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
Google Vids Go Free and Predict-to-Pitch AI Arrives: This Week in AI
Google Vids goes free, Selendis automates b-roll, and 42AI raises $62.5M to simulate consumer choices. A sober look at this week's AI marketing stack.
Vercel's marketing team runs on markdown files and a design system. So do we.
Vercel's CMO says the biggest thing his team built last year is a product marketing brain in markdown. It is a Brief Zero. Here is how Vercel uses it, how we run Selfstorming on one, and how to copy the setup without an engineering team.
Our new ebook finds the empty box in your strategy
Frameworks are proper strategy nerd stuff. I love them mostly for three practical reasons, which is why I built 50 Shapes of Strategy: a handbook, editable templates and a file for your AI.
Google's AI Ads Go Global and Reddit Locks the Doors: This Week in AI
Google expands AI Mode ads, Reddit locks out open-web crawlers, and DoorDash reveals the reality of agentic commerce. What this week's AI news means for your media mix.
Reach is a rate, not a number: why your market keeps forgetting you
Dale Harrison's case for reach primacy: 2x better creative can't beat 100x more reach, and because buyers forget constantly, reach has to be a rate, not a campaign total.
Hyper-targeting is paying more to ignore your future customers
Half of Coke buyers buy once or twice a year. Angela Voss on light buyers, frequency, the real cost of CTV and measuring TV with ten models instead of one.
Natural-Language Feeds and 10-Minute AI Video: What This Week's AI Moves Mean for Media Mix
Facebook turns feed control into natural-language prompts, ElevenLabs tackles audio production, and Anthropic maps agentic workflows for brand teams.
Dull Is Expensive. Here Is What Entertaining Earns.
The Cost of Dull priced the waste. Entertain or Die 3.0 measures the other side: +39% memory lift, 2.8x image lift, 17 of the top 30 brands with double the preference, and awareness that buys you no fun at all.
Entertainment-First in Practice: Fandoms, Series, Clips and a 25% Rule
The working half of Entertain or Die 3.0: build from the edges in, make shows instead of spots, design for clipping, and only boost a post once shares hit 25% of likes. A cheap test is the best answer to the fear of bold work.
We got into the ChatGPT plugin store. Here's what you can do with it.
Selfstorming is now an approved plugin in the ChatGPT store. Getting there took three rescans in one evening, a tool that was not as read-only as we thought, and six tool descriptions that had to stop comparing us with anyone.
ChatGPT Visual Ads and TikTok Agents: What This Week's AI Moves Mean for Media Mix
OpenAI drops visual ads, TikTok unveils agentic commerce, and Claude targets pitch decks. We break down what this week's AI news actually means for brand strategy and media budgets.
AI slop is a context problem. Brief ZERO is the fix.
AI slop starts before the first word: a model with no brief writes the average of the internet. Brief ZERO is the brand context your AI reads first, so the output finally sounds like you.
Caution Is the Expensive Option: The Three Taxes on Safe Marketing
New Contagious x FleishmanHillard data on 1,000 marketing leaders: cautious brands get backlash at the same rate as bold ones (20% vs 21%), bold work waits 7 days for sign-off vs 3, and 85% of leaders admit delayed decisions beat imperfect ones. Safe work is the costly kind.
How 118 Cannes Winners Turn Threats into Growth
Contagious x FleishmanHillard analysed 118 Cannes Lions winners that turned live macro threats into brand growth: 92% brand-building, earned-first by design, 61% leading with information. The three hallmarks, three drivers and the diagnostic for your next post-mortem.
Runway Ads and Cheap Pixels: The Week Creative Margins Went Soft
A strategy-first breakdown of this week's AI updates from Runway, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Shopify. What automated ad creation and cheaper models mean for your brand equity.
AI slop is not bad content. It is expected content.
Two agency owners define AI slop as derivative content. Why that makes brands invisible, and the six habits they recommend instead.
Selfstorming Now Lives Inside Your AI. Bring Your Own Project.
Your AI already knows your project. Ask it for a campaign idea and it still gives you the average of the internet. The Selfstorming MCP connector plugs 1,800+ campaigns, 850+ sourced findings and our ideation engine into Claude, ChatGPT and your own skills and agents.
