@var.aunevikdon't mind the stain on my shirt while i talk about how happiness is kind of embarrasing

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“The prestige of being unhappy runs so deep that we protest when someone calls us happy,” she says. “Being a bit miserable is understood to mean that you have a certain depth, while being happy means you haven't really looked around.”

In 1979, two psychologists, Lauren Alloy and Lyn Abramson, published a study called “Judgment of Contingency in Depressed and Nondepressed Students: Sadder but Wiser? (Here’s the paper on PubMed if you’re really curious: LINK) They had participants press a button and observe how often a green light turned on. The actual control the button had over the light varied. What they found was that non-depressed people consistently overestimated their control. They believed they were making the light turn on, even when they weren’t. Depressed people gave estimates closer to reality.

This paper has been cited many, many times since its publication and helped coin the term “sadder but wiser.” It became this shorthand for the idea that if you seem too cheerful, you aren’t paying attention.

In 2012, a meta-analysis by Moore and Fresco looked at 75 studies over 7,000 participants and found that the depressive realism effect was negligible, that both groups actually showed a positive bias in the light test. In 2022, Amelia Dev and Don Moore attempted to recreate the light experiment at UC Berkeley and found no evidence that depressive symptoms relate to perceived control (not in any way). Sadder wasn’t wiser, it was just simply sadder.

But the original idea stuck and still hangs around today.

Creative departments run on a specific, odd, misery-is-one-of-your-credentials style system. The most respected person in the room is usually the most tired, the most overworked, the one who has seen it all. The person who sighs when someone pitches something ambitious because they know that concept will slowly be ground down into a shell of itself.

If you’ve worked for an agency, you know these rules. Don’t be the person who gets excited about the brief or says “I love this” in a review. Don’t care too visibly about a project that may or may not be killed. The only approved emotion is exhaustion, having a been-there-seen-it-all energy that signals your aloofness.

That sounds like a lot of performing for the sake of it, so let’s circle back to Vår: “Unhappiness ends up not only feeling safe, but also respectable. A simple joy feels risky, almost embarrassing.”

The person who gets visibly excited about an idea in a review is taking a risk the cynical person never has to take. If the excited person’s idea gets killed, they look naive. Cynicism is a free pass, but enthusiasm has a cost.

Alloy and Abramson’s “sadder but wiser” hypothesis confirmed a bias that existed long before they ran their experiment, that misery means depth, and happiness means you missed something.

Now, to clarify, nobody wants a creative director who claps at every concept like it’s a kindergarten recital, or praises every line of copy like gospel. But, I do think the industry has gotten comfortable with treating cynicism as intelligence, and that ends up hurting everyone.

Being excited about a concept or idea is not a sign that you don’t understand the business. I would argue that being too jaded actually means you don’t understand the creative business.

Xx, Caitlin

L B Alloy, L Y Abramson, Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: sadder but wiser?, 1979

Amelia S. Dev,Don A. Moore, Sheri L. Johnson, Karin T. Garrett, Sadder ≠ Wiser: Depressive Realism Is Not Robust to Replication, 2022

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Twix’s new campaign features two ventriloquist dummies lip-syncing to Nelly and Kelly Rowland’s hit song “Dilemma.” The whole spot was captured practically, and the puppets were controlled by one ventriloquist. The spot is directed by Dougal Wilson who just wrapped directing Paddington in Peru. More.

The Real Story: Wilson definitely has range. This spot definitely stands out, but is a little too close to the scariest episode of Goosebumps for my millennial mind to overlook.

Hinge “All We Need is Us”

Hinge just launched “All We Need is Us” a series of films showing real couples who met on the app. The premise is they’re all doing benign things (cleaning up after a party, weeding a garden, sitting in a park, that kinda thing). The series is part of their “Designed to be Deleted” brand platform that’s meant to address dating app fatigue and AI mistrust among GenZ specifically. More.

The Real Story: Not sure I would call this innovation. I pitched and executed the same idea for Tinder in 2020. A dating app showing real couples that met on their app…groundbreaking.

Here’s the Tinder spot from 2020:

Justworks

HR platform Justworks launched a new campaign with surreal visual metaphors. The work is from Quality Meats and follows a boba shop owner who clones herself so she can do every job in her business, and an architecture studio founder who literally puppets his employees (because he can’t let go). More.

The Real Story: The line “this baby isn’t my baby, my company is my baby” is quite clever. These spots are snappy and fun. Will this work for B2B marketing? Maybe if the LinkedIn ad spend is right…

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Means Workwear posed this trick question. “Should murderers go to jail?” It’s not a real question. It’s only posed as one, and it's what’s called discursive disclosure.

Discursive disclosure was coined by communication theroist Stanley Deetz to describe how institutions suppress conflict without people realizing they’re being suppressed. You’re not censored outright, instead you’re asked a question that contains the acceptable answer inside of it. Answer anything outside of what is deemed acceptable, and you’ll be seen as hostile or strange.

For example, if you ask someone: “Should murderers go to jail?”

The socially acceptable answer is: yes. But it’s deeper than that.

In Means Workwear’s words, baked into the question “should murderers go to jail” is a whole chain of assumptions. That punishment equals prison, that prison equals safety, that questioning any part of that chain means you don’t care about victims. That if you answer anything other than the expected yes, then before you can discuss anything about criminal justice reform, you’re first having to defend yourself against the implication that you’re pro-murder.

@means_workwearJon Favreau can suck cheeks @realpodsaveamerica

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What’s Your Biggest Weakness?

This dynamic probably sounds familiar to anyone who has sat in a conference room in a blazer that doesn’t fit quite right, answering questions about their personality and job history. In my view, a job interview runs on the exact same mechanics (it’s just aimed at your labor instead of your politics).

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” is not (even a little bit) asking about your five year plan. It’s asking about loyalty to a company. The honest answer for most people is something like “hopefully making more money, maybe somewhere else, who’s to say.” But you can’t say that. The right answer requires you to invent a future where this particular employer is the centerpiece of your life and ambitions.

“Why do you want to work here?” is the exact same thing. Everyone in the room knows the real answer is “because I need to pay rent.” Instead, you need to construct a narrative of specific enthusiasm for this company’s mission and goals.

And “what’s your biggest weakness” is the most open version of this trick. It’s compliance pretending to be vulnerability. You are asked to be self-aware while actually revealing nothing.

