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KIMP’s Picks 23rd February: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

Social media can be overwhelming. New posts pile up faster than you can scroll, leaving you with a nagging FOMO about everything you’re missing. Especially on a busy work week! Sound familiar? Then you’re in the right place. The KIMP’s Picks 23rd February Edition is just for you! 

This is our weekly round-up that curates insightful discussions and share-worthy posts across various industries, saving you precious time and keeping you informed. Consider it your one-stop shop to catch up on the most resourceful discussions and updates in AI, marketing, and more. 

Are you ready to catch up on a few things you missed this past week? Let’s go!

In the Marketing Realm 

The effectiveness of paid social media advertising 

Paid ads have become an indispensable asset in the current marketing terrain. Social media platforms like X are popular options for paid advertising because the reach is better and the conversions are good. 

X has recently changed quite drastically and the advertising landscape on the platform has evolved as well. So, if you are wondering if advertising on X is still an effective step, then the below post shared by X will give you an answer. 

In this post, they shared a quick peek into the results observed by leading domain service Snagged.com. According to X, Snagged.com was able to increase their web traffic by  534% and their qualified leads by a whopping 1245%, all through X ads. Results like these are proof that paid advertising on social media pays off especially when you optimize based on platform-specific trends and audience interests. 

A hot topic on social media! 

NBA All-Star was the center of several social media conversations this past week. People have been discussing the game and brands have been talking about their campaigns. Some have been sharing their participation in the event and the scenes from the arena. There were also others who engaged in meaningful conversations with their customers about the big game weekend.

According to the below post from X, the video views for NBA All-Star this year crossed 2.3 billion video views which is reportedly 60% more than that of last year. 

To know more about the NBA All-Star brand and to get inspired by the brands that tapped into the energy of the event, check out our blog here. 

Super Bowl ads that captivated YouTube audiences 

The marketing frenzy that prevails during the Super Bowl season needs no introduction. YouTube has grown to be a popular platform for customers to encounter Super Bowl ads. So, YouTube shared the below post celebrating all the biggest ads of this year and the ones that attracted the most attention. 

YouTube earlier announced AdBlitz, a space for fans to find all the Super Bowl ads of the year in one place. The post here summarizes all the AdBlitz winners, the brands, and Super Bowl ads that won the hearts of the YouTube audiences. Booking.com, T-Mobile, and Google are a few of the well-known names on the list. 

Additionally, YouTube also discussed a few crucial takeaways for brands based on what worked for these award-winning ads. From leveraging storytelling to incorporating humor and drawing inspiration from pop culture, the post discusses several useful tips. 

The after-effects of Super Bowl marketing 

It’s not just YouTube that spoke about Super Bowl ads of 2024. Semrush also shared an insightful post that talks about what happened after these ads – their conversions and impact. 

The below post summarizes some of the critical conversion parameters that matter to brands like the increase in web and social media traffic. The post talks about the drastic increase in new searches for Yeezy.com and the new followers gained by Duolingo, Dunkin, and other brands. 

All this data shows how a well-planned Super Bowl campaign can make a big impact for a brand. 

Ad terms: a quick refresher 

When it comes to advertising, you see marketers discuss various terms like ROAS, and KPIs both when creating an ad and tracking its performance. So, if you are looking for a quick overview of these ad terms, then the below post from Instagram is for you. 

In this post, Instagram discusses crucial ad terms like KPIs, ROAs, Impressions, CPMs, and CTR. The post featured also delves into a detailed glossary of ad terms that advertisers might want to know about especially when advertising on Meta platforms. So, if you are working on fine-tuning your social media advertising strategy, this is a great post to look into. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

SEO in a multichannel marketing strategy 

For a strong digital presence, brands need to have a robust multi-channel marketing strategy. That’s one way for brands to stay ahead in the game and stay connected with their customers at the right time and in the right place. But how does the multi-channel approach change SEO? The below post from Search Engine Land, a leading online source of search-related information, discusses this in detail. 

The post begins with a short overview of the requisites for brands to adopt a multi-channel marketing approach. It then moves on to talk about the effective use of SEO to deliver a more effective multi-channel experience. It all boils down to the goal of delivering personalized experiences to keep customers coming back for more. 

