Now Trending — December 10, 2018

A trend in outsmarting consumers doesn't seem all that smart; top A.I. research of 2018 and predictions for 2019; trends in mobility; digital marketing strategies for building your brand; digital publishers are for sale; what 2019 holds for the future of retail; Facebook's annus horribilis; the tone-deaf tweets of the chief twitterer; the top-earning YouTuber; the streaming media business is getting crowded — and contentious; podcasts come to Pandora; Lyft and Uber have both filed for IPOs; how smart cities are turning a mountain of data into insights; the strange and wonderful hidden musicals that powered corporate America; and so much more in the Now Trending edition of The Full Monty for the week of December 10, 2018.

The Full Monty makes you smarter faster, by curating the essential business intelligence every week. Links are below with commentary in italics. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing.

Announcements

Just an advance notice: next week is the last official edition of The Full Monty for 2018. With Christmas and New Year's Day falling mid-week, there will be interruptions delivery service. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Top Story

What is it about companies that they think it's acceptable to deceive people? I've talked about this a number of times before (see: Smoke and Mirrors and Why We Fall For It Every Time).

We like to think we're smarter than that, so when we see someone else get caught up in a deception, it's entertaining (especially when it's caught on camera!).

Just in this last week, we Dunkin' fooling foodies in Portland with an espresso pop-up. The coffee was actually Dunkin', but it was made to seem as if it was a hand-crafted espresso that wouldn't be expected to come from a chain.

And as we reported in last week's newsletter, Payless Shoesource made a fake luxury brand and tricked fashion influencers into spending $640 for their discount shoes — an 1,800% markup on shoes that normally retail for around $35.

The prevailing thought here is alternatively a jab at the "experts" who can be easily taken in, or a self-congratulatory back pat for the brand. Either way, it feels off, you know?

This "hey look, we fooled you/them" isn't really anything new. The Pepsi Challenge undertook that in first in 1975, and Folgers famously switched the coffee in fine restaurants with its own instant crystals in the 1970s and 1980s.

This may seem clever or entertaining, but it's hardly new. And because it's built on deception, it stands on about as solid ground as the mistress who becomes a second wife: you never know when your spouse is going to cheat on you again.

P.S. The results of these switcheroos don't always turn out as expected.

Related: Episode 52 of The Full Monty.

If you enjoyed this commentary, please sign up for Timeless Wisdom in addition to this newsletter and I'll send you a couple of more items a week.

About this week's image: Stańczyk, painted by Jan Matejko in 1862 depicts the court jester when Poland was at the height of its political, economic and cultural power during the era of the Renaissance in Poland, during the reign of King Sigismund I the Old who reigned from 1506–1548. Stańczyk was a popular figure; besides his fame as a jester he has been described as an eloquent, witty, and intelligent man, using satire to comment on the nation's past, present, and future.

Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.
Aʀᴛɪꜰɪᴄɪᴀʟ Iɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ / Mᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ Lᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢ

From open-source A.I. to standardization around data licensing and A.I., and preparing for cyber attacks, here are 2019 predictions about A.I. (Forbes) Well, we're at the end of 2018. The inevitable predicting had to begin sometime, right?
Here are the top A.I. research papers of 2018, summarized. (TopBots)
Canada and France are putting a panel together to study the effects of A.I. to address some of the ethical concerns. (Wired)
Apple will reportedly sell its HomePod speaker in China next year, beating Amazon and Google to the punch. (Bloomberg)
The New York Times is planning to use A.I. to improve personalization and thus engagement. (AdAge)
Robot janitors will be mopping floors at Walmart stores. They can even clean around customers. (Bloomberg) Think of them as industrial Roombas.

Aᴜᴛᴏɴᴏᴍᴏᴜs / Mᴏʙɪʟɪᴛʏ

Three trends to expect in mobility services next year. They center around autonomous, 5G and scooters. (AdWeek) If you can get a self-driving scooter via 5G, more power to you.
An interview with Ford CEO Jim Hackett, who explains how to sell driverless cars when drivers are your best customers. (Newsweek) Not sure the message is getting across. When asked to define what a 'mobility company' is, this was his answer:

"Henry Ford brought us mobility. But for the first time in history, you’ve got the confluence of technology that will let the vehicle drive itself, the ability for the vehicles to communicate with each other and all talk to the cloud. The cities will also communicate with the cloud, which then connects with the vehicles in ways that actually help choreograph traffic."
Our 'Mulallified' version: a mobility company handles data, hardware, and software that connects vehicles to each other and the grid, and helps people more easily go from place to place. #FixedItForYou

The anatomy of a connected car owner — from their banking habits to their social network use and more. (otonomo)
Waymo introduced its commercial self-driving service, Waymo One. That's right, a driverless taxi. (Medium) Like Total Recall, but with no robot driver.

