Pattie Gonia vs. Patagonia

Pattie Gonia is the drag persona of Wyn Wiley, who 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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

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 partners include Russ & Daughters, Roberta's, Playwrights Horizons, and the Guggenheim. A dedicated microsite styled like an old-school booking platform handles the reservations. 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 now. In a city where most leases are 12 months (and 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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

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. They're the creatives who made real work, for real clients, that ran in real markets and actually moved numbers. They watched a fabricated campaign take the stage at Cannes while their project, the one that performed, never had a case study budget. I think it’s important to celebrate work, even if it didn’t get that big grand stage award. 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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

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, happening in the four minutes before someone puts on pants and leaves for work. 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 sells 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 the most innovative campaign to hit this summer.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

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."

His most repeated example is Coca-Cola, which he argues markets itself as special and necessary. But it doesn’t do what it promises, it doesn’t quench your thirst. That’s the trick of the perfect commodity in Žižek’s eyes, satisfaction is not the point. The point is to connect with your desire. You drink the Coke, you want another Coke. You buy the bag, you want the next bag. You are now in a loop that doesn’t end.

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

There’s a few layers happening here (I think). A philosopher who has built his career on the idea that capitalism survives by absorbing its critics shows up on the cover, gets 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. Capitalism eats its critics. Critique becomes content.

…But maybe that’s not the point?

Image credit: Jurgen Teller

He’s not styled. The poses are bad (maybe on purpose). The locations are fine. The cover isn’t a cover, it’s a man looking through a hole in a wall. It’s 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 the 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’m still thinking about it two weeks later.

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

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

GenZ is Trying to Reclaim the American Flag.

Americana is showing up in a lot of pop culture at the moment: Addison Rae’s Lucky Brand collab, Lana Del Rey is going country, and Willy Chavarria is sending red, white, and blue down the runway for immigrant workers. In 2025, a Pew study showed Americans are uniquely negative about national pride (no shit) compared to other countries. Now, GenZers on both sides of the political spectrum are trying to reclaim the flag as an aesthetic. More.

@mackinstyleI am a #ralphlauren LOYALIST but this is my first time buying an American flag sweater from them (I got it for $162 from #renttherunway even though I’m the first to wear it slayyy) #americana

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The Brand Play: If your brand has any touchpoint with Americana, heritage workwear, or classic American design, right now is a window (but the entry isn’t waving an American flag). It’s casting the people who have been excluded from the imagery. An American-made campaign that centers immigrants, queer communities, or small-town kids who don’t fit the Norman Rockwell mold.

Vulture Explained Stealth Marketing

There are companies whose sole focus is to use clippers to manufacture conversations online. We knew that, but it’s on a much bigger scale and paid by the views. That means people are incentivized to create radical, polarizing content that makes people click. That’s the reason Justin Bieber’s Coachella set went viral - they paid to make it happen. More.

The Brand Play: You might be incentivized to make slop, content that makes people mad, makes people click. But is it worth losing all the heart at the core of your brand? (in the short term it might be, but in the long term I’m not so sure)

Drake Dropped Three Albums at Once. The Internet Says It’s His Temu Era.

On May 15, Drake surprise-released Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honour at the same time. 4.8 on Pitchfork. OOF. More.

The Brand Play: This is a cautionary tale. If your brand has taken a hit, the instinct might be to flood every channel with new content, DON’T DO IT. One strong piece of work that changes the conversation will do more than three campaigns nobody remembers. Drake needed one good album. He made three forgettable ones instead.

Jonathan Anderson Dior Cruise Collection

Jonathan Anderson presented his first Dior Cruise collection at LACMA, in an early Hollywood theme. It was all a big spectacle, weirdly timed with a moment where LA’s entertainment industry is in crisis (with productions moving out of town, local politics talking about the state of Hollywood, and the mood in the city being overall bad).

It was a show that romanticized the best days of old Hollywood. Marlene Dietrich, Hitchcock, vintage car culture. Is that clever or is that tone deaf? More.

The Brand Play: This was a genuine, full commitment to the vision. That’s commendable. I would just ask yourself - has anyone outside our orbit commented on the work we’re doing? Have we lost touch with reality?

A Hate Crime Shooting Killed Three People at a San Diego Mosque

On May 18, two teenage gunmen opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three men: a security guard, a staff member, and a community member who lived across the street. The shooters died from self-inflicted wounds. Investigators found a racist manifesto, anti-Islamic writing in their vehicle, and hate speech written on one of the firearms. The attack was livestreamed.

Brand Guidance: Anything on social will feel obscene by proximity. Post with caution.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

The Real Story: Hint made an ad for water that is trying to be campy. The spot itself is a bit boring, but the rollout on social was quite clever. Teasing the new flavor with bottles that look like blurred nudes, showing a convo about charges on the company card on OnlyFans. It’s fun, and it does all fit together.

I do (however) think the first water brand to actually get their flowers on r/hydrohomies is gonna be the real winner here.

