Ads worth applauding, Trump's Subway moment,đŠice cream trucks and all the latest in brand news
Remember when people used to say, âOh, I love that ad, itâs so cleverâ? Just regular people, unprompted, talking about advertising like it mattered. That kind of conversation feels quaint now.
And yet, this summer something curious is happening: marketing is getting love again.
Emily Sundberg clocked it last week. Under a new campaign for Dairy Boy clothing, the top comment read: âMarketinggg đ.â Just beneath it: âYour creative director deserves a raise.â These kinds of comments, Sundberg noted, have become a thing. From Rhodeâs latest spot starring Harris Dickinson, to Paltrowâs very temporary cameo for Astronomer, people are responding. Not just to the messages, but to the effort.
Now, as it turns out, Dairy Boyâs new brand film is nothing groundbreaking. The retro ice cream van trope isnât newâBill Nighy just did the same for Ffern. But still, it lands. In this spot, Dairy Boy swaps sailor plaid sleep sets and varsity shirts for 99 Flakes, leaning into its name with a wink.
Does it meet the veteran standards of creative advertising? Probably not. But itâs close. Whatâs interesting is that people are calling out the marketing itselfâas a compliment. And that feels like a shift.
So whatâs going on?
On one hand, itâs obvious. In a post-media world where everyone has as personal brand, weâre all fluent in the mechanics of marketing. To cite âmarketingâ is to show your savvy. You get it. You approve.
On the other, itâs oddly nostalgic. A throwback to when people actually liked a brandâs advertising and said so.
The deeper theory? A generation is coming of age thatâs experiencing advertising as it once wasfor the very first time. Theyâve never known the era when brands hired Ridley Scott or Michel Gondry. Ads, for them, have been the noise between swipes. So when a brand shows up with intention and a little flair, it feels new. Even meaningful.
Thatâs a welcome sign for marketers who have spent years contorting themselves to meet the demands of social media. As platforms focussed on engagement, the only metric that mattered was watch time. Not whatpeople were watching, just that they stayed watching.
TikTok took it further. Suddenly the gloss of your Instagram feed was a liability. Brands were dragged into bedrooms lit by ring-lights, paced in circles at the end of selfie sticks, or reduced to speaking in the tone of playground memes for ârelatabilityâ.
And of course, endless trend-jacking. Everywhere on Slack this week: "OK teamâwhat's our Taylor Swift x Travis Kelce album angle?"
There's worse. This summer proved that brands will take a victory lap after stumbling into a hornetâs nest ofâlargely performativeâoutrage. Billions of views. A bump in market cap.
But that kind of famacomes with a deferred cost. People might be talking about you, but theyâre not cheering you on. They don't want to hear about your product. Theyâre harvesting your chaos for their own reach. And to investors, youâre now a meme stock.
The real winners? Not the brands. Not the people.
The platforms. Every time.
But maybe, in the wake of algorithmic fixation and feed fatigue, something more genuine is emerging. A softer-touch creativity. One that a new generation appreciates much like the generations before them did.
And brands with a sense of themselves, who show up with care, craft and a little production budget, might just find something more valuable than virality: A small, sincere golf clap for marketingggđ.
--
I have a friend. His name is Ogden. We met when we were thirteen, grew up together and somehow never grew apart. Heâs been the longest constant in my life by a meaningful distance.
Itâs wild to think my son is just six months away from being the same age I was when I met Ogden. If heâs lucky enough to find a friend like that, someone to journey with across the decades...well, he's blessed.
Thereâs something sacred about knowing someone that long. You build your our own language. A private set of signals and shared stories that only you understand.
But mostly, when I think of Ogden, I think of laughter.
The uncontainable kind. Rib-aching, tear-rolling, collapse-on-the-floor kind. Weâve had hundreds of those moments. Enough that it doesnât take muchâa weird noise in a queue, someone pulling a dumb face at the wrong time, a piece of fruit escaping down a supermarket aisleâand weâre gone. One of us knows itâs funny. The other knows theyknow. And the laughter loop begins. You try to hold it in, but itâs no use. You crack. You giggle. You spit-laugh into the air like youâre thirteen again.
And I suppose you only really notice how much you laugh, when thereâs been a little sadness too.
We knew each otherâs mums, of course. Ogden was raised in London by Auntie Clarietteâa churchgoing woman with kind eyes and a Honda Accord that always seemed on the brink of an engine fire. She was never on time. But she always showed up.
And Ogden became close with my mom, Sylvia, who was a kind of second mother to him, in her own way. So when she got sick, he was there.
If youâve ever watched a parent deteriorate, you know the rhythm: up, down, false alarm, maybe this is itâno, stand downâmaybe not yet. And then one day, it is.
It was the last day of October. Ogden had come to visit Mumâs house. Neither of us planned it. Our visits werenât that regular. But that morning, she went into a sharp, peaceful decline. And so we were both there, by chance. Two childhood friends, two sons, with family nearby.
