostbusters and the original Bladerunner were fed to a neural network for the purpose of creating an original, entirely AI-written screenplay?
The results can be summarized by Sunspring, a short film that was acted and filmed entirely as the machine that wrote it intended. We'll let the work speak for itself ...
... as well as our team's response when it was shared over Slack:
The Successes
5) Primordial Research Project: Hack Rod
Self-driving cars, are making many headlines these days and are even the stuff of high-profile lawsuits. But before the likes of Google, Lyft, and Uber began fighting over who would reign supreme in the area of autonomous vehicles, there was Hack Rod: one of the first artificially intelligent automobiles that had people talking.
The project began as a research-based side gig that was rooted in co-founder Felix Holst's background at Mattel, where he worked on Hot Wheels toy cars. First, he and co-founder Mouse McCoy built a team to create a high-performance race car, which was later driven by a human through the Mojave Desert. That's where the cool part comes in: The team was able to capture the driver's brainwaves. That, combined with information collected from sensors placed within the vehicle itself, was converted into data that served as a foundation for the machine learning that would create what Fast Company once referred to as the car's "nervous system."
Hack Rod has been noticeably absent from recent self-driving headlines, but there's little doubt that it paved the way -- if you'll excuse the pun -- for autonomous vehicles to come.
6) Manny Tan & Kyle McDonald: The Infinite Drum Machine
We've heard cases of AI-created musical composition, like Emily Howell, the classical-music-composing machine created by UCSC Professor Emeritus David Cope.
But we haven't come across as many examples of AI-powered musical composition that allows the user to create its own audible masterpiece. That's where The Infinite Drum Machine comes in: an AI experiment that uses machine learning to capture thousands of sounds we hear in day-to-day life, like a bag of potato chips opening or a file cabinet opening, and organizes them to create percussive patterns.
And thanks to Google's AI Experiments site, everyday tech nerds like us can play with it.
7) Google Creative Lab: AutoDraw
Okay, the jury might be out on this one. We're calling it a win, because it makes for a fun way to pass the time, say, while putting off one's blog-writing duties.
AutoDraw, another Google AI experiment, helps novice artists -- er, those who like to doodle on the internet -- create better quality images with the help of machine learning.
For example, here's what happened when I tried using it to draw a picture of my dachshund-mix dog:
Cute! After about 50 seconds, AutoDraw figured out that I may have been drawing a dachshund. But here's what happened when I tried to replicate its own work:
Granted, I'm not exactly a brilliant artist -- but I did find it interesting that AutoDraw couldn't recognize the subject of its own work being copied.
So, is AI capable of creativity? Sure. But in terms of its ability to completely replicate what a human mind might do -- write a screenplay, accurately create and name paint colors, or emulate a teenage girl without offending the masses -- it's not quite there yet.
Are we on our way? Probably. But in the meantime, we'll be preparing our popcorn and watching Sunspring on repeat.
