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.
Omnicom’s Sneaky Shuffle: Flywheel Moves Into Media Group to Mask Outcome-Driven Weakness
Omnicom’s stealthy move to fold Flywheel into its media group highlights the agency world’s ongoing struggle to genuinely integrate outcomes with media spend. It’s a defensive pivot disguised as innovation.
Read →
Marketing’s Gender Pay Gap Just Hit a Five-Year Peak—Wake Up or Keep Pretending
The marketing industry’s gender pay gap has reached a five-year high, exposing the hypocrisy behind its diversity claims. Real change is overdue.
Read →
BBC Studios’ Shelley Macintyre Calls Out Corporate Complacency: ‘Take Risks and Be Humble’ Is the Real Leadership Mantra
Shelley Macintyre of BBC Studios calls out the lazy status quo: lifelong learning, risk-taking, and humility are the real leadership essentials in a sea of marketing grift.
Read →
Penguin Random House’s $1M Media Gamble Exposes the Hollow Promise of ‘Content Marketing’
Penguin Random House spent $1 million turning a newsletter and podcast from content marketing into a standalone brand, highlighting what lazy publishers get wrong about content strategy.
Read →
The Trade Desk’s Chief Strategy Officer Samantha Jacobson Jumps Ship to OpenAI—Here’s Why It Matters
Samantha Jacobson’s move from The Trade Desk to OpenAI is a wake-up call: the future of adtech is AI, and legacy platforms are running out of time to catch up.
Read →
Vanity Metrics Are the Silent Killer of Social Media Strategy—Here’s Why You Should Stop Chasing Likes
Chasing likes and follower counts without linking social media metrics to real business results is a recipe for failure. Richelle Batuigas exposes why vanity metrics are killing your social strategy.
Read →
From Cadillac Ads to CEO Moves: Melissa Grady Dias Breaks the Mold in Preventive Healthcare Tech
Melissa Grady Dias, formerly Cadillac’s marketing lead, is now CEO of a tech-powered preventive healthcare startup, aiming to disrupt the industry’s stale growth playbook.
Read →
The Trade Desk’s Growth Stalls to Pandemic-Era Lows Amid Publicis Acquisition Chatter
The Trade Desk’s revenue growth has slowed to its weakest rate since the pandemic, signaling trouble in programmatic’s growth story. Meanwhile, acquisition talks with Publicis are heating up.
Read →
Publishers Pin AI Licensing as Programmatic Ad Revenues Crater — But Don’t Hold Your Breath
Publishers are cautiously celebrating AI licensing revenue as programmatic ads plummet, but this so-called lifeline is more stopgap than salvation.
Read →
Possible’s Lisbon Expansion: A Marketing Agency's Bold Bet on Tech and Culture in 2027
Possible plans to expand to Lisbon by 2027, doubling down on its unique blend of marketing, tech, culture, and creativity — but can it escape the usual agency grift?
Read →
Why Mega Creators’ Personal Brands Are Failing As Media Empires
Mega creators like MrBeast and Alex Cooper are crashing into the harsh reality that their personalities alone don’t build scalable media companies. The creator economy grift is real.
Read →
Marketers Are Throwing AI Tools at Teams Who Don’t Know How to Use Them — And It’s a Disaster
Marketers are rushing to adopt AI tools but are failing to train staff, turning AI investments into costly failures. The hype around AI adoption masks a critical skills gap.
Read →
OpenAI’s ChatGPT Ads Rollout: A Clumsy Expansion into the U.K., Brazil, and Beyond
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is testing ads in new markets, but this expansion is less innovation and more a desperate ad play masquerading as thoughtful growth.
Read →
Sainsbury’s Mark Given Takes Helm at ISBA, Promising to Shake Up UK Marketing Standards
Mark Given, Sainsbury’s marketing and tech chief, takes over as ISBA president promising to disrupt complacency and raise industry standards.
Read →
Marketing’s Gender Pay Gap Is Backsliding — And No One’s Calling It Out Loud Enough
The marketing industry’s gender pay gap has surged to its highest point since 2021, exposing a stubborn regression in equity behind the glossy diversity rhetoric.
Read →
Why BBC Studios’ Shelley Macintyre’s ‘Risk and Humility’ Mantra Is What Marketing’s Been Missing
BBC Studios’ Shelley Macintyre cuts through marketing noise with a brutal truth: lifelong learning, risk-taking, and humility are the real keys to success.
Read →
Nomad Foods Dumps Complacency, Hires Justin Billingsley to Salvage Birds Eye Marketing
Nomad Foods taps Justin Billingsley, ex-Publicis CMO, to shake up Birds Eye’s tired marketing game. Legacy brands beware: incremental tweaks won’t cut it anymore.
Read →
McDonald’s CEO Throws Shade at Marketing Slackers: ‘Buzz’ Isn’t Business, Value Is
McDonald’s CEO calls out the marketing industry’s obsession with buzz, insisting that real business growth demands value-driven campaigns—not just noise.
Read →