Humanizing your content 

With AI dominating the marketing realm, and with more and more marketers using AI-generated content across various platforms, there’s a strong need for human touch. While AI-generated content might do the job in most places, if you are looking to create meaningful conversations with your customers, you need to humanize your content. You need to add your brand’s personal flavor to make the content stand out. The below post from Search Engine Journal discusses this. 

The post featured here discusses the need to create content that focuses on user journey instead of merely focusing on parameters like search volume. It also talks about the need to maintain an authentic point of view and other tips to create humanized content to represent a brand. 

In the Design Realm 

Adding textures in Adobe Illustrator 

Adobe tools have become indispensable elements in the design workflows of several organizations. From marketing designs to branding designs, there are various places where designers use Adobe’s tools. If you are one among them, then the below post is for you. The post from Adobe features a short video that shows how to add textures to designs. 

Whether it is to experiment with different visual styles or to add a creative flair to your design, you might need to add textures in various places. The video here talks about 3 different ways to add textures to designs. 

Leveraging Canva for socials 

Canva is yet another design solution that several brands now use. Social media design is one of the most popular categories for which Canva comes in handy. If that’s true with your workflow as well, then you will love the below post from Canva. 

It talks about some of the new and old features of Canva that are particularly useful for social media teams. From Whiteboards for brainstorming to Brand Kits to ensure cohesive branding in social media designs, AI Photo Editor and Magic Write the post delves into a wide range of useful tools. These are a few good ones to explore if you aren’t using them already. 

Brand identity design inspiration 

From increased brand recognition to better brand communication and a boost to customer loyalty, strong and cohesive brand identity design has numerous benefits. But for this to work, you need a strong plan of action, clearly laid out objectives, and cohesive aesthetics. Looking for inspiration? Then the below post from the Creative Review magazine is for you. 

The post throws the spotlight on the fresh look created for Go Compare. The post talks about the reason behind the update and the crucial changes that are part of the rebranding. As can be seen from the example shared, defining the visual style, incorporating the mascot, and maintaining the brand colors thoughtfully can help create a strong and recognizable brand identity. 

So, if you are working on some branding design projects and need inspiration, then do check out the nuances of the Go Compare brand’s new look. 

Design inspiration from the “WcDonald’s” campaign

A lot of people in the marketing and design communities have been talking about the anime-inspired WcDonald’s campaign from McDonald’s. The sheer brilliance of the idea and the strong aesthetic created for the campaign makes you realize that this is more than just the flip of the “M” in the brand name! 

All these days WcDonald’s was only a part of the anime world featured in various shows where the restaurant was depicted. However, tapping into the popularity of this concept and the popularity of manga themes, the brand is now launching a real-world rendition of this campaign. 

Ad Age discusses this campaign in the below post. As can be seen in the post, the brand has adopted new packaging designs integrating QR codes that allow fans to experience digital versions of popular manga characters. The design and execution of the campaign show the strength of well-planned visuals in omnichannel campaigns. 

In the AI Realm 

Adobe adds AI capabilities to Acrobat 

Adobe recently announced the introduction of new AI updates to their popular PDF tool Acrobat. This update adds an AI Assistant to the platform. This tool lets people chat with their documents to find something or get quick summaries. This can be handy particularly when it comes to understanding and sharing industry reports, or comprehending sales research findings, or even creating study guides using Acrobat. 

Currently, Adobe has made AI Assistant available in beta for files less than 25MB and not more than 120 pages in length. Scanned PDF documents as well as non-English PDFs are also not supported at the moment. 

Google launches new AI models for developers 

Gemini 1.5 was one of the biggest announcements from Google in recent times. The next one is Gemma. This is their suite of open-source AI models for developers and researchers working on building AI tools. The below post gives an overview of what Gemma is all about. 

Along with different model weights, there is also a new Responsible Generative AI Toolkit launched to promote the ethical use of AI and AI tools. This responsible design powerhouse has also been optimized to work for multiple frameworks and for cross-device compatibility. As an introductory exclusive, they are also offering free access to Gemma through Kaggle, a free tier for Colab notebooks. First-time Google Cloud users also get an additional $300 in credits.  