Sesame Street x Fox Sports x FIFA

FIFA, Fox Sports, and Sesame Workshop are all partnering on a project for the 2026 World Cup. The Sesame Street characters will appear on Fox’s soccer coverage in May, June, and July. The Count will count teams, games, and fans. Oscar will host a segment called “Trash Talk.” Grover is hosting something called “Broadcast Bootcamp.” All of the creative is coming through the Jim Henson Company’s creative studio. More.

The Real Story: Had a genuine chuckle at the idea that Oscar the Grouch will be doing sports commentary. He lives in a trash can and hates everything. At least Fox Sports knows how we see their pundits. They didn’t have to cast a new character, they found him in the trash already doing the commentary job for free.

Andrex “Push Like You’re Pooing”

Andrex launched their campaign “Push Like You’re Pooing,” the third installment of its “Get Comfortable” brand platform. This time around, the focus is on tackling the fear of pooping during labor. Research showed 75% of women are afraid they will poop during childbirth, even though it’s a sign the right muscles are working. The spot features real pregnant ladies, and was created by FCB London (it’s their last campaign with the brand before the account moves to McCann). More.

The Real Story: A toilet paper brand made one of the most useful pieces of maternal health communication this year. I think that’s worth a slow clap that builds to a taseful round of applause.

OpenTable x Mother’s Day

Open Table and their agency 2045 installed a giant receipt in Melbourne called “The BillBoard.” It tallies the unpaid labor of motherhood with line items like: being carried for nine months, checking under the bed for monsters, and being loved infinitely. At the end: You’ll never settle the bill, but you can pick up the next one this Mother’s Day. More.

The Real Story: A restaurant reservation app was making everybody cry in a mall last Sunday. I guess making people feel a bit guilty will get them to act (but maybe only if it’s about their mom?)

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

Purpose-driven work won pitches. It won awards. It gave CMOs something to talk about. I mean, in many ways, it gave me purpose. I built many campaigns around representation, around equity, around the idea that a brand’s values were a competitive advantage. In 2021, I worked on the team that launched Meta’s We The Culture initiative on Instagram and Facebook, which showed the creative process of Black creatives working in different mediums. I don’t think that brief would exist in 2026. (And looking back, maybe that’s for the best. Maybe co-opting Black culture wasn't something Meta should have ever been dabbling in. Also, was I the right fit to lead a project dedicated to celebrating Black voices? So many after the fact reflections on that one.)

But other brands are following Meta’s path. Scrubbing their website of initiatives, pulling impact case studies, and letting the commitments they made expire. Public DEI disclosure within Fortune 500 companies dropped 65% this year. More.

You're supposed to act like those commitments were never made.

The creative directors who staffed up purpose-focused teams in 2021 are dissolving them in 2026. The CMOs who stood on stages at Cannes talking about "brand bravery" are now in boardrooms talking about "focus" and "core competency" and whatever other corporate speak words mean we don't do that anymore. I don’t think they ever believed it. They believed the market believed it.

Nobody in leadership will say this out loud: the retreat isn't strategic. It's cowardice. Brands aren't pulling back because purpose didn't work. Some of those campaigns drove real results. Real audience growth. Real cultural relevance. (I can say that for a fact. I have the reporting.)

But that's the new brief: Make something that can't offend anyone. Make something that doesn't say anything. Make something that, if someone screenshotted it and posted it with a furious caption, would be so bland that the fury would have nowhere to go.

You can build a career on that kind of work. People do. But let's not pretend it's creative direction. It's risk management and a boring as fuck mood board.

If your portfolio includes purposeful work, keep it. Meta is staying up on my portfolio (even though most of the campaign is now stripped from the internet). Right now, the industry will not reward you for purpose-first work. But I think you keep it in. Because you made something that meant something to someone, and the fact that a holding company got skittish doesn't actually matter. The work can be real/good, even if the commitment wasn't.

The industry will find its next big idea about what brands should stand for. It always does. And when it does, it will need people who know how to make that 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

Every Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

Kneecap’s Fenian

"Fenian" dropped May 1. It's the second album from the Irish hip-hop trio who rap in Irish and English, got investigated by a counter-terrorism unit last year, and just released a track called "Palestine" featuring Palestinian rapper Fawzi. The album title reclaims a word once used to describe medieval Irish and later repurposed as a slur against Irish Catholics. The album also includes real audio of fans shouting "Free Mo Chara" outside the courthouse where one of the band members was facing charges.

The album isn't called "Reclaiming Our Heritage" or "Words Have Power: One Band’s Journey." (That would be lame AF) It's called Fenian, and if you don't know what that means, they're not going to stop and tell you (that’s the whole point). The audience that gets it finds them. The audience that doesn't wasn't theirs to begin with. More.

Brand play: Most brands that want to talk about identity write a manifesto. Kneecap named the uncomfortable part first and let their work speak for itself. There's a version of this for brands who keep workshopping their "brand values" document instead of just making something that demonstrates the values. Name it. Ship it. Ideally, stop explaining it and just do it.