I donât really know what you call that. Luck? Divine intervention? Something vibrational that science hasnât found words for yet? I think when youâve known someone that long, your lives are connected in ways you canât see.
Since then, weâve kept a little thing going. Whenever one of us travels and visits a church, we light a candle. One for Sylvia. One for Auntie Clariette. Then we snap a photo and send it. Just a WhatsApp ping. Two candles. No words needed.
Itâs a little signal to the other. A way of saying: weâre still here. Still thinking about the people who shaped us. Still honouring the women who raised usâand the friendship that holds because of them.
Itâs easy to get drowned in the chaos of the technology. As the internet made markets infinite, platforms learned that our attention is not. So a space that once promised freedom became something else. Performance. Everyone posting. Everyone watching. Each person a channel. Each post a claw for attention. Harvesting issues for likes and clout. We all became brands to be consumed.
But people are resisting. In billions of private threads, in coded pings, in tiny gestures shared through apps designed to hook and monetise usâweâre still finding ways to connect.
And one day, just like rediscovering the feeling of a thoughtful ad with ice cream in it, a generation will realise: all that personal branding doesnât make them richer, or better, or more deeply connected.
Theyâll hit the reset button.
And weâll start building things to serve usânot the other way around.
Back in London, Iâm about to get on the Tube when a photo flickers onto my phoneâtwo candles glowing beside each other. I pause. Feel the sadness. And the love. Itâs beautiful.
Exceptâthereâs an illustration on the candles. A monk. In glasses. Looks like a real oddball. Who makes these candles? And why does he look like a supply teacher with a very suspicious side-hustle?
Itâs so peaceful here. Ogden types.
And then, theyâve got that funny guy on the candles. Hard not to laugh.
That's was it. Laughing. Violently. Publicly. Privately. Two friends, thirty years on, trying to hold it together on opposite sides of the continent.
For a fleeting moment, I hear themâAuntie Clariette and Sylviaâlaughing with us. Just there, then gone.
As the Tube pulls away into the city, I feel grateful. That somehow our special bond can turn pain into loveâand love into laughter.
Iâm not sure what more weâre here for.
Let's rise together with every issue. âĄ
Market Moves
UK economic growth slows to 0.3% | BBC
US wholesale prices jump 3.3% as trade war hits economy | Financial Times
FTSE 100 hits record close | Reuters
Brand Beat
Subway sandwich becomes defining image of Trumpâs reign of terror | Slate
How âMarketinggg đâ became a compliment | Feed Me
Dairy Boyâs new film by filmmaker RJ Bruni | Instagram
Bill Nighy in campaign for Ffern | TikTok
How brands are tapping into vibe culture | The Drum
Ad agencies are down but not out | Financial Times
Taylor Swift is making Travis Kelce part of her empire | Business Insider
Shein's UK sales jump by 33% year-on-year | BBC
OpenAI and Perplexity are brands, not just tech companies | Digiday
Specsavers spotlights childhood eye test importance in colourful ad | Marketing Beat
Duolingo stock surges 14% on AI-driven growth | CNBC
Hamilton TikTok trend goes viral to mark 10th anniversary | Mashable
WeWork positions itself as a mature real estate firm | The Wall Street Journal
UK football season set to smash TV viewership and revenue records | The Guardian
YouGov finds YouTube usage outpaces social media rivals this year | Marketing Week
âCheapfakeâ AI celeb videos are now YouTube ragebait | Wired
Kingsmill owner buys Hovis for ÂŁ75m | Reuters
Trending: Supermoon clear protein drink | Thingtesting
âMade in the USAâ is a struggling brand | Fast Company
P&G announce a new beauty CEO | Business of Fashion
Moët Hennessy sexual harassment case highlights company culture | Financial Times
Kodak faces struggles despite Gen Z film resurgence | CNBC
Starting Up
Why your startup brand should be active on Reddit | Startups Magazine
British startup reinvents energy storage with innovative approach | Sustainable Times
Elon Muskâs xAI co-founder leaves the company | TechCrunch
UK taps ex-OpenAI lead as chief AI advisor | Sifted
Tech bosses spend millions more on personal security | Financial Times
GPT-5 becomes an AI nightmare for developers and users | Futurism
Nuclear-powered AI could elevate Rolls-Royce to UKâs biggest firm | BBC
Venture Vibes
Disrupt 2025 reveals first VCs judging Startup Battlefield 200 | TechCrunch
Perplexity makes $34.5B longshot bid for Chrome | The Wall Street Journal
16 VC firms funding creator economy startups like Substack | Business Insider
Global venture capital outlook | Bain & Co
Design Driven
How album campaigns now create entire visual universes | Itâs Nice That
SpongeBobâs pop culture reign | Fast Company
The best new Scandinavian interior design arrivals | Vogue
Happiness
How we got the internet all wrong. | The Dispatch
Money as the dark matter of the universe | Big Think
A management anti-fad that will last forever | The Atlantic
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