The Gen Z TikTok Pandemic & Duolingo's Garfield Story
Friday Review: Where is the Gen-Z and Instagram heading? Plus, What brands can steal from Duolingo & Charli XCX's Brat rollout.
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1. Instagram’s CEO: Sends per impression matter the most on IG. How do you optimise for that?
Two challenges marketers face today:
Gen-Z is spending more time watching stories on IG. How do we get their follow to make them watch stories?
Sends matter the most, but people share creators more than brands. Should we go more into influencer marketing or be the influencer?
What Happened:
Adam Mosseri featured on Colin and Samir’s Youtube Podcast, you should watch it if you haven’t. But stay with me for now, A quick rundown and analysis:
What you should know:
Instagram knows they thrive because of connections, not content. That’s why they have made their ‘Home’ feed too narrow and connections driven. The more connected an account is to your business through multiple connections and touch points, the more your chance of showing up increases.
Mosseri’s example of his friend only making content for him is a great one. Showing how the industry will continue on the path toward a micro-influencers or accidental-influencers like Orlando Baby.
From the conversation, we somewhat learn Mosseri cares about creators and Instagram, but he can’t really turn Instagram into a creator haven. Because his vision doesn’t align 100% with Mark and others at Meta.
Someone posted that clip of Mosseri talking about creator revenue sharing and he replied with the ‘ROI in that example is actually 0%... 🤦🏻♂️’. While this looks bad when said out loud, Mosseri’s explanation is the truth: Creators are assets when they create content not eligible for monetization, liability when the platforms pay.
The platform also goes in negative ROI if they have to host a ton of content but the advertisers aren’t paying enough to be seen around that content. Ex: BeReal not getting enough brand investment, still they got the $500M Exit this week.
The blurring lines between original vs copied content: Mosseri and Colin and Samir’s views on adding a B-roll or new elements to make a piece of content original for algorithm sums up why it is so hard to win new audiences.
Yes, It is original with some new additions. But like labels ask Online DJs on Twitch to pay them a cut. Original Creators should get credited if the piece of content being reshared by others is only slightly edited, or the creator should have the ability to ask for clear credits.
Even if you hate or love Instagram, You have to admire the decision making of Instagram’s leadership. Adam talks about the features they introduced over the years and how stories, videos and DMs helped IG remain relevant. The learnings are hidden in how they rolled out these features and integrated them.
In 2024, while TikTok is at the centre of conversations and trends. IG’s feature ‘Add Yours’ is getting one step ahead of TT. As it is being used by Gen-Z with closed connections and local audiences. Maintaining IG’s need as a platform to connect with others.
We can argue about IG’s war against political content but a lot of features they have now are also enabling people to speak on certain topics and events.
He’s totally right for blaming Google and Apple for kids using Instagram problem. They need to do better in terms of restricting access to IG from Play Store.
Mosseri goes over how TikTok algorithm is faster and kind of better at recommendations than Reels and YouTube.
What You Should Do: Getting More Shares & Follows for IG Stories
Optimizing for shares is hard, but focusing on this metric puts you into persona research mode. Spending more time on studying individual users should be part of your strategy.
Learn from platforms that rely heavily on shares, X and Threads is an example. Start thinking about your reels as Tweets, what would get you a retweet aka Share? Remix the ‘Tweet and Reels’ Strategy.
Focus more on content that invites people to participate like a ongoing joke or content show. As people like to invite others to get into what they are doing.
Maintain a specific theme/topic in your Instagram stories, with that you can make a clear pitch to your Gen-Z audiences. About why they should follow you for IG stories, alongside the regular content.
It is annoying but something that Indian Sports pages have done for years is promote only the headline in the post. The complete coverage lives in IG Stories. Value in stories > post
New Trend: ‘Add Yours’ stickers are increasing stories engagement, you can use them to reach more of your audience. But don’t abuse the stickers everyone is using, better to start your own sticker chain and gain new followers.
2. Germany’s TikTok Problem: How far-right takes advantage of Tok’s speedy algorithm?
Disclaimer: This in not to solely blame TikTok or Social Media for rise of right-wing in Germany. It goes over state of Gen-Z and misuse of TikTok.
I hate that smile on Erik Ahrens' face when he reveals how TikTok gives his party (AfD) advantage because of it’s algorithm and audience habits.