An 18-Year-Old Fashion Intern Figured Out That Taste Is a Political Weapon

Ella Devi is a Parsons student who works at a fashion brand. She went viral for revealing that Pete Hegseth's wife wore a dress from Temu to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and that Erika Kirk's gown came from the Saks’ clearance rack. She operates on the thesis: right-wing women have bad taste because they have less proximity to people with good taste.

What's interesting isn't the politics (although I think she may have a point). It's the format. Devi turned fashion sourcing into investigative journalism. She's finding receipts. The clearance tag, the Temu listing, the price point. It resonates because it offers a framework that feels objective. It’s just researchhhhh, calm downnnn. More.

Brand play: Showing the evidence behind a brand is a tried and true format. A brand that can show the material cost, the production story, or the sourcing chain of its own product in the same "I found the receipt" slant is a helpful and transparent story. Don't explain why your thing is good. Show the proof. Let the audience draw the conclusion.

Social execution: "What this actually costs." Take one product. Show the material. Show where it's from. Show the stitch count or the ingredient list or whatever your version of "the receipt" is.

Billie Eilish Said Meat Eaters Can't Love Animals and the Internet Split Along Class Lines

In an Elle interview, Billie Eilish said eating meat is "inherently wrong" and that you can't say you love animals while consuming them. The backlash was immediate. Critics on the left called it privileged. Critics on the right called it preachy. Billie responded by posting slaughterhouse footage to her Instagram Stories and telling people to “stay mad.”

A celebrity's moral stance would have been a 48-hour news cycle story two years ago, but now it’s a week-long class debate. People aren't arguing about whether Billie Eilish is right. They're arguing about who gets to have food ethics in the first place. The class dimension is new. The conversation shifted from "Is veganism good?" to "Who can afford to care?" That's a different conversation (and it’s refreshing to see we’re finally having it). More.

Brand play: If your brand touches food, nutrition, wellness, or sustainability, pay attention to the framing here. The audience isn't rejecting ethical positioning. They're rejecting ethical positioning that ignores economic reality. Any campaign that says "choose better" without acknowledging that "better" costs more is going to hit the same wall Billie did. The brands that will land this conversation are the ones that make the ethical choice and also the affordable one (and prove it with pricing, not manifesto copy).

Social execution: Poll or carousel on Instagram. "What would you change about your diet if cost wasn't a factor?" No brand positioning in the caption. No "here's what we think." Just the question. If you sell a product that makes ethical eating cheaper or more accessible, let the comments surface that naturally. If you don't sell food, stay out of this one entirely.

The World Cup is Fashion First

The FIFA World Cup starts June 11 across the US, Mexico, and Canada. Levi's dropped a Football Association collaboration, Wales Bonner made snake-print adidas Predators, Willy Chavarria sent models down a runway carrying footballs, AVAVAV did ironic sport-fashion hot pants, and a collective called Pattern Up released a Palestine x England kit with proceeds going to Gaza.

This is the first World Cup hosted across three countries simultaneously. It's also a HUGE opportunity for fashion brands (and they are taking advantage). Four weeks before kickoff, the discourse is about what everyone is wearing (not who's going to win).

Brand play: If your brand is planning World Cup content, understand that this tournament is being processed through fashion and identity, not just soccer (football). The audience that's already engaged isn't watching for tactical breakdowns. They're watching for the cultural moment. Your entry point is the viewing party and the outfits.

READ THE ROOM: The Supreme Court Hit Pause on Abortion Pill Access, Then Immediately Hit Pause on the Pause

Justice Alito issued a temporary stay on May 4, blocking an appeals court ruling that would have required in-person prescriptions for mifepristone nationwide. Mifepristone is used in over 60% of U.S. abortions. The appeals court ruling was immediate and national in scope, which meant for roughly 24 hours, the legality of receiving abortion medication by mail was genuinely unclear. The case, Louisiana v. FDA, will continue. Nothing is settled. It will likely reach the Supreme Court again. More.

Brand guidance: This is a week where reproductive rights conversations will appear again. Brands that posted statements after the Dobbs decision in 2022 will be asked whether they still mean it. There is no safe middle ground on this topic and there hasn't been for years. If your brand has a stated position on employee reproductive healthcare, make sure your internal teams know what it is this week. If your brand does not have a stated position, do not invent one on social media.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

Adidas’ new “Backyard Legends” short was directed by Mark Malloy, created by Lola USA and produced by Smuggler. It’s the center of their campaign for the 2026 World Cup. Timothee Chalamet plays a neighborhood organizer assembling a pickup team to take on the local reigning champions (who haven’t lost in 30 years). Chalamet’s team includes Messi, Jude Bellingham, Lamine Yamal, Trinity Rodman, and Bad Bunny. Beckham, Zidane, and Alessandro Del Piero also appear as de-aged younger versions of themselves via CGI. More.

The real story: This ad probably cost mid-eight figures, but that might have been worth it. Not because ads with big names are good, but because everyone in this spot is part of the storytelling, and nobody’s time is wasted. The short film format works really well here, and the fast clip of the storytelling keeps you watching. I will be referencing this spot to anyone that doubts the power of strong story and visuals being worth the spend.

