YouTube Removes Dislikes (Future Tribe Show)

It’s episode 81 of the Future Tribe podcast and Germaine and Kelsey are discussing the introduction of games to Netflix, Instagram rolling out even MORE features, and YouTube hiding the dislike count on all videos.

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What we talk about

  • Brand trust for Meta fell after their name change
  • Games have been launched on Netflix
  • TikTok is also experimenting with games
  • Instagram is rolling out a 'take a break' feature in December
  • Instagram is also rolling out a text to speech feature for Reels
  • YouTube is removing the dislike count on all videos
  • Facebook no longer allows advertisers to target political beliefs, religion, sexual orientation

Links from this episode

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors

Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello Future Tribe welcome to another Future Tribe show. This week’s episodes got a bunch of articles to talk about, news items. This is episode 81 of the podcast, so we’re getting to a hundred pretty quickly, which I’m excited for. But what we’re talking about this week includes brand trust, falling for Meta or Facebook, whatever you want to call them, gaming launched on Netflix and Tik TOK is experimenting with games as well, Instagram’s rolled out more features again. I’m not sure why there’s this onslaught of Instagram features, but I feel like we’ve been talking about new Instagram features over the last, like weeks week after, week after week.

Yep. What else are we talking about, Kelsey?

Kelsey: So we’ll also be discussing YouTube, removing the dislike count. Facebook is making changes to their advertising targeting. We’ll be talking about what we can learn with Coca-Cola’s [00:01:00] changed marketing strategy and Australia has been crowned the most active online retail market in the world.

Germaine: That’s Yeah. A lot to talk about different angles, different things, lots of variety. This week’s episode. So let’s roll the intro and get into it.

Okay. I don’t know about you, but I’m still not used to calling the whole company Meta, I’m also not surprised that trust in the brand fell after the name change for me, the big reason that it’s comes as no surprise is that I think they almost highlighted that they’ve been doing questionable things and people, I would argue, that people who’ve never really been into Facebook to [00:02:00] that extent that they are across all the bad things that Facebook do have suddenly realized what they do because traditional news, traditional media is just covered the brand change and highlighted the fact that Facebook’s such an awful company.

I feel like I’ve certainly I’ve. I mean, I’m in this space. I, I hear about all the bad things that Facebook does. All the things that Facebook does, right. I definitely feel like over the last few weeks, I’ve heard more about how bad Facebook is than ever before, even with all the Netflix documentaries and all that going around.

So the some stats have shown that essentially the trust around name Meta or the brand Meta has gone down to 6.2% down from around 16%, there’s a, there’s a brand something called Harrison brand platform. I’ve never heard of them before. So take it with, I guess, [00:03:00] a grain of salt in the same way that you would take you know the polls that run in terms of, you know, which political parties leading or who’s whose most favoured.

But still not a surprising thing to hear about what do you, what do you think?

Kelsey: Yeah, it’s it’s an interesting one. Cause I think we talked about it when it all came up and you sort of mentioned that they’re trying to distract everyone from what’s going on and it’s clearly backfired on them because as, as you said, yeah, the trust has fallen

it’s I guess just an interesting conversation that could go on in a whole different realm about what you need to do to build trust in your brand. What to do, what not to do. When’s the right time to make changes like this. Do they need to make the change and take that hit of losing that brand? To then begin rebuilding it.

Had they been putting it off for awhile? There’s a lot of questions that could come up around it, but just thought it was an interesting one to note.

Germaine: I don’t know that they they told that it would backfire all. I think, I think [00:04:00] they, they probably thought that you know, we’re unveiling a whole new brand.

Everyone’s going to be excited, so on and so forth

Kelsey: distract them with dazzling lights and hope for the best.

Germaine: Exactly. But you know, you know, it’s interesting. The metaverse terminology has really picked up

Kelsey: everywhere,

Germaine: everywhere, right? I mean even a chip manufacturer, I think it was Snapdragon announced that they’re releasing chips for, you know, with the metaverse in mind.

All they’re saying there, when they say the metaverse in mind is that the building chips that I’m at for a new type of hardware, new type of wearable technology that’s all they’re saying, but they’re using the term metaverse and I think maybe it’s a sign of genius, quote, unquote genius, a marketing genius that they decided to brand themselves as Meta, because if everyone, if metaverse as a term catches on they’re going to become, you know, the Google for searching, because [00:05:00] how can you say Meta verse without saying Meta?

Kelsey: Yeah, I think I saw something the other day and it was about buying up parts of the metabe.. Metaverse or like, mining for the metaverse.

