Brand Predictions To Build A Cult Following In 2026

A fan favorite, Tatum in the house. Stand behind something unapologetically. I think that's why so many people stand behind the idea of going more, because it's what they've stood for forever, and they don't break that. People are willing to pay a premium for anything that promises even the illusion of control in a world of complexity and chaos. Sorry, is it too bright in here for you? Dude, it is. He's just trying to be cool. A visual aesthetic I think will be trending a lot is this retro futurism. It's essentially positioning tech optimism with nostalgia. So people are comfortable embracing the tech.

This feels familiar and comfortable, but also this is bold and futuristic. On Running did that with a shoe campaign with Zendaya. Bandit did a similar thing with their shoe drop, with this outer space look. Retro futurism aesthetic, you're going to see crop up a lot in campaigns. Brand predictions to not be made. That is the theme of this episode, is how not to be made. What's up, y'all? Welcome to another episode of Sweat Equity. Today's episode, we have a fan favorite, Tatum in the house. It is so great to be back here and to yap about brand for an hour more. We'll see. Yeah. Today, we're going to be talking about brand predictions to build a cult following in 2026.

I think this is something that you and I have both talked about more and more as we are actually building a brand. Maybe that's news that I'm hitting prematurely. Yeah. Potentially. But this is... Founder-led content. Follow us to build a founder-led brand. This is something that we talk about a lot more because I think there's this, we saw it in 2025, where somebody will have the three to five brands that they religiously wear, consume, whatever it is, that are like, hey, these are my guys, right? These are the brands. I'm attached to these individuals, and I'm attached to these products, these characters, essentially.

And then for you to get attached to another brand, it takes a lot. It does. I've been talking about that within the world of fitness and wellness specifically because all of a sudden we're seeing all of these fitness and wellness brands go broad in their offerings. And so they're trying to connect the dots and, hey, you've got a full wellness stack and routine. It's so much easier if you just hang with us, and we'll take care of everything from gym membership to supplement, like Lifetime. To where do you go co-work and recover? And I think we're seeing that in other brands too. It's more difficult to crack in. But then if you crack into that consumer, you've got them.

And I think that requires an insane amount of touch points. Yep. A lot of my predictions are based on increasing the amount of touch points and, sad to say it, you have to spend more money to be able to do so. So bear... Increased content and increased production level. It's got to be good and strategic. And so, hate to break it to you, 2026 is getting harder and more difficult. But that can also be your competitive advantage. Yeah. I was going to say, I think the things that we are going to talk about today are very early, right? And usually when you're early, you actually don't need to do things at such a high production level, right?

If we talk about building out, or sorry, let's rewind. When you were doing street style-based interview stuff, you could literally just walk on the street, do it casually, and it would perform well. But now you have to have a show. I don't know if you've ever seen, I think it's called Street Hearts. Have you ever seen that? I've seen the one where it's some... Oh, it's the... Are you OK? Let's determine if you're OK. It's like a little show where they interview somebody on the street. Check out Street Hearts. So Street Hearts, they literally set up a table in the street and do a dating show on the street. Stop it. And they matchmake two individuals.

That is an actual production. Even Subway Takes actually has... You've watched Subway Takes. Oh, yeah. Subway Takes. Subway Takes is great. They actually have a gaffer, they have a grip, they have one or two camera people. So it's an actual production. It's not just an iPhone and a mic anymore, right? So, yeah, it's getting more advanced. But at the same time, when you think about how you could have won a year and a half ago, two years ago, if you're early enough, you don't have to do it extremely well to win. And then you can build the following, and then you have the budget, like Subway Takes.

They didn't start with the full production set, but they were able to hire that on as they started to... Couldn't agree more. OK, so let's jump into these. The first one that I want to talk about is this idea of having separate accounts, right? And I think this is going to be crucial for 2026 for many reasons. One, algorithms are getting very, very good at targeting individuals based on what they want from a content perspective, where they're located, if it's... Wait, I have a great example of this that I got on my TikTok feed last night. So after Spotify Wrapped, Spotify Wrapped hit you with some weird little new things.

One of them was, I forget what it was called, it was like, what is your club status? And so it would give people this little badge, and it's like, you are the rave whatever, whatever, based on your music genre. So there's about seven of them, I think, and everyone has a different one. So if you're familiar with the TikTok trend where everyone's like, if you're seeing this video, you're in group seven. And everyone in the comments is like, group seven people are this, they're this, they're this. And everyone's aggregated based on these personality traits because the algorithm is so targeted. And I saw the same thing for that.

Hey, if you're seeing this video, this is your Spotify personality. Yeah. And you are also in group seven. And it shows how targeted the algorithm is because they showed me, I got the video that was, oh, that was my Spotify Wrapped little icon and symbol. And that shows how hyper-targeted you can be with personality alone. I'll let you... No, for sure. I think there's a few ways that you can do this. So one of the ones that we're working with the brands on right now is creating accounts for separate shows. So Bill, have you seen Bill? Yeah. OK, so Bill is a technology or software where you get points for paying rent. And so they launched a separate account called Roomies.

Yes. Right? And the through line is really the idea of just having roommates in New York, whatever, in this through line around rent, right? They have a separate account for that. And so, therefore, it's their top-of-funnel engine for Bill. But at the same time, if you only want to consume that sitcom, you follow Roomies, and that's all you're going to get from it, right? It's so much about expectation-setting of, I follow this account because I'm only getting this from this account.

Whereas if you have a main account, and the main account has six content pillars and is rotating between 10, 12, 15 different formats, you've got different launches for different products for different demographics. Yeah. It's so different. The consumption experience as an individual is very, very different. And so I think there's going to be a huge opportunity in 2026 for you to have separate accounts for separate shows. I think the NBA is doing this with... Have you seen the account NBA Research and Development? I'm obsessed with that. Is it affiliated with the NBA? The NBA launched it. Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was like this group of people is so cool.

Yeah, no, I'm obsessed with that. One of the people from Cut30 is actually one of the people that helped launch it. Nice. Yeah, which is pretty cool. But I think that's going to be a huge opportunity. And so the way that you have to kind of think about those shows, and we can get tactical on a different episode, but either based on different customers, based on different values, based on different content pillars or content buckets, that's how you're going to have to think about developing these shows. Separate shows. Again, I think from a top-of-funnel perspective, which not enough brands create top-of-funnel content... Yeah.

