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.
Marketing’s Age of Opinion Is Dead: Why Data and Knowledge Are Taking Over
Marketing has been drowning in opinion-driven nonsense. The future demands real knowledge, data-driven strategies, and a ruthless rejection of lazy SEO grifts.
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TelevisaUnivision Drops Ad Sales Boss Weeks Before TV Upfronts, Swaps Tim Natividad for John Kozack
TelevisaUnivision just swapped out its ad sales chief weeks before the crucial TV upfronts, signaling panic and instability at the worst possible moment for advertisers.
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VaynerX’s Tamara Group: A Production-Led Agency or Just More Buzzword Bullshit?
VaynerX’s new Tamara Group bets on a ‘production-led’ agency model—a repackaged content factory dressed as innovation that prioritizes volume over creative strategy.
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Purga Films’ AI Experiment: 3,000 Images, No Dialogue, and a Creative Reckoning
Purga Films and Gut’s AI-generated shorts prove that real creativity with AI demands relentless editorial control, not lazy reliance on algorithms.
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Marketing’s Dirty Little Secret: Succession Planning Is a Graveyard No One Wants to Visit
Brands’ failure to plan marketing succession isn’t just bad HR—it’s a strategic disaster waiting to explode when key talent leaves. Ignoring this is corporate malpractice.
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Channel 4 and Lloyds Double Down on Black-Owned Businesses With £200K Advertising Jackpot—But Is TV Exposure Enough?
Channel 4 and Lloyds Bank’s Black in Business initiative boosts its ad prize to £200K, but TV exposure alone won’t fix the systemic gaps Black entrepreneurs face.
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Royal Ballet and Opera’s Rebrand: Why Restlessness Beats Legacy Complacency Every Time
The Royal Ballet and Opera’s rebrand isn’t just a facelift; it’s a brutal wake-up call for legacy brands clinging to complacency. They prove restlessness and measurement beat dusty heritage every time.
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Hershey’s $2B Marketing Blind Spot Meets Its Match — Or So They Hope — With AI Agents
Hershey is tackling a $2 billion marketing blind spot with AI agents from Mutinex and Tracer, aiming to overhaul slow, outdated media budget models. The move could shake up an industry stuck in the past.
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Hendrick’s Gin’s AI-Theater Mashup Is Marketing Bullshit Dressed as Innovation
Hendrick’s gin’s latest launch leans on AI and theater for buzz, but it’s marketing fluff disguised as innovation. The industry’s obsession with surface-level AI is producing flashy yet hollow spectacles.
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Walmart’s Streaming Ad Marketplace Is a Trojan Horse for Small Business Budgets
Walmart’s new Connect Select marketplace bundles connected TV ads into its DSP, targeting small businesses with promises of democratized access but delivering a walled garden with hidden costs.
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Goodway Group and Optable’s Data Clean-Up Is What AI Agents Actually Needed—Not Another Overhyped ‘Revolution’
Goodway Group and Optable are cutting through the AI hype by fixing the real problem in ad tech: garbage data. Their partnership proves AI agents only work when fed clean, compliant data.
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Omnicom’s Agentic AI Is the Latest Overhyped Brand Safety Band-Aid for Influencer Content
Omnicom’s new influencer AI tool claims to fix brand safety issues but risks sterilizing authentic creator content with overhyped, blunt AI moderation. It’s the latest lazy shortcut in influencer marketing.
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Hershey Throws AI Agents at Its $2 Billion Marketing Mess — Will It Actually Work?
Hershey is betting on AI agents to overhaul its $2 billion marketing blind spot, exposing the industry’s failure to modernize Media Mix Modeling beyond outdated guesswork.
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News UK Weaponizes The Times’ First-Party Data into Synthetic Audiences — Advertisers Beware
News UK turns The Times’ first-party data into synthetic audiences, selling advertisers guesswork disguised as precision targeting. Another media grift, wrapped in AI buzzwords.
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Meta’s Foray Into Connected TV Ads Is a Desperate Play to Monetize Your Living Room
Meta’s push into connected TV ads isn’t a breakthrough — it’s a desperate attempt to sustain ad revenue as its core platforms stall, repackaging old tactics on a new screen.
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How Agencies Weaponize Creators as Human Guinea Pigs to 'Innovate' Campaigns
Agencies like Horizon Media are burning out creators by turning them into disposable test subjects for on-the-fly ad experiments — and calling it innovation. It’s exploitation disguised as strategy.
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OpenAI’s Ad Pilot: Marketers Jump In Out of FOMO, Not Because It Works
Marketers are flocking to OpenAI’s ad pilot driven by FOMO rather than proven results. The platform’s value remains unproven weeks in, exposing the hype-driven grift in AI marketing.
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News UK Weaponizes The Times’ First-Party Data into Synthetic Audiences — Advertisers Beware
News UK turns The Times’ first-party data into synthetic audiences, selling advertisers guesswork disguised as precision targeting. Another media grift, wrapped in AI buzzwords.
Read →