Newsletter 6/10/2022: Golf, Tesla, and TikTok
From the Desk of Dennis:
Happy Friday! In the rapid acceleration of my professionalism and networking skills, I spent my 30th birthday yesterday hitting the Strawberry Hill Driving Range in Fairmount Park. Pro tip for meeting people at the range: have bad enough form, and people will eventually swarm you with advice unsolicited.
This week brings us stories of control - branding control, operational control, and messaging control. If you can’t control the control (e.g., because you introduced a major security flaw in your product, or you’re shilling your propaganda sports league to an audience with First Amendments rights), you better be able to improvise. God laughs while we plan, and a good marketer proves their skills just as much when they work on the fly as when they build their perfect campaign plans.
That said, it’s the weekend - time to let go! Just make sure you have your automation set up to keep things under control.
Best,
Dennis A. Wilson
This Week in Marketing and Technology:
PGA Tour suspends 17 golfers, including Phil Mickelson, for playing in Saudi-backed LIV event
“In February, Mickelson told his biographer that he believes it’s “scary” to be involved with the Saudis, but said there were other factors at play.”
I don’t think that the PGA is taking a bold stance for human rights by suspending these players - they’re just pissed the boys want to play for another team. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see those concerns show up more frequently if the LIV Tour increases in popularity - or if they start having real trouble bringing these players back into the PGA fold.
Ars Technica, “Gone in 130 seconds: New Tesla hack gives thieves their own personal key
“Martin Herfurt, a security researcher in Austria, quickly noticed something odd about the new feature: Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state to accept entirely new keys.”
The internet of things continues to pit our desire for convenience and connectivity against our desire for privacy. This bug is a weird one - why is fob enrollment opened at all by this? It’s bad enough worrying about potential threats to my car within the closed system of me driving it, and the increasing digitization of automobile systems feels like a
Pitchfork, “TikTok Is Turning Music Marketing Into a Labyrinthian Game”
With songwriters getting shafted, artists moaning about marketing, and fans being guilted into streaming, it makes you wonder who’s actually benefiting from the current TikTok ecosystem.
If a tree falls in the forest, but I have the video muted, does it really earn an impression?