The Engagement Trap: Creator Metrics Point the Wrong Way Two-Thirds of the Time
Kantar analysed 15,000+ pieces of sponsored creator content: platform engagement and effectiveness align in only 1 in 3 cases, and just 6% of content is both highly engaging and strongly brand-building. Here is what to measure instead.
The CMO Title Is Shrinking. The Engineers Are Moving In.
Only 36% of the Fortune 500 still use the CMO title, down from 49% in a year. Brand matters more than ever, but it now lives in thousands of touchpoints. The marketing engineer won't automatically inherit the CMO seat - yet no CMO keeps it without understanding what the engineer can do.
Meta's Muse Surge and Google's Free Video, and What They Mean for Your Media Mix
A strategy-first breakdown of this week's AI updates from Meta, Google, YouTube, and ElevenLabs. What free video tools and agentic storytelling mean for your media budget.
Consumers Started Paying for AI. Here Is What That Changes for Marketers
Menlo Ventures' 2026 consumer AI report: paying flipped from 3% to 55% of users in a year, the top 14% of spenders carry 60% of a $40B market, and AI-labelled content takes a 2:1 engagement penalty. What to do about each.
Your AI campaign looks like a campaign. That is the problem.
Jack Conte's SXSW 2026 talk gives slop a definition that is 130 years old, counts the jobs every new medium cost, and asks the question AI-curious marketers keep skipping: what can this medium do that a camera cannot?
OpenAI enters its ad era, and what it means for brand discovery
A strategic breakdown of OpenAI's sponsored agents, Meta One, and ElevenLabs' new creative integrations. What these updates actually mean for your brand's media mix and production budget.
The 80/20 of Surprise: Why Google Glass Failed and Aldi's Champagne Works
Surprise has a dosage. System1 data puts the sweet spot at roughly 80% happiness to 20% surprise, MAYA explains Google Glass vs Ray-Ban Meta, and Aldi shows what surprise looks like as a planned strategic discipline.
Meta's Muse, licensed remixes, and the week brand control went soft
Meta Muse, UMG's licensed AI remixes, and ChatGPT learning your tone. What happens to brand equity when the audience gets the same tools as the agency.
Marketing Wisdom: an evidence library that answers back
Marketing Wisdom is live: 800+ sourced findings - stats, laws, principles, quotes and trends - from Sharp, Ritson, Binet, Kantar, System1 and more. Ask Wisdom a question, get an answer with linked sources, export any finding to PowerPoint.
Creative Graduation: How Eucalyptus Turns a Meta Ad Into a TV Campaign
Test hundreds of angles on Meta, graduate the winner to YouTube, then commit the TV budget. Eucalyptus, HexClad and a $2,000 billboard show how the brand vs performance war ends: with one loop, running in both directions.
GPT-6 Astra and $1B ChatGPT Ads: The Week AI Claimed AGI and Sent the Invoice
A sober, strategy-first breakdown of this week's AI updates from OpenAI, Google, Runway, and Instagram. What AGI claims and conversational ad inventory mean for your media budget.
Agentic Browsing and 4K Video Drafts: The Week AI Took Over the Admin
A strategy-first breakdown of this week's AI updates from Midjourney, Meta, Google, and Anthropic, analyzed through a brand equity and creative production lens.
Brand Mentions Beat Backlinks in AI Search. Links Came Seventh.
Branded web mentions correlate 0.664 with AI Overview visibility. Backlinks: 0.218. Here are the five factors Ahrefs found, the robots.txt check that makes them moot, and why there is no single AI search strategy.
ChatGPT Ads in Europe, and What Claude's Drive Access Means for Your Briefs
A sober, strategy-first breakdown of this week's AI updates from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. What conversational ad inventory and automated file access mean for your brand.
Google's Ad Agents and Runway's Figma Link: The AI Shift in Ad Workflows
A strategy-first breakdown of this week's AI updates from Google, Runway, and OpenAI. What automated reporting and connected canvases actually mean for your media budget.
