Don’t worry, short form videos on IG aren’t going away (duh)

Instagram will not focus on longform video because it may "undermine" its core identity of connecting people with friends, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri. Mosseri emphasized that shortform video is more in line with Instagram’s goals of helping users connect and explore interests, while longform video does not align as well with these objectives.

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DOJ puts clamps on Russian bot farm…

The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that it seized two domain names and over 900 social media accounts linked to an “AI-enhanced” Russian bot farm. These accounts, mimicking American users, posted content supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine. An RT employee allegedly orchestrated the bot farm, using AI software to create fake profiles spreading disinformation on behalf of the Russian government. This scheme violates the Emergency Economic Powers Act. The investigation continues.

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Tito’s does its research on consumer summer plans with new campaign

Tito’s Handmade Vodka launched “Staycation with Tito’s,” inspired by research showing 55% of people plan to stay close to home this summer. Targeting Gen Z and millennials, the campaign emphasizes budget-friendly summer activities and the joys of staying home, like spending time with family and pets, and enjoying new cocktail recipes. A survey of 1,514 adults found that the main reasons for staycations are the fun of staying local (60%) and budget constraints (51%), with 65% considering a freshly made cocktail essential for their staycation.

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Political Season vs. Marketers: What the f*ck are you supposed to do?

Political season is treacherous, especially for marketers. Every four years, the white noise gets a lot louder, amplified by political discourse, arguments, aunties’ presidential takes on Facebook, and inevitable rage bait. So, as a marketer, what should you do during a time when it seems like consumer attention is hyper fixated on the red versus blue popularity contest?

We categorized our ideas and recommendations into three different approaches: Stop, Shift, Dial it Back. Plus, one additional recommendation at the end that every marketer and marketing team could benefit from during political season

Stop (shut it down, turn it off)

An option for teams with smaller budgets, gear up for the holiday season or rollover budget into Q1 2025. Here are a couple additional reasons to justify shutting off your advertising during political season:

• Brand Safety Concerns: If your brand is sensitive to political affiliations or controversies, consider pausing advertising altogether during sensitive political periods to avoid inadvertently alienating segments of your audience.

• Lack of Alignment to Non-Political Sentiment: During political season, certain themes resonate positively among audiences. For example, togetherness, unity, kindness, understanding, empathy, support, civic engagement, to name several. If your brand does not, or cannot, align to these themes, don’t be afraid to go offline.

Shift (put the $ in different places)

Change it up during political season. Here are a few ideas:

• Influencers: Influencers tend to maintain their viewership and engagement during political season. They usually serve as a nice break from the aforementioned white noise, as long as they do not participate. As always, be thorough in your research to make sure the influencer(s) align well with your brand, and have a track record of delivering good results.

• Shift Your Messaging: We sort of alluded to this under Stop. If your brand can align itself to the positive themes that come from political season, consider investing in creative assets that reflect those themes.

• Literally Shift Your Budget: Heavy up the budget in platforms that perform better than others during political season. For example, paid search and programmatic. These channels depend more so on individual users than the masses and tend to be more cost effective. Meaning, paid search, you pay for clicks. Programmatic, you follow your target across whatever websites they like to visit (with some obvious exceptions).

Dial it back (drip the faucet)

This section is pretty self explanatory. If Q4 is high season for your business, and you cannot afford to shut off your advertising completely, try reducing your budgets by platform.

Bonus: Reflect and evaluate

Every marketer and marketing team should be taking the time afforded to them during political season to reflect and evaluate their current campaigns, strategies, budgets, results and metrics, everything. For some teams, this can be a great chance to reset and refocus on priorities and areas of improvement.