KIMP’s Picks June 6th: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

It’s Friday, and you know what that means. It’s time for this week’s KIMP’s Picks! If you like staying in the know, how about a quick recap to get you up to speed on all the social media buzz from the past week? That’s exactly what KIMP’s Picks is about. 

We’re talking AI news, marketing inspiration, social media algorithm tweaks, all the attention-worthy and share-worthy posts, wrapped up in a single quick recap. Get caught up in just a few quick minutes. Ready for this week’s recap? Let’s dive into the KIMP’s Picks June 6th Edition. 

In the Marketing Realm 

Apple Search Ads – an overlooked powerhouse for marketers 

Apple Search Ads (ASA) is a highly effective, yet often overlooked, platform for app marketers. Unlike other ad platforms, ASA places advertisements directly in front of users who are actively searching for specific apps within the Apple App Store, indicating high intent and purchase-ready behavior. This platform is crucial for app discovery, which predominantly still occurs within the App Store.

In the post here, Search Engine Journal discusses some tips and tricks to tackle Apple Search Ads. 

Key differences from other platforms include automated ad creatives pulled from your App Store listing, limiting creative flexibility but ensuring brand alignment. With diverse targeting options and bidding formats, Apple Search Ads undoubtedly provides ample opportunities for brands to explore. 

KFC’s new creative campaign 

KFC’s recent campaign demonstrates the art of listening to your customers. Ad Age shared a post discussing this campaign. 

For this campaign, KFC has introduced the “Finger Lickin’ Fork”, a hand-shaped spork. What truly sets this campaign apart is its timing and how it was intuitively launched in response to customer sentiments. A lot of people on social media discussed the saucy and often messy nature of KFC’s Rice Bowls, which made them difficult to eat without getting their fingers dirty.

The campaign aims to provide a practical yet premium solution for fans who want to enjoy their Rice Bowls without sacrificing the brand’s iconic “Finger Lickin’ Good” experience.

Duolingo creates a buzz, yet again! 

Not long ago, Duolingo faked Duo’s death and created quite the buzz. Now they’re back with another campaign that’s got people talking. 

Duolingo took to social media to announce that its iconic owl mascot, Duo, has officially joined the cast of Love Island USA Season 7 as part of a partnership with Peacock.

Debuting alongside the show’s June 3 premiere, the green owl made his reality TV entrance dressed in signature villa fashion and ready to find love.

No doubt, we’ve got to give it to Duolingo when it comes to out-of-the-box advertising. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Writing intros that encourage readers to stay a little longer 

When it comes to content writing, you cannot ignore first impressions. The sheer volume of information available online makes consuming content overwhelming to internet users. Besides, attention spans are dwindling. Therefore, the key to staying ahead is to create a strong first impression. 

The post here from the Content Marketing Institute discusses the art of writing intros that actually stop readers from skipping the content. 

A compelling intro can effectively answer the “what’s in it for me?” question, keeping visitors on the page and potentially converting scanners into dedicated readers by setting expectations, exciting them, and outlining content benefits.

The post delves into several effective formulas for creating the most engaging introductions. For instance, the “Agree, Promise, Preview (APP)” method works well for search audiences by identifying a problem, promising a solution, and previewing the content. 

The “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA)” formula, common in sales content, aims to grab attention, appeal to interest, evoke desire, and prompt further reading. Another approach is “Preview, Proof, Bridge (PPB),” which previews content, offers proof of its value, and provides a smooth transition. So, if you are looking to elevate your content writing tactics, this is a great discussion. 

In the Design Realm 

A vibrant and unique packaging design project 

When you need some packaging design inspiration, Packaging of the World is one of the best websites to check out. In a recent post, they discussed the packaging design of Green Baboon, a renowned gin brand. 

The new design is intended to reflect a sophisticated combination of botanical spirits, fruits, and roots, aiming to evoke a sense of imagination and emotion. Positioned as an excellent base for popular cocktails, Green Baboon gin continues to target a youthful demographic, aligning with its appeal among young consumers.

This design project demonstrates the use of custom illustration and typography to add more meaning and impact to your packaging design.

