Croatian composer Nenad Bach, who lost the ability to play guitar due to Parkinson's, regained his motor skills after regularly playing ping-pong at Spin, a table tennis club. His recovery inspired Game of Hope, a film directed by Spin co-owner Juan Carlos Ortiz, which Bach also scored. Ortiz, with experience at DDB and Leo Burnett, embedded this story into Spin's brand, shifting from traditional advertising to storytelling that highlights real-life impact. Spin now offers free tables and supports the PingPongParkinson foundation, promoting ping-pong as therapy for Parkinson's, with 70-85% of players reporting improvement.
Common mistakes include not optimizing the bidding strategy for the right goal, editing campaigns too frequently, and relying too much on Google's recommendations.
A breakdown of how inFeedo's paid ad was creatively reframed without reinventing the wheel.
LinkedIn's best practices for running a virtual event.
After two years, Amazon has discontinued Inspire, a feed designed to make shopping more interactive through short-form videos and images. Despite the rise of social commerce, Inspire failed to gain traction, in part due to weak creator incentives and stiff competition from TikTok. Amazon is shifting toward AI-powered shopping recommendations and external social media integrations to promote product discovery.
NikeSkims is a strategic move to strengthen Nike's women's business and drive innovation in performance wear. The collaboration positions Nike to compete more directly with brands like Lululemon while giving Skims a foothold in sportswear. Experts see it as mutually beneficial, combining Nike's technical expertise with Skims's influence in fashion. If NikeSkims successfully balances function and style, it could reshape the global women's activewear market.
Notion and Figma drive SEO growth through UGC-powered asset libraries that rank on niche, high-intent keywords. Notion's template marketplace enables users to create and monetize templates, turning onboarding challenges into an organic growth engine. Figma's community ecosystem fosters engagement by showcasing user-generated design elements with social proof, reinforcing discoverability and credibility while continuously expanding indexed content.
Creative content has a stronger positive impact on customer and expert ratings than creative packaging or aesthetics. For Oscar-nominated movies, each point increase in creative content increased the chances of winning Best Picture by 9x, while board games had a 3.5x higher chance of winning awards for each content point. Regular people rated creative content in games 32.4% higher but gave only a 15% boost for creative packaging. Experts respond positively to creative packaging, but regular people may find it unappealing or negative. Companies should focus creativity on core product features or messaging while keeping packaging and visual aesthetics more conventional to avoid alienating customers.
ICP research focuses on identifying where potential customers spend time, understanding their biggest work frustrations, and positioning a solution that fits their needs. Instead of overanalyzing every detail, the approach should focus on 3 key questions. First, where do customers engage professionally, such as in Slack communities or at conferences? Second, what daily challenges frustrate them? Finally, how does your solution fit seamlessly into their workflow? This approach refines ICPs in a way that directly impacts revenue without getting lost in the weeds.
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Brands are featuring iconic TV characters, logos and moments in their ads, and they're boosting ad ROI by up to 10x. Check out examples [9].
Discord's 150 million active users engage in real-time, making it a high-value platform for brands focused on community-led growth, particularly in gaming, tech, and lifestyle. Strategies include gated access for exclusivity, tiered roles for engagement incentives, and structured onboarding to convert new members into active participants. Bots can help with moderation at scale, while dedicated content channels and event-driven interactions promote long-term engagement.
This piece discusses the correct methods for blocking content violating Google's site reputation abuse policy. It shares that using robots.txt or canonicalizing the content are ineffective, as they allow content to remain indexed and rank. The recommended approaches are noindexing the content or completely removing it with 404s or 410s. Noindexing ensures Google recrawls the page and removes it from the index, while deleting the content ensures it can't rank.
Duolingo staged the “death” of its mascot in a Cybertruck accident. The marketing stunt proved effective, driving a 38% spike in Android downloads and a 58% jump in web searches overnight. The campaign, structured as an interactive challenge where users “resurrect” Duo by maintaining learning streaks, gamified engagement while fueling retention. The high-impact, low-cost viral marketing approach capitalizes on pop culture, controversy, and gamification to increase brand visibility and bring new customers.
The backlash against DEI programs has led many companies to scale back or abandon them. While DEI has roots in the civil rights movement, many programs have focused on ineffective, surface-level strategies like bias training rather than addressing systemic issues. To improve DEI, companies should prioritize standardized hiring processes, pay equity, and inclusive recruitment. The majority of Americans still support DEI, but to gain broader backing, programs must benefit everyone.
Traditional metrics like Impressions and Click-Through Rates fail to provide meaningful insights into how consumers experience ad frequency, while Brand Lift and Time Spent Viewing provide more useful data.
These trends include “What's in My Bag”, flower marketing, airport trays, and messy sink aesthetics.
Predictions include the rise of text, private sharing metrics, broadcast channels, and IRL events.