It was a headline I saw and I didn’t really read into it, I probably should have, so I could talk about a better now, but it was just an interesting thought that I’d come across because it was like Bitcoin, when that started, like mining for Bitcoin and all of those concepts are such odd concepts to people that are, I mean, for me, I’m very much in the literal world of mining, you dig a hole in the ground, mining in the metaverse or buying up parts of the metaverse it’s like, does this thing actually exist is just something people are making up. It’s a crazy concept to me, but it will be interesting to follow it and start to understand it more as it develops into what other people think it already is.

Germaine: It’s also like you know, Tend to sort of come back full circle. Wasn’t there it was a second life or a platform like that [00:06:00] where you can like build out a virtual in a virtual world. It’s almost like we’re sort of back to that,

Kelsey: but just a much more advanced version, I think, because back in the day, wasn’t it just like click around on your computer kind of thing.

Okay.

Germaine: Yeah. Yeah. So it was much less integrated, but I think now we’re getting to a stage where that, that line between the virtual world and the real. I mean, Facebook’s straight out just saying that they’re working to blur that. And yeah, I wonder how the purchasing of the metaverse would work because it’s sort of like talking about purchasing parts of the internet, which isn’t really a thing in, in sort of the true sense of the word, because, and then you would think that it’s the same when it comes to the metaverse, because it’s all limited by, you know, techno like servers and things like that.

So if you. If you own a server, you technically own part of the internet maybe, but it’s, it’s a bit messy. Then again, I would say that all this confusion around it as well is probably an opportunity for [00:07:00] people with let’s just say not so great or undesirables could be, you know, selling people on, oh, you can buy. buy Bits of the metaverse and capitalize all that hype, like what’s happened with crypto. Why wouldn’t it happen with the metaverse? I almost go to the internet. It’s the same. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know the difference anymore.

Jumping from talking about the blurring into gaming, which I think will have a huge, well, the metaverse and all those devices will have a huge impact into the gaming world. But could that be why Netflix is launching gaming and gaming or games and gaming apps on the software.

Kelsey: Yeah, it’s an interesting one. Again, I noticed, well, I’d been seeing things about it popping up different articles and things.

And then I went onto my Netflix app on my phone the other day, and it was finally available that as the games tab, and there’s sort of five or six games, you go into them and [00:08:00] think you then have to download all of the content for those games to be able to play it. And it was just kind of a weird experience because.

It was almost like, I mean, for me, I use Android to get games on Android. I have to go to the app store and I’ll download that. Now I’ve got an app which I downloaded from the app store where I then have to download further games within another app. And I just don’t really understand why. And it kind of feels like what Facebook did, how many years ago, where they had games on the platform and they might still have that, but it was a big thing where everyone was actually using it.

And I don’t know that they have it now. It’s definitely not popular if they do. But it’s almost as if Netflix and tick-tock are experimenting with games which is one of the next things we’ll talk about kind of all the same thing. It’s as if they’re trying to follow that path. And I don’t really know why.

I mean, I personally, I don’t think I can see myself playing games on the Netflix app. I go to Netflix, Netflix to watch my Netflix. I don’t really go in there to spend time playing little handheld games. So. [00:09:00]

Germaine: It could maybe be that Netflix is just trying to diversify like it’s, you know, at one point it was a way that Facebook had messenger as a separate app.

Now you can download messenger and have messenger, but not have Facebook. And I think that’s a question around how much companies choose to separate the main app from, from other apps and vice versa, because. Marketplace on Facebook marketplace could very much be it’s a standalone Gumtree and eBay competitor in groups could be their own app.

So it’s weird that thick Netflix. So I’m not sure. You’re probably not across the whole, the whole thing around apple and Apple’s commission structure and how they force apps on. IPads and all on apple devices to go through Apple’s payment system and they take a commission cut. So this is there’s this whole conversation going on there.

And essentially what, [00:10:00] what apple does at the moment is force in-app purchases to go through apple systems. So you can’t send like Netflix, wouldn’t be able to send you a way to Netflix’s website to purchase a game. And I feel like maybe remnants of that, or for ease of development with the initial app they’ve just pushed the same functionality across Android and, and the apple ecosystem, which for us us meaning people in the Android side of things, we’re used to a lot more freedom. We’re used to being able to literally download an app from the internet and install it on our phone, which isn’t something that you can do on iPhone.

So it, there is a difference I think, and, and that. The ecosystem difference is something that Netflix has to balance for. But then again, jumping into games, Netflix is probably just looking at being an entertainment company. That’s that’s the, that’s the best way to see it. Right? Tik TOK. Again, you mentioned tick-tock and getting into gaming that [00:11:00] that’s what tick-tock is tech checkbox, not social media.