Jelly Belly “Bean Appetit”

Jelly Belly launched its new campaign “Bean Appetit” with the goal of repositioning the brand as gourmet. The project includes curated collections like Endless Summer, Farmstand Fruit, and Signature 10, along with new packaging, a redesigned website, and a series of digital shorts comparing flavors to the things they’re meant to be in real life. More.

The real story: I get this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but in no universe do I believe my Jelly Belly jellybean will taste like fresh strawberry jam (and that’s okay). The “contains no real fruit” disclaimer isn’t doing much to help their case either. I love the look of this campaign. I think the “collections” concept makes sense. I would have preferred they went nostalgic. I want to watch someone enjoy the ‘90s and eat Jelly Beans (or maybe that’s just projection). I also don’t love “Bean Appetit.” After that viral meme, I can’t see “bon appetit” as anything other than “bone apple teeth.”

ChatGPT Self-Serve Ads Are Here

OpenAi opened its self-serve ChatGPT ads manager to all US advertisers on May 5 (no longer requiring the $50k minimum spend). Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP teams have all been onboarded. Expansion into the UK, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico are coming soon. More.

The real story: Three months ago, ChatGPT ads didn't exist, now they are (supposedly) pulling in $109 million a month. The format so far is a bit underwhelming, it’s a favicon placement that leaves a lot to be desired.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

The pitch deck says “our team,” but the org chart is actually three dudes in a basement (and they somehow all report into each other).

This isn’t new. Agencies have always used freelancers. But there did used to be a core. A bench of full-time people who held some kind of institutional knowledge, who knew the client’s brand guidelines front to back, who had worked together for years. In some shops, that’s gone. Maybe there’s a producer, an account lead, and a creative director, but their jobs are more about assembling the right team of freelancers fast enough to hit the timeline.

Image credit

The client rarely knows the difference. They signed up for the agency. They got the agency's logo on the cover of the deck. But the people doing the work are independent contractors who also did work for two other agencies this month. The strategy your brand is paying for was developed by someone who was developing a different strategy for a competitor last Tuesday. Nobody is lying about this. Let’s be clear about that part.

Adweek called this the "creative freelance boom" and asked who the winners and losers are. The winners are senior freelancers with reputations and full calendars. The losers are junior creatives who can't get hired because there's nothing to get hired into. The entry-level job used to be the entry point. Now the entry point is a freelance gig that pays a flat rate and doesn't lead anywhere, because the agency that hired you for it doesn't have a career ladder. They have a budget…for this one project.

This is the part that should bother people more than it does. The agency model was never just about making ads. It was a system that trained people. Juniors sat next to seniors. They learned by being there. They absorbed taste, timing, client management, the thousand small things that make someone good at this job. That system required full-time employment. It required people being on the same team for longer than one campaign cycle.

The freelance model doesn't train anyone. It extracts. It takes what you already know and rents it by the day. You don't leave with a mentor, or a network that invested in your growth, or the knowledge that comes from watching the same client relationship evolve over two years.

The agency of the future has fewer employees, more contractors, and a cool-looking website that says something like "we believe in the power of ideas." The "we" just changes every quarter.

If you're building a career in this industry, understand what you're walking into. The job listing might say "agency." The reality might be a holding company, a project manager, and a Google Drive full of freelancer NDAs. That doesn't mean it's bad work. It might be great work. But the thing people used to get from agencies (the mentorship, the community, the slow accumulation of craft through years of collaboration) that's not part of the deal anymore.

You have to find that mentorship somewhere else. LinkedIn, Substack, even TikTok can all be great places to start.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

Spider Noir is Releasing in Black & White (and Color)

Nick Cage’s Spider Noir will release on May 27 on Prime Video in 2 versions:

1. Authentic Black and White

2. True Hue Full Color

It’s the same show, released in two formats. The viewer gets to pick which version they watch. It’s meant to build an appreciation for classic noir films (or at least that’s what Nicolas Cage claimed was the point). I guess you also get to brag about it if you watched it in black and white and resisted the urge for color?

The Brand Play: The dual-format release creates somewhat of a template/question: what would it look like to release the same thing in 2 versions and let the audience choose? A long version and a short version. A BTS version and a polished version. An audio version and a visual version. The choice could be the engagement…

Brands Are Hiring Illustrators Because They’re Afraid of Looking Like AI

Hermes replaced product photography with hand-drawn illustrations by French artist Linda Merad (on their website). GAP hired a human illustrator for their Sandy Liang collab.

The Anti-AI aesthetic subculture is having a moment, and (for now) a luxury positioning strategy. It’s all about proof of craftsmanship. More.

The Brand Play: This is not about whether your brand should use AI. (That convo is happening in slack and will never end). This is about what your visual identity communicates to someone who is seeing other frictionless, soulless, algorithmically smoother imagery on their feed. A hand-drawn element in your next campaign isn’t a creative choice, it’s a signal of trust. It says that a real person has touched this. If you’re a smaller brand without the budget for Hermes-level illustration, commission a local artist to do your next social series.