From a top-of-funnel perspective, biggest opportunity you could do because those accounts are the fastest-growing accounts. They really are. Is it affiliated with the NBA? The NBA launched it. Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was this group of people is so cool. Yeah, no, I'm obsessed with that. One of the people from Cut30 is actually one of the people that helped launch it. Nice. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. But I think that's going to be a huge opportunity.

And so the way that you have to think about those shows, and we can get tactical on a different episode, but either based on different customers, based on different values, based on different content pillars or content buckets, that's how you're going to have to think about developing these shows. Separate shows. Again, I think from a top of funnel perspective, which not enough brands create top of funnel content. Yeah. From a top of funnel perspective, biggest opportunity you could do, because those accounts are the fastest-growing accounts. They really are. When you have a dedicated account to one specific thing and everybody follows it for that thing.

Biggest, biggest library. Because I don't always follow brands that I maybe am a huge fan of because why I buy from them, unless there's a super specific reason where they're producing a specific show or I'm in love with this element. I don't follow Built, but I follow Roomies. Exactly. And guess what? I have a house. I bought my house. I'm not paying rent, but I send it to friends. I'm not paying rent. You know what I'm saying? So when you think about it, I am getting in front of other people.

The other one, I think, is having accounts for different kinds of customers. If you have a brand that has an endurance line and then a bodybuilding line and XYZ thing, you have to create content for each individual. I don't want to follow X brand. I'm in it for endurance, but then it's all bodybuilding content. Exactly. Exactly. And that's that concept that I think you and I've both talked about where it's called niche at scale. It's a strategy to build where you infiltrate a hyper-niche market. You can speak directly to them so they feel super heard. But if you're able to, you do that for all of the different markets.

CrossFit. I mean, you see that with Nike. There's Nike Running, and you see all the different... But I think that's the legacy way to do it. Do you want me to dive into brand personality? Not yet. We're going to get there. We're going to get there. I think on the Nike side, or you could even look at Bandit or Leon's Babels, et cetera, you've got to create accounts for different locations. So again, location-based algorithms are amazing. I mean, you saw how much stuff I sent you post-New York. It was just because my feed and algorithm was nothing but New York because we were in New York. Yeah.

Right. And we were posting stuff in New York, and all of a sudden my feed was, that's all it was. And so the algorithms are extremely, extremely good. So what you do have to do is create a location-based account tailored to the customer base in that city. So I think about this where, two parts, if you want to make that location a hotbed, having that separate account can create that feeling. And so I look at Bandit. Bandit just launched a location in Chicago. That needs to have its own account. Brooklyn needs to be its own.

And even if you looked at their in-store launch, they had images of the original Home Alone stills, just a land of logo on it, which is very... they're very good at coming into a space and saying we are here for Chicago. But that needs to translate into a digital experience. Agreed. Social. Agreed. Big time. So I think creating a separate account on locations is huge.

Then I think you also create one for campaigns. Separate campaigns, I think, could be really interesting. So imagine it's a big campaign for a brand, right? Create a private account for that campaign. Obviously publish it on the main feed to get people over there, but then use all the features, stories, close friends, broadcast channels, feed and feed collabs, et cetera, for all exclusive content on that campaign. Imagine if Onward launched something for Zendaya that was just a completely separate account for all of her. It would be such a better way to leverage Zendaya. Yeah. One hundred percent. So I think that would be super, super unique.

And then the last one I think is having it for separate characters of the brand. Yeah. Okay. And this is where I'll jump in, because on the brand strategy side, what I typically take people through is, hey, when you're developing your brand personality, you need to lean into dichotomous personality traits because we as humans carry conflicting personality traits. And so when brands do the same thing, they're infinitely more salient. We're like, oh, this is interesting. It creates some edge and some texture.

And so I think what you're seeing, a lot of brands now, all of these startups have excellent art direction, beautiful products and campaigns that they release, but everything falls flat. And if you look at those brands and you're like, why is that not succeeding? Because it looks like they're doing everything correctly. It's because they're lacking some tension and edge.

And so I always give the example, I still don't know if they have a great brand strategy, but Equinox is really good at leaning into tension. They have this sensual, luxurious target demo, and they'll lean into the senses while also, hey, we are disciplined and precise. You can't join on New Year's Day. We're going to lean into some of that lawful evil. I was going to say, every New Year's they infuriate hundreds of thousands. And they're unapologetic about it. And because there's a certain target demo that's like, hell yeah, that's me.

And so what I think would be especially interesting in creating these burner accounts is if you create burner accounts centered around specific personality traits of your brand, almost like a Jekyll and Hyde. Have an alter ego for your brand. So we see this. I think I mentioned to you there's a creatine beverage, functional beverage brand called Consume, spelled with a K. And they have Consume, the main account, and then they also have creatine drink. What's your thought? Consume. Consume. It might be Consume. That makes way more sense. I like Consume, but I think it is just Consume. It's definitely Consume.

The majority of my Google searches are how to pronounce so I don't get roasted on social media. Like how to pronounce Jacquemus when I make a video or something like that. But Consume is great. And I hope you get flamed. Yes. I hope you get flamed. I deserve it. I deserve it. Because that one should have been a come on to you. But you did text me that you're illiterate. I did. I did. So if we pop that up, maybe that saves you. But the creatine drink brands, you see a lot of people do this with burner accounts where they'll throw up, oh, this is the alter ego. This is this brand after dark. It's comedic. Yeah.

Which I think is a little tired. It's been done. But if you do that with, like you said, campaigns, but with, hey, this is the side of the brand that is the more evil, we don't care about you kind of side, hyper-performance-driven, no pain, no gain, and then there's the other side that's all fun, unserious, hyper-playful. Think about that for a performance brand. People would resonate with that because I know I carry both of those personality traits inside me. I am hyper-driven, and also I fuck around, like fuck around and find out. So if you have those, all of a sudden you've got all these different characters and content that you can just lean hard into.

Can you imagine if Nike After Dark had a host? It'd be fantastic. You know what I'm saying? There was one person that was the face of that brand and whatever. I think that would be killer. That's also where you were talking to me about, we'll talk about hiring creators on. So I've been asked, for like, hey, will you create content for our brands? Other creators have been asked, hey, will you come onto our main channel and create a bunch of content underneath our brand? I think the new way to do it is having a separate account that they just front run. traits inside me. I am hyper driven. And also I fuck around, fuck around and find out.

So if you have those, all of a sudden you've got all these different characters and content that you can just lean hard into. Can you imagine if Nike After Dark had a host? It'd be fantastic. You know what I'm saying? There was one person that was kind of the face of that brand and whatever. I think that would be killer. That's also where you were talking to me about. We'll talk about hiring creators on. So I've been asked, for, hey, will you create content for our brands? Other creators have been asked, hey, will you come onto our main channel and create a bunch of content underneath our brand?

