In this issue of Sunday Strategy, we look at five stories to think about next week, including: AI remixes, Buy Now Pay Maybe, ADHD and shopping, AP x Swatch Chaos and Spotify rewarding ‘real fans’.
In addition, we have ads from: StreetEasy, Air Transat, PETA, Nike, Tesco, Genesis.
// Stories of the Week:
1.) The Inevitability of an AI Remix
AI continues to market its growing inevitability, with consumers increasingly pushing back. With mass sentiment towards AI increasingly sceptical, and graduation speakers finding push back when mentioning it – the progression towards greater AI usage isn’t necessarily welcome. However, moves this week by Google, releasing AI integration into the search bar and allowing users to remix other users’ YouTube shorts with its Omni model, show that even with pushback – AI use is still knocking.
While search seems like it will have an easier go of things, the ability to use other people’s posts as creative stimulus in YouTube looks to be a perfectly designed provocation to users already worried about AI overreach. Whether it gets pulled back looks to be partially down to outrage, but with TikTok integrating Seedance into its app and OpenAI planning how to realign after Sora – AI video, and its use in social media, may be a flashpoint for technological adoption and pushback in the coming months.
2.) How Does ADHD Affect Shopping?
For Neurodivergent Celebration Month, BBH USA and Understood.org have released Silent Spenders 2.0, the second edition of BBH’s research series on high-value audiences brands often miss. With 10% of the US public diagnosed with ADHD, understanding the myths and reality of its effect on shopping is useful. The stereotype of a chaotic shopper is challenged in the research, with ADHD consumers 4x more likely to research and 90% to stay with a brand when they like it. They reward clarity more than the overall consumer base – highlighting the opportunity to counter assumed pressure tactics with convenience and useful information.
3.) Buy Now, Pay Maybe?
We’ve argued before that ‘everything has become gambling’ and now, financial brand Tuyo has joined the group chat. While financial products have seen increased gamification, none have pushed it as far as this brand. Tuyo’s ‘Buy Now, Pay Maybe’ promise features the chance to buy and have your purchase paid for by the brand – in effect creating a gamble out of every purchase. The brand itself faces a delicate line on reckless spending and financial regulation, but it also serves as a symptom of where the wider economy has gone. As consumer risk profiles increase in the face of economic uncertainty, with many looking to take risks to get ahead of a financial polycrisis, brands like Tuyo emerge to meet risk appetite. While only one of a range of features Tuyo offers, its gambling style position may either be the start of a new age of financial risk or the peak of where a gambling economy has taken us.
4.) Was the AP x Swatch Chaos a Brand Win or Loss?.
Was the AP × Swatch ‘Royal Pop’ launch a brand win or a brand loss? On the winning side, the eight Pop Art pocket watches at $400-$420 generated global queues, closed-store headlines and a week of earned media no ad campaign could replicate. On the losing side, Swatch shut boutiques across the UK, France, US and Singapore, Dubai, Mumbai and Delhi cancelled launches over crowd-safety fears, and the company had to clarify the piece wasn’t even a limited edition – an operational stumble that put a number on what scarcity costs.
The deeper risk is specific to Audemars Piguet, whose equity rests on exclusivity-via-relationship, and whose careful client cultivation now sits next to images of pre-dawn queues and barricades. The reality is a situation where you can take the outcome you want from it. For those who value cultural relevance – there is a clear victory. For those that prioritize exclusivity and refinement, a risk. Overall, it reflects the debate luxury and heritage brands face daily internally, selling access without throwing the doors wide open, though most of the time they aren’t also kicked in!
5.) Spotify Gives Top Fans Access to Tickets
As ticket bots snap up more and more concert seats in seconds, how do real fans fight back? Spotify has continued its lifestyle expansion play by offering heavy listeners a chance for exclusive tickets. The move makes greater use of Spotify’s listener data, ignoring that gym playlists and parties might throw the “real fan” definition, and potentially turns listening into a ‘status grinding’ exercise. The partnership, through Live Nation, gives both brands an earned access story they need (Spotify to keep justifying its subscription and Live Nation to counter recent lawsuits and news). It also shows that the data a brand sits on has greater value when you creatively think about how to apply it.
// Ads You Might Have Missed:
1.) ‘Reserve Your Future’ – StreetEasy:
StreetEasy has made a virtue of being ‘Forever a New Yorker’, with campaigns that fight the frustrations of trying to live in the city. While the real estate and rental site can functionally help the search, there’s not much it can do about rising cost of living or landlords.
In response, they’ve committed to showing what you miss if you ‘give in’ to leaving, celebrating the city and their 20 years in it – by allowing people to book tables at NYC hotspots and activities for 2046. ‘Reserve Your Future’, ironically already fully booked, asks people to book a table for 2 at Gage and Tollner, a corner seat at the Commodore, an Art Class at Happy Medium or a Pizza at Roberta’s 20 years in advance as a way to commit to NYC. While the time frame is pretty far out, even StreetEasy wasn’t crazy enough to try and offer tables to Via Carota or the Ambassador’s Clubhouse. With authentic experiences over the most exclusive ones, and a captcha that asks you to prove your NYC knowledge, the brand doesn’t just want you to chase today’s hottest institutions, it wants you to commit to going to the venues that have, are and hopefully will always be part of NYC alongside you.
