The 90s / early 00s are the trend du jour, which is fine. But I take issue with this:

the current craze around everything ’90s and early aughts, a trend that reflects how Gen Z has matured into young adults now pining for their childhoods.

The most specific birthdate range I’ve found for Gen Z is 1997–2012. That means at least 1/2 of Gen Z wasn’t even alive for the period fueling this craze!

I get that nostalgia is fueled by the period prior to the one that shaped you (like the 80s & millennials), but this is some mix of “Gen Z” becoming the new synonym for “youths” and clickbait.

College dorms are big business.

college students are expected to spend $20B more than last year, reaching around $94B

Back-to-college spending has near doubled since 2019 & consumers are projected to spend an avg of $1,366.95 / person

This extends beyond dorm decorating:

you just want to either match or beat what you’ve seen in the past. It just ups the expectation these students have of their spaces. … This concept of aspirational lifestyle and making it actually attainable is something that Dormify embodies and helps them create.

That’s human behavior & branding 101

3 things all brands should keep in mind:

• Don’t mistake interest for trust.

• If you promise to deliver a certain product, deliver it.

• It’s about making people feel heard and supported.

The importance of building consumer trust

And my inflation-fighting interest rate concerns might be materializing:

more worrying is defaults spiking to levels similar to 2008, given the US economy is doing pretty well in other areas, e.g. with unemployment sitting at historic lows.

Cars And Big Houses Are Becoming Unbuyable

Just a reminder that placements through things like audience networks are usually garbage.

GroupM is removing MFAs* from its inclusion lists

*made-for-advertising sites

If you use them, be aware of your optimization. Incentives matter.

Let's start with an aside, the Sounds Profitable podcast is a great listen for concepts communicated clearly in a short period of time.

Making a Podcast People Hate – Sounds Profitable

Tom Webster shows off data from the upcoming study The Podcast Landscape in America and discusses the power of focusing a podcast to a specific audience over generic broad-reaching topics.

Know the Author

A survey of listeners and non-listeners found that The Joe Rogan Experience is the #1 podcast, which isn't surprising—16% of respondents had it in their Top 3.

But what does that % mean? Here's a fun nugget:

They are not small numbers – they reflect a percentage of all the people who have ever listened to a podcast, and even at 1% they would exceed the audience of most non-football TV shows.

 Are you running podcast ads yet?

More important to being hateable, the #2 podcast clocked in at 3%. That's a big gap.

So how does Joe do it? He's hateable. Or...

because Rogan is crystal clear about attracting a very specific audience, even at the exclusion of others.

He "super-serves a core audience."

He knows his core. He caters to it. He doesn't care about you if you're not in it.

Or, as Ian Schrager (another controversial dude) puts it:

“one plus one equals three.” You build something most people will hate, but a few people love – and love enough to tell their friends about.

Or how about Kurt Vonnegut:

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

After all, brands are stories.

Take a stand. Plant a flag. Draw a line.

Be willing to turn people off from the beginning (it will save you money in the long run).

Name brands—the ones you probably think of when you dream of what your brand could be—are aspiration engines. A rallying cry for fans and a lightning rod for haters. They have loyal fans because they're willing to have the haters.

Don't build a brand for everyone. Build a brand for only those that care as much about your thing as you. Make yourself hateable to those that don't.

🔥 Some will walk through fire for you. Some will light your product on fire. 🔥

Here's an extreme example:

TikTok continues its everything app approach to expansion by testing the music-streaming waters.

It’s a natural extension for a platform already seen as an entertainment hub (and core to launching hits these days).

The end of the free money train is going to make watching the growth strategies of Silicon Valley vs. Chinese companies vs. privacy-first upstarts vs. fediverse players even more interesting.

The labor illusion makes us value more highly something that takes more effort.

Why do you have to crack an egg to make cake from a box? Marketing.

Nudge podcast: Does subliminal advertising work?

Turns out the last 12 months wasn’t too bad for agencies, with at least half of those surveyed reported revenue gains and many increasing staffing.

Confidence remains for the coming 12 as well, though staffing optimism is low.

This should be a good sign for economic health moving forward.