Martin Woska
Founder of Selfstorming.com, Chief Creative & Strategy Officer at TRIAD with 200+ creative & effectivity awards, partner at DevinBand, book author, AI and tech enthusiast.
Articles by Martin Woska
Byron Sharp and Mark Ritson Agreed on Five Things at Cannes. I Was in the Room.
Two marketing legends who disagree about everything sat down at Cannes Lions 2026 to agree. I was in the room. Here is what Byron Sharp and Mark Ritson nodded along to, from mental availability to the great distinctive brand assets naming truce.
The Week AI Got Brand Controls, and What It Means for Your Asset Pipeline
A sober look at this week's AI updates from Claude, Midjourney, Adobe, and Meta, analyzed through a strategic marketing lens for brand directors and planners.
Synthetic Actors and Search Agents: The Brand Strategy for an Automated Web
A sober look at this week's AI news - including ElevenLabs, Perplexity, and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 - and what it actually means for your brand strategy and media budget.
The 2026 LIONS Titanium Shortlist Is Out - and I Already Have 3 Favourites
The Cannes Lions 2026 Titanium shortlist just dropped. I broke down all of it and picked three favourites - Škoda DuoBell, Heineken Tocayos Inc. and Sea Cleaners' Reverse Media Schedules. Here's why they matter, and why I'll be in Cannes when the Lions land.
AI News: Faster Pixels, Faster Emails and Dreaming
A weekly, sober look at the latest AI updates - from ChatGPT's email plumbing to Runway's video editing - and what they actually mean for brand strategy and consumer attention.
The Million Dollar Puzzle: When Your Super Bowl Ad Is Also Your Stress Test
Salesforce and MrBeast turned a 30-second Super Bowl spot into a 276,000-player scavenger hunt that ran live on Salesforce's own infrastructure. The ad did not describe the product. It was the product, under load, in public.
Messaging & Communication Frameworks: Turning Strategy Into Something Worth Saying
Strategy that nobody can repeat is just an expensive secret. These four messaging frameworks - Venn Diagram, Idea Cascade, Pyramid of Truth, and Message Map - take a clever strategy and turn it into one line a stranger could say back to you.
The Audience & Insight Frameworks: How to Actually Understand the Human You're For
Most audience work describes people instead of understanding them. These six frameworks - Jobs To Be Done, Bullseye Customer, Empathy Map, Customer Persona, Customer Journey Map, and the Insight & Tension Statement - get you to the human truth that unlocks the idea.
Business Strategy Frameworks: 14 Tools for the Bigger Calls
Fourteen business strategy frameworks, grouped by the job they do - positioning, analysis, customer value, the creative brief, diagnosis, and goals - with an honest note on when each one earns its keep.
Funnel & Behavioral Frameworks: Moving People From Strangers to Regulars
AIDA, AARRR, Fogg, the Hook Model, CEP, the Messy Middle. The frameworks that move people from never-heard-of-you to acting, then doing it again - and an honest read on when each one actually fits.
Brand Strategy Frameworks: Build a Spine, Not a Mood Board
Brand strategy frameworks for deciding what a brand actually is - identity, meaning, positioning. When each onion, pyramid and prism earns its place.
NEW FEATURE: Naming now checks available domains and name use
Naming usually dies in a spreadsheet of grey type and unavailable domains. We rebuilt it so you can see the name, toggle the art direction, and check the .com without leaving the page.
D&AD 2026: The Year the Pencils Fought the Algorithm
The whole year, the industry braced for AI to make creative directors obsolete. Then D&AD handed out its 2026 Pencils for Film - and the winners were puppets, practical car crashes, and a 17-minute documentary. Here is what the most feared award in advertising rewarded this year, and five films worth your next coffee break.
Google Search Becomes a Transaction
From Google's Universal Cart to Meta's aggressive AI pivot, we analyze why the marketing funnel is collapsing into a single, agent-driven moment of truth.
The End of the Media Buyer and the Rise of the AI Agent-in-Chief
This week in AI: TikTok lets agents pull the levers, Runway hits Cannes with Paul Rudd, and Anthropic steals OpenAI’s lunch money in the enterprise race.
Your ROI is the wrong number, says Peter Field
Marketing has been optimising the smaller number for a decade. New IPA Effectiveness data: ROI is 11% of what makes campaigns work. Budget is 89%. The size problem we don't admit.
The Death of the Tab Switch and the Rise of the Chat-Ad
A deep dive into why Anthropic's Adobe integration and Snap's conversational ads are shifting the creative production and media landscape for brand strategists.
Mom ads have one default setting. The smartest break it.
P&G has spent more money making people cry about mothers than most countries spend on opera. Six iconic mom ads that work with the cliche, against it, and around it.
The Death of the Performance Plateau: Tom Roach on 'Bothism'
Tom Roach is the marketing world’s favorite bridge-builder. We dive into his latest frameworks for ending the brand vs. performance civil war.
How to Find a Great Insight (Alone, Right Now And Without a Research Agency)
Ten techniques for digging up a real human truth, an AI that runs them on your brief in a minute, and a one-click Google-grounded research feature that either confirms the insight or politely tells you it is fiction. Exportable to a PPTX before the client meeting.
A History of Insight in Quotes, From the People Who Invented It
From Bernbach to Pollard - eleven quotes that trace how advertising learned to tell insights apart from findings, and why the best ads still stand on one sharp human truth.
10 Ways How to Turn Vanilla Observations into Real Insights
If I have to read one more strategy deck that claims 'moms want the best for their children' or 'Gen Z values authenticity,' I am going to throw my MacBook into a canal.
When Oscar Winners Direct Ads: 18 Campaigns Crafted by Academy Award Talent
From Inarritu and Lubezki to Aronofsky and Wim Wenders - what happens when Hollywood's finest lend their craft to advertising. A curated playlist of 18 campaigns directed, shot, or crafted by Academy Award winners and nominees.
Beyond the Pink: Why Subversive Strategy Wins the Gender War
Stop the 'Pink It and Shrink It' nonsense. We’re diving into the campaigns that actually moved the needle on gender equality without the corporate cringe.
It's official: Marketers know nothing about marketing
New data proves two-thirds of marketers can't define basic principles. It's time to stop trusting 'vibes' and start using marketing science.
Brainstorming vs. Selfstorming: The Honest Comparison
Is the group brainstorm a creative ritual or a productivity crime? We compare collective chaos with the power of solitary strategy.
Only 35% of Marketers Pass this question.
A new study reveals a massive capability gap: 65% of marketers lack foundational knowledge. It's time to trade guesswork for marketing science.
1,000+ Ad Campaigns Deconstructed to Spark Creative Strategy
Tired of staring at a blank deck? Explore our library of 1,000+ analyzed campaigns with strategy breakdowns, fun facts, and one-click PPT exports.
Campaign Playlists Are Here to Save Your Inspiration
We curated 1000+ ads into 30 creative playlists so you can stop hunting for references and can inspire yourself and everybody else. Have fun!
The 75% Creativity Crash: Survive the Comodity Trap
Creativity’s value has plummeted by 75% in 30 years. Here is how to stop selling 'kilos of content' and start selling actual strategic impact.
Why we called it selfstorming, not brainstorming
Brainstorming was invented in 1948 by a man selling ads. The research says it is worse than working alone. So we needed the right word for what actually works - and selfstorming already did the job. We just got the .com.