Now Back to Deetz

In Deetz’s original framing, discursive disclosure isn't an accident of bad communication, it’s a tool of organizational power. It lets an institution get compliance from people while those people believe they’re having a real conversation, making a real choice, or being genuinely evaluated.

A job interview markets itself as an assessment of your skills, but it’s more an assessment of your ability to understand the rules of engagement. Can you read the unstated rules fast enough to perform them convincingly? Can you package your actual, complicated relationship to work into the shape an interviewer is already looking for?

This isn’t (by the way) a call to blow up every interview by telling the truth about wanting a paycheck. Rent is due on the first, that’s just what it is. But, once you know the trap, you won't fall into it. A job interview is not a real assessment of your worth, and it never will be.

Walk into that conference room with the understanding of exactly what game is being played, and decide how much of your actual self you’re willing to trade for the job.

Xx, Caitlin.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

KFC x Johnny Knoxville.

KFC worked with Johnny Knoxville to create a PSA called “Finger Lickin’ Good.” The spot connects KFC’s slogan to data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that says one in three firework injuries affects fingers and hands.

Knoxville delivers the safety tips (while barely following his own advice) in a large, very flammable field of grass. The spot also promotes the new Jackass film, so there is a LOT of cross-promotion packed in here.

The Real Story: They hired the guy who’s made a career from injuring himself for their PSA on how not to injure yourself. Kinda dumb, but I love that KFC didn’t go all Americana with it (we would have hated that).

Side note: KFC recently reworked their logo. Looks like they’re really trying to move away from the idea that the Colonel’s bowtie is his teeny tiny body.

Columbia Sportswear "Expedition Impossible"

Columbia Sportswear took out a full page ad in the New York Times to highlight a letter from their CEO Tim Boyle. The letter dared flat-earthers to find the edge of the earth. The prize if they did would be full ownership of the company.

To back the dare legally, they registered an entity called “The Company, LLC” with the Oregon Secretary of State. The fine print of the competition ruled out “a clifftop in Seattle” and “your buddy Dave legally changing his name to ‘The Edge.’”

The campaign took home 10 Lions at Cannes.

The Real Story: This is super clever. I do hope they do a part 2 where Columbia sends a group of adventurers to the “edge of the earth.” Feels like a great opportunity to now get the Columbia products out in the cold to show the vastness of the wilderness.

KitKat "The Heist"

A truck carrying 400,000 KitKat bars was stolen in transit from Nestlé's factory in central Italy to Poland, a few weeks before Easter. The bars were part of KitKat's first season as F1's official chocolate partner. VML London helped Nestlé turn the theft into a campaign. They issued a statement confirming the theft, then launched a digital barcode tracker inviting consumers to check whether their bar was among the ones that were stolen.

The social post pulled 333,000 likes on X and 340,000 on Instagram. The campaign took the PR Grand Prix at Cannes, along with four Gold Lions and four Silver Lions.

The Real Story: I never believed the theft of these bars was real. I still don’t believe it was real. The whole thing feels like a PR stunt. Who knows, but it did help them win awards…

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

In the ‘80s, Dan Wieden was trying to come up with a tagline for Nike. They had a bunch of different options floating around, and nothing was really working. What they eventually landed on came from a memory he had of convicted double murderer Gary Gilmore. When Gilmore stood in front of a firing squad for his crimes, he said “Let’s Do It.” Wieden changed it to “Just Do It.”

An LLM can generate you a thousand taglines for Nike. Quite frankly, it could probably even generate “Just Do It,” but it would arrive at that string of words through pattern recognition and previous creative. It wouldn’t find inspiration from the last words of a convicted killer, it can’t sit in the room the night before a deadline pulling from a specific, strange inventory of a life well lived.

The film Aftersun is focused on a father and daughter on vacation at a Turkish resort. It’s a beautiful-looking film, and the whole thing feels like a home movie, almost like you’re watching a memory. The film was written and directed by Charlotte Wells, whose father died when she was 16. She wrote the film based on old summer vacation photos, and purposely had the cinematographer shoot the father character through glass panes or at an arm’s length to represent how a child’s memory retains a parent after losing them.

The film doesn’t tell you any of these details, but as you watch, you feel this sense of melancholy, and the whole trip feels like a memory. You have to go looking for the backstory, and the backstory adds depth to what you see on screen.

An LLM hasn't lived a life, it’s just pretending to. It hasn’t been in an argument at a bar, it hasn’t dealt with love or loss.

We can't out-idea these models. We can out-human them. They don’t have access to our weird, specific, over-researched, personally strange realities. The things we think about late at night, the things we can’t let go of.

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

The Real Story: Anti-AI is now mainstream, and I do think it’s smart for Polaroid to jump on this wave. Their brand positioning being solidly in the “go offline, put down your phone” space makes sense. The location of these placements is doing most of the work, but the point is that people take a photo and share it on social… wait a minute.

Lyft

Lyft launched “Save the Money,” a campaign built around the fact that only 16.1% of rideshare consumers compare fares before booking. The hero film follows a single dollar bill through the streets of a city, abandoned because no one bothered to check whether Lyft was cheaper. The dollar was animated using practical effects by puppeteer Oliver John Taylor and rig maker Andy Gent, directed by Jeff Low. More

The Real Story: The hero spot is fine, it’s just a bit of a drag. It’s not fun to watch. The OOH with the “cheaper, usually” tagline, now that’s clever!

Yahoo x Denny Hamlin

For the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway, Yahoo put Denny Hamlin’s Yahoo Mail address on his race car, his firesuit, and bumper stickers that read: “Have a problem with my driving? Email me.” If you write in, you can win signed memorabilia, and a few will get replies from Hamlin. More

The Real Story: I think this is clever as a format, but I think there’s something deeper Yahoo could be doing with their email service. I see a Yahoo account and assume that person is older, maybe there’s a nostalgia campaign play, or looking at username regret from folks who set up their Yahoo accounts when they were really young. It reminds me of this clip from Jeremy Allen White talking about his old AOL address on Jimmy Kimmel:

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Work is also helpful in creating structure and purpose, and (quite frankly) something to talk about at dinner when the conversation gets stale. There’s nothing better than telling stories from work, especially when the stakes feel low. Work can be the thing that feels fulfilling, but it can also be the thing that keeps you from thinking about everything else. And that second piece is where we a wee bit dark.