There is an inherent design problem, and that's overcautious vehicles. (Fast Company)

May Mobility is an autonomous vehicle company, but their focus is on providing “a better level of service and we’re solving real transportation problems.” (Wired)
Congress is getting serious about autonomous vehicles as well with the AV Start Act, which would collect crash information for Level 2 systems like Tesla’s Autopilot. (The Verge)

Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.
Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢʏ / Mᴀʀᴋᴇᴛɪɴɢ / Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ

Five digital marketing strategies for building your brand in 2019. (Medium)
Google and Facebook were responsible for roughly 75% of all digital advertising growth last quarter in the United States. (Business Insider)
Consumers say brands ask for too much information from them. (eMarketer) Trust must be earned. Think about it like a first date.
New LinkedIn "Asking for a Friend" column is "Dear Abby" for marketers. (LinkedIn) Even better, it's written by my friend and chief content officer of MarketingProfs, Ann Handley.
If you fail to distinguish yourself in any meaningful way, your customer will default to price as the final criteria. Price matters only when nothing else matters. (Medium)
How do you install the function of content as a business model? Integrate a combination of changes. Here are four models. (Content Marketing Institute)
Top 10 B2B content marketing predictions and trends to watch for 2019. (Top Rank)

Jᴏᴜʀɴᴀʟɪsᴍ / Cᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴs / Rᴇᴘᴜᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

New parents claim that Amazon baby registry ads are deceptive. The company has been inserting product ads into baby register lists, with the subtlest and most easily missed 'this is an ad' label. (WSJ)
Vice, Vox, and BuzzFeed, among other companies that once heralded the dawn of a new media age, are now grappling with decidedly old-media problems. (Vanity Fair) Namely, money.
Don't rely on PR stunts; make better customer experiences the new normal. (Timeless Wisdom)

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Retail Apocalypse

Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is — is undergoing a historical metamorphosis.

More predictions, this time for retails. Here are 10 refreshingly honest retail predictions for 2019. (Forbes) As opposed to those nefariously misleading ones.
Walmart will acquire the assets of Art.com, an online seller of art and wall decor which, a source says, was recently bringing in $300 million in sales annually. (CNBC)
Walgreen's and FedEx are teaming up to provide next-day home delivery of prescription medications. (WSJ)
Farmstead is an Instacart competitor in grocery delivery that aims to be what Whole Foods would be if it were founded today. (TechCrunch)
A government task force is calling for the U.S. Postal Service to push up shipping prices on certain packages, threatening to impact Amazon and e-commerce rivals Target and Walmart. (Axios)
Ikea is opening its first city-center store. The urban flagship will be located at 999 Third Ave. in Manhattan. (Bloomberg)

"Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy."

–Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

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Please consider doing it again, as the busy season is upon us.

Platforms

News to know about relevant social, virtual, and augmented reality platforms that may affect your business.

From data to technology to societal impacts, here are the 2019 social media trends you need to be aware of. (Talkwalker)
It's only getting more cluttered online. If you want to stand out, find your swim lane and focus. (Mark Schaefer)
What Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Spotify, Snapchat, Google, Netflix, and Adobe Illustrator would have looked like 30 years ago. (Thomas Olivier)

Fᴀᴄᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ / Iɴsᴛᴀɢʀᴀᴍ / WʜᴀᴛsAᴘᴘ

Facebook gave its Year in Review on how people used the platform. Users will be able to see their own Year in Review video beginning today. (Facebook) If we were to sum up Facebook's year in review, it would be this: annus horribilis.

Meanwhile, internal tensions at Facebook are boiling over as bunker mentality takes hold. (BuzzFeed News)
Internal emails released by U.K. Parliament indicate that Facebook knew that its controversial Android call-scraping would be risky. Notably, the project manager recognized it as “a pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective.” (TechCrunch) That risk seems to have been overwhelmed by the potential user growth.
And Facebook app developers are suing, claiming that Facebook did not give them equal access to the API Graph. (Ars Technica)

Here's what's changing with the new Instagram API and what businesses should know. (Meltwater)
Expect more ad dollars to flow from Facebook to Instagram in 2019 as Stories take hold. (AdWeek)
This tech columnist tried to make his dog an Instagram star. And failed. (New York Times) Instagram is a harsh mistress. Bottom line: there are no shortcuts.
Instagram's IGTV was supposed to be the future of TV. What happened? (Fast Company)

Tᴡɪᴛᴛᴇʀ

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is on the receiving end of backlash against his tone-deaf tweets about his vacation in Myanmar. This is against the backdrop of genocide and other crimes in that country. (The Washington Post)
Reuters is seeing a revenue bump based on its video work on Twitter. With 10 people dedicated to video on Twitter, the news stalwart moved three of them off of Facebook Live video, which is no longer monetizing for them. (Digiday)

Oᴛʜᴇʀ

Google is shutting down Allo. (The Verge) 'Allo, what's this?
The top-earning YouTuber is a seven year-old, who amassed over $22 million this year. (The Hustle)
Tumblr will ban all adult content on its platform beginning December 17. (The Verge) Where, o where will users go to find adult content online now?