The MET Gala’s Most Expensive Night Was Also Its Most Conflicted

The 2026 MET Gala raised $42 million. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez paid $10 million to co-sponsor it. Protesters left bottles of urine outside. Amazon workers and delivery drivers held a counter event in Meatpacking (called the Ball without Billionaires). Mamdani boycotted and celebrated NYC’s garment workers instead.

The Brand Play: Being associated with this event was a bad look for attendees and brands that showed up in the co-branded space with Amazon. It was tone deaf (but the MET Gala always kinda is). If you really want to tap into fashion, art, and culture, I would urge brands to look into Mamdani’s photo series. If you want to create art and culture, meet it where it is.

Pennsylvania Just Sued Character.AI for Practicing Medicine Without a License

A Character.AI chatbot called “Emilie” claimed to be a licensed psychiatrist, provided a fake license number, and started diagnosing users with depression. Character.AI says its bots are “fictional and intended for entertainment and roleplaying.” Pennsylvania says that they’ve left the realm of fiction/roleplay. More.

The Brand Play: If your brand uses any kid. of AI-powered customer interaction it might be worth reading this lawsuit. The arguement Penn State is making is simple: if it talks like a professional, advises like a professional, and the user reasonably believes it’s a professional, then any disclaimer at the bottom doesn’t matter. I would audit your AI touchpoints now. You may have a few liabilities hanging around.

READ THE ROOM: The Iran War Ended Again, Or Something.

On May 5 Marco Rubio announced the Iran War had ended. It didn’t. Nothing changed.

The Brand Play: I would normally tell a brand to tread lightly, but this is not letting up. Watch the news, I guess.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

Vue x Taika Waititi

Vue Cinemas released “Feel It Forever,” its first brand campaign since 2020, directed by Taika Waititi (and agency Hijinks). The short film follows people heading to the movies with lines of fictional characters. Shot in New Zealand and London, it’s now rolling out across the UK, Ireland, and Europe. More

The real story: They didn’t need Taika Waititi for this, but I will be re-watching Jojo Rabbit this afternoon.

Budweiser: FIFA World Cup 2026

Budweiser has officially gotten in on the FIFA action with its “Let It Pour” campaign created by Grey Global. The hero film features Erling Haaland and Jurgen Klopp and will run across more than 40 countries. When the team learned that Haaland’s father, Alfie-Inge, played in the 1994 World Cup, they wrote him into the spot, turning it into a father-son moment inside a beer ad. More

The real story: “Let it Pour” as the tagline is quite clever, and the “Wanna meet my Dad” line is quite cute. This is working for me, and Budweiser doesn’t feel like it’s forcing it.

Chivas Regal x Charles Leclerc

Chivas Regal and Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc have launched SE!ZE, a strategic board game co-designed with British game designer James Wallis. The game has 16 pieces to match Chivas Regal 16, and accompanies a co-created whisky blend. The campaign was created by agency Baby Teeth, positioning the whisky as something you’d actually sit down and spend time with rather than photograph once and post. More

The Real Story: Most celebrity liquor partnerships stop at putting a face on a bottle. Leclerc designed a board game with 16 pieces because the number matched his car and the whisky. That’s an obsessive detail (or a very good brief). The look of the game is also quite cool. You’ll definitely see this out on the table (unplayed) at some very insufferable F1 fans’ upscale apartments.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

The roles getting cut are execution roles. The people who did banner resizes. Who formatted decks. Who produced the 47th version of a social asset. The roles that aren’t getting cut? The tastemakers.

Taste. Discernment. Judgment. The ability to look at fourteen AI-generated options and know which one deserves attention and which one belongs in the trash. Adweek ran a whole piece about how every creative needs to think like a creative director. The argument being that when there’s a machine that can produce endlessly, the only scarce resource is someone who knows when to stop it.

I agree. Clients can now ask AI for ideas. They’re not paying agencies for output. They’re paying for someone to tell them which output is actually good, actually worth their time. That’s the job. That’s actually always been the job, but used to be a little bit more buried (under more corporate jargon).

So what does this mean if you’re building a career in advertising right now?

It means your portfolio of banner ads doesn’t matter as much as your point of view. It means the person who spent their twenties in weird corners of the internet now has an advantage.

Taste isn’t a talent. It’s an accumulation. Every strange film you watched. Every designer whose work you studied without being assigned to. Every brand campaign you pulled apart just to understand why it worked. That stuff has compounded. And it compounded in a way that an LLM can’t replicate. Taste requires a body that has lived in the world. Formed opinions about the world.

The lame part is that taste is hard to prove in an interview. You can’t put it on a resume. You can’t link to it. But you can demonstrate it in how you talk about creative work. In what you reference. In what you reject. The creative directors I’ve worked with who had real taste never had to explain it. You could feel it in their confident “no.”

