In this issue of Sunday Strategy, we look at five stories to think about next week, including: Meta’s Infinite Creative, Vicarious Rom-Coms, The Kid’s Finances Aren’t Alright, The Certainty Recession and Place-Making Becomes Space-Making.
In addition, we have ads from: Tubi, Neutrogena, Tecate, Irn Bru and Life360.
If you’d rather listen to this week’s issue, listen to the podcast below:
// Five Stories of the Week:
1.) Creativity vs. Infinite Creative.
Mark Zuckerberg’s recent interview with Stratechery’s Ben Thompson has ruffled advertising industry feathers, not for its view on Meta’s expansion of its AI capacity to consumers – but for Zuckerberg’s view on AI and advertising. Zuck outlined a future where Meta handles every aspect of the advertising process with AI, from the creation of ads through to targeting, delivery and optimisation. The model, deemed ‘infinite creative has been seen to existentially threaten today’s industry model – shifting it to something new, unrecognizable and a ‘substantial departure from today’s advertising’ as some put it online.
However, this isn’t a departure from our current model, it’s an acceleration of it. Agencies have grappled with the proliferation of content for years, attempting to reconcile a financial model that prioritizes one finite idea’s creation, against a world that offered optimisation, insight generation and ongoing marketing. Zuck’s vision takes the full potential of advertising’s insight generation capacity, where each interaction with an ad from a consumer creates a signal, and makes it more actionable with AI. All that’s left is to show where the irrational creativity lives.
However, it also faces the human barriers of today’s model – in the face of client trust, approval processes and disruptive creativity that breaks existing logic. Most importantly, it faces a goldilocks problem with budgets – too small and you don’t get a feedback loop or scale. Too large and you want to go outside the Meta ecosystem for an integrated campaign. Similar to modern agency struggles with product market fit, Meta faces a challenge on who this is best suited for. Meta’s vision will no doubt occur in some form soon, but the disruption it brings and the challenges it will face are already with us today.
2.) Let’s Go Vicarious Dating.
Modern dating is hard. From the toxic landscape of dating apps to a push back to the challenges of real world dating, the stories coming out from those looking for love scare other singles and couples alike. However, with a story so compelling, it’s not surprising we all want to join in. The Washington Post reports in China, livestreamed matchmaking has done for dating shows, what TikTok shop did for QVC – bringing a new version into the social age. The push to watch others find love isn’t new, but its ability to give us a front row seat to the process through our phones is interesting. It also has analog comparisons, as ‘pitch a friend’ evenings like this one in Denver, go a step further to put our friends in the middle of our dating lives.
3.) The Kids (and Most of Us) Aren’t Alright.
Another week, another bleak piece of research that shows how incredibly challenging young people’s lives and worlds are currently. However, the ‘Global Flourishing Study’ goes beyond standard research to show when we do flourish and what it means for many of us. Researchers classify ‘flourishing’ as a combination of not just happiness, but also physical and mental health, perceptions of their own character, meaning in life, the quality of relationships and financial security. The research doesn’t just highlight that the ‘carefree youth’ stereotype is dead, but also that we don’t ‘flourish’ until 50. Expanding the aperture to highlight the breadth of our current struggles is useful and potentially shows a higher age for flourishing in the future if economic chaos continues.
4.) Navigating the Certainty Recession.
The US GDP goes down, imports and hiring go up. Consumers prep and spend simultaneously. Port traffic is slowing, even as the stock market hovers. What Are Brands Supposed to Do in This Uncertainty?
Our latest report ‘Navigating the Certainty Recession’ looks at the looming economic disaster we all fear is coming…or has come and how to adapt to it. As consumers and businesses look for certainty amongst an uncertain and contradictory economy, it’s hard to know what lessons from the past are relevant. Our report breaks down the economic indicators and consumer attitudes of the US market, so that we can give actionable steps on how to respond to the ‘Certainty Recession’ we’re in.
5.) From Place-Making to Space-Making In Modern Living
Repurposing office space as residential may be one solution to the housing crisis for many cities – but it also says a lot about modern community. The repurposing of the Pfizer building in Midtown Manhattan is an interesting challenge for architects trying to take a massive space and meet living space quality requirements. While there’s lots of talk about windows and natural light, it’s intriguing that there’s little about building a community around the space.
Re-zoning may have enabled conversions such as this one, but attitudes towards delivery over grocery stores and more isolated living have as well. In a modern world, what does community look like? The shift from placemaking to space-making may be on show with redevelopments like this.
// Ads You Might Have Missed:
1.) ‘Neutrogena Remembers’ – Neutrogena:
For children of the 80s and 90s, the amount of time passed may come as a shock for a generation that often doesn’t think of themselves as around 40. Current nostalgia may make the 90s feel close, despite the fact that if the 1993 film ‘Dazed and Confused’ was filmed today, a proportional time difference would see it set in 2008. Nostalgia and time powers Neutrogena’s latest skincare campaign, using a series of ads to tell Millennials that if they remember landlines, teen magazines, ‘Donna and David’ and more, it may be time to start using Retinol. The ads borrow from internet memes of a similar device and in the process uniquely use nostalgia to make things feel further away instead of closer.