Collectibles, especially those based on manga, anime, and video games, are driving toy industry growth, appealing to both kids and adults. Classics like Star Wars figures remain popular. Brands like LEGO, Warhammer, and Magic: The Gathering continue to thrive. Anime's rise in the West, fueled by platforms like Crunchyroll, has boosted demand. Brands like Bandai Namco and PopMart have made collectibles widely accessible. With adults sustaining demand, collectibles are set to remain a major industry trend.
Recent surveys suggest Gen Z struggles with DIY tasks and leans towards radical political views like favoring strong leadership or revolution. This reflects disillusionment with a broken social contract, where job prospects, healthcare, and community support seem out of reach. Despite these challenges, Gen Z is motivated by a desire for change and authenticity, driven by frustration over unfulfilled promises and a need for improvement in society and personal connections.
Focus on mastering the fundamentals of Google Ads to see success, including optimizing offers, landing pages, campaign structure, and conversion tracking. Avoid “Shiny Object Syndrome” by staying disciplined and not chasing unnecessary trends. Success often comes from actions outside of Google Ads, like improving offers and sales funnels. Automation is not the enemy - learn to leverage it for better results. Specializing in one niche, like e-commerce, can accelerate mastery.
Start with a benefit-led hook that immediately communicates impact. Showcase 3 key results upfront, pull out a standout customer quote, and include a TL;DR sidebar for quick takeaways. Structure the story using the Storybrand framework, positioning the customer as the hero. Highlight layered challenges to add depth, and use colorful quotes to humanize the story.
When you apply a query filter to Google Search Console data, Google immediately hides a large percentage of clicks for 'privacy,' which are not included in totals. Use filtered data to get an idea for a trend (ie. "branded clicks are going up/down"), but not for precise data.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed that paywalled subreddits will launch this year. Following its 2024 IPO, Reddit raised API fees and made licensing deals with Google and OpenAI to allow web crawler access. Reddit is also planning a long-term marketplace feature for buying products through the platform.
Apple is reportedly evaluating paid search ads in Apple Maps, giving brands a new way to appear at the top of local search results. With over 100M US users, Apple could challenge Google's dominance in local search advertising while maintaining its privacy-focused approach. This move would enable businesses to bid on keywords like “coffee near me” and potentially offer exclusive deals.
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods failed to differentiate their brands, assuming plant-based protein was a strong enough selling point without clear messaging. Their pricing strategy remained misaligned with consumer expectations, and they overlooked how deeply ingrained food language influences purchasing decisions. The perception of "processed" food worked against them, as they failed to position their products as both convenient and reassuring. Without addressing freshness, ease of mind, and comfort in their branding, they missed key opportunities to build trust.
AI is making media more data-driven, with 79% of ad spend expected to be algorithmic by 2027. While it improves efficiency and identifies patterns, it also risks making marketing look the same. Just as AI-generated stories often blend together, AI-driven campaigns can become indistinguishable without human creativity. Marketers need to act as algorithm architects, combining AI capabilities to support brand, relationship, and business goals instead of relying solely on automated platforms.
Tips include avoiding generic names, apparent misspellings, and assessing branded queries.
Usage-based AI paywalls are set to become mainstream this year.
It's time to separate paid social performance marketing (BOFU) from brand awareness social marketing (TOFU).
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Over 5 million tech pros start their day scanning TLDR for the latest news—so when an ad appears, it gets noticed.
Relying too much on category insights can reduce advertising impact, as shown by Burger King's and Papa John's generic ‘cravings' ads instead of brand-specific messaging. Industry-wide trends like “delicious food” or “coffee craftsmanship” apply universally, making ads interchangeable and brands forgettable. Brands can break through and build memorable campaigns by identifying unique insights from historical archives, product design, or company heritage, such as Heineken's unconventional focus on “Forgotten Beers”.
Humor is making a comeback in DTC advertising. 25% of high-spend ads use comedic elements despite humor appearing in only 14% of total social ads. 86% of advertisers are increasing AI use for research and 79% for creative production. Lo-fi content remains dominant, accounting for 42% of top-spending ads. Brands are also embracing nostalgia and longer-form educational content, while creative teams are evolving to produce high-volume, platform-native ads at speed. This report requires an email for download.
To sell to skeptical audiences, use their language to grab their attention. For example, a video by SawStop focuses solely on experienced woodworkers, which avoids mixed messages by targeting a single market. It also counters objections directly by using expert testimonials and statistics. The video replaces emotional language with facts to build credibility. It presents both safety and product quality reasons to buy and brings viewers to a decision point by contrasting two clear outcomes.
Start by anchoring leadership on a range based on the 40% rule, where the budget is 40% of the company's growth target. Split the budget into 50-60% for headcount and 40-50% for working dollars, then align it with key KPIs like pipeline growth. Use a demand model to back into demo goals and allocate a budget for ads. Regularly engage with your CFO, balance trade-offs, and don't underspend, seeking additional funds from other departments if necessary. Treat the budget as a guideline and adjust if goals are met. A link to the demand model template is included in the post's comments.
Insense finds and collaborates with creators for UGC, organic posting, and whitelisted ads on Instagram and TikTok Spark Ads. It offers a creator marketplace, relationship management tools, campaign performance reporting, and more.