If you’re early in your career, start developing your “no.” Go look at work that’s getting awards and figure out what’s actually good versus what’s just making a lot of noise (or creating a lot of useless “buzz”). Go look at failed campaigns and figure out what they got wrong. Train your instincts. Your specific point of view.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is Mostly Brand Partnerships

The sequel will be in theaters on May 1. Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt are back. Joining the party this time are L’Oreal, Starbucks, Samsung, Lancôme, TRESemme, Grey Goose, Tiffany, Dior, Diet Coke, Smartwater, Mercedes Benz, Google, Havaianas, and Valentino. Grey Goose temporarily rebranded as “Cerulean Goose.” Starbucks launched a secret menu with drinks named after characters. Walmart dropped a capsule collection. CNN ran a piece today titled “The devil wears Old Navy?” More.

The Brand Play: The Starbucks play stands out to me. A secret menu tied to fictional characters, orderable through the app, no production budget required. If your brand has any kind of customizable product, build a limited menu, a limited colorway, a limited anything tied to a cultural release your audience already cares about. Not a formal partnership. A fast, low-cost reference that rewards people for noticing it. The best brand tie-in to this movie isn’t one of the fifteen official ones.

Social execution: Film your team recreating the “cerulean sweater” monologue from the original but replace the fashion references with your product category. A coffee brand does it about pour-over methods. A skincare brand does it about retinol percentages. The template is the same: condescending expertise.

Beef Season 2 Lost Half Its Audience

All eight episodes of Beef Season 2 came to Netflix on April 16. It has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also pulled 2.4 million opening-week views, down about half from Season 1.

Season 1 was a breakout because it kinda felt like a show about you. The rage was relatable (at least for me). Season 2 is a show about rich people at a country club. More.

The Brand Play: For me, this is a brief-level observation, not a social post. If your brand makes content about aspiration (luxury, lifestyle, travel), the Beef numbers are an interesting data point. Audiences will engage with wealth when it’s satirized or earned. They’re less interested when it’s just the setting. The next time your creative team pitches a concept set in a beautiful location with beautiful people, ask who in the audience sees themselves in it.

Gen Z Is Buying Polaroid Cameras

Axios reported that 47% of Americans under 30 say they’re actively trying to reduce screen time. The dumb phone market is up. Polaroid sales are up. The generation that grew up on Instagram is buying film cameras on purpose.

Recently, Dazed partnered with Polaroid to send three clubbers on a digital detox, documenting their lives with a Polaroid Flip camera instead of a phone. More.

The Brand Play: If your product has any analog component, or can be experienced without a screen, make that the content. Not a campaign about going offline. An actual offline product moment. A pop-up without wifi. A dinner series where phones go in a bag at the door. A limited product that doesn’t get announced digitally first. (you do have to promote it on social first - still gotta create some FOMO)

Social Execution: Film a product shot exclusively on a disposable camera or Polaroid. No color grading, no transitions, no text overlay. Post it with zero context. Caption: the date and location, nothing else. Just VIBEZ.

BTS Just Started Their North American Tour

The Arirang World Tour started on April 25, the first North American date of a 34 city, 85 show global run. Every date sold out within hours of going on sale. The economic impact projections for each city are in the hundreds of millions.

This is the biggest live music event of 2026 by every metric. Stadium capacity, merch revenue, local economic impact, and social media volume. More.

The Brand Play: If your brand has a physical presence in any BTS tour city you can probably get away with a post. The play isn’t a partnership with BTS. The play is being useful to the fans already in your city. A hotel brand offers a late checkout for concert nights. A restaurant does a pre-show prix fixe that amkes sure you get to the concert on time. A transit brand runs extra service to the stadium. Meet the demand that already exists instead of trying to create new demand that won’t.

Social Execution: If your brand is in a tour city, post a simple welcome. “Tampa tonight. Good luck getting there on time.” Or just repost the setlist with no commentary. Do not add your logo. Do not say “we’re ARMY too.” (total poser) The less your brand tries, the better it lands with this audience.

READ THE ROOM…

Someone Tried to Assassinate the President at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

On Saturday night, a gunman charged a security checkpoint during the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Brand guidance: Pull back. Review anything scheduled for this week and check the tone. An assassination attempt at an event full of journalists is not something the news cycle processes in 48 hours. The political fallout, the security conversation, the inevitable weaponization of the story by every side will dominate social feeds for days. Any brand content that reads as lighthearted, clever, or attention-seeking will land wrong. If you have a major campaign launch scheduled, delay it or run it quietly.

Georgia’s Worst Wildfires in State History Are Still Burning

Two wildfires in southern Georgia have burned nearly 39,000 acres and destroyed over 120 homes and buildings. Governor Kemp declared a state of emergency for 91 counties. More.

