Outrageous advent calendars, slow social and what to expect from Black Friday

0:00Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy. I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters.

0:18Hi, Jasmine. Hey, Kaya. Happy Thanksgiving. I know you're not in the US, but are you celebrating this year? Happy Thanksgiving. I am celebrating. I asked ChatGBT.

0:27Jasmine Enberg: I'm like, all right, where can I eat at a restaurant Thanksgiving dinner? Because I was like, I am not trying to find, procure a turkey and try to fit it in my oven if I can find one because I have a tiny oven. So Chad WT actually gave me three amazing recommendations and I'm going to the addition hotel with my sister for a fabulous sit down Thanksgiving that I don't have to cook, which is amazing. And I can totally validate those challenges. Procuring a turkey while you're abroad on Thanksgiving is almost an impossible task. And I have insane stories, including the time I was in Finland and accidentally ordered a 10 kilo turkey instead of a 10 pound turkey.

1:05And for context, 10 kilos is about 20 pounds. So I do not recommend unless you want to be eating turkey for months on end afterwards. But this year I'm in LA and I have some family here from New York and we're doing a less traditional Thanksgiving this year too. We're barbecuing and making some Thanksgiving sides. Delicious. The sides are the best part anyway. The turkeys always drag. Yeah.

1:29Jasmine Enberg: So first we have Thanksgiving and then we have Black Friday. So obviously that is the main topic for this week's podcast. The holiday shopping season just feels like it drags longer and longer every year. Obviously huge shopping day in the US. But here in Europe, a lot of retailers are also offering Black Friday sales. So much of the shopping here is happening in physical stores. So obviously e-commerce exists here. Amazon is here, but it's not as developed in the US. And the selection, for example, on Amazon is just nowhere near what you have in the US. So that has been an interesting shift for me because I'm used to buying everything on Amazon from like clothing to like dish soap.

2:09Jasmine Enberg: So now it's so interesting. I'm much more likely to go in store. And the Black Friday sales are reflecting that also because everything is Black Friday everywhere on the streets when you're walking past shops. But of course, a lot of shopping has shifted online, especially in the US and to social media and creators. So Jasmine, what are you seeing in the numbers? Well, first, I just have to say that I was dealing with that when I was trying to send you the little Christmas gift, Martha on a mantle. She's right there. Oh, I love it. I couldn't get it shipped to you. So luckily, your sister was visiting.

2:40And so I was able to ship it to her and she brought it over, which was very, very sweet. So nice.

2:44Jasmine Enberg: She also brought me a keyboard from Amazon because I have dealt with like carpal tunnel on and off. And when I was trying to order a keyboard in Spain, it's like Spanish characters. So it's different. Then I was like, oh, wow, I didn't think about that. And also my podcast mic finally arrived. Yay. So things are happening. I know the saga finally ends. It's amazing. But to your question, you know, I think you're absolutely right. Shopping on social media just seems to get bigger and bigger every holiday season. this year is no exception. It is really hard to find specific data on creator-driven shopping, but Adobe does release a report every year.

3:24And this year, they're predicting a 14 % increase in online revenue driven by affiliates and partners, which includes social media influencers. And just for a little bit of context, last year, affiliates and partners accounted for about 17 % 18 % of online holiday shopping revenue. So that's a frame of reference from where it's growing from this year. Adobe also said that purchases attributed to traffic from social ads will grow by a whopping 51 % this year. And so if you haven't already started to see tons of shopping content on your feeds, get ready because it's coming.

4:01Jasmine Enberg: And last year was 5%. So that is a huge jump year over year, which is amazing. So obviously, that's great news for social overall. but as we wrote earlier this week in our newsletter that means it's also harder to break through and I think what's so interesting about this year is that also you're competing now with all of the AI generated content that we didn't see to the same scale last year so this is really the first holiday season with a lot of gen AI and like there's just a lot of fatigue right like we sort of see the same trends year to year and I think advent calendars are a good example they've become super popular they get more outrageous every year you know they used to be like a cute chocolate thing.

