The Retention Revolution: A Nayi Disha for Marketing (Part 6)

Phased Implementation

So, how can CMOs embark on this Nayi Disha? Let’s break it down into phases.

The starting point assumes that the fundamentals are in place: a CDP, a martech platform (ideally, a Unistack rather than a patchwork of software solutions), a search and product discovery platform for eCommerce companies, and the 1.0 communications channels.

Phase 1 (30 days)

  • CMO-CEO alignment is crucial for this mission to succeed. An audit of ad spend should be conducted to estimate the AdWaste resulting from misguided acquisition and reacquisition efforts. This identified AdWaste should become a key target for both the CMO and CEO to address.
  • Organise a Strategy Foundry to align various teams for the next stage of the journey.
  • Set the North Star Metric as “Earned Growth.” This metric refers to the expansion a company experiences due to the actions and recommendations of its loyal customers. In essence, it’s growth driven not by traditional marketing or sales efforts, but by organic growth and revenues generated through word-of-mouth promotion. It thus combines the power of retention and referrals.
  • Collaborate with the Email Service Provider to implement the Email Envelope, along with AMP-powered Epps in the body to drive in-channel conversion.
  • Begin establishing the Large Customer Model.
  • Create AI Twins for segments initially using adtech data.
  • Develop a Velvet Rope Marketing plan for Best Customers. Ideally, the team handling this should be housed in a separate business unit.
  • Start tracking key metrics such as customer retention rate, LTV, and CAC to establish a baseline for improvement.

Phase 2 (90 days)

  • By this stage, the Large Customer Model (which can also be considered as a Composable CDP) should be operational.
  • The Co-Marketer and AI Twins can now start working together. AI Twins (for Segments) should start integrating martech data alongside adtech data, laying the foundation for Generative Journeys that adapt based on customer actions.
  • The Email Envelope will have started yielding results leading to an improvement in email open rates, more actions, and increased collection of zero-party data. Additionally, ActionAds should begun generating incremental revenue from non-competing brands.
  • Expand Channels 2.0 to WhatsApp and RCS for specific use cases bearing in mind that these are more expensive channels.
  • The Progency should have a team in place for Kaizen services.
  • Implement A/B testing for key marketing initiatives to measure the impact of new strategies.
  • Begin phasing out low-performing adtech spend based on insights from the Large Customer Model and AI Twins.
  • Initiate training programmes for marketing teams to ensure they can effectively leverage the new tools and strategies.

Phase 3 (180 days)

  • By now, all the three ideas discussed – Agentic AI, AMP in Email, and Progency – should be in full flow.
  • The AI Twins program can be expanded to include the creation of Singular Twins for Best Customers, as well as other types of twins, such as product twins, store twins, and location twins. The ability for a marketer or a Co-Marketer to converse 24×7 with any of these twins will provide extraordinary insights into customer behaviour and competitive activities.
  • Analyse the impact of the Velvet Rope Marketing plan on Best Customer retention and LTV. Adjust strategies based on the insights gained to further enhance customer loyalty and value.
  • Leverage advanced predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and behaviours, enabling proactive and personalised marketing initiatives. The interactions between the Co-Marketer and AI Twins will be invaluable in this process.
  • Create a comprehensive, real-time dashboard that offers actionable, real-time insights into key metrics, allowing for agile decision-making across the organisation.
  • The success of these retention initiatives should lead to a reduction in AdWaste, accompanied by an increase in revenues as more customers are guided towards maximising their LTV.

**

The magic formula for success and creating a profipoly is elegantly simple: (Lo CAC + Hi LTV)n. With every additional data point from customers, the platform becomes stronger. The AI layer is fine-tuned to bring a new level of customer understanding, personalisation, and adtech and martech efficiency. Enhanced RoI will result in increased revenues and profits, generating free cash flows to invest in innovation and new products. The Profipoly Playbook is the best moat a business can construct: by draining the oxygen of profits from slower competitors, agile brands can emerge as the dominant players in their respective markets.

