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Today is Halloween. The day where we most clearly curate and display our point of view through attire.

We signal fandoms. Express creativity. Choose DIY or store bought. Comment on culture and align ourselves with stances. Non verbally state intentions and desires. Or opt out altogether, a message of its own.

Today we call them costumes. Every other day we call this assortment us.

Or as Rupaul said:

We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.

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Schtick or schmuck?

You don’t get the deciding vote on which side of the line you’re on.

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Often the biggest lever for client success is outside the marketing function’s control:

  • price
  • location
  • the realities of manufacturing
  • the whims of decision makers
  • inventory levels

So what does marketing do next?

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Think of your campaigns like theater productions.

The important part is the story and its delivery.

The set doesn’t need realism and exactitude to transport the audience.

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New trigger words and phrases when reading:

  • genuinely
  • quietly
  • X, not Y
  • earns it
  • deserves it

If you’re going to use any of these, you better make sure they earn their keep by doing so genuinely. Otherwise people will quietly think your messaging was written by AI, not you.

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About that pressure release valve, elections ain’t cheap:

AdImpact reported Wednesday (Oct. 14) that the 2025–26 political cycle has surpassed $10 billion in combined aired ad spending and future reservations

It’s not stopping there:

expects total spending to reach $11.6 billion by Election Day

More than a billion left in less than a month.

The traditional TV ads we all expect from election cycles get the lion’s share, but hundreds of millions are forecast for digital. That’s a lot of room in the auction opening up in the aftermath.

AdImpact bar chart comparing original and updated 2026 political advertising spending projections by channel. Broadcast TV leads at $5.6 billion, followed by connected TV ($2.7B), digital ($1.6B), cable ($1.4B), radio ($300M), and satellite TV ($100M). All categories increased or remained unchanged from earlier projections.

(I can’t imagine what 2028 is going to look like)

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Leave space for your audience to draw their own conclusions.

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If your brand were a song, where would a DJ slot it in a set? And what kind of set?

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What if your brand were a character in a Shakespeare play?

What type of play would it be? What role would it play? How would it be portrayed? How would it be remembered?

(I don’t know. Maybe there’s something here. Maybe it’s a fool’s errand.)

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Pick a gif or a meme.
Reverse engineer it into an on-brand ad.

Will it work?
No clue, but it got you thinking differently.