Latest / What's Uptin? / "We're running out of people on the internet" -- Meta CMO gets brutally honest about the future

Transcript

"We're running out of people on the internet" -- Meta CMO gets brutally honest about the future · What's Uptin?

• 0:00
  Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook. 3.4 billion people use a Meta
• 0:05
  product every single day. That's nearly half of the
• 0:08
  planet, but yet the CMO says they're running out of people.
• 0:11
  We'd like everyone to adopt these great glasses like we'd
• 0:14
  like all of the users of WhatsApp and Facebook and
• 0:16
  Instagram to use Metro AI, so. The next play here isn't more
• 0:19
  users, it's deeper AI smart glasses, and a bet that Meta can
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  own how you communicate, what you watch, and maybe even what
• 0:28
  you wear. How?
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  Does Meta think about about safety standards and
• 0:31
  particularly for parents and kids?
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  But I think it's a mistake to not have children ramp up with
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  their parents in using social media.
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  I'm. Talking to the man whose job is
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  to make us use Meta products more.
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  This is what's Upton with the chief marketing officer of Meta,
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  Alex. Schultz Alex Schultz, CMO of
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  Meta Thanks so much for sitting down with me.
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  Today, thank you very much for having me.
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  So your main job is to get more people to use Meta products.
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  Right now it's a little over 3 billion.
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  What's the goal here? What's the KPI?
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  Well, I mean, I think KPI is to get them to use all the products
• 1:02
  at this stage. Like, yeah, we'd like more
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  people to use Meta, but we understand we're running out of
• 1:05
  people on the Internet. And so like we'd like everyone
• 1:08
  in America to use WhatsApp as well as use Facebook and
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  Instagram. It's like we'd like all the
• 1:12
  users of WhatsApp and Facebook and Instagram to use Metro AI.
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  So really deepening their engagement with getting them to
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  use more of our products, shop the shop as a typical CMO would
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  say. I know that.
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  So there's still billions of people who are not connected to
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  the Internet. Is that a priority to get them
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  connected? I know in Philippines, you you
• 1:29
  had a thing years ago where I think it was like you would
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  provide data to people and they would also get free Facebook
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  because means a lot of people started to associate Internet
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  with Facebook as synonymous. So this was internet.org.
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  This was our main successful thing within internet.org, which
• 1:44
  was 0 rating of Facebook with operators.
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  We still do that. So it's still an ongoing
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  program. What I'd say is I think we have
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  really good programmes in that space along with another other
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  companies now who are doing the same thing and there's various
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  versions of it. You can use Facebook for a
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  certain number of hours a day. You can use Facebook or
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  Instagram for a certain amount of megabytes a day.
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  So yeah, we absolutely still have those going.
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  I do want to maximize the adoption of those products.
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  We haven't given up on getting the rest of the people on earth
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  to use our products, but I'm also being realistic.
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  There's a lot of people who use our products.
• 2:16
  So now it's about, please, could you use more of our products?
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  Could you use them in better and more interesting ways?
• 2:20
  You said earlier on the stage behind me that Americans aren't
• 2:23
  using WhatsApp. I remember I was in San
• 2:25
  Francisco a couple years ago, saw a lot of ads for WhatsApp.
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  How's that going? Is there still a goal to get
• 2:30
  more Americans using WhatsApp? Yeah.
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  So we announced that we've broken 100 million people in
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  America using WhatsApp. We've had another successful
• 2:37
  campaign this year, but we don't have a new updated number for me
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  to give. But but things are moving in the
• 2:41
  right direction and our goal is to get America to use WhatsApp,
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  not just I message. I mean, people use other apps
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  all around the world as well as WhatsApp.
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  So we're not claiming we're going to have everyone use just
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  WhatsApp. But like, yeah, we it's going
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  well in America. It's grown tremendously in the
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  last five years. There's a long way still to go.
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  What's 1 of the reasons that people would start is?
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  I imagine it's group chats because group chats just look
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  better on WhatsApp than iMessage.
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  Well, the number. One, especially when you have a
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  Android user in there, right? The number one reason that
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  people have adopted WhatsApp to date has been they have a friend
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  internationally who uses it. That's been the number one
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  reason. What we're seeing flip is
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  actually we we focus on our ads on two things.
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  It's the most private messaging service.
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  So we've won that. We have seen as the most private
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  team messaging service in the US and globally.