Thinks 1402

HBR: “The ability to marry gen AI tools with digital twin technology has more recently enabled companies to create digital twins of organizational processes and supply chains. What’s more, this technology is no longer exclusive to large corporations; its reduced cost makes it accessible to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well. Even without extensive resources or dedicated analysts, SMEs can use gen AI with digital twins to analyze existing customer data and generate detailed virtual models of various customer segments. Unlike the clunky, custom-made and pricey versions of the past, today’s digital twins are fast, inexpensive and far more advanced. They involve a virtual replica of a real object system using historical and real-time data, paired with advanced analytics and machine learning models. This is more than a mere simulation — managers can subject digital twins of real systems to multiple scenarios, then make changes to their inputs to the real system based on the data produced by the model scenarios, and then use the data to produce to put the digital twin through revised scenarios which produce more data to apply to the real system, and so forth.”

Ashu Garg: “Christian Owens, founder of Paddle, put it succinctly on the B2BaCEO podcast: “There comes a point, usually around $10M ARR, where founders need to shift their attention from the product they’re building to the company itself. The organization itself becomes the product, demanding the same care and vision that went into the original offering.” As Owens hints, this crisis isn’t only personal. As I outlined in my March newsletter, a new set of business challenges emerge as startups hit this revenue milestone: Churn, once a manageable concern, becomes an existential threat; Overselling features, a common early-stage tactic, risks creating a cohort of dissatisfied customers; Lack of robust onboarding and support processes causes even well-designed products to not deliver value, as they can’t be implemented effectively; Technical debt accrued during the “move fast and break things” phase comes due with a vengeance; Pressure to maintain growth rate can lead to hasty expansions into new markets and customer segments.”

Economist: “You may also have noticed that governments are bigger than they once were. Whereas in 1960 state spending across the rich world was equal to 30% of GDP, now it is above 40%. In some countries growth in the state’s economic power has been still more dramatic. Since the mid-1990s Britain’s government spending has risen by six percentage points of gdp, while South Korea’s has risen by ten points. All of which raises a paradox: if governments are so big, why are they so ineffective? The answer is that they have turned into what can be called “Lumbering Leviathans”. In recent decades governments have overseen an enormous expansion in spending on entitlements. Because there has not been a commensurate increase in taxes, redistribution is crowding out spending on other functions of government, which, in turn, is damaging the quality of public services and bureaucracies. The phenomenon may help explain why people across the rich world have such little faith in politicians. It may also help explain why economic growth across the rich world is weak by historical standards.”

NYTimes: “In private conversations, Mr. [Sam] Altman has compared the world’s data centers to electricity, according to three people close to the discussions. As the availability of electricity became more widespread, people found better ways of using it. Mr. Altman hoped to do the same with data centers and eventually make A.I. technologies flow like electricity.”

The Retention Revolution: A Nayi Disha for Marketing (Part 5)

Transformative Trio

Three groundbreaking ideas are set to revolutionise retention re-engineering:

Agentic AI: The Intelligent Stack

The first idea powering retention re-engineering is Agentic AI, a multi-agent system that goes beyond task execution to deliver meaningful outcomes. Agentic AI will drive the modern AI stack for marketing:

  • Large Customer Model (LCM) that incorporating martech and adtech data, to surpass the traditional CDP or even the upgraded Content Data Warehouse,
  • Co-Marketer, an AI copilot for marketers which orchestrates multiple sub-agents, and
  • AI Twins, which are conversable personas built with observable and deterministic data

Drawing data from the LCM, a Co-Marketer can collaborate with multiple Segment Twins to create tailored and tested content, campaigns, and journeys for every customer cohort. As more data is generated and customers progress further in their journey with the brand, the Co-Marketer can interact with Singular Twins for N=1 personalisation, the cornerstone for maximising every customer’s LTV.