Because (and this is gonna sound a bit cheesy, but stick with me) your life is happening whether you’re paying attention to it or not. The seasons outside your office window are changing, your friends are getting older, and so are your parents.

My Dad went to the DMV the other day to renew his license. He said the only change he had to make was his hair color - switching it from brown to gray. I guess time really is moving forward.

I’m definitely guilty of spending too much time working and ignoring other parts of my life. Big decisions I’ve needed to make have been put off because a big campaign is underway (but there’s always another big campaign or a big pitch).

Nothing actually pauses because you’re on a deadline. Everything just moves forward without you in it. The Fall will come, then Winter, even if you don't look up from your screens to see it. So, maybe it’s time to stop waiting.

Do the personal project you’ve been putting off. The one that you develop the idea for a little bit more every time you’re lying in bed at 2am.

Meet a friend for drinks even though it’s a Tuesday.

Get rejected in the pursuit of human connection. Ask someone out. Tell someone you miss them.

Cry in the shower to a sad song.

Or take a shower in the middle of the workday. (I consider this the single greatest perk of working from home).

Invite your grandma over for pasta. Or go to hers.

Take a walk around your neighborhood and wave to the old ladies watering their gardens. They will wave back.

Read a book aloud to yourself in a British accent.

Print out every photo you love and hang them on your walls with push pins. (I have a hack for covering the holes with soap when you move, just DM me).

Stay up all night watching reality TV even if you’re tired the next day.

Your work can be important. But your life should be important too. And the thing about life is that it doesn’t send you a calendar invite before it moves on without you.

It’s important because it ends.

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

The Croatia National Tourist Board released a short film called "I Hear It's Beautiful" starring John Malkovich.

Malkovich discovered his Croatian roots this year and was formally granted Croatian citizenship, and received his Croatian passport at the team's first public appearance at the World Cup.

The film, directed by 45-time Emmy winner Pete Radovich (who previously directed the Cannes Lions-winning "Teasing John Malkovich"), is a romcom where Malkovich is sent by his fictional agent on a trip to Croatia, visiting Dubrovnik, Zagreb, and the world's smallest town Hum. He spends a big chunk of the runtime refusing to admit he's enjoying himself. His final verdict: "It's not bad. Not bad at all." The film dropped hours before Croatia's World Cup opener against England.

The Real Story: These tourism board films can be very dull, but this is fun, engaging, and once you have some of the backstory about Malkovich discovering his Croatian roots, it makes a lot of sense. Letting him look annoyed the entire time was on brand, and being himself while showing how beautiful Croatia is - this really landed for me.

Nike x Knicks

Everybody and their brother has spoken about this spot at this point, but damn it was good. After the Knicks won their first NBA championship in 53 years on June 13, Nike released a film set to Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." Directed by Josh Safdie (the Uncut Gems guy, and a lifelong Knicks fan), the Wieden+Kennedy spot follows a young fan in a Jalen Brunson jersey racing through the city before finding a sea of New Yorkers celebrating together. It closes with: "Never slept. Always dreamed."

The film was the culmination of a broader campaign called "Always Knicks" that started earlier in the playoffs, when Nike put up portraits by photographer Jonathan Mannion on the billboard at 34th and 7th, outside MSG. The portraits featured a cross-section of Knicks fans, from Spike Lee to a three-year-old.

The Real Story: Josh Safdie was a really cool choice for this, the spot has the energy and frantic-ness of his films. The tagline at the end is gonna bring a tear to any real Knicks fan’s eye.

Molson “Made by Canadians”

Molson is a Canadian beer brand (they merged with Coors back in 2005), known as one of the bigger players in the Canadian market. For this campaign, they hid, gave out, and made available online a bunch of disposable cameras. The idea was to have Canadians capture what it means to be Canadian.

The footage became the brand's Canada Day campaign: skateboarders in an abandoned Halifax pool, someone kissing a fish in Quebec, that sorta thing. The film connects to Molson's long-running "I AM CANADIAN" platform, but this time the definition comes from actual Canadians.

The Real Story: Real people, real images isn’t a new concept, but this execution is really nice and heartfelt. Something about the aesthetic look of a disposable camera’s image will always make me feel nostalgic for my youth, so this one worked for me.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Ten years ago she was a single mom. She was dating someone who wasn’t good for her or her son. She was living paycheck to paycheck and had no idea what her future looked like. She ended the post: “So I’m going to set my phone down, eat a few more pretzels and m&ms, and be grateful.”

The post went up on r/GirlDinnerDiaries, a subreddit where women share a photo of whatever they’re eating and share a confession or story along with it. The food is incidental, the point is the story.

I look at this Reddit almost nightly before I go to bed. I like reading the stories and seeing the bad food photos. It also makes me feel connected to these women, the way they’re sharing these stories and confessions is so vulnerable.

It’s funny, that word “vulnerable” has shown up so much in my professional work too. Every brand wants to be authentic and vulnerable with their audience. They want to feel human. Brands want the feeling of r/GirlDinnerDiaries. They want the rawness, the emotional connection, the comment thread where a thousand women say “I’ve been there.” They want the engagement rate of a woman eating pretzels alone in a hotel room and telling you the truth about the last decade of her life.

They just don’t want the actual conditions that produce it.

Because the conditions aren’t really brand safe (no production value, no narrative arc, no call to action, no trending audio, no good lighting, no face). It’s not really a good campaign, it doesn’t feel polished and pretty and real.

TikTok is not the ideal place to pull this kinda thing off, if you really want to create the performance of vulnerability that is going to drive engagement. But you do still have to think about getting good lighting on your cry face, and pairing your deep confession with a good trending audio. You gotta film the breakdown, then film the recovery, then (seamlessly) sell the skincare routine that cleared your stress acne. Nobody even sees the little #ad at the bottom. The algorithm will reward the appearance of honesty, which is different than honesty.

Every few months, some brand will try to reverse-engineer authenticity. They’ll launch a campaign about “real moments” or “unfiltered stories.” They’ll cast real people instead of models, but everything else will be carefully staged. Legal will approve all copy, on set, the moodboard will say “ vulnerable but also aspirational,” and we will end up adding a product shot just because there’s still time in the day.

Meanwhile, a woman in a subreddit will post a photo of cold leftovers and write three sentences about her divorce, and 900 people will be on board.