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  And also the, yeah, you're not going to have blue bubble, green
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  bubble. That's the core of our ads and
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  that's our weigh in. And that's our way of describing
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  hey, you should use this and not necessarily iMessage.
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  I want to talk about the glasses on your head.
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  So I I've been an early adopter. I would say I did the 2021
• 3:43
  version. Then I got a pair in 2023.
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  I just was in Lai was trying to get the display and I I learned
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  pretty quickly that you have to do a in person demo to get the
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  display glasses. Like why is that?
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  Why make it that cumbersome for someone?
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  Is it just because it's new? Yeah, I mean, it's really
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  advanced technology. We want people to actually be
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  able to use it well. And there is a learning curve.
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  It's like when the first PCs rolled out, right?
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  And so on and so forth. Like that's a point where you
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  have to have education so that the wristband is amazing.
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  It's a piece of magic. You got to use it a few times
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  before you get used to it and don't get frustrated with it.
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  And so like what we're doing right now is we're taking people
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  in, we're coaching them, we're getting them ramped up so they
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  know how to use it, and then they can go off in the world and
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  use them and enjoy them. So that's why we're doing it.
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  And how is the partnership going with Ray Ban and kind of
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  educating people on, on the glasses?
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  It's, it's been really interesting to watch, you know,
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  going to Sunglass Hut, seeing all the, the, the ads and stuff
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  and people interacting with it. How's that been?
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  I mean, it's been really successful.
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  I think both companies have said publicly how great the results
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  have been. I think that something that
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  really matters is that the glasses sign you want to wear,
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  they look good on your face and the classic wayfarer shape and
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  these are these are the Houston's.
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  You know, I love Oakleys. I think Oakleys look great on my
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  face and I'm a lover of the brand and so having Oakleys
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  means it really opened it up for me.
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  Since I got these I haven't had a single day no wearing them.
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  Whereas the rate once you become sunglasses right too.
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  These aren't transitions. I have sunglasses and none I I
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  that's what I prefer as transitions most people think
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  are a lot better. It's not my favorite, but like
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  the the Ray Bans I loved, but they were the wrong.
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  I didn't, they were the wrong shape for my face.
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  So I love the technology, but I didn't love the shape.
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  So again, the Houston's opened it up.
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  So yeah, having an amazing partner like Lux has been
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  tremendous and we wouldn't have the results we have without
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  them. They do look really good on you.
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  Thank you. I saw them online and I loved
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  them. Then when I tried them on I was
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  like no, it doesn't work on my face.
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  No, it matters what you put on your face.
• 5:41
  Some people care. Yeah, well, I thought it was an
• 5:43
  interesting move by Mehta because you had obviously Apple
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  Vision Pro, you had the, you know, the Xiaomi partnership on
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  the headset, which I bought back in 2016.
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  So, you know, but sunglasses are inherent, right?
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  People are already wearing sunglasses.
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  And I think the, the the moment that clicked for me was when I
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  had my Ray Bans and I had my Air pods.
• 6:01
  And then I was like, wait a minute, I don't really need my
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  Air pods right now because I get my headphones through the
• 6:05
  glasses. And so if you're reaching
• 6:06
  customers where they're at, which is through their
• 6:08
  sunglasses, that's probably a much more like way to scale
• 6:12
  wearables than a headset. It's a great way to scale
• 6:15
  wearables. It's a great way to get people
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  to go into wearables with something they really love.
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  So yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it is.
• 6:21
  You're exactly right. It's really effective.
• 6:23
  I can't add much to what you said.
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  Well, and then On a follow up note though, so.
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  Is. Our headsets still a priority
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  for meta. 100% and you'll see more about that in the future,
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  but we've got sort of campaigns going out with Quest over
• 6:37
  Christmas. Quest actually had a year that
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  we're proud of and like that has been brilliant for us.
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  And yeah, I'm feeling quite good about it.
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  And there's only so much I can say about because we're in the
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  middle of the Q4 season. So we don't know what will
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  happen in Q4. That's obviously the biggest
• 6:53
  season for it of the year. But but no, Quest has been great
• 6:57
  this year and we're feeling really proud of it.
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  So no, no problems there. Will we still see a day where
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  we're using them in our work from home set up?
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  Yeah, I mean, we're hoping in the long run we want it to be
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  more than just a gaming platform.