AMP for Email: Channels 2.0

The second breakthrough for retention re-engineering is AMP for email, part of a broader upgrade to Channels 2.0. Historically, email has yielded the highest RoI among all push channels, yet innovation has been stagnant. New channels like push notifications, RCS, and WhatsApp are bringing interactivity to the forefront, reducing friction for customers by eliminating the need to click through to a website or app for conversion. AMP for Email not only levels the playing field but advances it, thanks to the addressability and openness that make email unique. Imagine a new type of email with an “Email Envelope”, a wrapper around the email body which combines a Subject magnet in the form of Mu (Atomic Rewards), email apps (Epps) in the header and footer that are containers for AMPlets, and ActionAds which combine the 4 Ps of PII, push, in-place, and payments to deliver superior responses and additional revenues. Together, this triad built using AMP can drive more opens and actions, bringing marketers closer to their dream of ensuring no email is ever ignored – thus building a direct line of communication with every customer, which in turn reduces the need for expensive reacquisition via adtech spending.

Agency Evolution: The Progency Model

The third breakthrough isn’t from a new technology but from a rethink of the role of an agency. Traditionally, agencies have focused on delivering services to marketing teams – content, creative, analytics, campaign execution, and so on. They have been compensated based on human hours. The next-gen agency will be an extension of martech platforms, combining software with a thin layer of service, a “Progency” fusing product and agency. Such a team will deliver strategy and service on a revenue sharing model, aligning their interests with the brand’s success. Moreover, the service will extend beyond mere labour; much of which will eventually be automated by AI. The new “Kaizen Services” will focus on continuous improvement, enhancing the platform daily by refining the AI models that underpin it.

**

Together, Agentic AI, AMP for Email, and the Progency will address the three pressing problems which have plagued retention through the years: the “Not for Me” problem where brands fail to anticipate intent due to insufficient data, the “No Hotline” problem, where brands struggle to influence actions because of attention recession, and the “Not by Product alone” problem, where the lack of intelligent services hinders the full utilisation and post-purchase customisation of the martech SaaS platform. Collectively, they will lay the foundation for the shift from retention marketing to retention re-engineering.

Thinks 1401

Ben Thompson: “[Meta’s] Orion makes every other VR or AR device I have tried feel like a mistake — including the Apple Vision Pro. It is incredibly comfortable to wear, for one. What was the most striking to me, however, is that the obvious limitations — particularly low resolution — felt immaterial. The difference from the Quest or Vision Pro is that actually looking at reality is so dramatically different from even the best-in-class pass-through capabilities of the Vision Pro, that the holographic video quality doesn’t really matter. Even the highest quality presentation layer will pale in comparison to reality; this, counter-intuitively, gives a lot more freedom of movement in terms of what constitutes “good enough”. Orion’s image quality — thanks in part to its shockingly large 70 degree field of view — is good enough. It’s awesome, actually. In fact — and I don’t say this lightly — it is good enough that, for the first time ever, I felt like I could envision a world where I don’t carry a smartphone.”

WSJ reviews “10 to 25”: “Mr. Yeager explains that evolution has led young adults to seek out experiences that confer social status and respect. But adults—parents, teachers and, yes, managers at work—often fail to understand and support this drive for prestige. “If the parent believes that teenagers are lazy,” writes Mr. Yeager, “they’re more likely to use tools of control: threats of punishment for noncompliance (yelling, telling, blaming, shaming, grounding) or rewards for compliance (bribes, promises, relaxed curfews, lower expectations).” Such tactics, says Mr. Yeager, don’t inspire teens to act diligently and independently. The problem, he explains, is a false narrative about the cognitive limitations of the “10 to 25” cohort of his title: Young adults can’t be held accountable for their actions, the story goes, because their prefrontal cortex, which aids with planning for the future, isn’t fully developed. (Increased testosterone levels are also thought to make impulse control difficult.) But teens and young adults are not cognitively impaired, Mr. Yeager believes. Instead, they operate with a distinct set of incentives that once made them evolutionarily fit.”