It’s entertainment. I know you you’re on Tik TOK, aren’t you?

Kelsey: Yeah, I started on there during lockdown. I think it was, I was like, I’m not going to do this, but then now I’m addicted.

Germaine: Do socialize on there or do you just, I

Kelsey: don’t really even have like an account. I literally just scroll. I don’t think I really like anything or interacted with or anything.

I just, I just scroll.

Germaine: Right. So very much consumption. Not interaction. So it makes sense. And, and obviously the same thing with Netflix, like Netflix, as far as I’m aware, has no social sort of connection side of things. So they’re really just entertainment company. And as long as they can deliver entertainment to you, which is at this stage, just videos and games.

I wouldn’t be surprised if music eventually became a thing, but that would only be because I would say Netflix is run out of the total addressable market or sort of consumed the whole market and they want to get [00:12:00] into, music’s just notoriously difficult to play in because the margins are very fine.

There’s not a lot of money to be made. But Netflix would go down that road. I would, I’m I’m betting right now. Once they’ve addressed, you know, as much. Around gaming and videos as they can. Because by now, like everyone who’s going to get Netflix has gotten Netflix. I would argue, I don’t see why.

Kelsey: I mean, there’s younger generations that are always growing and can choose then to have their own Netflix account. That’s okay. That’s always

Germaine: happened, but exactly like w we’re talking about right now, Apart from not having the internet. Why wouldn’t someone be on Netflix? Why wouldn’t someone have Facebook cost is the, is the only other factor.

So you just give them other reasons or because, you know, they don’t consume video. Like I would imagine there’s a certain demographic that is spends a lot more time gaming than watching TV shows. So [00:13:00] Netflix just gets to go, you know, diversify and get into those markets as well. And. Probably like from a infrastructure technical sort of capability, point of view, doesn’t make a difference for them, whether they’re delivering video files or gaming files or game files.

So I could see it very much translating over Tik TOK, jumping into it. They’ve announced that they’re actually working together with Zynga which is, which is good because I actually have some Zynga shares and I mean going down. But I think I’ve lost money on those industries so far.

But maybe

have they, have you read much about what they’re gonna, like what shape and form these?

Kelsey: No. So I’m not sure that they’ve announced too much just yet. The, I sort of put it in there just as it add on to the Netflix thing. Cause it sounds like a very similar product that they’re going to be offering where it’s in-app and it’s another tab or whatever, however that looks, but it’s just within the app and the platform they’ve already built.

I think they talk about [00:14:00] HTML five within this which is just a low I don’t know what the right word is. Low capacity, kind of gaming platform. Ah, it’s just easier for people with lower internet speeds and things like that to

Germaine: access and low barrier to entry as well. Because you’re no longer talking about having super powerful systems and it’s sort of again, democratizing the development of games because that’s one area like they’ve, they’ve done it with websites, they’ve done it with music, but I think games are still an area where.

No, one’s quite found the formula to make it like, you know, you, you and I, I think, I think it’s fair to say that if, if we had to make our own bit of music, we’d, we’d have a general idea of how we might go about that. But I would say with gaming, that’s, that’s still not the

Kelsey: case. So I was just thinking about Snapchat and Snapchat is such a funny one.

We’ve talked about it few. In the past few episodes, Snapchat definitely had [00:15:00] a gaming side to the offering for quite some time where you could start a game within the sort of filters that would pop up and play that back and forth with your friends. And I feel like that’s almost an early iteration that these other apps as usual are stealing from Snapchat a little bit, but actually just making it better and doing it well.

Whereas Snapchat seems to have all these awesome ideas that they’re just not executing on and not capitalizing on. That are then yeah. Being snapped up by people like Tik, TOK and Instagram, maybe they’ll make a better goal of it, make it more social, make it better. Tik TOK accounts might be able to contribute and build their end games.

I don’t

Germaine: know what that will look like.

Snapchat just hasn’t had the market share, I think, or the volume to really push an idea out there that like catches on, whereas tech talks huge. Or these other platforms, especially face. To me, it was just that they could, they had the sheer volume, they had the sheer size to, to do what Snapchat couldn’t.

And that was to get [00:16:00] a lot more people using the games or apps or whatever else it is. And sorry, I should’ve saidMetaMetta because you know, there was, there was a lot of Instagram features that was stolen from from snap but speaking of which they’ve, Instagram’s launched take a break.

Kelsey: Yeah. They’re just rolling out features like crazy at the moment. I feel like every single week when I’m looking for articles and things to do. I come across something new from Instagram. And at the same time, I see it the same day it’s released on my phone and I start seeing it popping up everywhere. So like the stickers in the last few weeks and the partner posts, the two big things that I keep seeing everywhere.

