107. Some Personal News (SPN)
Google's new content needs (GSO), Testing ahead of EoY, Cannes Lions SDG winners
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Game changer? It was for me.
In this week’s SPN:
More attention doesn’t always lead to better ad performance
How to create content for Google’s new search experience (GSO)
Exploring the value of creativity
Cannes Lions: shorts from the Sustainable Development Goals categories
Jobs that took my fancy this week
Let’s dig in!
Attention Grabbers or Action Drivers?
For the right audience, concise, attention-grabbing ads beat out longer form content.
Frequent readers of SPN will know I love to take inspo for tech, media and data activations from outside of our sector. And Heineken’s recent collaboration with Playground xyz revealed something interesting.
Capturing brief but optimal attention can significantly boost ad effectiveness.
Playground xyz is an attention measurement and optimization platform. It’s used to improve ad effectiveness using eye-tracking panel data and Vertex AI machine learning models on BigQuery and Cloud Run. It predicts attention time on ads at scale.
Increase Brand Awareness
The study was conducted during (Spanish beer company) Cruzcampo’s online ad campaign in the UK, and showed that video ads on YouTube and Facebook increased brand awareness within just 0.5 to 0.6 seconds.
This challenges the notion that more attention always leads to better ad performance.
And it suggests that strategic, short-form content can be more cost-effective and impactful.
Testing Ahead of EoY
As you’re refining your approaches in Q3 ahead of End of Year, put this on the docket to test. It’s the sort of learning that can reshape an ad buying strategy.
How to Create Content for Google’s New Search Experience
Google Search Overview (GSO) or AI Overviews is the new name for SGE - Google’s early step in transforming the Search experience with generative AI and the alpha product that I explained in SPN #95.
The recent official launch brought very few changes to the product. In fact, it’s precisely the same, so SPN’s previous analysis of how it will change the search experience for donors and statistics for marketers holds.
However, Gemini 0 - the large language model behind GSO - will heavily rely on mass content production.
Org’s are going to have to create a lot of new content to remain relevant in SEO (and SEM) campaigns.
With adoption bound to skyrocket now that everyone will be enrolled by default, Org’s need to act fast to not be left in the dust. Here’s how you could do that:
Firstly, a quick reminder: GSO is a change to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) experience that will be adding Gemini-generated answers to donor’s query on the very top of the page – like in the below image:
Google seems to be redefining search into a more conversational medium that provides direct answers to user questions instead of the “ten blue links,” and Google isn’t creating answers themselves.
GSO has said they’ll “facilitate” answers that others provide and then summarize them into short, consumable content blurbs.
This poses two complications:
To be conversational, GSO content blurbs must be very narrow and tailored to exact search queries. Google could get away with providing semi-relevant links in the old way of searching when there were 10+ options, but the same generic answer won’t cut it for GSO - this single blurb has to answer the posted query directly.
Models are far from perfect in making generic content relevant to a narrow query, “forcing” it to prioritize content that’s already as close as possible to the exact ask.
I mentioned in SPN #95 that Search will likely evolve towards longer queries. So, the simple brute force way to stay relevant is to produce much more - narrowly focused - content to answer every long search query possible and include videos.
One way to meet this demand is to employ an army of copywriters, embrace the concepts of “ad relevancy” and “SKAG” (single keyword ad group) from Paid Search to organic, and produce one landing page per each possible query variation.
BUT! That’s uncomfortably resource-intensive and isn’t money well spent for nonprofit Org’s.
Consider these 3 recommendations instead:
1. Use current Google Search Console trends (while they’re still available) and identify a handful of search queries - up to 25 - that drive the most traffic and donations, and must be “protected.”
Then use Google’s “People Also Search For” tool to manually identify five more adjacent queries for each, increasing the total number of queries to 150 (25x6).
Manually group the queries into themes that can be addressed on one landing page without looking unnatural - aim for ~50 landing pages or three queries per page.
Develop several – 3 or 4 – templates following Google’s Structured Data guidelines and write (or re-use existing) content. While very different technologically from the old page ranking algorithm, Gemini has carried one feature over - it relies on page structure descriptors to make sense of the page’s content. Producing only these 50 pages but keeping them in line with best practices is likely to outperform 100s more pages with nothing but content on them – even if highly relevant to the queries by search users.
Pro tip: The *gem* is the type field that will immediately tell GSO algorithms how to categorize the page and when it should be included in the Overview.
Depending on the exact query, the two most relevant types for Org’s are likely “Article and Fact Check” under the News category and “Organization” under Organizations.
2. Feature individual authors and include their bios on the page, marking it under the “Author” section of the structured data.
Pro tip: With GSO, Google released a new recommendation for professionals, the acronym “EAT,” or Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
Working similarly to backlinks in the old SEO days, it essentially says Gemini will prioritize original content produced by authors with a high “quotation score”. Org’s can capitalize on this early - publish content authored by your ceo/ED, members of staff in content-rich/interesting roles who have north along a few hundred connections on a social channel, and influencer/creator partners.
3. Include a donation form on these newly created landing pages and test categorizing some of them as “Product” in the structured data markup.
Pro tip: Google tends to prioritize e-commerce content as it generates more revenue for them. However, the algorithms aren’t perfect yet and don’t include any types directly relevant to donation pages.
Product is a substitute but if it “tricks” the algorithm, consider creating two versions for each of the pages. Categorize one of them as “Product” and the other as the type that truly suits it best.
Pro tip 2: If your Org offers any physical goods - e.g. UNICEF’s Inspired Gifts - bypass the previous recommendation, include widgets to “buy” those instead of donation forms on newly created landing pages, and mark all of them as “Product” from day 1.