Business Standard: “Nearly a quarter of India’s youth, aged 15 to 24, is neither employed, enrolled in education, or receiving any training. While the share of this cohort, NEET — short for not in education, employment and training — has fallen over the years, it has remained higher than the global average.”

Yahoo: “In 2022, UNESCO warned that “the business model of the news media is broken”. Advertising revenue — the lifeline of news publications — has dried up in recent years, with Internet giants such as Google and Facebook owner Meta soaking up half of that spending, the report said. Meta, Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet alone account for 44 percent of global ad spend, while only 25 percent goes to traditional media organisations, according to a study by the World Advertising Research Center. Platforms like Facebook “are now explicitly deprioritising news and political content”, the Reuters Institute’s 2024 Digital News Report pointed out. Traffic from social to news sites has sharply declined as a result, causing a drop in revenue. Few are keen to pay for news. Only 17 percent of people polled across 20 wealthy countries said they had online news subscriptions in 2023.”

The Retention Revolution: A Nayi Disha for Marketing (Part 4)

Adtech Trap

Marketers have long taken the easy way out through acquisition and reacquisition via adtech spending. They hire an agency, negotiate the cost per click, and rely on the agency to deliver the numbers. Retention, on the other hand, is hard work. It requires understanding customers, creating segments, running campaigns, measuring outcomes, and much more. Just as water moves on the path of least resistance, so do people’s actions. The end result is a lopsided allocation: 80-90% of budgets go towards acquisition, some towards branding, and a paltry sum on retention.

The truly alarming aspect of adtech spending is that half of it is being wasted. Unlike traditional advertising, where it’s hard to tell which half is wasted, digital marketing allows for precise tracking and identification of AdWaste. Yet, few marketers have the inclination to do so. Consequently, low-value customers are acquired and paid for, along with dormant and churned customers who should not have been allowed to leave in the first place. Rarely do they ask for our preferences to personalise recommendations or for referrals from our network, which could significantly reduce CAC.

It’s no wonder that adtech reigns supreme. Consider these eMarketer charts sourced via Perplexity. The interesting point to note is that the rate of growth of digital advertising is 5-10X that of traditional. Two of every three dollars are being spent on digital. The travesty is that in a medium where everything can be measured, marketers wilfully ignore the data and are complicit in letting AdWaste to persist.

No prizes for guessing where the AdWaste comes from: brand profits. In the 2021-25 period, this figure comes to a whopping $1.5 trillion (half of the $3 trillion digital ad spending).

With many businesses struggling to achieve consistent profitable growth, it should be obvious where the CEO and CMO’s focus should be. But that’s not the case. Seduced by the allure of easy and perpetual revenue growth, digital ad spends have stayed at a 10% growth rate even after the pandemic bump. This means there’s little or no scrutiny on the quality of outcomes from digital ad spending. The perfection of the auction model ensures this gravy train for BigAdTech will continue – they are the real profipolies.

Just as Gen AI is disrupting many industries, a new approach is needed for customer relationships. I call it “retention re-engineering” – which is much more than the lip service often paid to “retention marketing.”

Retention Re-engineering is built on three principles:

  • Multi-maximise the LTV of every customer
  • Strive for near-zero CAC
  • Implement Velvet Rope Marketing for the Best Customers [VRM is about creating differentiated experiences based on exclusivity, ease, and access for the most valuable customers.]

Three new ideas are poised to revolutionise retention re-engineering, offering forward-thinking CMOs and CEOs a huge opportunity to get ahead of the pack and build profipolies.

Thinks 1400

Economist: “Three things hold India back [in labour-intensive manufacturing]. The first are labour laws. India’s Factories Act makes it next to impossible for firms with more than 100-300 employees (depending on the state) to fire workers. That makes them risk-averse, which affects how large they grow…The second thing limiting India is its trade restrictions. America revoked India’s duty-free status in 2019 because Donald Trump deemed India too protectionist. The EU puts tariffs of 10-12% on imports of clothing from India, while maintaining trade agreements with Bangladesh and Vietnam. This fee demolishes Indian exporters’ margins…The third big barrier is that even manufacturers who are eager to expand can find it difficult to persuade Indian workers to leave farms and join factories full time.”