Now they’re rolling out, take a bake take a break feature. So that’s coming out in December and it’s essentially something you have to opt into. That you can tell Instagram, I’m taking a break because you sort of hear all these people talking about having hiatus from Facebook, social media to detox and all that sort of stuff.

So I guess this is Instagram’s way of saying, yeah, sure. Have a break, but just don’t deactivate your account. Stick [00:17:00] with us, come back when you’re ready and trying to hold onto users in that way. So it’s almost like, you know, releasing the rope a little bit and giving them that freedom they need, but not losing them complete.

So, what I

Germaine: love is the whole digital wellbeing side of things that I think Android’s baked into the latest iteration. I believe iOS has as well. And now Instagram, where they’re essentially going, let me, you know, let us come up with a way to make this as addictive as possible. And then let’s introduce a feature to help.

Curb your addiction,

Kelsey: but in a way that they can control it and they can keep you in the world and they don’t lose you as a user. Cause I think that’s the cool part of what this take a break feature will be like. I think it will be great for users because they will be able to do what they’re trying to do in a way that will sort of lock them out, I guess.

But it also, yeah. Is good for Instagram because they’re not losing people who [00:18:00] deactivate and then go, Hey, this is great. I don’t need to do this anymore. And I go

Germaine: on forever. Yeah. It brings. Yeah, you come back it’s, it’s sorta like that classic you know conversation going, okay. You’re not interested right now, but let me check it back in, in a month and see if you want to, you know, buy a new car then or whatever else it may be.

But Instagram’s also added two new features to reels, which is they’ve added text to speech and voice effects. Seems like I’ve just taken it out of Tik TOK,

Kelsey: honestly, I think at this point, Instagram is really trying to compete on reels and they can’t compete yeah. In video. So they’re really just stealing all these features that Tik TOK is innovating putting it into their platform.

But until, until Instagram actually starts innovating their own features, they’re not going to be able to compete properly with Tik TOK because they’re just getting the same features two to three months afterwards and they are getting faster with it that, you know, adding these things in quicker than they have previously, but they’re still [00:19:00] behind and you’re still seeing recycled tiktoks on Instagram rather than Instagram built. Yeah. Content.

Germaine: Yeah. I mean, Instagram, I’m sure Instagram hates that. And for, well, it’s for worse, but this is one thing that matters is going to be able to do is that they’ve got the volume and the money probably to just like you said, shorten the time gap between when a competitor announces and launches a feature and they do the same.

It reminds me as well, like the, the That share a photo of your pet thing that that’s around. Have you, have you sort of seen much about that? It’s

Kelsey: So yeah, I think it got to, I want to say five or 6 million kind of re shares or reposts, whatever, whatever the classification is for that particular sticker.

And then there was all this controversy about like, who actually posted it. Nobody knows Instagram didn’t have the ability to, I guess, release that transparency, which they discussed that they were going to be building

Germaine: in. Apparently [00:20:00] it was a bug that caused the init- so, so from what I’ve seen, there was a page.

with about a million followers that claimed ownership over it, but apparently they launched it. And then within 10 minutes they deleted it because they realized that it was going to take off and they couldn’t actually, you know,

 

Yeah, but they were, what were they promising up and

Kelsey: plant a tree for every pet picture

yeah, which when you get to 6 million, this is not going to happen. And I’m pretty sure, cause I think I might’ve seen similar stuff about that and it was an Australian company in Sydney or something who tried to claim it. But then there was all these reports that that was a scam company. And they’d sort of in the past done all these different competitions that are really unethical, where they’d post, whatever it was and people would donate to particular causes.

But there was some clause in there where essentially, unless they ticked a particular box or specified something, the money that was donated actually half it went to the [00:21:00] organization or the company and the other part either didn’t make it to the organization or the part of it did. So there was a lot of ethical, weird stuff around that particular company.

So I think that that was a bit of a mess. And I don’t know that they were actually the original people that made it. I had heard that sort of 10 minute upload deleted. Whatever. And then, yeah, Instagram also discussed that they realized there wasn’t transparency around who posted the original sticker.

And obviously that was the one that took off. So they’re working on things to increase that transparency. So a very quick, best practice lesson, I think for them to adjust that offering. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of other stuff is coming up. Cause I sort of stick to the other day that was something about.

For every pet picture we’ll give a wedgie to scott Morrison, for example. So there’s definitely some controversial ones popping up around that.