Bonus Thought: Experiment with Performance Max
There’s little doubt that GSO will include paid placements. Given Google’s push for them across all advertisers in recent years, they’d likely only allow access to GSO ads through pMax campaigns.
I’m not a fan of pMax campaigns - they feel like one big black box to me, optimizing for Google’s profit above advertiser’s results - but it will be the necessary evil.
So, if your Org or agency isn’t already using it – now’s the time to get familiar with every button it provides and experiment with it, even on a meager budget.
Jobs & Opps 🛠️
Chatham House: Director, Fundraising and Partnerships (£100,000 - £120,000)
The Thomson Foundation: Director of Group Development
Clinton Foundation: Campaign Director ($140,000 - $150,000)
Breast Cancer Research Foundation: Managing Director, Play for P.I.N.K. ($140,000 - $170,000)
Global Fund for Women: Senior Director, Institutional Partnerships ($132,000 - $205,000)
UN Migration (IOM) Head, Individual Giving Unit (P4)
Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF): Learning & Insights Lead ($85,000 - $115,000)
Save the Children UK: Chief Executive Officer (c. £190,000)
Appalachian Trail Conservancy: Associate VP, Marketing and Communications ($120,000)
American Red Cross: Social Media Manager ($70,000 - $80,000)
Proving the Value of Creativity
I heard nothing but good things about Cannes - amazing what the combination of sunshine and rosé can do. Count me in.
Renault was awarded the Grand Prix for the Sustainable Development Goals category at the Cannes Lions Festival 2024 for their “Cars to Work” campaign, created by Publicis.
Renault’s “CareMakers” inclusive mobility program, was designed to offer mobility solutions to low-income individuals and launched a new leasing model for job seekers in remote areas.
“By helping people get the access they need to secure a job, Renault ends up selling cars and transforms consumers into loyal believers in the brand. It is a great example of a brave brand that cares, takes risks, and gets results.” (SDG Lions Jury President, Gustavo Lauria)
Here are the Cannes Lions Sustainable Development Goals Gold winners:
Pink Chip for Degiro and UN Women by AKQA, Amsterdam
Filter Caps for Filsa Colombia by Ogilvy Colombia, Bogotá
Sightwalks for Sol Cement by Circus Grey, Lima
The People’s Seat for The UN by Grey, London
Measuring Creativity
…All this to say, there can be no creative marketing unless Org’s pay for it. None of this is in-house work. And that means getting decision-makers to value creativity.
Which means finding objective ways to measure it. Cannes is a great reminder that creativity can be slippery, unpredictable, hard to define, highly subjective.
And that’s a challenge. Because the people Marketers need to persuade to invest in it, prize objectivity above all. More often than not, the CFO and Chief Development Officer will only invest resources into things that will result in tangible, visible improvements to their funds raised.
Sorry, Prof G - I don’t think the brand era is dead.
There seems a growing consensus around the contribution of brand creativity to fund raising today. The challenge now is less about proving that creativity can create value, and more about improving the value it creates.
We’re in what WARC called a “3rd age of effectiveness” at last year’s Cannes.
Not purely brand any more, or an age myopically-obsessed with granular performance metrics. An age when we win by combining long-term brand efforts with short-term performance efforts.
The opportunity for Org’s is via a collection of smalls - simultaneously reaching and finding relevance with multiple donor audiences in a highly fragmented media ecosystem.
Platforms and algorithms are the new gatekeepers to success. Our integrated marketing and fundraising efforts need to be made both for and by people and algorithms to drive maximum impact.
But a gap has opened up between the small number of assets we’d ideally create and the vast quantity of assets the platforms demand that we create. This all creates challenges in how we elevate the value of creativity to the C-Suite.
We need creative metrics that scale. Org’s are deploying thousands of assets. It’s no longer enough to pre-test one execution and believe the score is representative of the value you’ll create. AI is our friend here.
We need metrics that ensure our outputs are ‘fit for platform’, a fundamental driver of effectiveness today. CreativeX’s creative quality score (CQS) is fascinating. It’s used by both Diageo and Colgate-Palmolive to ensure they’re able to continuously improve their creative and its deployment in a way that’s easy to grasp and report in an objective way.
But ensuring fitness for platform isn’t enough.
Thinking back to what Publicis, Circus Grey, AKQA, Ogilvy and Grey London did for those Cannes Lion winners above. Surely what we really need now is a true measure of creative excellence that can prove the added value being created - by agencies, or by in-house teams and by Org’s being in-market. It needs to scale, be objective, and be a practical lever to help us make our work better. AI will be our friend here too.
Foundationally it requires a full funnel and integrated approach to fund raising and brand building. That’s the next frontier in proving the value of creativity. Let me know if you think you’ve got the answer.
That’s all for today!
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And huge thanks to this Quarter’s sponsor Fundraise Up for creating a new standard for online giving.
Now onto the interesting stuff!
Reads From My Week
Heineken’s ad tests uncork surprising results (Digiday)
Google announced 4 significant updates to its Ads platform, enhancing query matching and brand controls for advertisers (Search Engine Land)
Latent Expertise: Everyone Is In R&D (Ethan Mollick)
Nvidia’s Ascent to Most Valuable Company Has Echoes of Dot-Com Boom (WSJ)
How to Fix “AI’s Original Sin” (O’Reilly)
AI Automation In the Workplace Is About To Reach a Major Tipping Point (Fortune)
Capturing The Future of Digital In Consumer Products (Bain & Co)
Generating Audio for Video (Google)
A Resurgent Sector Looks to It’s AI-Powered Future (BCG)
The 8 AI demos Google showcased from Labs.google, Google Cloud, YouTube, Android, and Google Arts & Culture (Google)