Andrew Chen: “It’s been a long time since we last built a broadly horizontal consumer app like YouTube, TikTok, Linkedin, or Snapchat. 8 years ago, in fact. I’m convinced it may not be possible anymore, because we’re in the final years of the mobile S-curve and 15+ years after the launch of the iPhone, there are major hurdles to apps to broad, billion user horizontal apps…So what’s next? Vertical apps with beefier monetization, and different network characteristics seem a likely candidate. When you look at products like Monopoly Go, Draft Kings, web3 games, Canva, etc., and start to generalize towards new opportunities, you can come to see them as vertical apps with distinct new advantages. Rather than ads, these products often let customers spend big dollars directly to upgrade their experience. Free-to-play games often have “whale monetization” mechanics where the top users can spend $100,000s of dollars if they want. Same for a betting product like Draft Kings. If the top 10% of your users drive all the monetization, then it’s the quality of users (and their ARPPU) that matters, not just the scale of users. Blockchain gaming/apps have been a preview of this — you might have a small set of high-ticket virtual items owned by players, and as such, it may not take a huge audience to generate a huge amount of value across the various tokens.”

WSJ: “As the largest producer and consumer of milk products in the world, India’s well-established dairy market is worth about $26 billion and is growing at about 7% a year. But the domestic market for cheese, now worth about $1 billion, is exploding at a rate of 21% a year. By all accounts, India is the next great frontier in cheese…“Cheese today actually has many attributes that make it perfect for India,” said K “Bala” Balakrishnan, a cheese-making pioneer, over a snack of baby Swiss on his patio in the southern hill town of Kodaikanal, where temperatures rarely rise above 68°F. “Cheese is full of good bacteria for your gut. It’s a living food. It’s high in nutritional and commercial value. Milk spoils quickly, but cheese keeps for long and increases in value as it ages.””

FT: “US banks made a $1tn windfall from the Federal Reserve’s two-and-a-half-year era of high interest rates, an analysis of official data by the Financial Times has found. Lenders got higher yields for their deposits at the Fed but kept rates lower for many savers, the review of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data showed. The boost to the US’s more than 4,000 banks has helped pad out profit margins. While rates on some savings accounts were raised in line with the Fed’s target of more than 5 per cent, the vast majority of depositors, especially those at the largest banks, such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, got far less.”

The Retention Revolution: A Nayi Disha for Marketing (Part 3)

Leaky Bucket

Marketing today is riddled with challenges – AdWaste, funnel frictions, poor data – but they all boil down to one core issue: a leaky bucket, or perhaps more accurately, a revolving door. Customers come, most leave. Then they are lured back through ad spend or discounts, only to depart once more, triggering yet another cycle of reacquisition. This constant churn has become the norm, with marketers accepting the leaky bucket as an inevitable reality, convinced either that there’s no solution or that fixing it would be too complex and cumbersome.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. The leaky bucket metaphor perfectly captures the inefficiencies that plague modern marketing. Imagine the resources poured into acquiring new customers — only to watch them slip away, forcing marketers to spend even more to bring them back. This cycle is not only costly but unsustainable in the long term. The true cost of a leaky bucket isn’t just in wasted ad spend; it’s in missed opportunities for deeper customer relationships, brand loyalty, and exponential growth.

Fixing the leaky bucket requires a shift in mindset – a move away from short-term tactics and toward long-term strategies that prioritise customer retention and engagement. Instead of constantly chasing new customers, marketers need to focus on keeping the ones they already have, turning them into loyal advocates who return time and again, and who bring others along with them.

This is where innovation comes in. New technologies can help plug the leaks by creating more relevant and engaging experiences for customers. But it’s not just about technology; it’s about a fundamental change in how we approach marketing. It’s about building trust, delivering consistent value, and fostering genuine connections with customers.

