Agents Of Chaos
You notice how whenever an agency launches its own agentic AI solution, it’s given a human name and persona?
Perhaps that’s one way to figure out how to bill those services to clients.
But, seriously, creative and indie agencies are trying to adapt to AI’s sudden invasion of their turf, Digiday reports.
Touting generative AI production capabilities has become “table stakes in creative pitches.” And marketer clients expect AI capabilities to mean there are hundreds of creative variations with fewer billable hours. Some agencies are adding output-based models to account for this change, according to Digiday. But it’s awkward to require output-based payments when the client believes a whole list of ideas was generated by prompts.
“I’ve been in meetings where clients will go: ‘ChatGPT just spit out this line,’” says Mike Hayward, creative chief at the creative agency Copacino Fujikado. “They’ll actually do it in the meeting. That makes it more challenging to justify your value.”
Paid Vacation
It’s a sunny day for TikTok travel influencers.
Aspiring travelers can enter potential check-in and checkout dates to see availability and pricing for hotels without leaving the TikTok app, Business Insider reports, through an integration with Booking.com. Hotels have to set up their own landing page for the experience.
Separately, but relatedly, TikTok is moving forward with a program called TikTok Go. Creators earn commissions by driving bookings or sales for “restaurants, retail businesses, the travel industry, and other online and offline businesses.”
Like booking a hotel. Or really a broader array of commerce media businesses, particularly those in the so-called “mobility” category that encompasses hotels, airlines, rideshare and delivery companies and travel search aggregators like the aforementioned Booking.com.
A Worrying Discovery
Publishers are growing more and more reliant on Google Discover, a subsection of Google Search that provides users personalized content related to their interests.
This reliance may not bode well for publishers as Google moves further and further away from prioritizing their needs. (We’re looking at you, AI Overviews.)
Google makes up 25% of publishers’ overall traffic, according to Press Gazette, citing analytics from Chartbeat. Over two-thirds of that Google traffic comes from Discover – a stat that has trended upward since the rollout of AI Overviews. Discover is many publishers’ “single largest source of visitors,” Press Gazette reports.
But don’t mistake this for any sort of altruism. Rather, Discover gives Google a leg up in sustaining those “fracturing [relationships] with the publishers it relies on for content,” writes Press Gazette.
If declines in organic search continue (which seems more than likely), Discover may ultimately become publishers’ “only reason to remain indexed for search.”
But Wait! There’s More!
The publishers’ guide to being gaslit by tech platforms – the AI edition. [Digiday]
Why publishers should worry about growing reliance on Google Discover. [Press Gazette]
Wendy’s says it ran “too many” marketing promotions this summer, confusing customers. [Business Insider]
A look inside Georgia-Pacific’s in-house advertising and analytics team. [Ad Age]
The enshittification of paid content: WWE’s former PPV events, which have been streaming on subscription CTV platforms as “Premium Live Events” for years, will feature new ad inventory during matches as part of WWE’s deal with ESPN. [The Ankler]