Germaine: Yeah. Yeah. And I reckon that we’re just going to see more, more of that moving forward [00:22:00] with this cause it’s almost like because these companies have run out of, or have, have essentially reached as many people again, I would argue.

That is that are going to interact with. They need to find new things to bring you back and new things, to keep you more or less addicted to, to these apps and it, and it works right. It just, it just works. So we’ll just have to wait and see jumping to YouTube, removing their dislike count. What’s your, what are your thoughts?

Kelsey: I always thought it was really interesting that YouTube had a dislike count because it’s sort of, yeah. I feel like it was the kind of thing that created almost a mob mentality when there was something that people didn’t like. I think when it comes to, I mean, this was a reason why Facebook never introduced the dislike button.

They always just had a like, and then introduced other reactions because as soon as you introduced that dislike, and it’s a really clear, I don’t like this, I’m not happy. I’m angry, whatever it is. It [00:23:00] creates that mob mentality, where people will kind of jump on it and go, oh, people don’t like this. I also don’t like this.

And then there can be a lot of hostility and negativity around that. And then I think it gets reflected in the comments as well. So I think it’s really positive move to remove that without actually removing the option to say that that uses dislike something. So I think the people who are genuinely angry about something can get it off their chest and say, yeah, I just like it, but you can actually see how many people dislike it.

So I think it’s really.

Germaine: I don’t, I don’t know that they even, the number of likes, I don’t know that that matters. If, if all I guess, you know, maybe they could represent it visually, like have a little bar and, you know, the further down either way which is do show sort of showing dislike and like ratios.

But I can see the benefit for, or tools. The algorithm and the algorithm sort of picking it up there. I’ve heard that doesn’t matter. What sort of reaction, any reaction where they’re like or dislike is [00:24:00] picked up by the algorithms, which makes sense. Cause like, are all these platforms want more interactions?

So anything that generates more interaction or discussion is going to be favored? I did watch a video from YouTuber MKBHD he’s he’s huge You you’ve all, probably if you’re on YouTube, you’ve heard of him saying that he disliked or he disliked the removal of the dislike button and his, his claim though, was around that it gives you an idea of whether that video is good or bad, or whether like the, the video.

Something that you should watch. And his argument was that, you know, if you’re looking for say a review of something that just by looking at the, like, to dislike ratio, you can quickly see whether it’s good or bad. But I’ve never consumed YouTube in that way. I’ve looked at the comments more than anything else, but even then you sort of, I don’t know that you go to YouTube too.

Look at everyone [00:25:00] else’s thoughts around something. I feel like Reddit is potentially more of a platform for that where you choose really around the content that you’re viewing and your thoughts on the content itself, rather than the subject matter of that content. He had a 10 minutes spiel about this, so he’s, he feels a very specific way

Kelsey: that I can understand the perspective.

But I also feel like if you’re going to reviews and things, who are these random people to say, it’s a bad video. Why should that be dictating, if you’re watching something, if you start watching it and you’re enjoying it, continue watching it. If you not go elsewhere, it shouldn’t be a case of looking at the likes and dislikes to see if it’s worth your time watching.

That seems like an odd metric in the other hand. It’s how review pages work for restaurants and things. If it’s got good reviews, that’s how you base your decision most of the time.

Germaine: Well, th th that’s [00:26:00] correct, but there’s a lot more to lose with a bad restaurant than about a video. That’s that’s what I don’t understand.

Yeah, there are not, I can’t think of many other things that I necessarily turn to look at someone else’s. Before, like in general and make it like, I wouldn’t necessarily, you know, if someone like Kanye has been releasing a lot of music recently, and I just haven’t sort of listened to it. But if someone said, oh, it’s a bad album.

I don’t necessarily think that. I would say, okay, you think it’s about

Kelsey: exactly. Yeah. You sort of go oh I better go and listen then, because I want to know more. Yeah.

Germaine: How bad are these stuff up or whatever else it may be. So I just, yeah, I think it. I think it’s a fine move. I don’t know that it’s necessarily particularly good or bad.

I also, I don’t know, you know, I think they’re saying that it’s for there are benefits around mental health.

Kelsey: Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, Instagram did the same sort of thing when they started hiding the light counts [00:27:00] and now you can choose if you see it or not. And I think it’s in the same vein of, it’s just not good for mental health because.

You got to take care of you users and if people are posting videos and just getting bombarded with dislikes, that’s not going to be good. It sort of helps with the, if you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So it’s like, if you like it, give it a like, awesome. If you don’t move on, you don’t have to emphasize that you don’t like it.

Yeah, that’s right.

