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Open AI is Making Movies 🎥 UPenn Launches AI Degree 🧠 Learn to Spy on Competitor Ads 🕵️

Also: A comprehensive guide to internal consensus-building around marketing efforts.

February 16, 2024

Happy Friday Marketing Engineers!

If you're new here, welcome! 👋 This is our Friday newsletter in which we round up some of the biggest marketing (engineer) news of the week. Is there something else you'd like to see in here? Got a hot tip? Don't be afraid to hit reply and let us know what you think. 🧠 (Replying with a quick "hi" is also a good way to make sure our emails make it through the spam filters.)

Onward!

 🚀 Adam

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🗞 Weekly Marketing News

Another one! While everyone else was waiting for GPT 5, OpenAI dropped a completely new model. Dubbed "Sora" this one is a text to video model. It takes text prompts and produces videos up to 1 minute. We've seen this from projects like Runway and Pika, but from the demos this seems to outdo them significantly. Sam Altman even launched the product by fielding random prompts from X users. Every marketers knows that video content, while most engaging, is the hardest the make. So this is clearly big, especially for the automation obsessed Marketing Engineer 😜⚙️🧠

Snap & Traackr make it official to spark influencer magic! This partnership aims to charm the crowd on Snapchat, blending authentic user-generated content with smart brand collaborations. It's a savvy move, tapping into data and automation to make marketing more of a science than an art, and we're expecting more of these partnerships as brands get serious about UGC. 💕 🎨 🪄 (At the same time 👇)

NYC Mayor Eric Adams is taking a stand! The office has levvied a lawsuit against some of the biggest names in social media, including TikTok, Meta (Facebook's parent company), Google, and Snap, with a lawsuit aimed at addressing concerns over kids' mental health. The Big Apple is challenging these tech giants to rethink how their platforms impact the younger users wellbeing, and seeking to hold them accountable for what they've built. 🍎 🗽📱

🤖 The Week in Artificial Intelligence

Penn is making history! The prestigious Ivy has launched with the first undergrad degree in AI engineering. This bold step into the future means Penn students will be at the forefront, wielding AI to revolutionize everything from healthcare to robotics. With the support of tech visionaries Raj and Neera Singh, Penn's gearing up to train the next gen of AI whizzes. Time to transform society, one AI innovation at a time! 🚀💡🤖

Not quite as cool as Sora, but still big. Apple's new AI, Keyframer, brings static images to life with text prompts, blending large language models like GPT-4 into the creative realm. a game-changer for animators, offering a simpler way to animate via natural language—think "make clouds drift left" becomes a visual reality. While Sora is stealing the headlines on this right now, it would be foolish to ignore Apple, who might end up on a better footing over time with their better track record on user privacy and copyright management. We'll see if this is coming to an iPhone soon. 🧑‍🎨 🤖 🍎

Think AI's just here to sprinkle fairy dust on jobs without replacing them? Plot twist: AI's been quietly snagging gigs from print ads to translation faster than you can say "automation nation." In this blog, Donald Clark throws a curveball at the "AI only helps, not hinders" mantra, showing how AI has already benched jobs across the board. He sketches out six ways that machine learning is changing the game—from assisting to outright replacing gigs—and nudges us to drop the "I'm special" goggles and rose-colored glasses. It's a fair perspective that preparing for the worst might be the right tack when it comes to how you prep for AI. 💼 🧠 💻

⚙️ The Machine Shop

Podcast Creators, meet your new BFF! YouTube's new feature lets you directly upload your RSS feed, making podcast distribution a breeze and seriously enhancing your reach. This move not only catapults your voice onto the world's second-largest search engine but also exemplifies YouTube's commitment to the podcasting universe. Automation for the win for the second time in this issue. 🌍🎙️🔎

What would you say you do here? This article is a must-read for marketers aiming to enhance their influence and collaboration across their organization. It's also the key to reducing the number of time you have to answer the question above. Marketing "marketing" internally is all about bridging the gap between what you do and what others think you do by explaining and by showing results. You're not just selling; you're building relationships across functions by finding common ground, evangelizing marketing’s value, and sharing priorities for that sweet, sweet buy-in. It’s a marketer’s guide to navigating office politics and driving ROI with flair. 💰 ✨ 📈

Oops! The Backuply plugin for WordPress just dodged a digital bullet! Patched up to fend off a sneaky Denial of Service (DoS) attack that could've turned over 200,000 sites into digital ghost towns. But fear not, digital superheroes! A patch is out, so updating to version 1.2.6 should leave you in the clear. A classic reminder to hit that update button faster than you swipe right on your fave dating app. Stay secure, stay updated, and keep your site's game strong! 🛡️💻 👻

🧠 Hacks of The Week

Do your competitors like their ads shaken or stirred? Léo Pinon from Digital Fish shares one of our favorite tactics for keeping tabs on your competitors' ads across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook/Instagram, and Google. By utilizing LinkedIn Ad Library, Facebook Ad Library, and Google Ads Transparency, marketers can uncover valuable insights into the advertising strategies of their competitors. This approach is recommended for identifying trends, inspiring innovation, and optimizing campaigns, making it a go-to spy op among savvy marketers. 🕵️‍♂️ 💡🍸

📺 Flashback Friday

Buuuud. We've got another Big Game fav for you this week.

What can we say about this one, except to got the whole world walking around saying "Bud... Weis... Errrr." Sorry if it gets stuck in your head for the rest of the week.

And that's a wrap for this week! Remember, stay curious, embrace the hacks, and keep crushing your marketing goals. See you next week for another round of goodies!

What a Good Year for the Roses,

Team Marketing Machine 🚀

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