Brand Guidance: If your brand operates in the Southeast or has customers in Georgia, acknowledge it. A simple, unbranded statement of support or a donation link to Georgia emergency services is appropriate. Do not tie it to a product. Do not use wildfire imagery for engagement. If you’re a brand with no connection to the region, you don’t need to post about it, but you should be aware that a significant portion of the country is watching their neighbors evacuate. Adjust your tone accordingly.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

For the past ten-plus years, I’ve worked in advertising. I’ve held creative and content roles at agencies and in-house. I’ve worked with Meta, Nike, Tinder, Levi’s, Sonos, Merrell, and Hanna Andersson. I’ve won three Telly Awards and an American Advertising Award.

I ran a social campaign for Tinder during the pandemic featuring Megan thee Stallion that drove 800 million impressions. I launched Meta’s ‘We the Culture’ initiative on Instagram. I worked with Levi’s and filmed a very drunk DJ on the highline for their Spring campaign. I led content and strategy for Hanna Andersson, Dose, and GoodPop.

I’m currently working on writing a satirical novel that has nothing to do with selling anything to anyone. It’s set in New York’s ad world and follows a burned-out creative director and his cynical team as they launch a viral campaign that accidentally creates QAnon.

Welcome. Or welcome back. Either way, thanks for reading :)

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

UPDATE May 2: Rachel Sennott did make it to the Met Gala. Some parts of the internet seem to think this ad got her there. I wish I still existed with that level of whimsy and excitement. Marc Jacobs knew Rachel was going to the Met…but it did spark a big blue dot trend:

@holdensmith962Mhm mhm let me not forget my pale blue dot #PopCulture #popculturenews #foryou #metgala #rachelsennott

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Marc Jacobs partnered with Rachel Sennott to write and star in “The Scene,” a social series for its pre-Fall 2026 campaign. The episodes follow Rachel around Manhattan, with the same vibe as her series “I Love LA’s” finale. It’s part of the brand’s broader move toward what it calls “social entertainment.” More

The real story: Marc Jacobs hired an actress-screenwriter to make a vertical video series (they’re so hot right now) about getting to the MET, which is already more plot than most brand content manages (so good on ‘em). Their social team now has to be “editorial, multi-hyphenate people,” which is a polite way of saying everyone’s job just tripled.

Casper

Casper returned to advertising for the first time in 4 years with “Daymares.” Three darkly comic films showing uncomfortable and relatable daytime stress: a birthday party with a creepy mascot, a packed elevator, and a frozen video call. Each resolves with the quiet nighttime relief of a Casper mattress, with the tagline “Goodnight, Day.” The campaign marks Casper’s first major brand push since the company was sold to Carpenter Co. in 2024. More

The real story: Four years of silence, a sale to a mattress conglomerate, and Casper resurfaces with spots about how terrible your day is. “Goodnight, Day” works as a tagline and as a reasonable summary of the brand’s last half-decade.

Powerade

Powerade launched “Power Your Fate,” its global World Cup 2026 campaign. The film features Lamine Yamal and Rodrygo Goes. The campaign is “social-first” and will run across social, digital, outdoor, TV, and OLV, plus stadium branding and fan events. Powerade also partnered with street portrait artist Devon Rodriguez to create custom art on Powerade Squeeze Bottles. More

The real story: Powerade’s World Cup campaign is “social-first,” which somehow ended up meaning they made a TV spot and also cropped it for vertical. The Devon Rodriguez bottle art is a nice, thoughtful touch, but I can’t find the artwork posted anywhere. Everything else is the standard pre-tournament playbook.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

OnlyFans Got a Prestige TV Show

Margo’s Got Money Troubles premiered on Apple TV on April 15. Elle Fanning plays a single mom who turns to OnlyFans after losing her job at a theme restaurant. Nick Offerman plays her estranged pro-wrestler dad. Michelle Pfeiffer is her Hooters-waitress mother. Nicole Kidman is also in it. It has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The show does something most “sex work on screen” stories refuse to do: it treats the economics as the actual plot. Margo isn’t rescued. She isn’t punished. She does the math and makes a choice. The creator economy has been the subtext of prestige TV for a while. This is the first time it’s the text. The actual plot. More.

Brand play: If your brand targets women 18-34, watch this show before your next brief. The conversation around money, motherhood, and side hustles just got a new reference point. The brands that will get it right are the ones making content about the actual texture of being broke, not the aspirational version.

Tim Cook Announced He’s Stepping Down and Nobody Was Surprised

Tim Cook posted a letter on Monday saying he’ll step down as Apple CEO on September 1. John Ternus, the hardware guy, is gonna take over. Cook stays on as executive chairman. The stock dipped. Warren Buffett said something nice. The internet moved on in about four hours.

The interesting thing isn’t the transition. It’s the reaction. When Steve Jobs left, it felt like a cultural earthquake. When Cook leaves, it feels like a planned retirement. Apple under Cook became a $4 trillion company that nobody has strong feelings about anymore. The products are good. The keynotes are fine. The brand is stable in a way that makes it almost invisible. That’s a compliment and an insult at the same time. More.