4:37Jasmine Enberg: Like I remember as a child having my little chocolate advent calendar and now like Gucci and Dior and like every beauty company under the sun is doing it. But I think there's some signs we're starting to see that the novelty is wearing off. So more creators are posting about them this year. But early data we've seen so far this holiday season is showing that video views and engagement are down on advent calendar content. So some of the like old tricks are not hitting the same this year. I think there's very real reasons why brands and creators love advent calendars and seem to turn to them every year.

5:09I mean, there's the obvious reason of brand visibility in what is the busiest shopping season of every year. But then there's other reasons as well, meaning that you can build excitement and you can theoretically bring people back to your content for 24 days. And while we don't have really any sales data on how advent calendars are performing. What we do know from research that I conducted while I was at a marketer with impact.com, people need to see a creator promote a product four times before making a purchase. And so having, you know, a set schedule with a series of content, I think really helps to speak

5:48Jasmine Enberg: to that. It's also really good for creators too. I think a lot of them struggle with, you know, content, especially if they have to produce every day. And this gives them, you know, a steady stream of content right up until Christmas. But to your point, they are pretty outrageous. They have gotten overdone and some of them have gotten super controversial. Yeah, I was doing a quick little peruse on social and on Google before this episode because I was trying to find what is the most expensive calendar, advent calendar. I think the winner was Dior, which they have one for more than$8 ,000. And I think the craziest thing about it is that it's not even clear what it comes with.

6:26Jasmine Enberg: So like you can see in the photo, there's some perfumes, there's some beauty products, there's like a Twilly. But for that price, you would think it would be a little clearer what you're getting. And also, I assume it's ginormous. It looks like a whole chest with all the drawers. So I don't know. I also think like some of this loud luxury feels off in this current economy. We just had, you know, snap benefits come back. And I think that news cycle highlighted for a lot of people how many people in the U.S. rely on SNAP benefits. But then at the same time, you have creators like Becca Bloom, who is going all out on loud luxury, and people seem to like that.

7:03Jasmine Enberg: So it's sort of this cognitive dissonance that I think we feel a lot on social media, but especially in this current economic moment, it feels a little excessive to have a Dior advent calendar for$8 ,000. Yeah, I mean, it really is kind of a weird time in the economy overall, right? I mean, to your point, there are so many mixed signals. And in terms of what's going on, there is a pretty poor perception of the economy among consumers, despite what the reality is. And I think, especially when you're thinking about holiday shopping, you really have to separate the state of the overall economy with people's personal economies.

7:38And that can be really different right now, depending on who you're talking to. There was this article from CNBC that called it a two-track economy, where you have high-income earners who are doing pretty well, right? And then low income earners who are really struggling. And all of this is going to play into holiday shopping decisions. But what's been really interesting to me is, I think people automatically assume that that means that people are going to spend less on holiday gifts. And that may not necessarily be the case this year. One data point that CNBC also cited was from TransUnion, which showed that people are going to be using credit cards more this year than they were last year.

8:15And what that says to me is that they're not necessarily cutting back on spending. They're finding other ways to fund those gifts if they don't have the cash on hand. I think so much of it, too, is like trying to keep up, right?

8:28Jasmine Enberg: Instagram's just getting more and more out of control with the holiday gifts and the decor and everything. And I think, too, that coupled with the rise of buy now, pay later, like people have more options. It's not just credit cards. It's all sorts of things people are doing. So I think the pressure to spend out of your means is real. And the data is backing that up. Between November and December, holiday spending is expected to surpass$1 trillion for the first time, according to data from the National Retail Federation. So every year, it just feels like the holiday season is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

9:00And it's not just Instagram. Have you seen the Ralph Lauren Christmas TikTok videos? No, I have to look at those after this. So I have been fully influenced. And we just bought Christmas decorations over this past weekend, and it's plaid pretty much everything. And it's all from TikTok, basically. So, you know, it's hard to miss out on a lot of this stuff.

