What we are thinking about.
Notes from running 8 publications and building tools for them. Restaurant SEO, local marketing, the boring parts that move the needle.
Ally Demands More Than Logo Placement: Wants a Seat at the Table in Women’s Sports Media Deals
Ally Financial is disrupting women’s sports sponsorships by pushing for influence over media deals, not just logo placements. This signals a new era of brand power plays.
Read →
Stop Chasing AI Agents: The Real Winners Nail Process Before Tech
Most brands chasing AI agents are missing the point. The winners started with process, not tech — and it shows in their results.
Read →
Amazon’s Video Podcast Gambit: The Next TV Network or Another Measurement Mirage?
Amazon is betting big on creator video podcasts as the future of TV networks, but without fixing podcast measurement, it’s just another data black hole for advertisers.
Read →
Programmatic Marketing Summit Exposes the AI Agent Buying Circus — And Why It’s Still a Mess
At Digiday’s Programmatic Marketing Summit, marketers revealed the harsh truths behind AI-driven ad buying: it’s messy, opaque, and far from autonomous. Human oversight still rules.
Read →
CeraVe Courts Gen Z by Naming Carmelo Anthony ‘Head Coach’ of Dandruff Campaign — Because Why the Hell Not?
CeraVe’s latest dandruff campaign taps NBA star Carmelo Anthony as its “head coach” to grab Gen Z’s attention — a bold, if desperate, move in a stale category.
Read →
Rightmove’s CMO Bets on AI to Deliver ‘Relevance at Scale’—But Is It More Hype Than Help?
Rightmove’s CMO Matt Bushby touts AI as key to delivering “relevance at scale” in marketing—but the real lesson is that AI works only with solid data and strategy behind it.
Read →
Marketing Training: The Double-Edged Sword Killing Creativity While Pretending to Help
Marketing training promises rigor but often delivers formulaic blandness, killing creativity and producing interchangeable campaigns that bore audiences and marketers alike.
Read →
Cannes Lions 2026 Cracks Down: Stricter Entry Rules, AI Awards, and WPP’s Beach Space Coup
Cannes Lions 2026 slams the brakes on lazy entries with tougher rules, debuts a serious AI award, and sees PMG wrest control of WPP’s iconic beach space.
Read →
Ads of the Week: Dove and Apple Mac Show How to Actually Cut Through the Noise in 2026
Dove, Apple Mac, TJ Maxx, and CeraVe break through 2026’s ad clutter with campaigns that ditch clichés and serve authenticity on a silver platter.
Read →
Why SEO Agencies Like Yoast and Rank Math Still Sell Magic Tricks They Can’t Deliver
Despite billions spent annually by US companies on SEO agencies, most deliver negligible ROI. The '10x agency' scam thrives on lazy reports, not real results.
Read →
llms.txt in Perplexity Search: The Hype vs. Reality Smackdown
Perplexity AI launched llms.txt in 2024 claiming radical transparency, but it’s mostly a smoke-and-mirrors stunt with zero impact on real LLM performance.
Read →
Applebot-Extended Visibility? The Invisible Bot Marketing Bullshit We Deserve
Apple launched Applebot-Extended in 2023, boasting improved web indexing — yet it remains a ghost in SEO strategies everywhere.
Read →
IndexNow’s Real Impact on Search Is a Peak Nothingburger, Here’s Why
Launched in 2021, IndexNow promised instant URL indexing but Bing’s own data shows it fails to move the needle on crawl budgets or rankings.
Read →
Burberry’s ‘Marketing Miracle’ Is Just Another Luxury Brand Smoke Screen
Burberry’s claim that marketing is the ‘signature factor’ behind its brand turnaround is a classic luxury industry smokescreen. Real transformation needs more than slick campaigns.
Read →
The Marketing Academy’s 2026 Scholars Program: More Buzz or Real Skill-Building for Future Leaders?
The Marketing Academy’s 2026 Scholars program promises to mold future marketing leaders, but is it a genuine skill-builder or just another industry vanity project?
Read →
NBCUniversal’s Ads Head Clings to Late Night TV as Brands Keep Throwing Cash at Dying Formats
NBCUniversal’s ad chief insists brands are still eager to buy late night TV spots, but this stubborn commitment to dying formats ignores the brutal reality of fragmented viewership.
Read →
Health Brands Still Failing the Modern Consumer: Why Influencers and AI Aren’t the Magic Fix
Health brands in 2026 are stuck recycling influencer hype and AI buzz without real substance, fueling consumer skepticism instead of trust.
Read →
Evening News Ratings Tumble Again: Broadcast Networks Bleed Viewers in May
Broadcast evening news ratings keep sliding, with ABC and NBC locked in a losing battle for a shrinking audience amid industry-wide decline.
Read →