Brand Strategy
Brand strategy, positioning, and evidence-based marketing frameworks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Brand Equity Illusion: 71% of your brand equity is NOT built via paid media
New data reveals paid ads build only 28% of brand equity. The other 71% is built in places your agency doesn't even have the password to access.
The Creator Effectiveness Playbook: Brand Memory Over Cheap Views
New data from 1,217 paid ads and $70M in spend proves creators build brands - but only if you measure what actually sticks.
Cannes Lions 2026: Day 3 Top Campaigns, Deconstructed
Cannes Lions Day 3 proved that when you stop treating audiences like targets and start treating them like humans with taste, magic happens.
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