9:22Jasmine Enberg: Sticking with the holiday season theme, this is also a time when a lot of people want to slow down. We're seeing that this week with kind of a slower news cycle, although we will get into some of the big headlines later in the episode. But I think it's also translating to our social media usage as well. There have been some interesting thought pieces over the past week about us heading into kind of a slower era for social media and media overall from writers, including Rachel Carton, who writes LinkedIn Bio, Leah Haberman, who also writes a Substack newsletter called In Case You Missed It, Jim Lauterbach, Jack Appleby.

9:53Jasmine Enberg: What do you kind of make of all these pieces as you read through them? So last year, I predicted that something along these lines might start to happen this year, that we would start to see more of an emphasis on longer form video, as well as more sort of evergreen content from brands and creators. And that prediction was based on a lot of what I was seeing at the time from the platforms, for example, prioritizing longer form video, also from creators as they were prioritizing building more sustainable audiences and businesses over just going viral on TikTok. And as well as how consumers, especially Gen Z and young consumers are behaving, they already have a very complicated relationship with social media, but we were starting to see signs that they really were craving sort of more deeper, including offline experiences.

10:37And then of course, podcasts. I mean, we were hearing that people were listening to podcasts for three hours straight. So clearly what this said is that there is an appetite, right, for longer form storytelling and more fulfilling social media experiences than what we're getting as we're just kind of scrolling through the feed. I also just don't think that the pendulum is going to swing completely in the other direction, though, right? I mean, people still spend a huge amount of time on TikTok, which despite its best efforts is really still a an app for short form video and for trending content.

11:12Jasmine Enberg: I mean, I think it's a long overdue reaction. I remember I wrote this piece in either 20 must have been 2022 about kind of how TikTok is making everyone famous, but few people are actually making a living from it. And it's hard to create these kind of sustainable audiences through it. And that is really the dynamic that TikTok unleashed, right? Like, on one hand, it's revolutionary that you can just post on TikTok with no following and hit a million followers super quickly and get all these views overnight. But it's a slot machine, right? Like, you see creators who have a lot of followers, but really inconsistent views, or you kind of know the creator for their shtick, but you don't know their name, right?

11:46Jasmine Enberg: Like, it's created this really interesting dynamic that also now has translated to shorts and reels and all this stuff. But I think like the FOMO element for both brands and creators makes this really hard. We all have seen the meme where it's like, okay, when a brand jumps on a trend, it's over, right? Like brands still feel like they have to chase that to a degree. And I think creators do also, and they see it as a path to expanding their audience and reach. So like you said, it's probably a hybrid version of this, But we still very much live in a world where likes and follower counts matter.

12:19Jasmine Enberg: And I feel like for years, we've been talking about how like vanity metrics, we shouldn't look at them. But like, it still is at first glance, the best kind of way to see if someone's right legit. So that's what I think is really hard is even if brands or a creator wants to go that route, they're still going to feel the pressure to like keep up and get the views because virality is still super important. Yeah. And I think that point about TikTok is so good and spot on, right? Because I think the other thing that that did was kind of set unrealistic expectations for creators and also for building businesses on social.

12:51I mean, there are so many brands that I would speak to a few years ago who would just expect that they would work with a creator and put a piece of content on TikTok and it would go viral and their products would go flying off their shelves. Right. And that's really not how it works. And I think that reality check is starting to sink in. I think, you know, as you're moving forward as a brand and thinking about, you know, this idea of slow social versus trending content, it's really about finding a balance. And that can be really challenging. I had this great conversation with Nicole Weltman, who is the head of social and PR at Taco Bell, which, of course, has been a really big hit on TikTok on kind of how to navigate this.