I don’t have a tidy takeaway here. I’m not going to tell you what brands should learn from this, because the lesson is one they can’t really use. The most honest place on the internet works because nobody is selling anything. The moment someone tries, it stops working. Maybe some places are just meant to be unbranded.

Maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe it’s okay for some parts of the internet to just be for people, for human connection.

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Apple’s new spot, "Clingers" (from TBWA\Media Arts Lab), very clearly takes a stab at Google Chrome’s privacy and data tracking. People in literal chrome suits follow around our hero characters and watch everything they do.

The Real Story: This ad doesn’t convince me that Apple’s Safari browsing platform isn’t doing the same thing. Also, Apple you don;t get to be in on this “ads track everything we do” joke with us. In the class/ai/corporate entity wars, you are automatically on the wrong side. Sorry.

Uber Eats “Who Could Cook at a Time Like This?”

For the FIFA World Cup, Uber Eats launched their “Who Could Cook at a Time Like This?” campaign starring Gordon Ramsey. The creative is from Mother and focuses on Gordon barging into kitchens with a green Uber Eats bag, telling people to stop cooking and order delivery instead so they don't miss a match.

The Real Story: This is fun, but I do think Gordon Ramsey is a (as he would say) wee bit saturated at this point. Also, nothing I’ve ever had delivered via Uber Eats has looked chef quality, more like sat on and nibbled on.

Nike “Rip the Script”

Nike’s “Rip the Script” comes from Wieden+Kennedy Portland and features Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, and Vini Jr., with cameos from LeBron James, Kim Kardashian, Travis Scott, Lisa, Channing Tatum, Young Miko, and Ted Lasso. Nike is not a World Cup sponsor (Adidas is), but Nike is rolling out a TON of new products during the World Cup.

The Real Story: Nike’s spot was good, Adidas’ was better. They both spent a truckload of money.

I’ve already talked about the Adidas Backyard legends spot 15 times, so I’ll just leave this here…

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

So, eventually you go (I did). Thousands of people went, and with it came the trend of the “in-house agency” where a bunch of brands hired media buyers, copywriters, designers, producers, and strategists and built these in-house studios.

I was working at the kid’s clothing brand Hanna Andersson during part of this boom and saw them build out a full on internal studio, invest in brand content shoots, and spend real money on social to drive brand awareness. I got to do fun, creative work, and it made a ton of strategic sense.

PepsiCo built an entire internal creative studio, Keurig Dr. Pepper did the same, so did dozens of mid-size brands. They wanted to create content that told stories and sold products.

Then, there was reality. What actually happened after all the creative fun and games.

We thought the in-house, brand-side thing was safe. Agencies were unstable, if you lost the client, you could lose your job. Brand-side was a different, but also scary. It was these weird “strategic realignment” calls where a new CMO announced that they’d be evaluating the current team.

PepsiCo ended up pushing parts of its internal studio into VaynerMedia, and Keurig Dr. Pepper killed their creative studio concept entirely. Hanna Andersson (I had left by then) reduced spending on brand awareness-style content.

Building an in-house agency (turns out) is very expensive. It’s a very easy line item to cut. In-house creatives were promised they'd make the work they always wanted to make, with no middleman. What they ended up with was 10 internal stakeholders with opinions and a revolving door of CMOs that each had their own new way of solving business problems.

It’s all bad, but it’s all creative. So maybe that makes it worth it? Nobody went brand-side because they hated advertising. They went because they hated what advertising was doing to them. Whoops.

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

What Does a Looksmaxxer Smell Like?

Creed fragrances has been working to position itself as the scent of the looksmaxxing era. OOF. It’s “aspirational masculinity bottled and sold,” and it’s paired with a whole aesthetic. Abs from Equinox, designer loafers, poreless skin like a newborn baby. It’s also really about signaling income through their scent rather than taste (which becomes clear the more you smell and see it). MORE.

For the uninitiated, looksmaxxing started as a Reddit subculture. Pop a query into Google on mewing, bonesmashing, or canthal tilt analysis and you’ll get the gist. Creed Fragrance’s move into the space does show how the aspirational purchase has shifted from fashion to grooming to fragrance. Men aren’t just buying clothes to project status, they’re buying a scent.

The Brand Play: If your brand sells anything in the men’s grooming, fragrance, or personal care space, the looksmaxxing audience is your growth market. BUT, they don;t trust advertising and they don;t trust brands. They trust Reddit threads, people on YouTube doing reviews, and the guy who seems like he makes more money who works in the same office. The play here is seeding your product in the right places. Get the product into the hands of the micro-influencers in the self-improvement space.

Trevor Paglen Says Nothing is Real

Dazed talked to artist and researched Trevor Paglen about his new book “How to See Like a Machine: Images After AI.” The main argument is that generative AI has created an “indexical flip.” Basically, a shift in people from assuming the images they see are real to assuming they’re fake. The book also looks at how propaganda, UFOs, and military deception programs shaped the visual tools now deployed in your feed every day. Paglen argues that AI-generated images aren’t true or false. They’re “statistical renderings in a state of superposition, optimized to mess with human minds.” MORE.

For brands, this is not an abstract philosophical problem. Consumer trust in visual content is collapsing. Stock photography looks AI-generated (even if it isn’t). AI-generated content sometimes looks real (even when it isn’t). The audiences on social are now suspicious as their default, and assume every image they see might be fake. If you go ahead and execute a beautiful photo series, your ROI won't be great if everyone thinks it was prompted by AI. The biggest takeaway in Paglen’s book is that the most valuable visual asset a brand can produce right now is one that looks too imperfect to have been generated (we’ll see how long that holds).

The Brand Play: Audit your visual content pipeline. If your product photography, social content, or campaign imagery could be mistaken for AI-generated work, that’s a problem. The brands that will win trust in the next two years are the ones that look demonstrably, verifiably human-made. Show the set, show the photographer, show the imperfect lighting, make the realness of the image part of the image.

Love Island is All Brand Integration

Love Island Season 8 started on June 2. They’re partnering with CeraVe, Coffee Mate, Maybelline, Motorola, and poppi.

Poppi’s deal is actually the first transatlantic brand partnership brokered by ITV’s new global licensing team (Studio 55), meaning the brand will show up on both Love Island US and UK.

