Data.ai has a new report out on the State of Mobile Retail which is interesting in its own right but also contains some more general data Wire readers may find interesting.

The demographics in this report skew younger. Maybe not Logan's Run level but the groupings end at 45+. This group over-indexes on telehealth and groceries. 

It's hard to believe but we haven't reached saturation in mobile time yet. Three countries in this chart grew more than 60% between 2019 and 2022 (Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Singapore).

Growth in media spend from 2018 to 2023 (forecast) isn't linear but it's a healthy 18.5% across those six years and has more than doubled overall.

Marketers interested in retail, including retail media, will get something from this report. Everyone else already has the main points. 

Amazon put out a report on advertising in the current environment titled "2023 Higher Impact: The power of purpose-driven brands."

We looked at the topics that matter to different generations and charted them so you don't have to (one, don't talk to the audience, and two, no-one was going to do that -Ed.).

Takeaways:

Klick is working with The DHC Group on their survey of pharmaceutical marketers on key trends and topics for 2024. 

Survey respondents will be provided an advance copy of a report on the results, as well as an invitation to an exclusive webinar analyzing the top trends.

As a teaser, here are the topics of interest from the 2023 report sorted by how much they grew from 2022.

The survey takes less than 10 minutes to complete. Do it now to get your advance copy and exclusive webinar!

Humane has come out of stealth mode with its AI Pin which for all intents and purposes is the communicator pin from Start Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG).

The pin combines a few features into one rather large device that pins to your clothing:

The main issue is whether anyone wants to be talking out loud to interface with their device. We already have a taboo on this on smartphones so it's hard to believe that suddenly it will be socially acceptable. The Humane website shows the device being used on a crowded bus but that seems extremely unlikely.

The text interface likewise looks like it may have issues. Notice the way it renders on a hand in perfect conditions compared to the photoshop render on the Humane website.

Google Glass didn't work. Speakerphone mode on smartphones draws ire. The green text seems hard to read. Time will tell if this product has opened up a new niche.

This caught our attention because a new cybersecurity standard was adopted by the FDA. It should be the third item in the link provided (however, HubSpot may strip out the URL codes, sorry). 

Naturally, when presented with data from the FDA we want to see if there are any interesting insights inside. First, we took a look at the types of standards. Surgery is first, of course, but software is now pretty high up on the list.

The number of new standards adopted peaked in 2019 but has remained high. Likely, this will continue as the complexity of devices increases.

Finally, the organizations responsible for these standards are the usual suspects (looking at you, ISO and ANSI). There are a lot more recognized faces here though and it shows the scale and scope of the FDA's standards work that they work with so many. Full chart (and Excel spreadsheet) available upon request.

Marketers have it pretty good compared to the American worker, commuting in to work an average of four days a week compared to 4.9. We assume these marketers are also American, but the report is suspiciously silent on that point.

94% of Americans who commuted pre-pandemic are now returning least one day per week at the job site.

Over a shorter period, April '22 to October '23 we see that marketers have been returning to the office more often as well, but averaged as four days.

When we compare marketers directly with average Americans we see the biggest difference in the 5-day-a-week folks.

A few of us, however, are working too much. The numbers for six and seven days a week are high for our profession although perhaps not that different than the general population.

YouTube is introducing two new generative AI features to the app on Android for testing. They are invite-only but interested users can go to youtube.com/new. 

It seems like there are two primary components:

"Grok" is a word from Robert A. Heinlein's science fiction novel A Stranger in a Strange Land. In the book, to grok is to empathize so deeply with others that you merge or blend with them and has been used in technology circles ever since to mean "understand."

Elon Musk has named his AI integration with Twitter "Grok." The beta is only available to users with the Premium or Premium Plus (that name always makes me think of crackers) tier subscription, not the Basic one.

This AI chatbot is designed to answer questions in the tone of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy i.e. irreverent and reminiscent of gonzo journalism (if you haven't read Douglas Adams' seminal work, you should).

Musk claims that Grok has better, more up-to-date information than other chatbots.

But this was quickly debunked by a follower.

The real question is whether this paid solution can bolster Twitter and put the platform on the road to being the "everything app" and earn it's name "X." OpenAI's ChatGPT with it's Plus subscription may point the way. That app is looking to $1 billion in revenue in 2024 according to some estimates.

A new chart from eMarketer shows that marketers may be underinvesting in YouTube. The Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram mostly) are way out in front in terms of ad load and inventory—please don't change that Google (don't beg media companies, it's unbecoming -Ed.). 

Advertisers shouldn't immediately make big changes. Instead test and learn. These social platforms allow for inexpensive, quick tests and marketers should work with their media folks to set that up.

A new company, Vectara, is looking to check the accuracy of generative AI and detect "hallucinations." They have so far found a spread of 3% to 27% in some of the most popular platforms.

We wish the researchers had tested Google Bard, it would have likely fared much better. It's impossible to check all questions for all GenAI tools so what the researchers did was ask the systems to summarize news articles.

So, should we stop using GenAI? No! Should we trust GenAI for facts we can't verify? Also No!

An article from the user experience design firm Nielsen Norman Group was based on 40 responses to a LinkedIn post asking for input from the prompt:

The article ended up with these main points:

Similarweb took a look at Twitter's traffic volumes one year after the Musk acquisition and they are down 14.0% on web globally and 17.8% on the app in the US.

Looking at worldwide monthly app traffic (Android only) the platform may be down but its ranking hasn't changed.

This story is especially interesting in light of the addition of the Grok AI chatbot to the platform. If he can monetize the audience then even lower monthly users could be profitable though ad revenues would suffer even more.

Amazon is now tying Prime memberships to it's new One Medical service. They aren't mandatory but One Medical membership is $99, down $100 from the regular price.  

Pew Research has looked at Americans' views on tipping. They found that 72% see tipping coming to more places compared to five years ago.

57% say 15% or less is an appropriate tip for an average meal. 

Have you wondered what others think of tipping? Take a look to find out.