13:29And my question was initially, how do you go from short form to then longer, more evergreen content? That feels really challenging. And she kind of pushed back and said, no, I mean, we have tons of great ideas for that, but it's about finding that balance and when to jump on a trend and when to lean in more to this kind of owned IP, right? And I think a lot of brands are struggling with figuring out how much to do of trending content and how much to do of sort of more branded, evergreen content. And your point about vanity metrics, too, is just so spot on. I think, again, we've started to move away from them, or at least there's an understanding that follower accounts don't accurately predict business outcomes for brands.

14:13But we really don't have many other reliable, standardized metrics to fall back on. And so you're kind of stuck to some degree chasing views, chasing likes, and chasing followers still.

14:25Jasmine Enberg: And I think, too, it does such a disservice to creators when, like, they have, like, we've talked about this in podcasting a lot, right, where people are consuming podcasts via short form. and their clip has a million views, but their podcast channel on YouTube has like 50 viewers, right? It's sort of hard to measure that. And I guess you can still sell on that and there's brand awareness, but at the end of the day, as a creator, you want to build the loyal audience and it's a mix, right? You're going to do short form, you're going to clip stuff, you're going to sometimes create things that won't get a lot of views, but it's what you want to make.

14:57Jasmine Enberg: But it's hard. I think it's really hard to get out of the hamster wheel of the trending content as much as people want to and viewers, you know, enjoy that content, too. Yeah. Or then you'll be like us and try to do short form content, a podcast, a newsletter, an event, everything all at once. Exactly. I mean, it's not it's not easy. And I think there is a misconception, too, that, you know, just putting a video on TikTok is super easy and it's easy to create. And you and I have talked about this, right? Like, I think, you know, younger people understand the effort and the work that goes into making a TikTok that's just filmed in your messy bedroom that lasts for about 30 seconds.

15:33Jasmine Enberg: Here is what else is going on in the world of social media and the creator economy. More bad headlines for Meta. Meta allegedly shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding evidence that its products harmed users' mental health. That is according to an unredacted legal filing. The senators are also now calling the FTC to probe Meta for scam ads, which Reuters reported on. And I think what's so interesting about this last spate of meta headlines is that nothing really shocks at this point. Of course, the headlines are getting picked up, but it feels very similar to me to the second Trump administration, right, where in the first administration, you saw from the left much more kind of reaction to different changes and policies and comments that Trump made.

16:22Jasmine Enberg: And it feels like it's the same as for meta, where nothing really shocks. People are quite desensitized, I think, to these headlines for both the president and for Meta. I think for a lot of people, it just feels like validation for what they at least thought they already knew, right? But two things you might not have known about TikTok. First, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance's valuation rose to$480 billion in a recent share auction. That is more than double what it was worth last September, according to Kaya's reporting, in fact. It also makes the U.S. government's$14 billion valuation of TikTok U.S.

16:57look even smaller. The math is not mathin'.

17:00Jasmine Enberg: No, look, ByteDance is obviously a huge company, but TikTok is a huge part of that company and the U.S. is a huge market. So I think that$14 billion does not make much sense to me. But in other TikTok news, TikTok bought the naming rights to the ICC Sydney Theatre in Australia, which has hosted performances from huge stars from Queen to Elton John, and it has renamed it the TikTok Entertainment Center. What else? It is the first time the social media app has nabbed naming rights for a venue anywhere in the world. And the timing is also quite interesting considering Australia's upcoming teen social media ban.

17:34Speaking of Australia, Twitch was added to

17:37Jasmine Enberg: the country's social media ban, which goes into effect December 10th. It didn't really make much sense that Kick, which is a smaller live streaming upstart that competes with Twitch, was on the list, but Twitch itself wasn't. A few that aren't on the list, Pinterest and Roblox. So we'll see if more are added before the ban goes into effect or not. They have slowly been adding companies to this list as the ban deadline gets closer. And if you want to hear more about what's at stake in Australia and the rest of the world, you can go deeper in last week's podcast episode where we talk about this at length.

18:08That's all from us for today. Happy Thanksgiving. Subscribe to Scalable for more news and analysis. And we'll see you back here next Thursday. Thank you.