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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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