There’s a new AI image upscaler in town

Topaz Labs is known for its AI tools in image and video editing. Its recent addition is the AI-powered image upscaling tool. Given that image upscaling is a task creatives might be performing often in order to create stunning quality designs for various social media platforms, tools like these are a must-have. 

This new image upscaling tool called Bloom can easily scale images up by up to 8x. The best part is the amazing details in the results. For each image you upscale, you can choose from 5 creativity levels and instantly get 4 variations to choose from. 

The power of visual storytelling 

YES Charity (Youth Experience in Sport) has partnered with creative micro-network Iris to launch “The Good Fight,” a bold new campaign celebrating the charity’s 30th anniversary and raising awareness of its work. 

Featuring striking photography by Nadav Kander, the campaign highlights how YES supports young people in East and North London by providing access to sports like boxing, fostering confidence, resilience, and life skills.

The campaign consists mainly of bold and attention-grabbing outdoor ads and digital campaigns. The stunning central imagery and bold typography are among the most important highlights of the design for the campaign. The minimalist color palette used lets the strong elements shine through and delivers the message effectively. 

In the AI Realm 

OpenAI’s Codex rolls out to ChatGPT Plus users with some updates 

OpenAI recently announced its next big move in coding assistance through Codex. Reportedly, there are many key updates coming to Codex. To begin with, Codex is being rolled out to ChatGPT Plus users, offering generous usage limits initially, though rate limits may be applied during peak demand to ensure broad availability.

A highly requested feature, internet access, is now available for Codex during task execution. Internet access is opt-in, allowing users full control over the domains and HTTP methods Codex can utilize. This feature will be accessible to Plus, Pro, and Team users, with Enterprise support coming soon. 

Furthermore, several usability updates have been introduced. These include the ability for follow-up tasks to update existing Pull Requests instead of creating new ones, and the removal of multi-factor authentication requirements for organizations with Single Sign-On enabled.

An upgraded version of ChatGPT’s Memory feature comes to free users 

OpenAI is introducing significant memory improvements for all Free users in ChatGPT. The platform will now reference recent conversations, in addition to previously saved memories, to generate more relevant and personalized responses.

Free users will experience a lightweight version of this memory enhancement, offering short-term continuity across their chats, while Plus and Pro users retain a more extensive, long-term memory feature. 

Luma AI’s Modify Video feature transforms video editing 

Luma AI has introduced “Modify Video,” a revolutionary tool designed to transform traditional video editing by allowing users to alter environments, lighting, and textures within existing footage without compromising original performances, motion, or camera work. 

In the conventional workflows, optimizing a scene takes a lot of time and effort. To tackle this, Luma AI’s new feature supports restyling scenes, and even extracting full-body and facial motion from existing footage and applying it to new characters, props, or scenes.

Isolated edits to specific elements like backgrounds are also now possible without green screens and complicated tracking. 

HeyGen’s AI Studio redefines video creation 

HeyGen, a leading AI video generator, has unveiled AI Studio, a new video editor designed to make end-to-end video creation effortless and highly controllable. 

AI Studio integrates intuitive design with advanced artificial intelligence, transforming complex editing into seamless creative experiences. The core focus is on providing “A-roll” controls that ensure on-camera talent appears realistic, polished, and expressive, pushing the boundaries of realism in face, voice, tone, and gesture.

Moving beyond timeline-based editors, this new upgrade feels much simpler and intuitive. This new script-based editor gives creators precise control over expressions, tone, and pacing, as well as seamless management of B-roll elements.

Google silently launches an experimental app for on-device AI 

News is that Google has silently launched an app called Google AI Edge Gallery, which is designed to let you carry out AI-powered tasks on the go, on your mobile devices. This experimental tool allows users to execute advanced artificial intelligence models directly on their smartphones without an internet connection. This initiative underscores Google’s commitment to edge computing and privacy-centric AI deployment.

The open-source app, accessible via GitHub, enables users to download and run AI models from the Hugging Face platform entirely on their devices. Here’s a post from VentureBeat exploring this new product from Google. 