The time has come to abandon the revolving door and instead create a virtuous cycle – one where customers stay longer, spend more, and advocate for the brand. By addressing the root cause of the leaky bucket, marketers can transform their approach, turning a perpetual problem into a powerful engine for growth.

This transformation requires a holistic approach. It means rethinking every touchpoint in the customer journey, from initial awareness to post-purchase support. It involves creating seamless, personalised experiences that anticipate customer needs and exceed their expectations. It’s about leveraging data intelligently to understand customer behaviour and preferences, not just to sell more, but to serve better. It is about fostering an ethos of continuous improvement, where every interaction is an opportunity for growth and refinement.

Moreover, this new approach demands a cultural shift within organisations. It requires breaking down silos between marketing, sales, and customer service, fostering a company-wide commitment to customer retention. It means empowering employees at all levels to contribute to customer satisfaction and loyalty. By aligning the entire organisation around the goal of plugging the leaky bucket, companies can create a sustainable competitive advantage that’s hard to replicate.

Welcome to the world of retention re-engineering – where random revenues transform into recurring revenues, where every customer’s lifetime potential is fully realised, where smarter (and lower) marketing spend drives higher returns, and where profitable growth becomes a way of life. This is the Nayi Disha for marketing.

Thinks 1399

FT: “Indian household debt is accelerating, though it remains low in comparison to developed countries. The country’s household debt to GDP hit a record high of 40 per cent in the most recent financial year ending in March, according to economists at financial services group Motilal Oswal. Personal disposable income in India has not kept pace with the country’s broader economic expansion and net financial savings were at a four-decade low last year, according to the Mumbai-based group.”

WSJ: “A well-deployed silence can radiate confidence and connection. The trouble is, so many of us are awful at it. We struggle to sit in silence with others, and rush to fill the void during a pause in conversation. We want to prove we’re smart or get people to like us, solve the problem or just stop that deafening, awkward sound of nothing. The noise of social media and constant opinions have us convinced we must be louder to be heard. But do we?”

Ethan Mollick: “It turns out that inference compute – the amount of computer power spent “thinking” about a problem, also has a scaling law all its own. This “thinking” process is essentially the model performing multiple internal reasoning steps before producing an output, which can lead to more accurate responses…The existence of two scaling laws – one for training and another for “thinking” – suggests that AI capabilities are poised for dramatic improvements in the coming years.” [via Arnold Kling]

FT: “More common nowadays are “sultanist” regimes led by almighty presidents for life. That describes Putinism, but to some degree also previously committee-based China, where Xi occupies the three main leadership roles. So what happens when the sultan nears death? First, his time horizon narrows. An ageing leader has to act fast to secure his legacy. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Putin invaded Ukraine after he reportedly began travelling with oncologists. Xi’s latest biographer, Michael Sheridan, reckons China’s president has given himself a five-year window to take Taiwan. Things become even more dangerous when the sole decider’s judgment decays with age, as in Trump’s apparent cognitive decline. Certain leaders could no longer get a job as a bookkeeper, yet they have access to the nuclear button. Their political obsessions were typically formed aeons ago. Putin is busy trying to repair the collapse of the USSR, while Xi’s formative nightmare was the chaotic 1960s cultural revolution. These men are less animated by, say, climate change or AI.”

The Retention Revolution: A Nayi Disha for Marketing (Part 2)

Wake-Up Calls

Imagine every CEO receiving a memo like this:

Dear CEO,

Your profits are declining, and here’s why: your marketing spend is out of control. It’s the single biggest profit killer in your company. Half of your digital budget is wasted on low-value acquisition and reacquisition of existing customers – AdWaste. Meanwhile, you’re dedicating only a fraction of your resources to the most crucial task: delighting and retaining your existing customers, turning them into repeat buyers, and encouraging them to bring their family and friends.

Your marketing strategy needs a new direction – a Nayi Disha. Done right, this shift can not only boost your profits but also lay the groundwork for exponential, sustainable growth – a profipoly.