@juliagraefand ofc I had to buy a lot of them 🏝️ @drinkpoppi #poppi #lovelsland #punchpop

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Peacock has also introduced shoppable Pause Ads that will make products shoppable at certain points.

CeraVe is in the getting-ready scene.

Motorola delivers the “I’ve got a text!” moment that drives the plot.

@thecalabrosI yearn to have the flip phone back #loveislandusa #loveisland #greenscreen

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The show has eliminated the boundary between content and commercials. All the advertising is meant to be integrated and not break the flow. MORE.

The Brand Play: If your brand has a budget for a reality TV integration, this is a good format to steal. You have to find ways to make the product part of the brand’s mechanics.

Phoebe Bridgers Banned Phones at Her Tour

Phoebe announced her upcoming “Lost Tour” with the caveat that it would have a strict no phones policy. If you bring a phone, it will go in a Yondr pouch. Her warm up show at Madison Square Garden charged fans between $1 and $20 all based on a raffle, with proceeds going to the Community Justice Exchange’s Immigration Bond Freedom Fund. MORE.

I thought the whole point of going to a concert was to prove to your Instagram followers that you went (jk), but it looks like we’re splitting into two camps at this point. Attending to prove you were there or attending to be there. Maybe the lifecycle of the “curated for Instagram” event has finally reached the end.

The Brand Play: If your brand hosts events, activations, or pops-ups, this trend is worth considering. Test a phone-free activation this quarter. Looks like the data says you audience wants this, but might be embarassed to admit it. The goal would be driving organic word of mouth, with impact showing through on an NPS score.

READ THE ROOM:

The ceasefire between Iran and Israel collapsed this weekend and the US is striking across the Gulf

On June 7, after the IDF struck southern Beirut, Iran launched approximately 30 ballistic missiles at Israel, the first direct strike since the April ceasefire. Israel retaliated. The US intercepted Iranian missiles and drones near the Strait of Hormuz and struck Iranian coastal radar sites. On June 9, a US helicopter was downed near the Oman coast. Talks are reportedly continuing, but the ceasefire that held since early April is functionally over. MORE.

Brand Guidance: This is a live military conflict involving the United States. If you have scheduled social content that is lighthearted, celebratory, or attention-seeking, review it before it posts. The World Cup starts June 11 and the temptation will be to lean into that energy. Read the room before you do. A brand that posts a “let’s gooooo” soccer hype video while the country is watching missile footage will look exactly as tone-deaf as it is. That doesn’t mean go dark entirely. It just means lower the volume a bit.

Social Security just said your retirement fund runs out in 2032, a year earlier than they told you last time

The Social Security trustees released their annual report on June 9. The retirement trust fund is now projected to become insolvent by the end of 2032 (moved up from early 2033 in last year’s report). When it runs out, beneficiaries face an automatic 22% cut to monthly checks, roughly $500 per person on average. The report cites lower birth rates, reduced net immigration, and the 2025 tax cuts, which reduced income tax revenue on Social Security benefits, as the primary drivers. MORE.

Brand guidance: This story will land differently depending on your audience’s age. For brands targeting Millennials and Gen Z, this confirms what they already believe. They know the systems they were told to trust are not going to be there when they need them. For brands targeting older consumers, this is a source of real, immediate anxiety. Neither audience wants to hear from a brand about it. The recommendation is to leave it alone. If you sell financial products, your paid media and content calendar should already be addressing retirement anxiety year-round.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

IKEA Sweden (in partnership with agency NoA Åkestam Holst) looked at 20 years of solar data to find the sunniest square meter in all of Sweden. The spot (in southern Gotland) has been marked with a permanent monument, two of IKEA’s Skarpö outdoor chairs built in stone.

The Real Story: It’s a fun off-the-road travel spot and a good photo opp that sneakily helps put IKEA front and center. The Skarpö is under $50, but the time you spent to find the stone versions…priceless. (lol)

Snickers Peanut Butter

Snickers (in partnership with their agency BBDO) put together a focus group of people named Reese (or Reece, or Rhyss, or any variation on the name) and had them taste test Snickers peanut butter.

Beyond the video spots, any Reese in America is invited to sign a public pledge endorsing Snickers Peanut Butter at snickers.com/peanutbutterpledge for a chance at a year’s supply.

The Real Story: Snickers built a campaign around the fact that thousands of Americans share a first name with the rival brand. I wish the spots were just a little bit more wacky and fun.

Paze “It Checks Out.”

Paze, a digital wallet built by a group of US banks and credit unions, launched its first national campaign starring Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union. Created with agency Big Spaceship, the work uses the actresses’ last names as the entire creative concept. “Paze. It Checks Out.”

The Real Story: The entire campaign is the casting. The brief was probably their two headshots and the Paze logo. It’s okay.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

The brief, stripped down, was basically: get people to use a dating app while making it physically impossible to date.

We pitched a campaign called Put Yourself Out There. The idea was that a pandemic could actually be a good time to use a dating app. You aren’t hiding behind a bar or behind small talk. You are a person alone in your apartment, connecting with other people alone in their apartments. There was nowhere to go, which left more room to show who you actually were.

It worked, and it ended up winning me my first Telly Award.

Curiosity

After doing this a while, my best work has been created when I was super unfocused. When I ended up goinf down rabbit holes and getting really disconnected from the actual brief.

My algorithm knows me (more than I know myself), and I know I have to break that on purpose.

Read a Substack about a stranger’s hyperfixation.

Open a fresh YouTube account and search as a different person.

Scroll weird Letterboxd lists.

Most of the time it pays off in nothing. Occasionally, it will hand you an idea.

Commitment

Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rico’s residency is such a cool case study in being ultra committed to something you care about. He did a 30-show residency in Puerto Rico specifically for residents of Puerto Rico. The last show landed on the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, and overall ended up bringing millions into Puerto Rico’s economy. He cares about Puerto Rico and the people of Puerto Rico, and made that statement loud and clear.

As a human person, one of the things I have to sell is my commitment. The reason I show up in scary and unfamiliar rooms and talk a lot about cool creative is that I care about the work I create (or pretend to care). A very large number of people can technically do my job, but not everybody is gonna show up and give it the oomph.

Aloofness works for some people, I think it’s hard to market. I’m not above the thing I’ve been paid to make. I’m not too cool to try. I am very much here, trying as hard as I possibly can.

The Boring Brief

But what if I ended up writing subject lines for a regional insurance company? What if I don’t care about the product even slightly?