ElevenLabs introduces Conversational AI 2.0 

ElevenLabs has launched Conversational AI 2.0, a significant upgrade to its platform designed to create highly sophisticated voice agents. Building on the initial release from five months ago, this new upgrade introduces major improvements for enterprise readiness, aiming to redefine communication and understanding.

Key enhancements include custom models for natural turn-taking, allowing AI agents to better understand subtle conversational cues for more fluid conversations. 

Additionally, the platform now offers integrated language detection for seamless multilingual communication within the same interaction, crucial for global businesses.

Manus’ video generation tool is creating a buzz 

So we are constantly seeing several new AI video generation tools being launched to compete with the big names like Sora from OpenAI and Veo 3 from Google. The next one to create a buzz is the AI text-to-video generation model from an AI startup, Manus. 

Manus AI’s new model is currently in early access for Basic, Plus, and Pro subscribers, with a wider release planned. This strategic move directly positions Manus AI as a competitor to established platforms like OpenAI’s Sora, Runway, Synthesia, and Google, which operate on subscription or pay-per-use models.

Unlike conventional AI chatbots, Manus distinguishes itself as an autonomous agent that independently plans, executes, and completes complex multi-step tasks without requiring continuous human input.

Perplexity announces “Perplexity Labs” 

Perplexity has launched “Perplexity Labs,” a new feature designed to accelerate project completion by enabling users to bring entire ideas to life. 

Available now for Pro subscribers, Labs extends Perplexity’s existing capabilities beyond providing answers (Perplexity Search) and in-depth analysis (Deep Research, now simply “Research”). 

Reportedly, Perplexity Labs functions like a virtual team, capable of independently crafting diverse deliverables such as reports, spreadsheets, dashboards, and simple web applications.

Captions introduces video generation through Mirage Studio 

Cations, a video-editing and AI research company, has introduced Mirage Studio. This innovative platform is designed to rapidly generate studio-quality videos featuring lifelike AI actors. 

This new solution aims to enable the scalable creation of high-performing video content. Given the growing popularity of video content, marketers, businesses, and content creators everywhere are looking for ways to elevate their video production workflow. And Captions aims to bridge this gap through Mirage Studio, 

Microsoft brings the power of Sora to its free video generator 

Microsoft has introduced Bing Video Creator, a free tool that transforms text prompts into short AI-generated videos powered by OpenAI’s Sora. 

Available now in the Bing Mobile App and soon on desktop, it lets users create lifelike 5-second videos using detailed descriptions.

Bing Video Creator is rolling out globally (excluding China and Russia) on the Bing Mobile App, with plans for desktop and Copilot Search integration soon. Users can access it through the app’s menu or by typing directly into the search bar.

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes  

WhatsApp rolls out new Status features 

WhatsApp is rolling out four new features for its Status feature to provide users with more creative ways to express themselves and interact with their network. WhatsApp Status serves as a personal space for users to share updates with their network.

The new features include “Layout,” allowing users to combine up to six pictures into a customizable collage. “More with Music” enables sharing favorite songs as a status or transforming them into music stickers to accompany other posts. 

“Photo Stickers” provides the ability to convert any photo into an editable sticker for status updates. Lastly, “Add Yours” encourages interactive sharing by letting users select a picture and invite friends to respond to a prompt. This is similar to the Add Yours sticker on other Meta channels like Instagram. 

TikTok for Artists – a new music insights platform 

TikTok has become a great space for artists to maximize their reach and build their fan base. Therefore, the platform has globally launched “TikTok for Artists,” a new all-in-one music insights platform designed to empower artists in building their careers and fan bases on the platform. 

This new platform provides artists, their labels, and teams with daily-updated analytics dashboards, offering detailed, actionable data on the performance of their posts and music, alongside comprehensive insights into community engagement.

Key features of TikTok for Artists include insights into song performance (views, posts, creator engagements), post performance (views, likes, comments, shares, completion rates), and follower demographics (self-declared gender, age, language). 

Let’s Wrap Up…

So many updates, so little time – social media moves fast. Keeping up can be a challenge, but not anymore. That’s where KIMP’s Picks comes in. Just like this quick recap gave you a snapshot of the week gone by, we’ll be back soon with the next round of updates. Stay tuned!