#brand-strategy

#brand-strategy

ChatGPT Pulse is a mobile AI feature for Pro users that delivers personalized updates and information directly in users' feeds. This new "push" approach gives brands an opportunity to reach audiences proactively, even before they search for content. To appear in ChatGPT Pulse, focus on building content that is authoritative, clear, and AI-ready. Establish verified brand profiles, maintain canonical pages, and publish regularly updated, time-stamped content.

YouTube is the Hunger Games of attention. Twenty million new videos compete for visibility every day against over 5 billion already on the platform. Whatever survives that level of competition is the most valuable attention in media. Unlike other platforms, viewers arrive with a purpose. They come to watch something specific, from creators they follow. That's a fundamentally different relationship than a scroll-based feed.

In the new position, Isaacs will be leading Quince's global brand strategy, positioning and storytelling, and is tasked with deepening the San Francisco-based startup's emotional relationship with consumers. Quince has scaled rapidly since its founding in 2018, with sales having doubled to over $700 million last year. But the $4.5 billion company has struggled to shrug off its reputation as a dupe maker.

Shelby Miller comes to FullTilt Marketing with a robust background that speaks volumes about her expertise. Previously, she held pivotal roles in marketing and business development at notable companies such as Applewood Fresh Growers and FirstFruits Farms. Her experience includes leading strategic B2B campaigns, managing key retail accounts, and supporting various produce brands through sales enablement and digital marketing initiatives. This hands-on experience makes her a valuable asset to FullTilt, as she understands the intricacies of the fresh produce industry from the ground up.

That Meta's move has propelled the concept of the metaverse into the public consciousness, bringing with it no shortage of brands into the space, is no bad thing. Very few of us beyond niche communities were talking about 'the metaverse' two years ago. And now we are.

When Xfinity makes its national Super Bowl debut, it doesn't hedge its bets. It resurrects one of the most iconic films in movie history- Jurassic Park -reuniting Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Sam Neill, backed by John Williams's original score and directed by Taika Waititi. On the surface, it's blockbuster nostalgia. Underneath, it's a sharply executed brand strategy, and one that small business owners should pay attention to.

Spend half an hour exploring #StrategyTwitter or #MarketingTwitter and you'll quickly discover huge swathes of talented folks arguing passionately about the correct way to market brands. On one end of the spectrum you'll find the staunch strategists quoting lines from Sharp's How Brands Grow (which is well worth a read), while on the other end you'll find people posting fairly nauseating Gary Vaynerchuk quotes in serif fonts about how the number one rule in marketing is 'love'.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jamie Dimon explained why JPMorgan Chase is spending billions more on AI. He was making a long-term bet. The same kind of leaders make when they build headquarters, factories or infrastructure that won't "pay off" this quarter but will define competitiveness for decades. It's exactly how marketers should think about and position differentiation in the eyes of the C-Suite.

If you work in marketing, you might want to look away now. The brutal truth is... the vast majority of people don't care about your brand. In fact, 81% of the brands sold across Europe could disappear overnight and consumers wouldn't be concerned... They probably wouldn't even notice. Various dynamics are at play here. Firstly, abundance. With up to 30,000 new products being launched every year, we're all spoilt for choice. With so much variety on offer, very few brands feel truly indispensable.

For much of the modern corporate era, brand has been treated as surface area. A story told outward. A set of signals designed to persuade, attract, and differentiate. When companies spoke about brand, they were usually talking about perception: how they looked in the market, how they sounded, how they were received. That framing made sense in a world where markets moved a little more slowly, organizations were stable, and leadership could afford to separate strategy from culture, product from meaning, execution from belief.

"In this upgraded role, Ayaz will lead a new internal organization comprised of all Disney marketing teams (including those in parks, sports and other sectors) meant to "support a more connected approach to how Disney reaches audiences, elevates its campaigns, and advances the business goals of each segment and the company as a whole," a Wednesday announcement said. Ayaz will report to Disney CEO Bob Iger, as well as vertical leaders Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, parks head Josh D'Amaro and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro."

It's a bet - like, a large financial bet,

Costco launched Kirkland Signature in 1995 to consolidate its private labels and reduce consumer confusion. Today, the brand is a money-generating machine that, according to The Wall Street Journal, made about $86 billion in the financial year 2023-24. For context, Costco reported a total revenue of $254 billion in the 52 weeks ending September 1, 2024. The figure is also a whopping $40 billion more than what Nike earned in the year leading up to May 2025.

In December, when Under Armour hosted its first investor day in five years, along with sharing its final quarter results that posted $1.4bn in revenue in 2024, its chief executive officer, Kevin Plank, unveiled plans to "fortify" the brand. It has divided the new strategy into four pillars: product, story, service and team. Sitting within the 'story' pillar are changes to Under Armour's marketing strategy.

Smith worked alongside star designer Jonathan Anderson, who left Loewe for LVMH stablemate Dior earlier this year, and chief executive Pascale Lepoivre to steer Loewe's image during a period of rapid growth. The luxury brand steadily transitioned from an arty, niche label to one with mass-media currency and cross-generational awareness, complementing efforts like the Loewe Craft Prize with celebrity tie-ups that included Maggie Smith, Jamie Dornan and more. Smith oversaw collaborations with Studio Ghibli and On Running and developed Loewe's viral TikTok strategy.

Every morning, I'd walk into the agency lobby and be greeted with quotes on the wall from late creative head Bill Bernbach. Whether you're running a business, a football team, or a whole country, it's never good to continually rely on dead people for leadership. But my agency didn't give a shit, so those stupid Bernbach quotes are now etched into my skull.

"Our organization has become slow and inefficient," Heaf said. "Unnecessary complexity has reduced our speed and dampened our innovation."

Over the last two years, the value of content has collapsed. Thanks to the LLM revolution, the internet is drowning in an avalanche of indistinguishable output: an endless parade of fast-food writing, recycled reports, and SEO-bait fluff optimized for algorithms instead of people. That's why the only competitive moat left is the human story. For business leaders, this creates an urgent mandate: Storytelling is no longer a marketing tactic. It's a strategic business imperative-the only reliable engine for changing minds and shifting behaviors.

In today's hyper-competitive marketplace, businesses are no longer judged solely by the quality of their products or services. Instead, they're evaluated on how they make people feel. This emotional connection - built through clear, consistent, and compelling branding - can mean the difference between fleeting visibility and lasting impact. Modern consumers want more than transactions; they seek meaningful experiences. They're increasingly drawn to brands that align with their values and offer authenticity over perfection.

There's a parasite called toxoplasmosis that rewires the behaviour of cats (and even humans) so they act in ways that help the parasite spread. The cat doesn't know it's infected. It goes about what it thinks, is its business. But often, it is going about the parasite's business instead. Marketing, I suspect, is suffering from something eerily similar.

Upon entering the one-day immersive installation known as GrazaVerse, guests were greeted with a surrealist tableau: a Renaissance-style cherub statue "peeing" olive oil, with bread skewers for dipping, risotto served by a mysterious set of disembodied hands behind a wall, and a soap dispenser filled with olive oil for drizzling on soft serve. As bizarre or offbeat this event, built to introduce olive oil brand Graza's new glass bottles, might sound, it represents a cross-industry trend in which brand creative is getting ... weird.