I think the new way to do it is having a separate account that they just front run. Hey, what if you had an educational account where you hire a creator who's fantastic at that and just let them cook? Yeah, I think that's one huge opportunity. I think, to stick on the separate characters for different accounts real quick, when we shot Tier Maverick, I told you about that. We introduced a character, right? This guy, Robbie Ballinger, he's run across America. He's literally a crazy individual in the best way. You know what I mean? He's done some psycho things that you look at and you're like, damn, you outran a Tesla.

You literally ran across America, all these crazy things. Right. So we introduced him as this mad scientist who was out in a lab by himself. And we built a story around he was dropped off here and he had one mission. It was to complete, create this super shoe. Right. And so everything was written from his POV, the emails, SMS, the captions, everything was his POV. It was so good that I think we should have created a separate account. We should introduce him as a character for nearly any product launch. And he should now have his own account that's Robbie's, and we can have education. We can have product testing. We can have field testing. We can have product development.

It's the mad scientist. It allows you to be a little more unhinged and break the brand and lean into different aspects of the personality, the brand personality, that you can't do on Mace. And you can create some heat that way. You can go a little more buzzwordy and lean into books. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Do you want to hit the next one? Yeah. So my next, this is a messaging trend that I'm seeing, and essentially I'm titling it stop being mid. And this, I saw there's a brand strategist, Joe Burns. And so he published a carousel on LinkedIn that is literally titled Stop Being Mid.

And he talks about all of these brands that are these mid-tier brands are going to suffer in 2026 because they're too expensive to be cheap, but they're too boring to be premium. And so brands at the edges are going to win, but brands in the middle are going to suffer. And I've seen this in the health space with consumers are now cost conscious. So all of a sudden it's not enough to just say, hey, we have a cold plunge and a sauna, join our high-priced club, because Planet Fitness is rolling out all of the same amenities and you can head over there.

And so this is where I think we saw brands in 2020 all felt like they had to say something, but they said something and it didn't have any legs. There were no roots to it. And so we all, the comment, silence brands, were like, we don't want to hear anything from you. Just be a brand. But now this year is kind of the rise of the I take a stand for something and I'm not mid with any of my messaging or creative. It is unapologetically taking a stance. And then this morning, actually, Red Antler published a 2026 brand report where they said, now it's all about having a crystal clear point of view and standing behind it shamelessly.

And if you're wanting to stay neutral and in the middle and beige with your branding, you're going to be ignored and get lost in the mix. I do have one example that Red Antler included in their study, and there's this ramen brand, which one it's called, see, I'm going to mispronounce this again. It's called Bulk Dak. It's based in B-U-L-K D-A-K. It's based in South Korea. I think it's a South Korean brand, but it got temporarily banned in Denmark in 2024 for being too spicy. Interesting. Which, of course, for any brands, this is a challenge, but also the biggest gift that you could receive.

They leaned into it hard, and now the ban is lifted, but they're still marketing off the back of we are too spicy. We got banned on shelves. And that's the kind of thing that you need to, instead of being like, oh no, we've created a product, stand behind something unapologetically and start making some noise. I couldn't agree more. I think that's why, or actually if you watch any of BPN's videos with Nick Bare, he always says, we're going to be unapologetically ourselves. And I think that's why so many people stand behind the idea of going more, because it's what they've stood for forever and they don't break that. Yep. Right.

Even during hustle culture or hustle porn or whatever people want to call it, they still said that. Yep. And I think it's that idea of, hey, this is who we are, what we stand for, and we're always going to stand for that. Even if society wants us to not stand for it, we're still holding, we're going to hold that message regardless of the environment, regardless of culture, regardless of society. That's who we are. And I think that's super important. People appreciate that in the age of quote, blanding, but blanding and messaging. I think the important thing, with Go One More specifically, it's rooted in so much story that there's nuance to it.

It's not purely hustle culture. It's a very human thing. So I will give the giant asterisk that if you just want to be divisive and come out with a controversial slogan, we're also tired of that with creators online. People are going to clock it if it's not a real thing that you have to stand behind. Sorry. Is it too bright in here for you? Dude, it is. I'm so used to, people think it's, I told you I got roasted in the comments, not roasted, but somebody was like, you're not Hollywood. I'm like, it's the lights. My eyes are sensitive, okay? They are, it kills me. Sunglasses inside.

I really think it's because I've been using sunglasses so often now that your eyes are used to it. Your eyes are hot and soft. They have. They have. Don't let him fool you guys. It's all to be cool. He's just trying to be cool. We're on the next trend. Yeah. This is you. So one of the next trends, predictions I see is creators are becoming the PR machines for brands. Right. We know that. But the DMs are also getting very saturated from brands hitting you up, like, hey, we're doing this run. Can you cover it? Here's a brief. We'll give you early access.

And I don't think that's cool when 20 people are hitting you up and they're just asking you for free distribution because they're telling you, hey, I have this story that's not even that cool, but please tell my story for me because my audience doesn't listen to me, is what the brands are saying. Yeah. And so there has to be then a way to combat that where, what can we do with the creators? What can we do with the influencers to make it more interesting for them so that they're a part of it?

And so the thing that I think is going to be very interesting next year is actually having the three leaders in a niche or in a category, flying them in to an actual campaign, flying them into the race, flying them into the situation, or whatever the thing is, and having them be there, be a part of it. I think it's huge. So we have a campaign that we're going to be producing next month. that's not even that cool. But please feel my story for me. Cause my audience doesn't listen to me is what the brands are saying. Yeah. And so, well, there has to be then a way to combat that, where what can we do with the creators?

What can we do with the influencers to make it more interesting for them so that they're a part of it? And so the thing that I think is going to be very interesting next year is actually having the three leaders in a niche or in a category, flying them in to an actual campaign, flying them into the race, flying them into the situation, or whatever the thing is, and having them be there, be a part of it. I think is huge. So, we have a campaign that we're going to be producing next month. We're going to fly. I think you're one of them. Actually, no, you were one of them.

They were going to fly two other people to come be here with us during the shoot, to see how it's getting shot, to experience it, hang with the athletes, the whole thing, so that they fully understand the campaign. And we're not just saying, here's a brief, give us your POV on this. How is shot your story? Exactly. They give you a fuck ton of content. They have some ownership, they're bought in, and then they have their own story. Cause yeah, it leans into their actual zone of genius and lets them cook. If I just give you a brief, it's going to be, to go back to stop being mid. Yep.