Google announces big updates to Gemini for Workspace 

A few weeks ago, Bard was rebranded into Gemini and Google also announced their paid subscription, Gemini Advanced. Now Google is taking Gemini to the next level with their updates for enterprise applications. 

These updates bring Gemini’s AI capabilities to the Workspace apps. To access this businesses can choose either the Gemini Enterprise add-on or the Gemini Business add-on with the latter being priced slightly lower for small businesses. 

The addition of enterprise-grade protection is one of the notable improvements and the other is the introduction of whole new ways to chat with Gemini. These changes are designed to help various workflows within an organization including marketing and data analytics for marketing. 

Reddit and Google join hands for AI content licensing 

Reuters recently discussed a deal that was struck between Google and Reddit concerning AI content licensing. A big rebranding, an upcoming IPO launch, and now this – Reddit truly is making headlines quite often. 

The post here discusses the speculations spreading about this deal while there is no official confirmation from either Reddit or Google. However, collaborations like this one and the steps big brands take toward partnerships like these are proof that AI companies are working on finding better ways to train their models rather than settling down with internet scraping. 

More Sora examples 

OpenAI recently launched Sora, their text-to-video model. While this is not yet available to the public, the model has been made available for red-teaming. 

William (Bill) Peebles, a research scientist at OpenAI shared the below video generated by Sora. the OpenAI team has been sharing a lot of sample videos to help us get a taste of what to expect from Sora. And this video shows how the tool effortlessly handles frames with grids of visuals and text in video. 

For a quick overview of Sora, check out our blog here. 

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

WhatsApp is bringing new text formatting options 

Most of the recent updates on WhatsApp have been about refining the interface and making the platform suitable for businesses and consumers alike. As the next step, they have added text formatting options. These include some of the most commonly used ones like bullet and numbered lists, block quotes, inline code, and bold, italic, and strikethrough.

While these options are useful in various places, they are particularly handy in group discussions where a well-formatted message makes a stronger impact and preserves the clarity of the text. 

WhatsApp added a quick preview of these updates in the below post. 

Meta is enhancing creator collaborations 

Creator marketing has become the hot new trend in the world of marketing and several brands are investing big into this. To support this trend and to make it easier for brands and creators to collaborate on Instagram, Meta is reportedly bringing some new changes. The below post talks about these updates. 

Reportedly, the Creator Marketplace will now be available in 8 new markets and Meta is also working on machine-learning-based algorithms for better recommendations. These are measures to ensure smooth and effective collaborations. 

The post also talks about the basics for creators and details the steps to join the Creator Marketplace. It also explains how to find the right match for the collaboration and how to connect with and collaborate with the identified brand. 

Meta is testing cross-posting from Facebook to Threads 

Among the many updates that Threads has witnessed over the past few weekes, displaying Threads posts on Facebook and Instagram is one. This was a step to bring in more traffic directly from the more popular Meta platforms. 

In a recent post, TechCrunch magazine also spoke about a feature that Meta is currently testing. A feature that lets users post on Threads directly from Facebook. If you have used the cross-posting feature available on Instagram you know how this works. The platform also lets you turn off the cross-posting option so that posts only appear on Facebook when required. 

YouTube refreshes channel pages on TV

With CTV experiences gaining momentum, YouTube has been adding several cool and useful updates to the TV app. Reportedly, there are new changes on the Channel page. Renowned SEO consultant Glenn Gabe shared the below post along with snapshots that give a glimpse of what the new channel pages look like. 

The new aesthetics make the interface more immersive and aesthetically appealing on large screens. You might notice that this even resembles the content screen on many online streaming apps like Netflix. This puts the channel aesthetics front and center allowing creators and brands to woo their audience with a stunning cover image, catchy thumbnails, and clear channel descriptions. 

Closing Remarks 

From thought-provoking discussions to must-know announcements from big tech companies, this past week was indeed a roller coaster of updates. Feeling inspired? We hope so! Don’t worry, we’ll be back next week with another edition of the KIMP’s Picks. In the meantime, join the conversation and keep the digital dialogue flowing. 

Posted On

23 Feb, 2024

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