I think Flo is a good reference. She has been in something like 150 Progressive spots since 2008.

Car insurance is arguably the most boring product in the American economy, but somewhere in Ohio a creative team sat in a room and pitched the idea that the insurance could be funny. This lady, Stephanie Courtney, has literally created twenty years of ads as this character, and now we all know her.

Not every brand is gonna let you do that, but I do think buried in most briefs is 5% of something that is actually creative. That’s the small piece of something to grab onto (even if it’s regional insurance).

I’ve definitely worked with brands I disagree with, and people who want me to fail. Sometimes I made it work, other times I left. Both are allowed, and only you know which one is right. But when the five percent is there, it is worth trying.

I say: Go down the rabbit hole, commit to the specific thing, walk into the room, and have some damn passion.

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Pattie Gonia vs. Patagonia

Pattie Gonia has built an online community around the mission of “connecting queer people, people of color, and lower-income communities with the outdoors.” It’s a great mission that has gained a huge following on social.

@pattiegoniabreaking my silence. today i’m speaking publicly for the first time about the lawsuit patagonia inc. has filed against me pattie gonia, a climate activist, in federal court. this is not a joke. this is happening.

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Patagonia (the company) has filed a lawsuit against Pattie Gonia to stop the use of the “Pattie Gonia” name on designs that mimic Patagonia’s. Their statement: “We want to acknowledge any hurt it has caused, especially in the LGBTQ+ community,” the company wrote. “Importantly, we continue to want to resolve this.” More.

This feels like a lose/lose situation. Patagonia will likely win in court because this looks like a clear-cut infringement of their trademark. In the court of public opinion, it also looks like they are going after an activist during Pride Month.

The Brand Play: Even when you’ve done due diligenace with a partner, sometimes the internet will turn on you. Brands can learn from Patagonia in this moment. They are not getting defensive, they are not posting takedowns of Pattie. They are posting support for the activist and making it clear that they support her activities outside of infringing on their IP.

Everybody Wants to be a Death Doula.

The number of people training to be death doulas has spiked. In the UK, certified training programs report a 40 percent rise in learners since 2022. Death cafes, where strangers gather to talk about mortality, are pulling mostly 20- to 30-year-olds. The health system is underfunded. Social care systems are collapsing. And people feel the least they can do is make sure the person next to them doesn;t die alone.

The real takeaway here is that people are looking for deeper meaning int heir work. One death doula in Bristol said:"The dream capitalism tried to sell is more of a mirage now." The wellness industry has spent ten years monetizing “living well.” Maybe the next trend is dying well? More.

The Brand Play: If your brand operates in wellness, end-of-life care, insurance, or anything adjacent to mortality, this is a conversation happening with your audience right now. The wrong move is slapping "death positive" on a campaign. The right move is funding something. Sponsor a death cafe. Partner with an end-of-life doula training organization. If your brand has no proximity to this space, leave it alone.

Smells Like Teen Spirit on TikTok

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is seeing a surge on TikTok, but not as a nostalgia play. Creators are isolating the lyric "oh well, whatever, never mind" and laying it over single shots of themselves doing nothing (or something cool that they are aloof about). Lying on a black sand beach, working out at the gym, on a boat, hiking somewhere. That kinda thing.

@kate.shabrova#zionnationalpark

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What makes this interesting for brands is that performative carelessness has become aspirational. The trending sounds on TikTok this week were Josh Fawaz's "Like a Prayer" remix, Saxboy Billy's "Puerto Rico Song,” and this Nirvana clip. The common thread is the low effort-ness. MORE.

The Brand Play: The instinct will be to use this audio. Don't. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a brand account feels like a 45-year-old media buyer's idea of being relateable. What you should take from this trend is the structure: your audience wants content that doesn't ask anything of them. No call to action. A post that just exists, that shows the product in a quiet moment, that doesn't try to start a conversation.

Every Brand Wants World Cup Content, But Nobody Has ANything to Say

The FIFA World Cup kicks off June 11 across the US, Canada, and Mexico. Adidas created a five-minute film called "Backyard Legends" (it was really good). LEGO's "Everyone Wants a Piece" hit 314 million views within 24 hours of the players posting it. Nike launched Toma, a street soccer platform. Lay's is running "No Lay's, No Game."

Nike TOMA Platform

It’s a big advertising moment in sports, and it’s going to last 39 days.

However! Most of these brand campaigns will be indistinguishable from each other by July. The Adidas film is legitimately good because it does something specific, a street football pickup game with a strong narrative. But the average brand is going to be very bland and very forgettable. The World Cup rewards brands that have a genuine relationship with soccer culture. The audience is going to punish brands that just started showing up two weeks ago.

The Brand Play: If your brand has been in soccer for years, this is your moment. If your brand started talking about soccer in Q1 2026, proceed with caution. The safest play for brands without soccer credibility is to focus on the watch party.

You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl so in Love.

Olivia Rodrigo's third album comes out June 12. The title is "you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love." She described it as her "most experimental" work, informed by a period living in London, and said the songs are "sad love songs" because her favorite romantic songs always have an undercurrent of fear or longing.

The title itself is very aligned with culture at the moment. Rodrigo is naming a feeling that her audience has been performing on social media for two years: the dissonance between being in a relationship and being miserable, and the particular way the internet watches young people navigate that gap. The title is already a content format. It's a caption, it's a Reel, it's a comment you can write under someone’s post. I think that will definitely help with longer-term traction.

The Brand Play: Rodrigo's audience is 18-28, predominantly female, and extremely online. If that's your demographic, the two weeks after June 12 are a great window of opportunity. The play is to understand that this album is going to give her audience a new emotional vocabulary. Listen to the album on release day. Build content around the feelings the songs are evoking. Tap into the high school girl deep within yourself.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

It’s StreetEasy’s 20th anniversary, so they launched a campaign where you can book reservations at NYC institutions for 20 years from now (in 2046). The campaign is called “Reserve Your Future,” and let you make reservations with Russ & Daughters, Roberta's, Playwrights Horizons, and the Guggenheim. MICROSITE.

It looks like it’s a great build on their “be a forever New Yorker” messaging that has been rolling out over the last few months.