If your CMO isn’t already thinking along these lines, it’s time to either change their mindset or change the person. Otherwise, you’ll remain trapped in a vicious cycle where your marketing spend grows faster than your topline and profits.

What will you do?

A Well-Wisher.

Also imagine every CMO simultaneously receiving a memo like this:

Dear CMO,

You’ve become the roadblock to your company’s profit growth. Your digital spending is out of control. While you may achieve short-term gains, you know this approach isn’t sustainable. So, why continue down this path? Is it because you’re confident that when questioned, you can simply leap to another CMO position that’s waiting?

But there’s another option – if you’re interested. Stay where you are and address the issue (the one you and your predecessors have created). You have the opportunity to become a change champion – a profit creator rather than a profit killer. By transforming yourself into the ‘Chief Profits Officer’ of your company, you can position yourself as a strong candidate for the next CEO role.

What path will you choose? A new job for yourself, or a Nayi Disha for your marketing and company?

A Well-Wisher.

**

The first steps toward change occur when key players recognise there’s a problem. It’s only when the CEO and CMO jointly acknowledge that the current approach is unsustainable and a new direction is needed that real opportunities emerge. It’s easy to maintain the status quo: CEOs can attempt to cut costs in other areas, and CMOs can keep hitting their weekly targets with adtech spending. These are Pyrrhic victories, keeping the wheels turning but not driving true progress. The blame is often shifted to external factors – macroeconomic uncertainty, market slowdowns, reduced customer spending. And so, the cycle continues.

But once the CEO and CMO wake up to the reality, change can begin. This is where a magical new world awaits. Breakthrough technologies and innovative ideas are already within reach. From Agentic AI to Channels 2.0, from AI Twins to AMP and Epps, from Co-Marketer to ActionAds, from Large Customer Models to Kaizen Services – a Nayi Disha for marketing can truly come to life.

Thinks 1398

Narayan Ramachandran: “For India to progress from middle-income to developed-country status, it will not only have to adopt knowledge born elsewhere, but also contribute to the stack of new knowledge. The countries of Western Europe, the US, and more recently Japan, South Korea and China have all moved through these stages. Other countries that have not been able to follow this path, such as Thailand, Mexico and Malaysia, remain in middle-income traps. For India to become a knowledge economy, we must radically reimagine the way knowledge is created in the country.”

FT: “Sometimes described as the application of “living drugs”, CAR T-cell therapy involves extracting and genetically reprogramming white blood cells and infusing them back into the patient’s bloodstream to identify and kill cancer cells. T-cells, the body’s natural defence against cells infected with harmful pathogens, can be coated with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to target some blood cancers. June compared the treatment to the Trojan horse used by the Greeks to infiltrate an enemy fortress.”

Sam Altman on the Intelligence Age: “In the next couple of decades, we will be able to do things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents. This phenomenon is not new, but it will be newly accelerated. People have become dramatically more capable over time; we can already accomplish things now that our predecessors would have believed to be impossible. We are more capable not because of genetic change, but because we benefit from the infrastructure of society being way smarter and more capable than any one of us; in an important sense, society itself is a form of advanced intelligence. Our grandparents – and the generations that came before them – built and achieved great things. They contributed to the scaffolding of human progress that we all benefit from. AI will give people tools to solve hard problems and help us add new struts to that scaffolding that we couldn’t have figured out on our own. The story of progress will continue, and our children will be able to do things we can’t.”

NYTimes: “Many digital news publishers have been desperately searching for a life raft. Traffic to news sites has fallen sharply, along with the ad revenue those clicks generate, partly because Google and Facebook decided to make news less prominent on their platforms. Now, some publications have found a glimmer of hope elsewhere: WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app. Late last year, the app introduced WhatsApp Channels, a kind of one-way broadcasting system that allows publishers to send links and headlines directly to followers. Numerous outlets are using it as a way to draw in readers and build direct relationships with an audience that is largely outside the United States.”