Your Weekly Pencil - June 9, 2021

Weekly ecommerce & Facebook Ads update. Please share with the people you like most.

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New signals

• Oreo generated buzz around a social media-heavy promotion of limited-edition cookie packs as a peace offering for potential extraterrestrial visitors, tied to the release of a government report, addressing unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in U.S. airspace.
• Instagram doubled down on eCommerce with a new product showcase feature called ‘Drops’. This highlights all the latest product launches from brands users have previously engaged with.
• In support of pride month, Facebook’s Live Shopping Fridays initiative will take on a Pride focus, with events featuring products from LGBTQ+ founder brands, and promoting support of relevant initiatives.
• Instagram now enables creators to tag multiple brands in a single piece of Branded Content, expanding the capacity for tie-in promotions.

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Wildfang is our Pencil Ad of the Week - A simple Creative AI ad that beat ROAS targets

• Now with millions of dollars in annual sales, the gender-busting Wildfang label has expanded from one local flagship, driven by its e-commerce operations.
• Mixing video and images doesn’t always work well, but this particular combination was unique and interesting to watch. The high-performing combo was a result of experimenting with and testing different concepts.

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MediaPost article on the art of letting go, using MGC - Pencil On: MediaPost

• Featuring Kelly Burke, VP of Marketing at Bravo Sierra: “The first time I played with the platform it took me about 45 minutes to upload images and write about 10 tag lines,” she said. The platform “takes the process of creating the ad assets off my plate.” The copy is created by artificial intelligence, and some of the tag lines and copy that emerged “we never really thought about,” Burke said, because mostly you stick to the pillars, the words that you’ve stuck with from day one. “I’m a control freak, Type A, so I might not have not seen the beauty of letting the AI do its work,” she said.

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A new video series about Creative AI testing strategies - How to create an effective framework for testing

• Get ready, because the next Hey Pencil videos will feature Pencil's Customer Success lead, Chase Mohseni. Everyday, he helps our clients learn to leverage Pencil's creative AI system, and now he's prepared to share solutions to common blockers.
• "Without an influx of new creative into your ads manager, you will be constantly be dealing with ads that are fatiguing." This could lead to losses in revenue as you constantly have performance fluctuations.

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Something deeper

• Stop trying to be smart. Try to be clear.