Giving someone just a brief and then putting them within this box is making sure that they're going to be mid. Yep. If I bring you here and I say, do your thing, it'd be awesome if you covered it, whatever. And you do your thing on this, and you come up with different formats, you try it. I think that is how you're going to do peak amazing content. This is essentially, as a brand, act as a creative and give somebody an actual brief. And there is Mouthwash Studios. They do a bunch of campaigns for Nike. And so, they tapped me and said, here's a brief. We want you to talk about this specific thing in your zone. As studios, they don't typically partner with creatives.

Flush Studios. Their work is incredible. I feel like they're leading the industry with a lot of the stuff that they're producing. But they said, hey, here's some different ideas and concepts that we had. Take one of these and run. Or if you have your own, pitch it. What do you think? And I feel like that yielded a much better result instead of them trying to micromanage the creator. Did you make something? I did end up making something for him. What was it? It was, um. And how recent was it? The creative studio behind Nike After Dark. That was several months ago when I did it, and it did okay.

I think if we ran it again and maybe took a more, again, don't be mid, take a stance. Yeah. Cause it's also difficult when you hire a creator. Sometimes the things that work can be a little controversial, and you want to make sure we don't want any negative heat coming back on our brand. And that's something that you got to just figure out. What is the negative heat or the heat that we can withstand that's good for us? Pick a side. You don't want to be for everyone. I completely agree. Okay. Hit me with one of yours. Okay. So this one, Red Antler kind of put this in their trend report. We're getting an unbelievable shoutout on this.

They really are, but I had written down, we're either leaning into anti-AI design or excellent AI design, and there's no in between. Gone are the days of you using Midjourney to put out a mid graphic and people being like, yeah, that's okay. Pun intended there. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of good. We're using mid way too much in this podcast. Where you're like Midjourney to put out a mid graphic. To put out a mid graphic. Brands can't be mid. Because brands can't be title. That's the title of this episode. I actually think that title could go crazy. Brand predictions to not be mid, something along those lines. I'd have to twist it.

That is kind of the theme of this episode, is how not to be mid. We can A-B test it. Okay. Okay. So, but there was an episode, there's this show or a podcast called The Cutting Room Floor that talks about fashion. I feel like fashion is where we're seeing this the most dramatically. There's all of these AI fashion campaigns that look really good. And essentially on The Cutting Room Floor, they say, we hate that. We don't love AI doing this because we want to give jobs to real people. However, look at the Vogue cover with Timothee Chalamet. And that wasn't AI, and that sucked. So where's the balance? There is somebody called Sophia Hospaz.

Her Instagram is Studio Sophia Hospaz. And she's doing spec campaigns for Nike, Arc'teryx, YSL, Prada, all with her trained AI model. And the work looks really good. Now, I will say, I still have not figured out where I myself as a creator stand with AI. I tend to be pretty anti-AI. Yeah. But what I think we see where AI goes wrong is when brands look at AI to be like, well, now we're not going to hire a designer. This is easy mode. We just hand this to this AI model and we can create whatever we want. But what you're seeing these studios like Sophia do is she has a strategy and a creative vision and art direction. Yeah.

So she does all of the work, and instead of using models and photographers, which again, I think that is the way, but it's, hey, we're now using this other tool. It's just a tool in your toolbox instead of being the entire agent to do this work for you. But on the flip, we're also seeing anti-AI design, where designers are creating these little symbols to go on the side of package designs to be like, this was not made with AI. Aerie of American Eagle's Aerie, which is carrying the brand American Eagle currently. How about Sydney Sweeney was holding the brand alive? Aerie is like single head. Yeah. Stand for something. Good genes.

But Aerie posted this no AI in campaigns promise that put up numbers for the brand. And this is essentially, if you remember the Aerie Real campaign where it's like, we're using real models, no Photoshopping. This was about a decade ago that really succeeded and kind of put the brand on the map, more or less. Now this is the new Aerie Real campaign, is no AI. And so I think, again, this is taking a stance. Either go full no AI, we're ultra human, or just be unapologetic about it. I think Oren posted in Hyper, his newsletter, he essentially said, yeah, the people in the comments complaining about AI, that's low status now.

Brands don't care if you do, but you have to do it well and you have to execute on it well. I've seen, there's a, let me pull his name. I don't want to butcher it. Carson, but I'll call him Carson. He has done a phenomenal job of integrating AI into his work to the point where it just feels like he's replaced having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on CGI. Exactly. And I think that's a great move. If I have a great idea that infuses AI, but it's just like I'm saving cost, again, look back to what you said about it being a tool. For him, it's a tool to be able to replace CGI. Yep.

Because if you have a hundred-thousand-dollar budget, now I can do a hundred-thousand-dollars' worth of amazing things in production. Exactly. Build models. Do some cool. Exactly. And build a bit amazing in the world. See, and then have my transitions be the AI or this, to literally replace the idea of CGI. That to me, I think is. I could get behind that because I'm still figuring out my stance in the AI art war. But that I think I could get behind. feels like he's replaced having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on CGI. Exactly. And I think that's a great move.

If I have a great idea that infuses AI, but it's just like I'm saving cost again, look back to what you said about it being a tool for him. It's a tool to be able to replace CGI. Yep. Because if you have a hundred thousand dollar budget, now I can do a hundred thousand dollars worth of amazing things in production. Exactly. Build models. Do some cool. Exactly. And build a bit amazing in the world. See, and then have my transitions be the AI, or this, to literally replace the idea of CGI. That, to me, I think, is. I could get behind that because I'm still figuring out my stance in the AI art war. But that I think I could get behind. I will send you his page.

You should look at it. And I love it. Again, this is a tool in your toolbox instead of being the entire machine. And I don't know, hire one of these people, hire Karsten, hire Sophia, hire a strategist who can leverage these tools really well so that you're not putting out mid content. And he's a creative director. He's worked with the Nikes, Kobe's. He's worked with amazing, amazing brands. And I think he's seen it as, yo, this is a tool for me. I could save hundreds of thousands of dollars doing some of this stuff. There's a Mamba shoe that he just did something for where it literally goes from the shoe into, I think, a dinosaur or something like that.

