Just the beginning with Cordula #1 👋
Welcome to first edition packed with AI tools, a barbie marketing case & my personal favourites of the week
As I enter my maternity leave, I finally have the time to embark on something that's been on my list for a while. So here it is - welcome to my Substack! 📢 💌 I've always wanted to channel my passion for all things marketing and trends into a more consistent format that (hopefully) provides value for others' work and lives. However, the reality of juggling full-time work along with mentoring and side projects never left much time.
"Just the beginning" is the platform for curated marketing news combined with intriguing tools, companies, and movies I've discovered throughout the week.
So let’s start with something that all marketers are interested in these days; how to use AI to make our work easier. Here are my 5 go-to-tools that will make your life easier followed by quite an impressive product launch as a marketing case. On the AI note, I have been a guest on the Future Strategies podcast recently where host Florian Schleicher and I discussed if AI in fact is the biggest bubble of all time. For the answer and some other insights on tech conference marketing check out the episode here.
The last part of this creative outlet will be my personal heartfelt recommendation to you. I am gonna give a special shoutout to female-founded companies out there, as empowering female entrepreneurship is a cause I strongly support and have championed for many years while building Future Females. As for the other tools and recommendations I am only going to share what has been ‘tried and tested’ and validated as worthwhile. So, here we go…
Top 5 AI tools for marketers right now
(Apart from the obvious ones like Chat GPT, Bard and Claude 2)
1 - OpusClip
A life saver for all content creators. Convert long video into short, viral clips.
2 - Tome
For presentations — tell the AI what you want to present, the AI will make it pretty.
3 - ElevenLabs
This is one for all podcast hosts or people working with audio files in only one language. ElevenLabs is a AI voice generator that can translate your content into more than 25 languages.
4 - Sheet Formula
Not the best with Excel or Google sheets formulas? Tell AI what you’re trying to do in Google Sheets, and it will give you the formula.
5 - Noteable Plugin
Data Studio, Power BI and Tableau are getting serious competition with this plugin that can be used together with Chat GPT. Data analysis and visualization tasks while maintaining a friendly user interface.
Marketing case: How a “Barbie AI” reached 1.5m active users within 10 days
BaiRBIE.me, the brainchild of Shirley Mao, was launched at the peak of the Barbie hype - in late July. Its idea is as simple as it is fun: within seconds, the AI-based app transforms your portrait picture into a photo of a live Barbie or Ken with astonishing accuracy.
The growth curve to 1.5m daily active users with 0 marketing budget is comparable to ChatGPT's market introduction and obviously based on the high share-ability of these images (Who doesn’t want to turn their friends as Barbie dolls?). The viral success did not only get Mao a feature in Forbes magazine but also a ton of brand awareness for her product company rvnway.
The takeaway from this Marketing PR stunt (apart from the fun 👱♀️💄) is clear: Timing is everything. In any other month of this year, the adoption of this product would not have experienced such a steep growth. Releasing it at exactly the right time, when its share-ability would be at its highest, was the key to its success.
Female-founded company I love 💃
Nugget Savings is the glassdoor for parental leave policies. The company just launched a community led archive of parental leave policies that will help you take control of your family's financial future. Unfortunately the harsh reality is that (most) women still encounter discrimination when asking these kind of questions during interviews. For now it is only available in the UK nevertheless it is already helping plenty of women making more informed career decisions as co-founders Harriet Morton Liddle and Katie Guild shared recently.
Something new on my radar 👀
Here is a productivity tool that my friend Rémi recommended: News Feed Eradicator is a #chrome add-on that allows you to block (or limit) your news feed on all your Social Media platforms and even replace the feed with an inspirational quote.
That way you can still access the info you want or message people but avoid falling into the numb scrolling trap (at least on desktop). Currently the extension is available for the usual suspects Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, GitHub,…
What I am watching 🖥️
The first episode of the new Apple TV series Extrapolation is set in 2037 with the world warming close to 2 degrees Celsius above temperatures as crisis talks are being held in Tel Aviv while forest fires, droughts, riots and refugees abound across the world. Fast forward, climate change in its full display 🌎
The show with its bid budget cast (Meryl Streep, Edward Norton,..) depicts a planet on the brink of environmental crisis, where ordinary human beings battle increasingly hostile elements, and a villainous tech tycoon seeks to take over the world (Prepare yourself to see John Snow in his first proper villain role).
Is it hard to watch? Yes but if you're looking for a thought-provoking and visually stunning series that will make you think about climate change, then it's a must.
Watch the trailer
Thanks for reading,
Cordula
This is literally “Just the beginning” so please be patient with me as I finding my voice on Substack. Feedback and connecting on LinkedIn is always welcome.
Love seeing all your Recs and analysis in one place. Excited to read you next week!
such a great read! thanks for putting it into the world !