Germaine: If I avoid, unless unless the person in that video, the content is particularly horrible. I won’t react negatively to like, if it’s someone genuinely expressing their opinion. And it’s not like, you know, just horrible. You’re not a bad person. You’re not going to get a dislike, but content you’re going to get a

Kelsey: like, yeah.

And then you’ve got reporting features for the purpose of it. If it’s particularly that horrible, you’ve got that sort of service there.

Germaine: [00:28:00] Yeah. Again, I haven’t seen any numbers around wether mental health. Oh, that had been mental health improvements. When Instagram re remove the functionality I feel

Kelsey: better personally, just from sort of my perspective when I scroll through Instagram, I think I used to look at the like count a lot, and I didn’t realize. I’ve removed them now.

So now I will just see if there’s somebody I follow, that’s like to another accounts post, I’ll see that person and they’ll see, and others. And for me, I’m like, oh, cool. I just, I just look at the photo. I look at video and I go yeah this is cool, rather than comparing and sort of saying, oh, they got this many likes or last time they had this many likes what’s happened to people, not like this anymore.

All those sort of questions pop up. I think I’ve noticed myself just being less focused on the likes now. It’s been a positive shift in my personal sphere.

Germaine: Yeah, I haven’t noticed a difference. So I would say it’s a, it’s had a positive impact, a hundred percent of the time, according to so far. Right, exactly, [00:29:00] absolutely.

Perfect on onto the next topic, which is Facebook no longer allowing advertisers to target political beliefs, religion, sexual orientation, and I’m sure there are other, other things in there. I think it’s crazy that they allowed it in the first place

Kelsey: yes. That’s the reason I wanted to put this in here. I saw the title and I went, I mean, I’m in this space, I’m familiar enough with advertising and social media advertising and things.

I was shocked when I saw that you could target on those things because surely that opens up to so many different levels of discrimination and, you know, abusing minorities or just taking advantage of people. It just seems absolutely insane to me.

Germaine: Yeah, I just, I can’t believe it, but again, this is just another reflection of how much information these companies have.

Yeah, I, I think it’s awesome that they removed it in the, in the first, like all together. But then [00:30:00] again, I also wonder as like we have access to, you know, the general advertising tools that Facebook provides, but I, I wonder how much of this would be reserved for sort of really higher tier customers of certain, certain, you know, descriptions or ad spends.

It sorta reminds me of the completely different, but the stock market there’s, as it turns out, Systematic things in place that benefit the institutions that buy, buy and trade stocks. Right. And it’s just, and it’s stuff like, you know, Ke if Kelsey is a company and Germaine is an individual, Kelsey would get information 24 hours in advance that Germaine has to get Germaine only gets a day later or a week later.

And those are institutional like systematic things that have been set up to work in that way, which seems completely counter-intuitive because that is clearly that, that, and that means that, you know, Kelsey corp [00:31:00] who does billions of dollars in trade, he is in advance that, you know, this stock is going to go down and can sell that stock, like before it reaches the retail market.

And then Germaine individual sees that 24 hours later loses a bunch of money. Just destroys his life or whatever else it may be. So I wonder how much of this Facebook’s going to reserve and, and it’ll be, you know, it’ll be hidden away in, in such a way that we won’t know anything until something comes out saying, oh, you know, as it turns out Google could adversely advertise through the fate through Facebook.

All this XYZ that info or certain political party could get XYZ. Does that info because they’ve still got this information and I’m a hundred percent that they’re synthesizing all this information in ways that they’re not presenting to us. But at least, you know, they’ve, [00:32:00] they’re minimizing the number of people who can use or target all these very.

Very minute levels of detail that I just, yeah, it’s scary. Anyway. So on, onto something, well, how to know whether you call it more positive, but I was just reading up about Coca Cola. They’ve unveiled a new marketing model and I wanted to chat about what we can learn and what we can take from. Because Coca Cola is, I don’t know.

Have you seen the new cans, Kelsey?

Kelsey: Yeah, I was just having a look. I think I had noticed there was new cans recently with the logo

Germaine: and we talked about yeah, the larger logo and was it real magic? I think it was

Kelsey: the.

Germaine: That campaign. Yeah. So that was that the first new, like global branding platform.

Since 2016

Kelsey: was the share a Coke campaign that won

Germaine: 2016. We probably was it wasn’t it older than that? Share a [00:33:00] Coke I feel

Kelsey: like it was before that, but that is also

Germaine: five years ago. Yeah, but it may not have been a global platform at that point. It might have been to the Australian market, for example, because I reckon it was definitely an Aussie thing first.