The Real Story: A real estate company is trying to get New Yorkers to commit to a dinner reservation two decades from today. In a city where your relationship lasts for 12 days, it feels a bit hard to plan that far ahead. I get it, it’s a beautiful act of faith and committing long-term to a city you love. Either way, it's the only housing ad in recent memory that never mentions square footage (which I can definitely get behind).

Melanoma Focus “The Life Saving Haircut”

UK charity Melanoma Focus launched "The Life Saving Haircut," a campaign that trains barbers to spot early signs of skin cancer on clients' scalps, necks, and hairlines. The campaign includes a handbook that gives barbers enough information to start a conversation when something looks unusual, without asking them to give medical advice. Scalp melanomas are notoriously difficult to detect early, particularly among men who don't regularly check their own skin.

The Real Story: Barbers have been staring at the backs of people's heads for centuries. Giving them a pamphlet of what might look unusual is such a simple and smart idea.

Ferrari Luce

Ferrari just revealed their new fully electric “Luce.” It’s $640k and very fancy. Ferrari shares fell after the reveal, with analysts calling it "the furthest deviation from the brand's ethos we've ever seen." Mark Ritson wrote in Adweek that Ferrari made the same mistake as Jaguar's 2024 rebrand: “dropping every recognizable design code at the exact moment they needed them most.” More.

The Real Story: Ferrari spent five years building a car that looks like it was designed by someone who had only seen a Ferrari in a cartoon movie. The Luce is Italian for "light," which is also what Ferrari's impact felt like this week.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

This is the spot:

It is pretty damn good.

But these awards are all a little bit fake anyway. You make the real campaign for the client, then you make the awards version. (and the awards version has a more compelling narrative, more gritty footage, the stuff that felt a little too risky for the real spot). I don't think my preferred version of a brand campaign spot has ever gone live, but it’s definitely been submitted as part of an awards package. (That’s kinda the whole point of a director’s cut.)

The awards system rewards the case study. Not the campaign that lives in real life.

We’ve now built an entire incentive system around awards and then clutch our pearls when people optimize for winning them. Agencies sell creative work. Awards are the proof that the creative work was good. If the proof can be manufactured more cheaply than the work itself, someone is going to manufacture the proof. That's just how incentives work.

The people most affected aren't the ones who got caught in this weird situation. They're the creatives who made real work, for real clients, and actually had impact. They watched a fabricated campaign win at Cannes while their project never even had a case study budget. I think it’s important to celebrate work, even if it wasn’t “award winning.” Here’s one spot I’m loving this week from Etsy:

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

You Don’t Want to be a “Bird”

"Bird" went viral on TikTok this month, used as a shorthand for a woman who tolerates bad behavior from a man. It’s a term now stuck in my head as I watch the first part of the Summerhouse Reunion (bad look West Wilson & Amanda Batula).

A bird goes after crumbs. Stays in situationships that were declared dead by every friend a month ago. Picks up the phone every time he calls. The trend even has its own dance: the bird shuffle, and its own antidote: "bird deprogramming" content, where creators post daily playlists of songs designed to help women decentre men.

@deepindiaatrenches🕊️#mariahthescientist

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The term itself isn't new. "Bird" has been Bronx shorthand for someone acting goofy for years, and British slang for a young woman since forever. What's new is the moral framework the internet has assigned it. Being a bird isn't just embarrassing. It's something you have to be deprogrammed from. MORE.

Brand Play: Brands targeting women 18-30 are going to be tempted to reference this. Most of them should NOT. The line between “we get it” and “we’re using your vulnerability to sell you something” is thin. The one exception: brands that genuinely center women’s self-worth as part of their core identity. A brand like that can make bird-deprogramming content that feels real.

Celebrities Have Taste…We Promise

When everyone on social media shares recommendations and everything looks like an ad, consumers are trying to find someone they trust to cut through all that. Celebrities already had cultural authority. Now they're on these taste maker platforms (Substack, Letterboxd, Criterion Collection Closet), trying their best to show it off. The recommendation doesn’t really matter, it’s about what it signals about the person recommending it. Taste stopped being a private thing you have. It's now a public thing you perform. They’re all just influencers now (but without that gross pejorative term lol). MORE.

Brand Play: The play here is not to chase celebrity recommendations. It's to understand what they're replacing. Traditional product placement and endorsement deals look transactional now. The audience wants to believe the celebrity actually chose the thing. Brands that can engineer organic-looking moments within these recommendation ecosystems, getting your product on a Criterion Closet shelf or in a Service95 book list, will get more mileage than a standard paid post. The catch: the product has to actually be good enough that someone with cultural credibility would organically choose it. If it's not, this strategy will actually expose you.

Charli XCX’x SS26

Charli XCX’s new single "SS26" was named after the Spring/Summer 2026 fashion season where she spent time running between shows in Paris. The music video is a full runway presentation. Carine Roitfeld in the front row, Anthony Vaccarello sitting next to her, and multiple looks from Ann Demeulemeester, Balmain, Saint Laurent, and Chrome Hearts. She falls in platform heels (a Naomi Campbell reference), lights a cigarette on the catwalk, that kinda thing.

Brand Play: If you're a fashion brand, watch this video and ask yourself whether your last runway show was more interesting. If the answer is no, that could be an issue. If you're a non-fashion brand, "SS26" is a blueprint for borrowing the aesthetics of industries you don't belong to. A food brand staging a runway. A tech company sending products down a catwalk. The format is up for grabs.

READ THE ROOM: A chemical tank ruptured at a Washington paper mill, killing at least one worker with nine still missing

On May 26, a 900,000-gallon tank holding corrosive chemicals ruptured at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company in Longview, Washington. At least one worker is confirmed dead. Nine others are still unaccounted for. MORE.

Brand Guidance: This is a workplace tragedy that is still unfolding. Workers are still missing. Families are still waiting. If your brand has any connection to manufacturing, industrial work, workplace safety, or the Pacific Northwest, review your scheduled content. If you have anything that could read as tone-deaf in the context of workers dying on the job, pull it.

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

Harry’s launched two new spots, it looks like the goal is to connect with the everyman, while imagining these elaborate fantasy situations. In “Filthy Rich” a man imagines striking oil, building an empire, and losing it all before snapping back to his bathroom mirror. More.

In “Master Craftsman” another man spends years as a woodworking apprentice to finally get it right (all for one nod of approval). I think the disclaimer in the post copy is fun and feels tongue-in-cheek.

Both spots were created by Golden LA and directed by Saman Kesh.