And it literally just replaced CGI. I know it's AI because he breaks it down and he shows how he did it or talks about it. But at no point do I feel any kind of way about it because I'm like, oh, you're not being lazy. You're seeing this as a tool. And I think that is, and the reality too is I think creators like us or creatives are the hardest critics because we want to be like, no, use your brain and work. And then consumers are like, oh, that's fake. But it's like, brother, we watch movies. All movies are fake. We don't care if it's good is the general consensus. As long as it's good, we don't care if it's fake. Exactly. Have you ever seen the BTS of Interstellar?

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You could just do that now, to a degree, right, with AI. That's all CGI. They're set building and stuff. Actually, one crazy thing about Interstellar. Have you watched it? Yes. Okay. You know, when they're driving up to all of the cornfields or through the cornfields, those are all cornfields that they planted, or corn that they planted. That wasn't CGI. Wow. That is the one, not to make this entire thing about for AI or against AI, but that's the one thing that I do struggle with.

Even when using AI as a tool, sometimes the process of going analog, like I saw a video of the illustrators at Disney with a deer, sitting in a room for hours with a deer in the center, just studying the deer's movements. And you are just going to get such a different product, or end result, when you sit with the thing and you translate it through your own brain instead of letting a tool do everything for you. But again, there's advantages to using the tools. Why can't you do a mix? You know what I'm saying? Why can't I do that and then use the model to train me if we need to scale it, right? Or, sorry, train the model to. Did you CGI? For sure. 100%. Yes.

So, I mean, that is a good example. All right. So. It's my turn. It's your turn. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the other one that I think is going to be very interesting is going live and actually spending a lot of time going live on Instagram, going live on YouTube, whatever it is. Two good examples for this. And I'm actually going to hit two just because they kind of feed off of each other. But this year we really saw Kai Cenat and who's the other guy. IShowSpeed take off, take off going live and doing some amazing things, right? Kai Cenat did this 30-day thing that he brought on Kevin Hart, all these celebrities into his thing. Awesome.

From a brand perspective and the niche and categories that we're in, BPN did an amazing job of covering the Last Man Standing event by going live, right? They had people, or it was going live at the beginning of every lap. Yeah. And the end of every lap or loop. And so with that, I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of it. With BPN specifically, there was at some point I was paying attention to it, at the beginning and have a few hundred people, then a thousand people. Then by the time the story was amplified and people were sharing what was happening, it was having 30, 40,000 people watching it live. And it was such a tool.

You saw memes come off the back of it, like, hey babe, sorry, I can't, I'm watching BPN go live. And you're kind of enabling people to be a part of that conversation and they're creating their own content. BPN didn't tap any of those people to do it and they were just posting for you. And that was the, I think there's been a lot of videos that we've both done about how brands are doing their own events. We've done those videos, but the key is to integrate the in-person event with some form of, there has to be a live component. So the people who aren't there feel like they're there, so you get the most leverage. Couldn't agree more.

The reason, I don't want to say the reason that Last Man Standing was so successful was because of live. But if we would have only got a recap post or a few recap posts. And a documentary at the end. And a documentary at the end, it wouldn't have been what it was. Nope. We got to see it all unfold live on camera and kind of be like these binoculars from the distance. And there's comments. Just watching BPN. You're in the comments seeing people say, this is crazy. You feel like you're a part of the event, even if you're across the globe. Yes. 100%.

And that I think is so insanely powerful because then I saw other brands in this same category create events, and no one really knew what the hell was going on. And you would see a few things on story here and there, but there was no story really attached to it because you didn't see it unfold. With live, you get to watch the thing unfold and feel like you're literally there, front row seat. And so I think you could leverage live for a lot of things. You can leverage live for your campaigns and having, let's say I took the top customers or the top people that engage with me or something. And there are tools to be able to find these things.

And I invite them to a private live, right? And that sounds weird when you say it like that, but a private live, right? Or they're the only ones that are going to see the live behind the scenes of a campaign or product development or an event. And all of a sudden you have all these ors, as in I can have you. I could have all sorts of different people from my accounts, my customer base, being able to tap in to these things that nobody else gets to tap in and get a front row seat of. If I took our top 200 listeners and we did private Sweat Equity episodes for them, there were live sessions, they tell us their brand and we rip them apart, we do X, Y, Z thing.

People would love that, right? And so I think that is such a powerful thing to then, if we talk about loyalty and affinity, right? You want to have as many touch points as you want, but you want those touch points to be either very vulnerable or personal. Vulnerable from the brand as in not like you have to share all your feelings, but you have to let the brand know you as an individual or as a character or as a brand, right? And then from a personal side, it's like, or you can let them be there and experience those same things on their own. That is why I think the Last Man Standing was so, so powerful, because people were there. People experienced that.

sweat equity episodes for them. There were live sessions. They tell us their brand, and we rip them apart. We do X, Y, Z thing. People would love that. Right. And so I think that is such a powerful thing if we talk about loyalty and affinity. Right. You want to have as many touch points as you want, but you want those touch points to be either very vulnerable or personal. Vulnerable from the brand, as in not that you have to share all your feelings, but you have to let the brand know you as an individual or as a character or as a brand. Right. And then from a personal side, it's like you can let them be there and experience those same things on their own.

That is why I think The Last Man Standing was so, so powerful, because people were there. People experienced that. People saw those two kids cross the line every 45 minutes, every hour. And so that made it so powerful. That's why I think going into my next, unless you want to jump in there, the next trend, I think, is you are going to see a lot more brands create long-form content, but literally our docs. Yes. Let me jump in on the live thing real quick too, because I think just like anything else that we've talked about, as it becomes more saturated, the production quality has to be even higher.

And when Jake Hyen and I were at the BPN race, I was saying, what if they're doing this live and it's great, but what if they had a broadcasting component and commentators that they had sitting in the rain as it was stormy and commentating on it like an actual sports event, and you're engaged with it, and they're running the camera like that? That is the next evolution of that that I would love to see BPN. And they can execute on that. You have characters and personalities.

And again, to your point of pulling in influencers and creators as their own characters, you see that with even, I think, the PGA had a comedian, Hannah Burner, commentating on it, and it makes it fresh. It brings in different eyes. And I feel like brands can lean into that with whatever creator their target demo really cares about. The Olympics did it with Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg. I don't know if you remember that. Yes. Yes. And it popped off because there were so many little viral moments from them going live. I mean, talk about the most hilarious things.