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  So one big thing is entertainment.
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  And then over time getting productivity.
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  Productivity takes very high screen resolution for you to be
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  able to look at the characters on the virtual screens.
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  And so I think it will ramp probably from gaming to
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  entertainment. So like watching sports, being
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  courtside or those kind of things, having your stats up.
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  For me, I always imagine watching soccer with my stats up
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  around me, like when I'm watching the football, getting
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  all of that stuff to happen and then next productivity.
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  So we still believe that's the future.
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  Let's talk about creator economy.
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  You have many, many millions of people who have become creators.
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  Instagram, Facebook, they all kind of have different
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  monetization policies. Even I did 8 million views on
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  Instagram in the past 30 days, didn't get paid for it because I
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  think maybe I'm at a different caliber or whatever.
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  It's, it's not a big deal because I've, you know,
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  diversified my revenue and stuff.
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  But what about early stage creators?
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  I mean, how do you get how do you get them to, to stay
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  consistent and to say loyal to a platform like Instagram when
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  the, the, the monetization is is not always certain?
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  Yeah, I mean, I think it's funny.
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  I started my career as a paper airplane website owner, right?
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  And I have YouTube videos with millions, 10 million views all
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  times. Now, this was years ago, right?
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  So this was 2000, like before 2010, but with me making paper
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  airplanes. And The thing is, I grew my
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  followership via my websites to the stage where I could then
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  show ads to them and monetize them and get to that next level.
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  And I think the first thing I'd say is what are the platforms
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  where you can be successful as a creator so that you can get an
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  audience, you can get a following and you can get to the
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  stage where you can actually start doing deals and start
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  getting monetization. And that is, I think the single
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  most important thing for creators to think about is
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  what's the right platform for me to get started if I believe I'll
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  get to scale on the way up. There are creator programs at
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  different times to try and encourage people to try out new
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  things to try and ramp up creators who have opportunity,
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  but fundamentally the ones who breakthrough like yourself.
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  Like you have a thing and you have been successful and you've
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  leveraged the platforms you have leveraged.
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  And the real way you're monetizing is whether it's brand
• 9:20
  deals or in some cases affiliates and so on and so
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  forth. And I'd use the platforms as
• 9:25
  just a boost to get yourself up there as you're sort of working
• 9:28
  through. The main thing is how do I get a
• 9:30
  lot of traffic? And then you'll be able to
• 9:31
  monetize it later. Facebook's been around since
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  2007. 2004. 2004 How do you think about Facebook 21 years
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  later? Yeah, I I recently wrote a book
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  and in it I said the the principles are timeless, but the
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  channels evolve. And like the way I think about
• 9:51
  Facebook is a lot of the principles are the same.
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  Like Facebook has always been about connecting to the people,
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  places and things you love, whether it's connecting to your
• 9:59
  like you, you used to be able to say which course you were
• 10:01
  taking. You used to be able to join
• 10:03
  university groups, but you also used to be able to friend
• 10:05
  people. And so like, when I think about
• 10:07
  Facebook today, it's that same thing.
• 10:08
  It's a mix of the people, places and things you love.
• 10:11
  I would say that the the friending stuff, the kind of
• 10:14
  family and friends, small group stuff has moved more to
• 10:17
  messaging. It's still there on Facebook.
• 10:19
  Like you get together for that event for Thanksgiving, you
• 10:22
  know, you've got those old friends on Facebook, you do the
• 10:24
  birthday messages. It's still a core part, but it
• 10:26
  has diminished relatively and the places and things part has
• 10:29
  grown. And so when I think about
• 10:31
  Facebook, it's that core of connecting to the people, places
• 10:34
  and things you love. But the, the, and that's the
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  core principle that's stayed constant the whole way through.
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  But the flex has been which proportion of which?
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  It seems like in the USA, lot of people have, depending on your
• 10:45
  age, you're either more active on Instagram or maybe more
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  active on Facebook. Then I go to other countries,
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  you know, Indonesia, Philippines, a lot of the Middle
• 10:52
  East and you see 18 year olds on Facebook.
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  How do you think about that and why do you think Facebook is
• 10:57
  popular still with, you know, a lot of the younger demographics
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  in certain countries? It's great to talk about someone
• 11:02
  who looks around the world because like so many of the
• 11:04
  trends come out of the rest of the world and move to the US, as
• 11:07
  well as tech trends coming from the US.
