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.
Neutonic’s $6M Raise Exposes the Creator Economy’s Energy Drink Bubble
Neutonic’s recent $6 million raise highlights how creator-founded energy drink brands are riding hype, not innovation, in a saturated market dominated by industry giants.
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Supergoop’s Mass Appeal Gambit: Target and PGA Deals Signal Sunscreen Brand’s Pivot from Premium Niche to Mainstream
Supergoop’s new partnerships with Target and the PGA signal a deliberate pivot from niche skincare darling to mass-market contender, raising hard questions about brand identity and growth strategy.
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Tom Fishburne Nails the Real Culprit Behind Strategic Misalignment in Marketing
Tom Fishburne exposes the marketing industry's favorite lie: that strategic misalignment is just bad communication, not a symptom of lazy leadership and conflicting KPIs.
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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Hershey is tackling a $2 billion marketing blind spot with AI agents from Mutinex and Tracer, aiming to overhaul slow, outdated media budget models.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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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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Supergoop’s Mass Appeal Gambit: Target and PGA Deals Signal Sunscreen Brand’s Pivot from Premium Niche to Mainstream
Supergoop’s new partnerships with Target and the PGA signal a deliberate pivot from niche skincare darling to mass-market contender, raising hard questions about brand identity and growth strategy.
Read →
Dhar Mann’s Speed Dating Scheme: A Lazy Shortcut to Creator-Brand Collabs That Won’t Scale
Dhar Mann’s new speed dating events for brands and creators are a flashy, lazy workaround that risks making influencer matchmaking even more superficial and inefficient.
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IndexNow Hype vs. Reality: Why Your 'Instant' Indexing Is Just a Marketing Fairy Tale
IndexNow promises lightning-fast indexing, but the truth is your URLs won’t magically rocket to the top of search results. Here’s why the whole “instant” indexing pitch is garbage.
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Why llms.txt Is a Perplexing SEO Dead End: The Truth About Its Zero Impact on Crawl Efficiency
llms.txt promises to streamline AI crawling — but it’s a baffling distraction and a dead-end for SEO. Here’s why it does nothing for crawl efficiency and everything for confusion.
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Senior Marketing Roles Surge 143%—But Don’t Pop the Champagne Yet
Senior marketing jobs paying over £80,000 have surged 143% year-over-year, but the overall hiring scene is fragmented and brutal. This isn’t a hiring boom; it’s a selective squeeze.
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Coca-Cola’s CEO Banks on ‘4Is’—But Is This Just Another Corporate Buzzword Circus?
Coca-Cola’s CEO touts the ‘4Is’—Insights, Innovation, Intimacy, Integration—as the company’s new north star. But this feels like another round of corporate buzzwords masking the hard work ahead.
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Mastercard’s AI Bet: Building for a Future Where Machines Make the Calls, Not Humans
Mastercard is engineering a future where AI doesn't just assist but fully drives decision-making, signaling the end for outdated human-led financial models and traditional advertising.
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The Funnel Is Dead: Why Marketers’ Most Trusted Myth Just Flatlined
The marketing funnel is dead, and brands like Sephora and Liquid Death are proving why clinging to it is a losing game in today’s chaotic consumer landscape.
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FCC Targets Disney’s ABC Stations with Early License Renewals After Kimmel Joke Controversy
The FCC has ordered eight of Disney’s ABC TV stations to file early license renewals following scrutiny over a controversial joke on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, signaling a rare regulatory crackdown.
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Omnicom’s $3.2B Agency Fire Sale Reveals the Cracks in Big Holding Company Glamour
Omnicom’s plan to offload $3.2 billion in agency revenue is less a strategic focus and more a confession: the big holding company model is broken and bloated beyond repair.
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Trade Desk’s Jeff Green Tries Damage Control After Publicis, WPP, and Dentsu Walk Out
After months of acrimony with major agency groups, Trade Desk’s Jeff Green extends a cautious olive branch—but this isn’t reconciliation, it’s damage control. Agencies beware.
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CMOs Are Still Playing Second Fiddle to CEOs Despite Talking Big Game on Strategy
Despite claims of strategic contribution, only 8% of CMOs are seen by CEOs as actual strategy leaders, exposing marketing’s ongoing struggle for executive influence.
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Walmart’s Scintilla Data Push: A Half-Baked Self-Serve Illusion for Agencies and Advertisers
Walmart’s Scintilla data platform teases self-serve access for advertisers and agencies but falls short of true transparency, locking users into controlled, half-baked data releases.
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