First, Who is Erik? A Social Media Consultant for Afd, the leading far-right party in Germany. Well, He’s much more than that, if interested in getting angry, you can read everything about him here.
What happened:
16% of youths voted for the AfD in EU elections, a huge chunk of that Youth was 16 year olds voting for first time in the election.
The vast majority of Germans are online, but only 51% use social media. This has possibly corrected a huge disconnect between the younger and older demographics.
A part of the reason why other parties have been so late to the social media game.
More than a third of 11- to 17-year-olds in Germany complained of psychosomatic complaints such as headaches, stomach aches or sleep disorders. Gen-Zers are depressed, a sharp incline in the recent years.
Analysing right-wing content, you will find how Gen-Z is being targeted with wrong interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophies and the romanticisation of War. Building that TikTok Bubble!
The content from Jordan Peterson, know for misinterpreting nietzsche and Andrew Tate-like figures impact Gen-Z heavily.
How far-right in Germany and France is winning Gen-Z through social?
TikTok’s moderation problem: I have reported 100s of accounts using NZ Party visuals and speeches but the response is always, no violations found.
The Other problem is what Erik takes advantage of small accounts go unnoticed. So, the far-right keeps them small.
Non-existent social media presence of small/alternative parties, 16-18 year olds are too busy with their smartphones, they aren’t visiting your events. A number of voters in Germany said, they don’t see another alternative, voting for the most visible alternative is the answer.
You can blame their ignorance of not researching enough, but people are busy and lazy, take your party to their houses.
- did an In-detail analysis of how extreme-right and Extremist influencers are escaping the account bans using tactics like Hashtag hijacking and Comments takeover. (read)
Emojis like 💙 for Afd and heart throbs for Jordan Bardella help the right-wing movement to create a lower barrier to show support. Meanwhile Greens and Socialists are too busy adding more contextual barriers to show support.
What brands are doing + how targeting Gen-Z consumers changes with this rise of far-right:
Most German Brands are fighting against the far-right but they won’t make a huge impact in East Germany. As they are unlikely to make the effort of shifting the conversation from ‘immigrants are the problem’ to a case against their own ‘lack of investment in East’ as a problem.
The decline in support for European Greens shows lack of awareness about cheap sustainability among Young consumers. Brands and Parties shouldn’t make being sustainable sound like a chore.
A study I shared last week, shared how EU consumers are getting influenced by Greenwashing.
We talked about this last week, Diversity and LGBTQ+ representation should make sense for your brand. If you are only slapping it on your socials for Pride Month or certain POC issues, you will only end up being targeted by rage comments. More Edutainment content is needed from brands.
Duolingo’s verified badge gotremovedon TikTok because of LGBTQ+ hate train in their comments.It’s back.
Use more humour to deliver the news and promotions from your party or channel. It makes Young Adults More Likely to Remember and Share.
The Obvious: A majority of brands will ignore this happening, and slowly would start obeying the far-right if they win. We have seen this story, nie wieder ist jetzt.
On another note: Donald Trump has crossed Joe Biden on TikTok, reaching 6.2M followers. One Instagram marketer said, It’s the authenticity and natural tone in Trump’s content.
No, It’s the fact: Joe’s account has more content featuring Donald. Plus, he never had Dana White and Logan Paul launch his platform, Trump’s Tok is a drama streaming subscription. Many around the world will follow for that part.
3. Duolingo’s success is linked to Garfield, Steal the strategy!
I had no business watching an hour-long video essay on Garfield, and neither did the creator of that essay. But a huge realisation came into the play, Duolingo’s success came from Garfield’s existence.
Most People using Duolingo are in a relationship similar to John Davis’s relation to Garfield. Both Garfield and Duolingo aren’t funny, they are to many but both weren’t born to make you laugh.
They thrive as funny characters because of the lore, relatability and consistency. People constantly find themselves in a relationship with Duo and Garfield, as both are targeting their ideal behaviour.
That’s what brands can learn and copy:
First, you need to identify the audience that needs to be called out by Duo or Garfield. Have enough ideas around the audience, because the job of Garfield was to mostly come and annoy John (add your ideal persona here). Or to describe the common habits of comic strip readers, calling the audience out. Break the fourth wall!
“The Garfield Phenomenon should be used as a term for the experience of seeing something everywhere in everyday life once you start thinking about it.” - YouTube Commenter.
Creating that frequency illusion with your brand characters being everywhere should be a must.