I think this feeds back into you have a live for whatever thing that you're doing, and then you have a very, very long documentary or almost movie-like piece that you put out on the back end that people are like, I experienced it. Now I want to see all the stuff I didn't see. Right. BPN's The Last Man Standing probably has a million views. If I had a guess, around there. I actually am very curious. I'm going to pull it up. You've seen so many brands this year making documentaries too. Yes. 722,000 views. Yeah. Posted three months ago. It will cross a million at some point. It will 100% cross a million.

But a great example of have the live and then have the masterpiece at the end of it that people like. I could not wait to watch this just because of the live. If they had just dropped this documentary without having the context that you felt like you were kind of there at the event, how many people do you think would watch it? I think it would have fallen a bit more flat. 100%. Now that I say it out loud, it's like the live is that context. It gives context at scale for people that are interested in the thing. And I'm not even somebody that, I've never watched a racing event that's not track. Yeah. I've only watched track. I've never watched a marathon.

I've never watched ultra running. I've watched docs on it or something. You're not tuning into the UTMB and seeing who. But I tuned into this because there was a level of FOMO that was created from the live. Yeah. And I think that's huge. Tier actually, I think, was ahead of the curve on this. I remember this. Yeah. At Wadapalooza with their documentary. Yeah. Where they did the documentary, and they kind of did a watch party on stage at the end of Wadapalooza. Yes. The one thing is it could have been timing, or it was too late. Because everyone was already leaving, and the weather was a little weird too. I think too late from it needed to be sooner.

It was like six months later or something, like seven months later. Yep. Yep. Yep. You know what I mean? Whereas this was three months ago. I don't know how long it took to turn this around, but I actually am curious. When did you run? It was end of April, early May. Yeah. End of April. So May 24th. May 24th. Yeah. It was on the weekend of May 24th. So three months ago was what? It was September when they dropped the doc? September or August. Yeah. I feel like they could have done it even sooner. Which is, I mean, it's an hour and 30 minutes. That's so much more. Again, we're giving you guys recommendations that are so much work.

But being able to execute at that level, that is some of what it takes now. But again, I do think you can. You don't have to. Executing at their level is because BPN has set that level. Go watch BPN's older videos. Yep. They're not that good, and they still perform. Sam Soule is extremely famous and well known. His content is very just vlog. That is a very good point. So the bar is, because you're so early, the bar is very low. Yeah. But in five years from now, when a lot of brands are creating docs, it's going to have to be at a very high level. Yep. What you got? Okay. So the next brand trend that I'm seeing, I'm titling Anarchy Aesthetic, but it's this.

You love titling things. I do. I got to do this more. I love giving everything a name, and it drives people crazy. But I'm obsessed with it because I think it helps contextualize it in your brain so you start to understand it. So this is punk grunge revival and then imperfection as status. So as we're looking at the AI boom, you're starting to see, I don't know if you've gotten spam emails that intentionally integrate typos so that you know that they're a human and it's not a ChatGPT spam. So I do this when I send clients, when we send clients scripts. I'm like, fuck up a little bit. Yeah. Because I don't want them thinking we're using AI.

And honestly, you should be able to tell. But at the same time, it's so easy to blur the lines now. It is. Between somebody writing it and AI. And it's so interesting. So Pinterest Predicts will gather a bunch of data and say, hey, this is what everyone is like. These searches are increasing. So I don't think that's the end-all be-all of trend prediction by any stretch. But one thing that they've released that's on the rise is grunge revival. You see this in fashion, like indie sleaze is coming back. And I think that's just a swing back from the clean girl aesthetic, the preppy aesthetic, and just overall conservatism in society.

This is, again, wanting to lean into stand for something, do something interesting. And there's this, let's see, what's his name? Tom Garland is a brand strategist, and he wrote a piece for The Sociology of Business that he titled Wellness Anarchy. So he talks about the wellness anarchist, and it's this essentially like, hey, we're so tired of this super hyper-optimization. Lean into we are the person who will go run the marathon, but we're also drinking a beer the night before. And so I think this grunge revival aesthetic is on the rise in brand styles, like visual aesthetics.

So you're seeing a lot of these 1970s punk movement wheat-pasted posters and cut-together things. And I think a very good example of this is Cadence did a collab race earlier this year with Furies Running called Short Fuse. It was this unsanctioned relay. It was very 1970s UK punk, riot kind of vibes. And I think just due to the climate of the world and a swing back from the hyper-polished AI, we're going to see this ultra gritty, riot aesthetic, anti-establishment. And I would lean into it hard if it works for your brand personality. Run a campaign and kind of see how it performs because people are itching to stand for something and go against the grain a little bit.

But we're also drinking a beer. The night before. And so I think this grunge revival aesthetic is on the rise in brand styles. Visual aesthetics. So you're seeing a lot of the 70s punk movement of these wheat-pasted posters and cut-together things. And I think a very good example of this is Cadence did a collab race earlier this year with Furies Running called Short Fuse. It was this unsanctioned relay. It was very 1970s UK punk, riot kind of vibes. And I think, just due to the climate of the world and a swing back from the hyper-polished AI, we're going to see this ultra-gritty riot aesthetic, anti-establishment.

And I would lean into it hard if it works for your brand personality. Run a campaign and see how it performs, because people are itching to stand for something and go against the grain a little bit. I'm there with you because I do think if you look at, again, we talk about Bandit a lot. But you look at Bandit. There's a million, let's say they're the leader in it. There's a million other brands that are doing the same exact aesthetic. And we were talking about this with 10,000, where if everybody is doing the beautiful, clean. Yep. Art-directed. It feels like a studio.

What about the brand that adds some grit and adds a little bit of grunginess and adds a little bit of that because that's who they are and they don't want to be super polished, perfect? It could be in an art gallery. I think that is going to, specifically in running first, I think it has to happen. And then I think what's funny is I think fitness, as general fitness, is going to go to where running is. Yes. And then it's going to have a moment of not vintage, but a little bit more nostalgic layers, and then it'll make its way back. But fitness hasn't been there. Fitness has stayed grungy. It's grungy or nice and nice and nice and cool. Old-school gym.

And they're ready for the polished hyper-curation. Whereas running has been this way. Yes. And it's gotten oversaturated. Yes. And I think it now needs to have the next brand probably that's going to win. It's going to be, yes, posh and amazing, but it's going to have these grungy layers to it. And again, this is going back to what I say about adding in brand tension and texture with conflicting personality traits. You got to give it a little bit of something, because if you look at why Bandit stuff sometimes works, as opposed to maybe another running brand where the aesthetic looks the same, Bandit will lean into these kinds of interesting lines of messaging.