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  But you look at Happy Farm, that was FarmVille in China.
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  You look at Dao Yin, that was TikTok before TikTok was TikTok.
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  You look at Cacao talk and WeChat and Lion and even
• 11:17
  WhatsApp. the US doesn't even really have with I messenger as
• 11:21
  advanced to messenger as any of those.
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  And so as its main messenger. So lots of these trends come out
• 11:25
  of of AIPAC and success over there.
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  So honestly, I don't know how to answer this.
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  I genuinely don't know why different countries have gone in
• 11:33
  different directions in terms of adoption of these different
• 11:36
  social networks. We don't have a good answer for
• 11:39
  that. And I've looked at it and
• 11:40
  studied it and I can't come up with a really good answer.
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  So I I wish I could and I feel I'm given a bad answer.
• 11:46
  Always. Have you seen some of these
• 11:47
  reports that social media time is actually going down slightly
• 11:51
  the past couple years and does that concern you guys?
• 11:53
  I've seen it in the reports, I've not seen it in my data, and
• 11:56
  I have a lot of social media in my data.
• 11:58
  Interesting. So I'm I'm that one's confused
• 12:00
  me actually. Yeah, it surprised me too, to be
• 12:02
  honest. I want to talk though, about,
• 12:04
  you know, addiction and screen time and things like that.
• 12:07
  How does Meta think about safety standards and stuff,
• 12:11
  particularly for parents and kids?
• 12:13
  Yeah, I mean, I think there's two things to think about on
• 12:15
  this one. Like #1 I don't think, But I
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  mean, look, civil society can make whatever decision it wants
• 12:22
  to make. It can put bans in place like
• 12:24
  Australia. Like people can choose what they
• 12:26
  want to choose as long as it's, I think, fair and even.
• 12:29
  But I think it's a mistake to not have children ramp up with
• 12:32
  their parents in using social media.
• 12:35
  We don't allow people under the age of 13.
• 12:36
  We kick a lot of people off to keep that in place from 13 to
• 12:40
  16. I think you should be using
• 12:41
  social media with your parents. And what we've done as a
• 12:43
  response to that is like, we had a lot of parental tools.
• 12:46
  We got feedback. They were confusing and they
• 12:48
  weren't as they didn't cover as many things as people wanted
• 12:51
  them to cover. So we made them more consistent.
• 12:53
  We created teen accounts, we added more tools into that.
• 12:56
  And So what we've done is we've created a suite of tools that
• 12:59
  allow parents to manage the usage of their children on
• 13:02
  social media. And we think that's the right
• 13:04
  thing to do is to make it so that parents and children can
• 13:06
  work together to use social media and ramp up rather be than
• 13:10
  be in this place of you become 16, you get social media, you've
• 13:14
  had no conversations, no ramp up.
• 13:16
  So, so that's how we're approaching it.
• 13:17
  Tools to allow parents to use social media with their
• 13:20
  children, to manage how much time they spend, to put curfews
• 13:23
  in place, not send notifications overnight, You know, observe who
• 13:27
  they connect with, but have that responsible ramp UPS.
• 13:30
  There isn't just an age of majority when you've done no
• 13:33
  ramp up and you suddenly get it, which I think would be bad too.
• 13:36
  Let's talk about the app vibes. So it's a it's an app strictly
• 13:41
  for AI content. Why?
• 13:43
  Why create an app just for AI content and how is it doing?
• 13:46
  So my opinion is doing well. Like I think it has good
• 13:49
  retention, which is always my definition of an app doing well.
• 13:52
  So I'm, I'm feeling, I'm actually feeling really good
• 13:55
  about it. And I was skeptical by whether
• 13:57
  it would work. It's our second attempt at it.
• 13:59
  And like, it's not a guarantee. These were our second attempt,
• 14:02
  by the way. So Ray Ban stories didn't do
• 14:04
  great. Ray Ban metas did great.
• 14:06
  And it was a big step up in retention.
• 14:07
  So early data is really promising that there is a group
• 14:11
  of people who really want to do this.
• 14:13
  Why have a separate app? It's a playground to try new
• 14:15
  things. It's a small amount of our
• 14:16
  compute. It's a small amount of our
• 14:18
  inference. It's a small amount of our
• 14:19
  training. But we're trying stuff and
• 14:22
  seeing will people be entertained and engaged.