Media

The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.
Vɪᴅᴇᴏ

With Disney beginning its own streaming service next year, Warner Media getting into the mix, and billions of dollars being dedicated to original content, here's a guide to the next battle in streaming TV wars. (Quartz)
When big media companies like Disney take their content off of Netflix, the streaming giant could stand to lose up to 20 percent of its content. (Recode)
Apple tried to buy the rights to Friends, and in doing so tipped its hand at its streaming TV plans. (BGR)
Hulu wants to be “at the table when the time comes” to bid on exclusive sports rights. (Media Post)
MoviePass has a sequel, and it's got a new pricing plan. Starting on January 1st, MoviePass will offer a three-tiered subscription plan to movie tickets which will give its customers varying levels of access to the latest films in cinemas. (CNN Business)

Aᴜᴅɪᴏ

Sweden-based podcasting platform Acast has raised $33 million in a series C round of funding. (Venture Beat)
Here's why Apple had no choice but to bring Apple Music to Amazon Alexa smart speakers. (Forbes)
Pandora officially launched podcasts on iOS and Android, with over 100,000 episodes. (9to5mac)
The 50 best albums of the year. (NPR)
Program of the Week: In light of Friday's news, we recommend two podcasts: ProPublica's excellent and comprehensively researched Trump Inc. looks into the president's business dealings; and Season 1 of Slow Burn takes you inside Watergate, to experience it as it was happening in the news in the 1970s.

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Privacy / Security / Regulatory

Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more.
Pʀɪᴠᴀᴄʏ / Sᴇᴄᴜʀɪᴛʏ / Hᴀᴄᴋɪɴɢ

A bug in the desktop version of videoconferencing app Zoom let attackers hijack your screens. It has since been fixed. (TNW)

Rᴇɢᴜʟᴀᴛᴏʀʏ / Oɴ-Dᴇᴍᴀɴᴅ Eᴄᴏɴᴏᴍʏ

Ride-hailing firm Lyft filed for a 2019 IPO, expected some time in March or April. (WSJ)
Not to be outdone, Uber filed confidential paperwork for a 2019 IPO as well. (Hindustan Times) Uber had long been expected to be the first to file.
The big question lying out there is: will Uber survive the next decade? "No ultimately successful major technology company has been as deeply unprofitable for anywhere remotely as long as Uber has been." (Intelligencer)
Cheesecake Factory turned 40 on Wednesday, and hoped to spread joy among its fans by sending 40,000 free slices to the first people to order through DoorDash. Here's what the chain didn't expect: a glut of DoorDash drivers at every restaurant trying to satisfy orders, while diners were arriving hoping to get their fix. (CNBC) Clearly, the world is not ready for cheesecake on demand.

Measurement / Analytics / Data

The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.

A.I. and machine learning can turn "Smart" cities' mountain of data into lifesaving insights. (Ars Technica)
An overview of ad tech and its use by publishers, how it mines reader data, its effect on reader experience and perception of journalism. (Columbia Journalism Review) While this is written about publishers, it equally applies to brands.
How marketers use attribution models. Despite how much marketers prioritize attribution, many gaps in their efforts remain. (eMarketer)
How data and analytics can dramatically boost success with megadeals. (McKinsey)
The tech tools that go into the New York Times Crossword puzzle. (New York Times)

Speaking Engagements

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SPECIAL OFFER: There are just two slots left on my discount offer for up to five subscribers of The Full Monty. Book me to speak in 2019, and I'll speak to your group for 30 percent off my normal rate. Let's have a call to discuss it. This offer is ending this week.

Mental Nourishment

Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.

From an epic and misguided attempt to summit K2 to a behind-the-scenes look at the man who literally unlocks the Vatican’s doors every morning, these are National Geographic’s favorite reads of 2018. (National Geographic)
Here are 11 books that will help you become a better version of yourself in 2019. (Inc.)
Don't give up on an idea because it seems obvious. (Harvard Business Review) Some of the best ideas are surprisingly simple.
You've heard the song numerous times (this season alone!). Here's how to actually roast chestnuts over an open fire. (The Art of Manliness)
A holiday tipping guide: how much to give. (CNBC) We recommend $10 for your friendly newsletter curator.
Listening to Fresh Air last week, I discovered that companies used to hire broadway writers to craft industrial musicals. That's the premise behind Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age Of Industrial Musicals, and is the subject of the documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway. (NPR, IMDb) This is absolutely amazing. I had no idea.

Top image credit: Stańczyk by Jan Matejko, 1862 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Monday, December 10, 2018