2.) ‘Plan B’ – AirTransat:
The cost of the World Cup is going to be one of the enduring legacies of the tournament, with the cost of tickets, transport and hotels not matching up to the lack of anticipation around the tournament. While hotels and tourism brands are calling it a non-event, costs are still sky high and AirTransat has tapped directly into this with a new campaign.
Plan B, sees Air Transat contrast the cost of seeing a country play in the tournament vs. seeing the country itself and puts flight prices directly into cultural conversation. As FIFA creates a problem of its own making, brands like Air Transat can step into the tension to make their own point.
3.) ‘Sharpen Your Sword, Go Vegan’ – PETA:
Known for historically taking a more shocking and hard hitting approach to animal welfare, PETA’s latest ad continues a trend of reframing veganism as more than an ethical issue. Where a previous UK ad highlighted veganism’s potential gut health benefits, its new ad highlights potential male health and performance gains. ‘Sharpen Your Sword, Go Vegan’ features two men fencing with an unusual grip, and in the process tries to sell veganism alongside supplements and performance. Whether the message can land is questionable, but as internet culture sells peptides, wellness programs and sexual health pills, PETA is showing a continued interest in riding the same wave.
4.) ‘England x Palace’ – Nike:
Wayne Rooney is known for many things, but noted thespian isn’t one of them. A new ad from Nike x Palace may change this, as the United legend takes on a new role in the run up to this year’s World Cup – reciting John of Gaunt’s speech from Richard II, lionizing England over sport highlights. The ad stands apart from an increasing tide of World Cup hype films, due to its tone, visuals and use of a Ruff on Rooney himself. For two brands coming from different sides of the sport / fashion spectrum, the ad lands uniquely in the middle.
5.) ‘Now We’re Cooking’ – Tesco:
Most supermarket ads treat accessibility as a CSR footnote, but Tesco built an entire campaign around it – winning Channel 4’s £1m Diversity in Advertising Award. “Now We’re Cooking” opens in a TV test kitchen where disabled cooks describe how cooking has historically excluded them, with open captions, audio description, high-contrast visuals and clear typography baked into the creative rather than bolted on. BBH worked with The Diversity Standards Collective and disability-led agency With Not For so disabled contributors shaped scripts, casting and edit throughout – supporting the main ad by offering 100 redesigned accessible recipes in audio, Braille, ebook and smart-speaker formats, plus adaptive cooking tools via Tesco Marketplace. It shows that inclusivity is credible only when it’s baked into the product and the production, not just as a casting move.
6.) ‘Built to Thrill’ – Genesis:
Haunting is something you usually apply to car ads, but Genesis’ new ad for the GV70 takes their ‘Built to Thrill’ tag line and pairs it with ‘Je Te Laisserai Des Mots’ by Patrick Watson. Piano music accompanies a driving demonstration made unique with the presence of a doll in the backseat, raised and moved around by the car’s driving. The ad combines to show that not all ‘driving demonstration’ auto ads have to be high octane, especially when the brand isn’t able to compete purely on performance credentials. Similar to previous work by Volvo against Audi and BMW, Genesis takes a measured tone to try and subtly reframe how the brand sees driving and performance.
// Sunday Snippets
// Marketing & Advertising //
– Guinness combines brand assets with singing pint social content in a new World Cup ad [Food]
– An AEG dishwasher ad was shot through a lasagne dish it cleaned [Food]
– Lay’s leans into WhatsApp group chat to try a different approach to the World Cup [Food]
– Audible launches the first ever bookless bookstore [Media]
– Strongbow’s ‘Refreshing the Nation’ turns Britain’s regional ‘first sip’ slang into 50+ local poster executions and a TVC scored to The Streets’ ‘Fit But You Know It’ [Alcohol]
– Lay’s opens a potato themed restaurant in Shanghai with Michelin-acclaimed chefs [Food]
– Olipop leans into its ‘fiber’ credentials in its new ad [Food]
– Dove Men taps ‘Seven Nation Army’ to try and bring some intimidating chants to US soccer for the World Cup [FMCG]
// Technology & Media //
– Google Omni touts universal creation and brand safety in Gen AI [AI]
– The EU’s plan to tackle ‘cookie fatigue’ may see the end of cookie pop-ups [Media]
– The academic sprint to ready Accounting students for an age of AI [Work]
– The majority of creator-brand deals are still one offs vs. ongoing relationships [Social Media]
– Netflix claims ad tier now reaches 250m viewers worldwide, up from 190m [Media]
– Amongst layoffs, a Meta employee gets real about currently working there [Work]
– The Economist prepares for a two track web: glossy pages for humans and simple structure for AI [Media]
– Sony Xperia VIII’s AI camera assistant’s launch backfires as promo shots look worse than non-AI originals [AI]
– Benedict Evans publishes the May 2026 update of his half-yearly ‘AI eats the world’ macro deck [Tech]
– OpenClaw’s creators warn of a ‘vibe slop’ crisis coming [AI]
// Life & Culture //
– Single women are buying more homes than single men in the UK, and men are, regrettably, not responding well [Culture]
– Researchers are finding 27% body weight loss in phase three trials of retratrutide [Health]
– Stephen Colbert pops up on Monroe, Michigan public access show 24 hours after his ‘Late Show’ finale [TV]
// Until Next Sunday
As always, let me know what you think by email (dubose@newclassic.agency), website or on LinkedIn.
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