The Top Goal of a brand should be “Making people disappear in the culture”. I am reading this new book ‘The Culture Map’ and it mentions a joke you have probably heard everywhere:
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
Both Garfield and Duolingo have achieved this level, where people can’t even digest why others might find them boring or funny. It’s the same for few brands you love, they aren’t funny. They have built culture and frequency illusion to dissolve people into their brand.
4. You win some, you lose some: Zendaya, Kylie, Hailey and On footwear!
Everyone is praising the launch of rhode’s new blush, the creative approach behind it was amazing as usual. Meanwhile everyone kind of forget that Kylie also launched new product line of Blushes.
rhode’s consistently creative marketing approach has people paying extra attention whenever they launch.
I said it when the news came out, On Footwear’s partnership with Zendaya is pretty strange and untimed.
No activity on Zendaya’s socials so far.
The Challengers fever is dying, they should have been a little early with this partnership.
While I like On’s brand campaign as a piece of marketing, it only works to a certain extent. The campaign is in the same position as Huawei and Gal Gadot’s twitter ads. Or even worse, cause Zendaya always reps Louboutin High Heels on stages with most eyes on her.
The comeback of iPods at Urban Outfitters, they’re already sold out. Nostalgic Tech is what Gen-Z loves. But Urban describing use of iPod as content + care sums up the reason why many opt for retro tech.
Miu Miu’s summer reads activation takes the control back from booktok, be aesthetic and become a miu miu reader.
This week, Marc Jacobs is trending for his huge nails and their designs.
The Buses don’t scare me Aunty from UK got her first sponsorship from Tems.
5. Brat Summer: How Charli XCX is reviving two major elements of Music & Brand Marketing?
The Obvious: Good Art & Internet Karma
Charli made a good f**king album, and this album’s mainstream success is a long-time coming.
Also, her clean image and loyal fanbase helps her campaigns do better.
She benefits from the Internet karma, What you give is, what you get. Most artists don’t contribute enough to Internet Culture. When they promote, people don’t support or build conversation around them. Charli’s been there to represent Internet IT-girls, preserve pop culture rituals and to empower the hyperpop genre on socials.
The Important: Cities as Characters & New Tools to become Timely Authenticators
The Streaming and Online Music Recommendations are killing ‘Genre Stans’. Because people are being exposed to a huge variety of music through AI and Online Curators. Most genres are losing what
calls ‘Authenticators’ and the Experience Stans, now they are only to be found in Los Angelas or Berlin.Experience Stans romanticise and speak too much of experiential vibe of a music genre, hobby or album. Now, they are only to be found in certain cities, like Sebastian in Los Angeles.
1- This has turned cities into characters:
Every City has it’s own character mostly known to the outsiders or Ex Stans. Brands or Creators show those characteristics of a city in their work. To be part of that culture and use it for their benefit.
This insight came from Jack Conte’s podcast with Max Joseph. He worked with Casey Neistat, edited some of his best videos. Max uses cities as characters in most of his videos. Many artists take the same approach when they represent their city in a song or tour documentary.
Think of your city as a main character in your brand campaign!
Creators parody them while Brands use ‘Experience Stans’ in different cities to get more attention. Experience Stans are your entry to a city, they try to often connect everything to their city. Why? They want to have more things to be proud of, a majority of regular people would never take you in as a newbie. Let Stans do the job!
As Virgil Abloh puts it, Street [is] where you get the relevant ideas to the real people. When it is not your street, it is a straße in Berlin. You need the Experience Stans to do the job.
2- Access to Online Tools and Information has turned every fan into Authenticator:
In the past, Authenticators had contextual power to show their worth, that alone doesn’t work in 2024. Because everyone has too much context. The Biggest Authenticators today get more backlash than ever, look at Anthony Fantano.
The Authenticators of today are fans with overlapping music tastes and characteristics, they use online tools and strategies to reach other counterparts.
Charli’s brat art generator helps the fans to do so. Nicki Minaj fans did that with AI image generation, Gag City.
The Idea of fake Charli XCX and Erewhon smoothie to give her album a mainstream appeal, targeting the Internet elites who only buy at that store and think low of her album.
Hyper use of every social media tool to match the album vibe: TikTok livestreams, influencer collaborations, BTS with Addison Rae, Tube Girl + Naomi Campbell and much more. The hyper activation strategy of using all features has been so cool.