To streamline handling website form submissions, an AI-powered automation was set up using Zapier. When a form is submitted, Pardot sends the contents to a designated address, triggering Zapier. GPT-4o analyzes and categorizes the submission. If human follow-up is needed, the automation sends a notification with the categorization in the subject line; otherwise, no action is taken. This system saves time and only costs a few cents per day.
Top marketers focus on generating ideas, not copying tactics, because tactics lose effectiveness quickly as they get replicated. The career ladder in marketing progresses from executing and innovating tactics ($80K–$170K) to spotting and creating ideas ($250K+). Asking "why" instead of "how" drives breakthrough ideas, which lead to lasting, effective strategies. Successful marketers from companies like MongoDB and Duolingo start with "why" to create timeless ideas that spawn multiple tactics.
Brand marketers face a false choice between revolution and evolution, but the future lies in the "mini-lution" model. This approach focuses on creating high-impact, attention-grabbing brand moments across fragmented channels, from social media ads to landing pages. Unlike expensive brand overhauls or slow and incremental updates, mini-lutions seize real-time opportunities while following a core strategy. The model acknowledges today's noisy media environment, where attention is scarce and brand consistency comes from storytelling, not uniform visuals.
Grow your LinkedIn audience by reposting content after 6 hours, posting consistently on one topic, and keeping it unscripted.
An example of Google Maps using the HEART framework.
GIPHY search data reveals modern Valentine's Day trends: Cuffing season actually peaks between August and October, with searches for the term spiking 101% in August and peaking in October. February sees loneliness surge, with searches for “single” rising 12% and “forever alone” up 35% compared to January. Meanwhile, “situationship” searches increase 43%, and “sneaky link” jumps 132%, showing February's focus on non-traditional relationships.
More brands are removing or disguising their logos in outdoor ads, relying on iconic visuals and slogans to maintain recognition. Heinz, Kellogg's, and Tesco have embraced this minimalist approach, with Heinz omitting its logo entirely and Kellogg's focusing on its rooster mascot. Experts argue this strategy works best for well-established brands but risks becoming formulaic. While stripped-back messaging can capture attention in a cluttered media landscape, some believe the trend needs fresh innovation to remain effective rather than blending into the background.
Switching sales involves helping customers move from their current solution to yours, which often triggers fears of downtime and regret. To win these sales, position your product as a complement to existing solutions, like KISSmetrics did with Google Analytics, easing the pressure of abandonment. Offer a gradual, low-risk transition through steps like free trials, parallel use, or phased rollouts to reduce resistance. Provide full migration support, either in-house or through partners, to remove logistical barriers. These strategies build trust and make the switch feel safer and easier for prospects.
Shopify powers approximately 10% of US e-commerce and organizes its 600-person Growth Team into Growth R&D and Growth Marketing. Growth R&D includes teams for landing page optimization, internal tooling for experimentation, and customer support focused on merchant success. Growth Marketing covers paid ads, SEO, email, and affiliate marketing, each with LTV/CAC goals. Their approach prioritizes long-term metrics like total cohort value over conversion rates and uses 6 to 12 month holdout experiments to measure lasting impact.
This marketing system identifies a precise target audience, maps effective channels, and prioritizes efforts through data. It starts by defining a "market of one," selecting channels, and working backward from revenue goals. Owners manage channels, track performance, and adjust quarterly. The process repeats to focus resources on what drives growth. A screenshot of a marketing tactic tracker is included in the post.
Fibbler helps brands connect LinkedIn Ads data with their CRM to track how ad impressions influence pipeline and revenue. Users can see which companies interact with their ads, export data, view engagement timelines, and sync insights with HubSpot, Salesforce, or Copper. The platform also allows campaign scheduling to optimize ad spend and supports webhooks for sending data to outbound tools.
YouTube creators can now use Veo 2 to generate high-definition (up to 4K) AI video backgrounds and entirely new AI-originated short clips with text prompts. This upgrade enhances storytelling possibilities but also raises concerns about AI-generated junk content and deepfakes. YouTube will label AI-created clips using SynthID watermarks.
Cadbury's 2007 "Gorilla" ad, initially rejected by leadership, increased sales by 10% and became the UK's favorite ad of the past 60 years. Neuro-Insight, a neuromarketing company, found that it ranked in the top 1% for long-term memory encoding due to its compelling storytelling and timing of the branding moment. A “branding moment” occurs when the audience's brain deciphers the story and the brand logo is shown, enhancing memory retention. Effective ads prioritize story over overt selling and use emotional narratives to engage the viewer. This principle applies to B2C, B2B, creators, and potentially written and audio content.
Tabs Chocolate is a Gen Z-focused brand known for its viral "Sex Chocolates," which are marketed to enhance intimacy. It has grown primarily through TikTok, leveraging user-generated content and bold marketing. Tabs uses cross-sell strategies like urgency timers and discounts to boost sales post-checkout. Future marketing ideas include sex-positive podcasts, educational YouTube videos, and anonymous “Dear Abby”-style blogs.