The Real Story: The campaign is funny because the fantasies are too specific and too long. These are not daydreams about being attractive. They are full narrative arcs with character development. I think it works, it feels distinct, and paired with the right blue-collar influencer group, this will feel cohesive and connect with the right audience.

Golden Child “Maple-Bacon Scented OOH”

Golden Child is a new dog food brand that’s already testing out-of-home in Silver Lake, Soho, and Coconut Grove. The billboards are meant to feel like beautiful food photography that you might see for humans.

The twist is, they also made the billboards smell like maple-bacon. That means they would attract dogs (and dog owners).

The Real Story: I think this is really clever, and a great way to bring the customer right to their wild postings. This brand is meant to feel elevated, it’s just a coincidence that their customers are also sniffing and eating trash off the street.

Coros “Fearless”

Watch brand Coros launched their campaign “Fearless” starring Olympic runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and directed by Battery.

The spot has Ingebrigtsen running alone through a dark forest while he’s chased by a zombie version of himself. The watch appears organically within the video, which (according to Battery) is meant to capture the internal pressure that only serious runners understand.

The Real Story: Most running watch ads are selling the idea that data makes you faster. This one is selling the idea that running at the highest level is psychologically horrifying. It's the fear of regression made literal and put into a forest. The watch barely shows up, which I think is smart. The storytelling here is unique, which I can appreciate.

Bud Light “Grill for America”

Bud Light’s new spot “Grill For America” stars Peyton Manning and Emmitt Smith. The gag is that Manning has only focused on his grill set-up, so the rest of his house is still under construction. The larger campaign is tied to America’s 250th anniversary and includes patriotic packaging, a grilling sweepstakes, and a partnership with Folds of Honor.

The Real Story: Manning has become one of advertising's most reliable performers by playing the same character in every single spot. It works, it’s on brand, it’s not very innovative. (Anything in partnership with America’s 250th feels like a flop anyway.)

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.

Above the Fold.

Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.

The Business of Advertising.

He is wearing his own clothes. There are no fashion credits. MORE.

Image credit: Jurgen Teller

To understand what the hell is going on here, we have to understand Žižek.

Let’s start with Karl Marx: Marx believed that people go along with systems that exploit them because they've been tricked. They don't see what's really happening. The capitalist tells you the wage is fair and you believe him. The priest tells you suffering is noble and you believe him. Lift the veil, show people the truth, and they'll revolt.

Žižek’s career has been focused on flipping that idea: He says no, people aren't fooled. People know perfectly well that the wage isn't fair, that the ad is manipulating them, that the influencer was paid, that the politician is lying. They participate anyway. A cynical distance doesn't free you from the system, it lets the system keep running. "I know it's bullshit, but I'm doing it anyway" is not resistance, it’s compliance.

Žižek is really useful for thinking about advertising. The old worry was "people are being brainwashed by ads." Žižek says "people know they're being sold to, they make jokes about being sold to, and they buy the thing anyway, and that's worse."

He talks a lot about Coca-Cola, saying that the brand markets itself as special and necessary, but will never actually do what it promises (quench your thirst). That’s his point about a perfect commodity, that satisfaction isn’t the point, that your desire is. If you drink a Coca-Cola, you want another Coca-Cola. If you buy something, you want another of that something, you are now in a loop that will not end.

So Why Did Vogue Put Žižek on It’s Cover?

I think there’s a few things happening here. Žižek built his career on the idea that capitalism survives by absorbing its critics. He’s now on a Vogue cover getting photographed in front of a wall that calls the audience suckers, and tells the interviewer he calls himself a “moderately conservative communist.” It’s almost too spot on. The system takes a guy who criticizes the system, puts him on a Vogue cover, and sells him back to us.

Initially, I thought this was the point. …But maybe that’s not the point?

(lol, I promise I’m building to an actual point here)

Image credit: Jurgen Teller

He’s not styled, the poses are bad (maybe on purpose), the locations are weird. It’s all a bit jarring. Photographer Jurgen Teller has spent 30 years making fashion look awkward and exposed, and he’s using that whole skill set here. Vogue Adria isn’t trying to make Žižek fashionable. Vogue Adria is making his refusal to become fashionable into a fashion story.

The interview (I think) supports this interpretation. Žižek didn’t want to do the interview or the shoot. He told the writer, Teodora Jeremić, that he had already said everything he had to say in his books. He spends the conversation on the things he actually cares about: that the liberal center is disappearing, that Trump is power’s “obscene dimension” made visible, that the left has lost the language of dignity, and that he was happiest during Covid because he didn’t have to see anyone. He says he likes being a passive smoker. He says he would prefer to live in Svalbard.

None of this is fashion writing. It’s a man being himself in a magazine that normally asks people to be a very polished, extreme version of themselves.

So then, who is laughing at who?

Image credit: Jurgen Teller

Žižek isn’t laughing at Vogue (I don’t think). Vogue Adria isn’t laughing at Žižek, they’re letting him be the version of himself that doesn’t (necessarily) sell magazines. Teller isn’t laughing at either of them, he’s doing what he always does. The reader is in there somewhere, possibly the sucker in the whole thing (maybe not).

The cover doesn’t resolve to a clean thesis. And maybe that’s the point.

Go back to the ice cold Coke. The perfect commodity doesn’t satisfy you. It produces more wanting. You drink it, you want another one. Žižek would say the Vogue cover is doing the same thing. You look at it and you don’t know what to think, so you look again. You read the interview, you text the link to a friend, you write a Substack post about it. The cover isn’t selling you Žižek. It’s selling you the experience of not being able to figure out what Vogue is doing. That experience doesn’t end. So you keep looking.

I think that’s my main takeaway as someone working in advertising. Most brand work tries to resolve. The manifesto resolves. The values statement resolves. The brand film about joy resolves. The form and the message are saying the same thing, you absorb it in three seconds, and then you’re done. The work satisfies you and you move on.

Vogue Adria made something that doesn’t satisfy. The cover is a man looking through a hole in a wall. The interview is a philosopher saying he wants to live in Svalbard. The styling is whatever he had on. None of it adds up to a clean message, which is why I really like it.

Žižek would say we already know we’re being sold something. We’re going to buy the issue anyway. Maybe that’s what makes it work.

Xx, Caitlin

If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.

'Everything is Advertising' | Part 1

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