This works as most people aren’t searching enough to authenticate the vibe they’re feeling, a good rollout delivers that vibe to their feeds.
Brands using the product design and branding to jump on the brat trend: Tony’s Chocolonely, The Sims & Graza.
About the Club:
Hyperpop is kind of a genre saving the whole club scene, Charli XCX, Fred Again, Zack Fox and Tommy Richman could be the club saviours. A huge junk of Zoomers aren’t going to club + it’s only raves saving the energy vibes because 2000s dancing club vibes are gone from the clubs.
A Special thanks to for her amazing write-up on brand energy and Brat + PolyPhonic for their analysis of Music Genres.
6. Data is the King, But don’t let it fool you!
Knowing how to analyse and study visual data is more than important ever. Don’t leave it for AI.
The Visual Display of Quantitate Information by Edward R. Tufte, a must read on understanding graphs and different data visuals.
How not to be fooled by Viral Charts by
, both part-1 and 2 are a must read.Synthetic data is as good as real – next comes synthetic strategy, from Mark Ritson.
AI data being as good as the real tells us a lot about where data quality stands. Don’t over-rely on data, and keep experts and customers close to you.
7. Did TikTok Grew organically without any advertising?
Earlier this week, Someone in r/marketing posted about Ad overload in the industry. They posted TikTok as an example of a brand/platform that grew without advertising:
When TikTok came up, they did clever OOH and Traditional TV advertising to set example for other social-first brands.
TikTok promotes itself as an app for everyone. What TikTok did and probably does the same today was running Fast Campaigns.
A TikTok Trend goes viral and it is healthy to promote on Traditional Media Channels or DOOH. TikTok was moving their viral content from various niches to those traditional platforms, causing a FOMO. Plus, giving a different brand message to every consumer, telling no matter who you are TikTok is a place to be. And all that lead to huge success for TikTok in US.
Today, The OOH leaders are advising other brands to use the strategy of Influencer inclusion in their ads. A highly engaging product with great positioning only benefits from advertising, TikTok understood and did that.
The Author’s both examples got smashed on reddit, here’s a reply against their use of Vitamix ads. What do you think about role of advertising in marketing?
In my opinion, Bad work reaches people through advertising because many businesses only care about stealing attention. Giving Advertising a bad reputation.
Quick News & Short-Insights for you:
TikTok is pushing more old content to user feeds, what’s the criteria? Content getting pushed to your feeds is the one you liked, downloaded or added to favourites in the past. It is retargeting you with that content.
Simple Hack from Chris Do’s podcast: Don’t use ‘Can I pick your brain on something?’ in a conversation or Online without putting forward a benefit or a thankful gesture.
Asics x HAY rollout, the wooden visuals are simply amazing.
Jake Paul’s new personal care brand ‘W’ is here with advertising copy worse than my writing.
41% of Young Gen-Zers in US said they've never used AI, and another 8% said they don't know what AI tools are. (Axios)
Apple’s new announcement to allow homepage customisation was 100% shareholder play, they killed a major part of their brand. iPhone’s value exists in how they all look in the public, you have seen how some androids look in real-life. If it wasn’t for branding, why didn’t they launch this feature years ago? Steve Jobs gave people tools to be creative, but he was clear on keeping his brand how he wants to keep it.
Are we seeing the Apple brand crumbling? Could be. The AI upgrades are useful, you can read
’s post on what Apple’s new updates do for you. Overall, Apple attaching themselves to an external brand is rare, they always take huge control in companies they partner with, like Beats by Dre. I wonder, what chaos will be at OpenAI in upcoming months.
YouTube has gone on the offensive side, launching server-side ads to fight the ad blockers.
Brand News: Ghia turns 4, launching a month long celebration run.
To get the UEFA vibes going, SKIMS launched a new social campaign with Jude Bellingham from England’s team.
This coconut brand in China is using ‘Sex/Lust sells’ to extreme levels on social and traditional TV.
Everyone praised Xbox’s games rollout as the best ever, reliving the Marvel rollout vibes.
Google is testing programmatic ads for email marketing.
Will be back with Marketing News Recap on Sunday, you can read the one from last week here.
Thanks for mentioning me! Essentially TikTok uses online learning for the recommendation algorithm and afaik other platforms don’t. This means the ML recommendation algorithm is updated in real-time which gives a huge edge for short-form content imo.
Sending this post to my bosses :P IG Stories has been a tough nut for us.