The whole name behind Bandit is you're banditing a race. And so they lean into some edge with some of their brand messaging, and I think that's why it really works. I agree. You've got to have some edge. Yeah. People want edge. Yeah. People want to feel like. Feel something. They want to feel like if you have these kinds of values, when I put the clothes on, when I put the shoes on, when I drink the beverage, when I whatever, I'm aligning my values, like we have shared values. Therefore, I am a microphone for those values when I wear or consume your products. Yep. And I think that is done through your art direction. That's done through your creative direction.

That's done through all of the things that the copycats don't understand or recognize. It is not just, hey, we're shooting in front of. They're copying the end result. They don't see all of the strategic work that you did at the beginning for brand strategy and messaging to solidify your position. Couldn't agree more. What else do you got? Because I hit two back to back. This kind of rolls off of it really well. There's this brand, call it messaging trend, but overall kind of a trend in product, of control through optimization. So the world feels very chaotic and we feel out of control as a society.

And when external freedom is limited, identity manifests through these micro-rebellions, ritual mastery, clarity of mind. So it's like, think about what can I control? I can control my own self, my own state of being. And so what's interesting is you see brands like Aura and Whoop lean into this a little bit of, hey, we reach for ownership of ourselves through self-optimization. And so there's this great article written by a brand strategy company I follow called Concept Bureau. But they say people are willing to pay a premium for anything that promises even the illusion of control in a world of complexity and chaos.

Now, the asterisk I'll give to this is I think the control of being so hyper-dialed and we have all of our stats on everything, we are so exhausted by that. Concept Bureau titles this reactive control. You react to a situation where you feel out of control, like my sleep schedule is fucked up, and then here's all the data points. So now you got to do something with that data. But generative control is what they titled taking the chaos and building something completely new, like building a new world, like breaking structures entirely. So this kind of leads into that wellness anarchist kind of conversation.

How do you say you have control over yourself in optimization and mastery, but that can look like embracing vice? An example of this, I feel like we see nootropics and brain health is infinitely on the rise. I think brain tech is about to be the next huge wellness wave. But there's this nootropics brand, Thesis, that their line of messaging is owning your mind. And I feel like that is something to lean into in sport, in performance, or if you have a brand that's adjacent, leaning into self-mastery and ritual and control.

I think that's such an interesting thing that we'll start to see a lot more of, maybe as a foundational brand messaging line or just a campaign that you run. As in the idea of control versus, give me more on position it from a campaign perspective or from a brand, because they're very custom, right? You have a specific thing that you're dealing with, with Thesis, right? Yes. How would you have a camera company? You know what I'm saying? How would you have a more. So it's general. I feel like it's kind of this blend of instead of reacting to chaotic situations, again, that reactive control where you're like, all right, here's all of your stats and here's how to dial it in.

Say your control is your control over yourself, your self-mastery, and we want to be present. We're so tired of being constantly taken away and out of our entire world through our phones. It's all escapism. That's why I think you're seeing companies like Brick prop up and people ditch their phones and crave, I want an escape from escapism. I want to drop into presence, and that's a form of control. I control myself, the here and the now. So as a camera company, it's like, hey, how do we capture, maybe if it's geared towards creatives who are using high-end equipment, you can stay focused on the task at hand because your camera equipment is going to keep up with you.

You're fully present. Self-mastery, ownership. And so I think we'll see minimalism in branding, not in aesthetic but in the campaign vibes of just silence. Yeah. Everything's so chaotic, you deserve a moment of control. We have a piece of content creative that we're working with a specific brand on. It's going to be almost like the YouTube ads that are like, enjoy these 15 seconds of zen, right? Yeah. That it's going to be like enjoy these 60 seconds of, it's not zen and we're not copying that, but we're building something out like that where it's going to be completely anti trying to get your attention.

It's going to be, instead of getting your attention, we're just going to try to let you enjoy being present for 60 seconds or whatever. And that is very much something that can stop you. And if it comes authentically from a brand principle, it feels like, oh wow, this is authentic and beautiful. I enjoy this interesting piece of content. Yes. The last one that I have, and dude, one thing I actually forgot to mention when we were talking about live was have you seen how Justin Bieber has been going live for like five hours a day or something? Yes. Super interesting. I want to cover that more in a different.

There's those, what's the name of those tech bros who are always on Twitter who. Technology bro. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's just a proven example of the live concept. It's constant media. Yeah. Okay, I'll give everyone an easy one that doesn't cost a lot of money. Yeah. Good. Brand newsletters. And that is very much something that can stop you. And if it comes authentically from a brand principle, it feels like, oh wow, this is authentic and beautiful. I enjoy this interesting piece of content. Yes.

The last one that I have, and dude, one thing I actually forgot to mention when we were talking about live was, have you seen how Justin Bieber has been going live for five hours a day or something? Yes. Super interesting. I want to cover that more in a different— There's those, what's the name of those tech bros who are always on Twitter who— Technology bro. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's just a proven example of the live concept. It's like, yep, it's constant media. Yeah. Okay, I'll give everyone an easy one that doesn't cost a lot of money. Yeah. Good. Brand newsletters.

So I think 2023 was peak newsletters because I use Beehive. They're an amazing platform, but they made it so easy to launch a newsletter, which is what they're trying to do, that all of a sudden I went from having Marketing Brew and some other small newsletters as competition to 20 people all of a sudden. Yep. Right. There were newsletters everywhere. Now creators did them, but brands always say, sign up for our newsletter, and then all they send you is promotional emails. Yep. Right. They don't actually send you actual newsletters. Actual newsletters are the same things that you would see on organic social in an email format. Yep.

Right. And typically given a lot more context and maybe even some things that you wouldn't share on social, but you want to share in an email. And so one thing to think about is brand newsletters. There are newsletters that sell for tens of millions of dollars. I was at The Hustle. The Hustle sold for nearly 20 million dollars, and they had a newsletter with 2 million subscribers on it. It's a very, very powerful medium and very powerful tool. Morning Brew sold for nearly 75 million cash. I'm saying they were a newsletter with, I think in total, probably 5–10 million subs.

Right. And the thing is, people want more and more and more content because there's more and more content, and because consuming content is so easy, and consuming content that you want to consume is easier than ever. When we were kids—you’re how many years younger than me? A year or two? I think just a year. I'm 96. You're 95. I'm 95. So not that. When we were kids, consuming something we wanted to consume was hard. You'd go on the TV Guide. You would find Rocket Power's on. Let me put it on. And then it's like I saw it late on the TV Guide, so therefore I'm only getting 10 minutes of it. Yep. Right. And it was so hard to consume content that you actually enjoy.