Cause I remember seeing a lot of Aussie terms like share a coke with and they were very Aussie yeah. At least initially. But what they’ve done now is they’ve talked about changing how they change the Coca Cola is interesting, right? Because. They’ve got a product that hasn’t really changed. Yes. They’ve experimented with different types, like different skews with no sugar and zero, which I still don’t understand the difference between, I do, but there’s still weird, I think.

But what they’re now trying to do, and so they keep pushing this boundary, right? Like Coke McDonald’s even the classics like Nike, like their core product offering, hasn’t really changed. At the end of the day, it’s the same thing. And day in, day out, it’s going to be the same thing and anyone else going to [00:34:00] effectively like deliver the same thing.

So what they rely on to keep going and keep dominating their market is good marketing because you removed the marketing and it’s just a commodity product. But what they’ve talked about is looking at, and, and, and the model is looking at converting from, you know, single. Separate sort of experiences with the Coca-Cola brand to a cohesive approach where you just have like a Coca-Cola experience across all your various touch points.

Now you, we call this all sorts of different things, but I think as small, small businesses, as well as medium businesses that you feel listening to this people often just. Market on Facebook and they just think about, okay, what can the Facebook ads look like when Coca Cola is taking an approach that is not easy to execute, but I would say it’s easier when you’re smaller, but they’re taking an approach [00:35:00] where all touch points have a similar language.

So, and also sort of diversifying your, your platforms. And it doesn’t mean that you need to spend more money. Obviously it’s easy for Coca-Cola because their money probably wouldn’t be a problem for them. I think they’ve. Four or five of the world’s biggest marketing agencies involved, like basically the who’s who, which, which they can afford, but anyone listening at a smaller scale can still do the same thing.

You just gotta be smart with it all like use retargeting, use, use the tools available to sort of create an experience that. Consistent across different platforms rather than just putting your eggs in one basket would rather than just sending one message through one, one channel. They’re also talking about the fact that they can really make use of all these, all the data that’s around, that’s out there, all the older real-time information that they receive.

Now, last week I mentioned that [00:36:00] I bought. Website, I think it was last week or the week before. And you know, one thing that I’ve been doing with that is we get real time information. Like I know today versus tomorrow versus the next day, how, how many visitors are coming through, how many pages they’re looking at, how much ad revenue is being generated.

And that’s, that’s such a small scale, but Coca-Cola is doing it at a bigger scale. It’s just, again, a reminder to say, Look at those things and learn how to tweak. So I can, there was a time when we’d have to wait a week for that previous information. In fact, one of the platforms that I, that I use on that website has an up to seven day delay, but I can still use it.

If you’re smart about it, you can use the tools that have real time feedback to really optimize how you’re doing what you’re doing and how you’re delivering that information. So. Yeah, that’s that? I just wanted to mention that and sort of look at, look at that, you know, [00:37:00] as you, as you go out there and when you hear Coca-Cola ads and when you see Coca cola cans, just think about those various touch points.

And when you see it, you know, is it in a bus shelter? And then. You know, pop up on, on your phone or how is, how is that happening and how, how can you potentially apply that to your business as well? Does that all sort of make sense?

Kelsey: Yeah, I think so. It’s just a classic lesson of looking at the larger companies, seeing what they’re doing and trying to apply it in a smaller scale.

It’s the easiest way to figure out how to do your business in a good way, that’s proven, and yeah, just testing out different things without needing to come up with all your own strategies. Really.

Germaine: Yeah, exactly. And then on to our second last topic for the week Australia named the most active online retail marketing in the world as of November, 2021, Australia is now the world’s most active online shoppers with over 48% of us [00:38:00] spending more time online.

Kelsey: That is, that’s an astounding stat to me, like at first, at first glance, I guess that seems really odd because for me, we’ve got such slow delivery times. We’re so far from things and shipping costs so much when you’re buying from international a lot of the time. So it doesn’t really make sense. But then I guess at the same time, because we’re so disconnect.

Getting things into stores in Australia is probably not like it’s not as accessible as it would be in the U S or UK or other markets. So then we have to go online to buy all of these different things we might be seeing online. So I do see both sides, but just seems such a crazy stat still.

Germaine: Yeah. I mean we.

Something like, what is it? 62% of Australian search for new products or services online, which is the highest in the world. And then there’s a global average of 55%, which doesn’t sound like a lot. But thinking about it from the [00:39:00] point of view that these are averages, which means that there are going to be extremes, that sort of address.

That that caused the, these numbers to seem close together. I would say it’s, it’s quite quite crazy. And more than a half of Australians prefer to shop online using desktop over apps and mobile. Yeah.

Kelsey: I definitely prefer desktop desktop shopping. I find that the experience in apps and on your web browser on your phone is just nowhere near the same.