The Creator Casino: What the Playbook PDF Doesn't Tell You
I sat in the room at Cannes when System1 compared creator media buying to a casino. Here is the live argument - Abbott's fax-machine insult, the chart that killed engagement rate, and Gordon Ramsay's tale of two ads.
Social Devices: Distinctive Brand Assets That Learned to Dance
Eugene Healey showed Cannes what happens when a brand strategist becomes a creator with 700k followers: social devices, the death of the brand wheel, and a partnership that returned 10x the retainer.
OpenAI's Task Shift and Ultra-Long Video: The New Creative Pipeline
A strategic look at OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol, Alibaba's Wan3.0, and ElevenLabs' emotion-preserving dubbing, analyzed for brand directors and creative strategists.
The Best Advertising Is Invisible (Elasticity Zero, Explained)
Byron Sharp: broad-reach advertising has a short-term sales elasticity of zero. Not because it doesn't work - because you're measuring the wrong 95% of people.
40 Days vs 10 Years: Marketing's Time Horizon Problem
The average brand campaign runs 40 days. Coke Zero needed a decade. Sharp and Ritson on the gap between how long we run things and how long things take.
How to Get Budget for Anything - The Proof-Point Ladder
ElevenLabs shipped a Portuguese ad with English text all over it - on purpose. The ladder from embarrassing test to approved budget, rung by rung.
Translation Is Not Localization (Ask ElevenLabs' Korean Ads)
ElevenLabs runs AI-localized ads in 50+ countries: 17.6% higher conversions, $3.8M incremental. Here's the playbook - and the Japan-shaped hole in it.
Order Pepsi, Not Cola: Winning the Default Reorder in Agent Era
When AI agents handle the shopping, brands live or die by four words in a prompt. How habit categories win the "default reorder" - with Magalu and Dove showing the way.
The $3.35 Trillion Handover: What Happens When Machines Buy
New PHD x WARC research: AI agents will facilitate $3.35 trillion in consumer spending by 2030. The map of what gets delegated first - and what brands must do about it.
OpenAI's Price Cut and LinkedIn's Slop Filter: The Real Cost of Cheap Pixels
A strategic look at LinkedIn's new AI slop filter, HeyGen's instant podcasts, and OpenAI's massive API price cuts through a brand equity lens.
Runway's Agent 2.0 and Claude Cowork: The Strategy Behind the New Creative Pipeline
This week's AI updates from Runway, Anthropic, and Google shift the focus from generating assets to building workflows. Here is what it means for your brand strategy and media budget.
Your Ads Now Have Two Audiences. One of Them Has No Heart
New Jellyfish x INSEAD research presented at Cannes Lions 2026: LLM and human ad judgments are completely uncorrelated. Here is what the models actually reward, and how to win both juries without killing the creative work.
Cannes Just Realized Creators Are the New TV
New data from System1 and TikTok reveals why creators are no longer a social tactic - they are advertising's most powerful brand-building tool.
Google's App-Connected Search and the New Battle for Brand Discovery
This week's AI updates from Google, Perplexity, and Canva are shifting the brand landscape. Here is what app-connected search and synthetic video mean for your marketing strategy.
New Tool Now Writes Great Stories, Activations, Reels even LinkedIn Posts.
The Ideation Session now generates the actual deliverable: reel scripts, LinkedIn posts, claims, event ideas and more - each grounded in 1,800+ iconic campaigns. Pick a format, or let Auto read your brief and pick for you.
OpenAI's Agentic Push and Meta's Muse, and What They Mean for Your Media Mix
A sober, strategy-first analysis of GPT-5.6, Meta Muse, ChatGPT Work Agent, and Instagram's AI feed. What do these agentic AI shifts actually mean for brand equity and media budgets?
Runway's Gemini Speed-Up and A24's AI Pact: The Brand Strategy Angle
A strategic look at this week's AI updates from Runway, Google, and Anthropic, analyzed through a brand strategy lens for planners and marketing directors.
Agentic AI and Safe Pixels: The Brand Strategy for the New Creative Pipeline
A strategic look at this week's AI updates from Runway, OpenAI, Getty, and Meta, analyzed through a brand strategy lens for planners and marketing directors.
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.