Brand play: This is a case study in what happens when a brand outlives its founder mythology. If you’re a founder-led brand thinking about succession, study how Apple communicated this. The letter, the timeline, the chairman title. It was boring on purpose. Boring is what $4 trillion looks like when it’s managed well. Not every transition needs to be a narrative. Sometimes the best brand story is that there isn’t one.

The Artemis II Crew Held Their First Press Conference and They’re Famous Now

The four Artemis II astronauts sat for their first public Q&A on April 16, six days after splashing down. They flew around the moon and back. Victor Glover is the first Black astronaut to reach the moon. Christina Koch is the first woman. Jeremy Hansen brought maple cream cookies for the crew because he’s Canadian.

Commander Reid Wiseman said they were “shocked at the global outpouring of support.” They shouldn’t have been. The mission was the most-watched live event since the Super Bowl. Dazed ran a piece asking if anyone still cares about going to the moon. The answer, apparently, is yes. More.

Brand play: Space is interesting to brands again, and not in the way it was during the billionaire rocket era. This is government-funded, diverse, genuine exploration. Brands that align here should do it through the people, not the mission patch. A profile of Koch or Glover, a collaboration with an astronaut who actually went somewhere, a product tie-in that doesn’t feel like a screensaver from 1998. Be specific about which astronaut and why.

The White Lotus Just Cast Helena Bonham Carter and Set Season 4 at Cannes

HBO confirmed this week that White Lotus Season 4 is filming on the French Riviera, set during the Cannes Film Festival. Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Coogan, Chris Messina, and Max Greenfield are in the cast. The season’s theme is fame. Mike White satirizing the entertainment industry at Cannes is almost too on the nose, which is probably the point.

Meanwhile, the show’s cultural footprint keeps expanding without a new episode airing. The “Not Meant to Live an Uncomfortable Life” TikTok format, pulled from a Season 3 line, has become the go-to template for justifying small luxuries. Creators use it to defend everything from $7 lattes to business class upgrades. The show has become a permanent meme engine. More.

Brand play: If your product can be framed as a small, justifiable luxury, the “Not Meant to Live an Uncomfortable Life” format is sitting right there. This works for food brands, hospitality, travel, skincare, anything positioned as a treat rather than a necessity. Make the content with a creator who already uses the format. Don’t explain the reference.

Trump and Pope Leo XIV Are Publicly Feuding Over the War

The first American pope and the American president have spent the last two weeks going back and forth. Pope Leo called the war a “delusion of omnipotence.” Trump called him “weak on crime.” Leo said he has “no fear of the Trump administration.” Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus healing the sick. A YouGov poll found 48% of Americans side with the Pope. 28% side with Trump.

This is not a normal news cycle item. The sitting president is in a public fight with the leader of the Catholic Church over an active war, and the Pope is winning the messaging battle by a 20-point margin. More.

Brand guidance: Do not touch this. Do not reference the Pope. Do not reference the AI Jesus image, even as a joke. Do not weigh in on the war, the ceasefire, or the diplomacy. This is the kind of story where any brand involvement, no matter how clever the social team thinks it is, ends badly. The only correct brand response to a president feuding with a pope over a war is no response.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.

Kotex launched “Art’s Missing Period,” a campaign from Ogilvy Singapore that confronts the absence of menstrual blood across centuries of art history. The work collects pieces that were rejected, censored, or kept from public view and presents them together, making the pattern of exclusion super, SUPER obvious. Physical installations were placed outside major museums, with a virtual gallery, documentary, and QR codes with a wee bit more context. More

The Real Story: Museums have rooms full of battle wounds, martyrdom, and severed heads, but menstrual blood was apparently crossing the line. One of my absolute favorites from the year so far. The companion documentary flew under the radar, and it’s definitely worth a watch (it’s linked below).

On x Zendaya

Zendaya and On dropped their first co-created collection on April 16, backed by a short film from Spike Jonze called “Shape of Dreams.” The film is set inside “The Dream Lab.” The collection, developed with stylist Law Roach and On’s product team, has sneakers, parachute pants, and bermuda shorts. On signed Zendaya in 2024 and has been steadily using her to push their brand deeper into lifestyle territory. More

The Real Story: Hiring Spike Jonze to shoot your athleisure drop is one way to tell people you’re not a running shoe company anymore. The film does more work than the clothes need it to, which is probably the point.

Nespresso

Nespresso debuted “Vertuo World” on April 14, a global campaign introducing Dua Lipa as the brand’s newest ambassador. She joins George Clooney, who has fronted Nespresso for 20 years and will still appear in future brand activities, though the spotlight is clearly shifting. The move targets Gen Z, nearly half of whom prefer sweet, iced coffee. Nespresso CMO Leonardo Aizpuru called it a “new creative era” for the brand. More

Twenty years of George Clooney, and now they need someone who actually drinks iced coffee. The “new creative era” language is doing a lot of heavy lifting for what is functionally a demographic pivot.

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 Wednesday, Open Woods tracks the cultural moments worth paying attention to. Curated weekly for brands that want to move first.

Open Woods.

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

The Business of Advertising.

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

Above the Fold.