Sundogs Creative

Sundogs is excited to announce this strategic investment from our friends and partners at Avōq. Together we'll be developing a set of solutions that bring together the best of our respective worlds--from deep insight into audience to the creative expression of them that builds business. Can't wait to see where this takes us as we accelerate into the future together.

YouTube--the kids love it (while the marketers are obsessed elsewhere...)

A great chart and a great post (from the always great Dr Grace Kite), especially for all those startups/scaleups stuck at the Brandformance plateau. To see that decline and grow through it requires a shift in perspective, strategy and measurement. I think the interesting question for leaders is: can you see yourself well enough to know when you've outgrown your growth strategy?

I think we need an Olympic ad bracket next time around...

*New Research* Every platform says you need to make just for them. But the actual creative looks more and more alike. Do you REALLY need to make separate assets for each? Or can you use assets across platforms (and maybe make a different strategic choice about your first, best edit?) We looked at 2000 beauty ads across top markets running on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Our conclusion: Short-form, in-stream video is converging creatively. They both feature creators 1-1, talking directly and authentically to camera, focusing on a single product at a time. They're pushing towards the same lengths (YouTube going shorter, Tiktok pushing for longer). But how long your ad should be isn't an abstract question of ideal length--the right question is how long you can be interesting. Differences in performance are usually not about the platform, but about the audience. So what should you do instead? Think harder about objective and edit for that. Then use the same ad in both places. Measure the sh*t out of it. We think you'll see better outcomes with fewer edits. Want to take us up on it? Grab some time: https://lnkd.in/eMUWiZ_S hello@sundogs.io

Cannes never disappoints. Exhausts, infuriates, inspires, but never disappoints...

Incredible week, especially discussing life during wartime with Julia Kostetska, publisher of Vogue Ukraine. it reminded me of the great Apple TV+ show The New Look, and the need always for imagination, beauty and hope, even when the hours are dark.

Is AI going to solve everything as soon as it has enough data? Or are there irreducible mysteries that will never be solved (and what are they)? In the run-up to Cannes, I've been trying to jam everything into my head about the future of creativity, the dangers of blandness and the shifting line between puzzle and mystery. I pulled together some thoughts, inspired by work from Brian Klaas, Pip Bingemann, Alex Murrell, and others. Key insight: Climb the mountain, then jump. Your wings will work much better that way. Love to know your thoughts, questions, builds, edits, corrections, emendations, ferocious antipathies, dreamy enthusiasms, etc. etc.

Wow, this is a terrific article about Human and Superhuman. The degradation of human qualities and human experience in the chase to exalt our pattern recognition machines is troubling, but unsurprising. Great reflections here--worth a pause to read and digest: https://lnkd.in/eucT_QYg

What if a number could hold a whole aesthetic universe? We've been playing around with Style References (sref) in Midjourney--a number you can add to a prompt to apply a style to whatever idea you have. They're designed to allow for creative consistency, but for us they are most exciting as the opposite--the chance to explore aesthetics, composition, and perspective in ways that dimensionalize ideas. Hitting the same idea from a range of styles illuminates hidden dimensions, suggests new possibilities and opens our imaginations. At the same time it provokes deeper ethical concerns--as well as ethical opportunities. There are incredible ways in here to reward the vision of great illustrators, artists and designers if we cared to solve that problem, rather than just create pale imitations of them. And some thoughts for brands as well--how a brand could be a multi-modal vibe in the hands of everyone, rather than fighting to hold control of certain unloosed genies. We hope you enjoy. Please follow if you dig it, and grab some time if we can help: https://lnkd.in/eMUWiZ_S What are we missing? What should we play with next? Let us know. Many thanks to Matthew Davis for his fertile brain in stirring these thoughts.