2.) ‘Devoted Fans Make Devoted Fans’ – Tubi:
Streaming platform Tubi has always taken a creative approach to selling its media space – from films created for marketers in 2023, to B2B / B2C campaigns that highlight its scale. It’s latest campaign builds on this, championing the fandoms on Tubi as valuable customers and not just content enthusiasts. From murder fans that buy cleaning products to crime fans that buy vans and fantasy enthusiasts who buy beard trimmers – the ads highlight a higher propensity to buy in an entertaining way.
Whereas lots of media and SAS platforms offer customer research, it often lacks a creative hook to get you to care. Tubi wraps expected stats in unexpected execution to make a story about why storytellers should use the platform.
3.) ‘With Salt from the Gulf of Mexico’ – Tecate:
Heineken Mexico’s latest limited edition Tecate product wades into the controversy around the attempted renaming of the ‘Gulf of Mexico’. Tecate Light’s new special edition product features salt from the gulf and has been launched on a floating bar in the gulf itself. The ad supporting it shows the Mexican response to both name changes, highlighting the gulf’s role as part of the identity of those all around it. The tone is a balance of earnest and funny in a way that mirrors the various aspects, both serious and absurd, of the controversy itself.
4.) ‘Legendary Flavours’ – Irn Bru:
Irn Bru puts two mythical animals front and center for its latest campaign promoting ‘legendary flavours’, offering Nessie’s Nectar and Unicorn Tears (the Unicorn is the official animal of Scotland) soft drinks. Both flavours are shown being made in two ads that feature an absurdly Scottish ‘Nessie Milker’ and a ‘Unicorn Tear Collector’ – who aptly points out that the Unicorn is just ‘a trumped up horse with a horn’. Both ads continue the long history of Irn Bru’s takes on Scottish life and culture, building on last year’s Euro football campaign ‘a case of Optimism’, and showing how the unique soft drink has an equally unique brand tone.
5.) ‘I Think of You (Dying)’ – Life360:
I’ve often wondered who Life360 is for, in a world where native functionality like ‘Find My Friends’ exists and location tracking is baked into more and more devices. For a brand that offers greater safety ‘monitoring’, defending ‘why’ that matters is a constant challenge. Their latest ad, ‘I Think of You (Dying)’ dials up the worries of parents, but without fear mongering.
The ad sees a Disney-esque style song and animated vignettes, as a parent describes all the anxieties that she has about her child’s well being when she isn’t there – from car accidents to organ harvesting. In a similar vein to the seminal ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, the ad swaps pure anxiety for humor and commiseration with parents – positioning the brand as less of a source of new fear and more a partner in understanding the, often irrational but powerful, existing fears parents have.
// Sunday Snippets
// Marketing & Advertising //
// Warren Buffet to step down as CEO at Berkshire Hathaway [Marketing]
// Spotify celebrates global fandoms in their latest campaign [Ads]
// Chipotle launches their new UGC ad, ‘Yourpotle’ [Ads]
// KIND bars recognize the appropriate level of festivity for a rebrand [Brands]
// Major Players have launched their 2025 Creative Industries Census [Research]
// Pepsi dyes its soda orange to support the Edmonton Oilers [Product]
// RGA releases a report on ‘Navigating the world of intelligent commerce’ [Research]
// Sprite has become the US’ third most popular soft drink [Marketing]
// Technology & Media //
// a16z goes full Fountainhead with its rebrand [Brands]
// As influencer careers rise, I assume we’ll all be famous on Substack for 15 minutes [Media]
// ‘Now You See Me 3’ rewarded fans who engaged with their ads through a Venmo giveaway [Film]
// Is Eurovision giving up on the gays? [Music]
// Life & Culture //
// How Labubus became a global sensation [Culture]
// The first ever Sperm Race was held in LA. Anything to not watch the UFL? [Sports]
// Brides are getting too skinny, too quickly for their tailors and wedding dresses – thanks to GLP-1s [Health]
// Why do so many men refuse to wear shorts? [Fashion]
// Has body positivity turned against itself? [Culture]
// Penn Station’s lower levels double as one of the NYC’s unofficial dance studios [Culture]
// How Scarr’s Pizza became a clubhouse for watch collectors in NYC [Fashion]
// The 1 gorilla vs. 100 men debate rages on and no one considered Jamiroquai [Culture]
// In similar news, a 2021 YouGov study showed 39% of Americans think a goose beats them in a fight [Culture]
// Is microdosing GLP-1 health optimisation or performance enhancing? [Health]
// Until Next Sunday
As always, let me know what you think by email (dubose@newclassic.agency), website or on LinkedIn. You can also listen to an audio summary and discussion of each week’s newsletter on Spotify. We’re also on TikTok!