It’s really frustrating to go through a lot of.

Germaine: Yeah. And some interesting other takeaways as well, gen Z reported that 40% make purchases of our social media. So they’re the most likely age group to purchase a product via social media, which doesn’t surprise me. The most frustrating part of social of online shopping was slow loading times, poor search on appealing visual.

And just bad formatting on mobile devices. I can just, just to reminder, like, [00:40:00] you need to think about not just how good something looks, but how fast it loads and, and just making search better. And yeah, it doesn’t surprise me again, that the most important factors when shopping online were fast shipping and an easy to navigate website or an app Interestingly there that there’s people looking for more and more personalized content and advisement shopping.

So I think there’s still very much room. I’ve seen a decrease in chatbots out there. Well, what not? Chat bots, chat, chat, likes support or chat, customer service solutions, chat bots. I re I hate them. You know, your Facebook Messenger’s chat, chat functionality is very easy to integrate. It means that you don’t have to install, you know, work on a different platform.

You just use the Facebook app, which is pretty handy. So, yeah, interesting data, but 40, 40% of Australians report online shopping at least once a month. I wonder if this includes groceries because I’ve [00:41:00] started, you know, on a weekly basis. I buy my groceries online.

Kelsey: Yeah. I mean, it definitely picked up during COVID lockdowns for sure.

Cause trying to get any kind of click and collect or online orders was impossible. You had to book at least like a week or two in advance and that was the max you could actually book in advance. So I know that was definitely a thing. I dunno, it’s just, it’s an interesting stat.

Germaine: Yeah. It’s I don’t know whether they should be proud of it or not.

So,

Kelsey: yeah, I’d be really interested to know a lot of the actual factors that go into how we’re at that figure. What other real, I guess, decisions behind people choosing to online shop or not, and what other countries are doing, do they just have better supply chains and better access in store? I’m really interested to know that kind of information, I think.

And I don’t think it’s in that article.

Germaine: No, it’s not in there, but something that we can, we can look into. So that’s, that’s about it in terms of the main topics, and we’ve got some announcements from [00:42:00] our into make Kelsey, you’ve got something to say.

Kelsey: Yeah, I am finishing up with future theory and therefore also the Future Tribe show in about two weeks.

So unfortunately saying goodbye to everyone on the podcast and the team here at future theory. So pretty sad to go, but excited for what’s ahead as

Germaine: well. Yeah. It’s, it’s been awesome working with you, Kelsey. So and, and having you as a host and and, and sort of well you started as a guest or. More than 12 months ago.

I re still re member, you sort of freaking out a little bit about at all, but yes, I’d like to, I’d like to think that you come across as a lot more comfortable at least whether you feel that way or not T TBC yeah, with that, I think next week’s episode is going to be the last episode.

And the show slash podcast is going to take a bit of a break as well while we change up a few things don’t want to, I guess, announced too much on. In terms of those changes that we have in, in [00:43:00] mind. But we’ve got a few additions with, with the move to a space with the studio as well. There.

There’s yeah. Things that we can do now that we couldn’t do before. So there’s a few changes to look out for there. We will probably be back in the new year is what we’re sort of working on. But as an extension of sort of Kelsey finishing up, we are hiring for, for taking the opportunity to try and actually find a few new people.

So. Yeah, go to feature theory.co/jobs. They they’ll be on there very soon. Depending on what time this goes out and you hear the news and how quickly we move on our end. But yes, if you know anyone who we’ll be hiring for. Oh replacement for Kelsey. So someone to help with our digital communications or digital comms and marketing someone to help with our design or digital design and [00:44:00] graphic design as well, and a WordPress developer.

So we’ll have a lot more info at that link. We’ll include the link in the description as well, but if you are someone who’d be interested in working with us or if you know someone who’d be interested in working on. Please let them know. This is, it’s an interesting time of every company’s I think life, when you’ve got to sort of say goodbye to staff and say hello to new staff.

But it also is exciting because we get to hire new people who come with new ideas and all sorts of fun, new things. So I think. It’ll be good. And now that we in Canberra, we don’t have to wear masks in doors. We can actually meet with people eventually rather than having to yeah. Work and hire someone without ever seeing them in the

Kelsey: old video call interview.

Germaine: Yeah. I wasn’t looking forward to it and I’m just, I’m, I’m glad that things have sort of changed a little bit for us. So yeah, on that somewhat sad news That’s the end of this [00:45:00] week’s episode. Like, like I said, we’ve got episode 82 next week, and then we’re probably going to go on a bit of a break, but we’ll keep you all posted on that.

Thanks for listening and see you

Kelsey: guys all next week.