• 14:24
  And people are being entertained and engaged.
• 14:26
  Will creators be inspired to create really cool new things?
• 14:30
  Creators are being inspired to get their ideas into reality
• 14:33
  that wouldn't have been reality otherwise.
• 14:35
  And so it's a good test. It's exciting.
• 14:37
  It's doing well. Yeah.
• 14:40
  And I'm feeling really good about it.
• 14:41
  I. Want to hear more about the
• 14:42
  book? OK.
• 14:43
  Yes, I'm really proud of the book.
• 14:45
  I I've spent 25 years doing online marketing more really as
• 14:50
  a hobby and then as a career. And I feel there isn't a good
• 14:54
  digital marketing textbook that's like you want to ramp up
• 14:57
  on the basics and become solid at using online marketing.
• 15:00
  And so I wanted to create a book that was useful slotted into
• 15:03
  that space. I am not making any money from
• 15:06
  it. I'm giving all the money to
• 15:07
  charity for my royalties. So like, it is literally I want
• 15:10
  to give something back to the industry.
• 15:13
  How do you ensure that, because things are moving so quickly
• 15:15
  right now, how do you ensure that that book lasts more than 6
• 15:17
  to 12? Months.
• 15:18
  So the core of the book is principles are timeless even if
• 15:21
  channels change. So the example I'd use is direct
• 15:24
  mail. So, you know, 70 years ago, you
• 15:27
  were sending letters in envelopes, you know, and you had
• 15:30
  to make sure they were delivered to an address, and the database
• 15:32
  you used had to have information about that address as to whether
• 15:34
  you sent it or not. Glengarry Glen Ross, who's
• 15:37
  getting the good leads from that movie.
• 15:39
  Then you went to e-mail in the 90s.
• 15:42
  Then you went to SMS, and there you've got a phone number.
• 15:45
  You still spend money to send it, but it's much, much shorter
• 15:47
  and they need to click a link. Then you go to push
• 15:49
  notifications, it's a push token, still a key in a database
• 15:53
  with stuff associated it that people need to open and respond
• 15:56
  to. And now you're AAI chat bots
• 15:58
  over WhatsApp. It's the same thing, You have a
• 16:00
  phone number, people need to message it, and there's a back
• 16:02
  and forth. So I really think there's a
• 16:04
  principle here that's timeless that cuts across all these
• 16:07
  things. And that's what I try and do in
• 16:08
  the book is show those principles so that people will
• 16:12
  be able to get the most out of the new channels.
• 16:14
  Is Meta going to be able to detect AI content and always
• 16:18
  kind of be ahead of the curve on Instagram and Facebook?
• 16:22
  I mean, the answer is yes and no.
• 16:24
  It's a constant battle for people who use it nefariously.
• 16:27
  So there are a bunch of people who use it for good reasons, and
• 16:30
  they use the watermarks and we can see it and we can detect it.
• 16:33
  And then there's a bunch of people who fight us.
• 16:35
  And it is a tool that is being used to fight companies doing
• 16:39
  their best on community integrity and safety.
• 16:42
  And so yes and no. It's going to be a cat and mouse
• 16:45
  game, just like everything else has been down the years.
• 16:48
  Yeah. Final question, what excites you
• 16:49
  the most right now at Meta? Oh, what am I excited most about
• 16:52
  right now? I'm really excited about what's
• 16:55
  going to happen with our AI teams next year.
• 16:57
  Like things are bedded in. I think the new hires are doing
• 17:00
  really, really well. Every vibe I've got has had
• 17:03
  things are headed in the right direction.
• 17:04
  I don't know for a fact because you can't know until you
• 17:07
  publish, but I'm feeling very hopeful about next year and AI
• 17:12
  being more like 2023 was for us, where we had a really great
• 17:15
  year. So I'm I'm feeling hopeful.
• 17:16
  Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your
• 17:17
  time. Really appreciate it.
• 17:18
  Thanks for having me. Thanks for.
• 17:19
  Listening to this. Episode of What's Upton where I
• 17:21
  bring you? Inside the mines, driving tech
• 17:24
  money and. Power follow along on YouTube,
• 17:26
  Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 17:29
  You can also follow my personal account on Instagram.
• 17:32
  At Upton, would love to. Connect with you.