Now it's easier. We have YouTube. You subscribe to things. You follow people. You can click a few things and all of a sudden your algorithm is completely different. It is so easy. And what's interesting is people are going after long-form content. That's why Substack is popping off. Beehive, Substack. We're willing to even pay and go behind paywalls to pay for this is written by a human, long-form content, not the AI slop, the death of social media, or whatever that you're doing.

And so with the newsletter, you get this very powerful touchpoint where you can go deep into context, which social media sometimes does not allow because when your average watch time is 13 seconds, you can't do that. But when you're in email, you're in a different frame of mind. And if it is good, people will consume the whole thing. And so the newsletter is almost like this gateway and bridge into the brand's world. Right. If social is—it's almost like if in-person events is here, social is here, the newsletter lives in the middle as this great bridge.

And so there are two brands that are doing this well. I know we've mentioned Bandit a lot. Bandit does, and for a reason. They do a lot of good things. They do a lot of things good. I'm saying they do a lot of things. The B-Mail is something that I have put all of my creative friends onto because I'm like, it's interesting. And the B-Mail is amazing. And they're showing the mood board behind their drops. Yes. Yes. The B-Mail is phenomenal.

And then there's another company called Flamingo Estate, and they have a newsletter. I think it's called The Estate, where every Friday they send you a newsletter from the garden. And it's updates from what they're doing behind the scenes. It's so great. But the B-Mail, right, they have, I think they have Artif— Yeah. Artif. Artif's favorite picks, as in certain selections from winter or whatever.

And think about it. If you've built that separate account around a character, or even on the main account you have a certain individual as a character, and then all of a sudden a lot of the deeper layers from that individual live in the newsletter, as in her favorite picks. They're writing from their signature. Yeah. Because she's not going to probably publish that on IG. Bandit's not going to publish that on IG because it might feel like a Rolling Stone or Vogue's my favorite picks. But in my own newsletter, where I showed you my mood board and then here are my favorite picks, that's different.

And again, that's the consumer that has three brands they're hyper loyal to. And it's giving them, hey, if you want to dive a layer deeper, you can. We're giving you these surprise and delight Easter egg moments hidden throughout the brand, hidden in plain sight in the newsletter, that if you want to dive deep with us and become a part of our cult, you can do that. Couldn't agree more. Some people get mad when you talk about building a cult following, etc., because it's buzzwordy. They get like, if you actually study cults, they are not good. I'm like, I get it. Right. 100%. But at the same time— We do not endorse cults.

There is a reason that they have that following. They have people that—there are psychological things you can learn from a cult to be like, how do I get fans and customers to love me? That's not a bad thing. When you introduce a very good brand or a very good product to the right person when they need it, there is such a high from that moment. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I think George talked about—George from Represent talked about this recently, where somebody found Represent at a moment in their time when they were just down bad. And I think their slogan of On a Mission, and what the whole brand stood for and was doing, changed the kid's life. Yeah.

And that's amazing. And those same properties, though, would be what a cult is. That kid basically, in some way, joined a cult of— Religion. And all of that's very tongue-in-cheek. Movies are titled cult classics because this certain subset of people are obsessed with this movie that may not have done numbers at the box office. Yeah. That's what brands should be striving for. There's a Substack from—his name's Daniel Yaw Miller, but he's like Yaw, I think, on Instagram. It's called Sportsverse. And it's Why Nike Quietly Launched on Substack. Nike threw up a newsletter. They're doing this. Really? I did not know that. Yep. This was about five months ago.

And you should be doing that as a brand. Show up where other people are actually consuming a ton of content, like a Substack or a Beehive. Daniel Yaw Miller. He's great. I think—let me find what his Instagram is. Oh, I found it. I got him. Yeah. His Sportsverse. Yeah. He's Yaw Majesty. No. That's somebody from our friends. That's one of our friends. I have him here. Daniel Yaw. Yeah. Yeah. I'll let you find it. Oh, you want me to find his Instagram? Oh no, no. I thought you were doing something. No. Okay. I could keep going. Yeah.

I think the newsletter play is—it’s not even newsletter play. I think the idea of launching a newsletter as a brand, but truly letting it be an actual newsletter, not thinking you always have to sell an email. Yep. Would you do that on a platform like a Substack or a Beehive? Would you differentiate between your email marketing platform? Would you show up on those algorithms, or would you launch it from your email? No. Because Bandit, they publish them as blog posts and then send it out on their mailing list, whereas Nike was like, there's an algorithm in Substack that's working, and we're just going to show up here. I have him here. Daniel Yaw. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll let you find it. Oh, you want me to find his Instagram? Oh, no, no. I thought you were doing something. No. Okay. I could keep going. Yeah. I think the newsletter play is. It's not even newsletter play. I think the idea of launching a newsletter as a brand, but truly letting it be an actual newsletter. Not thinking you always have to sell an email. Yep. There's a. Would you do that on a platform like a Substack or a Beehiiv? Would you differentiate between your email marketing platform? Would you show up on those algorithms, or would you launch it from your email? No. Because Bandit. They publish them as blog posts and then send it out on their mailing list.

Whereas Nike was like, there's an algorithm in Substack that's working, and we're just going to show up here. Now I have no idea how successful that newsletter has been. Yeah. I. I would use Beehiiv. Because Nike is different. They're so large that they probably can break rules. Yeah, they can. They can break rules, and they could also have brands like Substack bend rules. What I mean by that is. They should own all their customer data, as in, hey, this has a million subscribers on it, whatever, readers. So therefore, you should own that data and have it on a place like Beehiiv, where you could own that data.

But Nike is so big, too, that Nike could go to Substack and have infinite leverage to say, hey, if I'm here and I'm doing this, I'm going to do it on here, but you're going to give me all the data. I won't publicly say it, but I need the data because we're Nike. And then Substack's going to bend. Yeah. And. But there is the algo aspect, because I've thought about. I'm on Beehiiv. Beehiiv's great. But I've thought about Substack just from that sense of, hey, if I'm putting great content out on Substack, I can grow really fast. There's this guy Lenny. It's just Lenny's newsletter. He covers tech. And. He's grown, dude, to a million-person newsletter. Wow.

Just off Substack's referral engine. Yeah. I find a lot of great articles and creators who might have quieter social presences that are killing it on Substack. Would you rather have a newsletter with 150,000 subs, or would you rather have a social follow with 150,000? Oh, newsletter, hands down. I disagree. Really? Really. Why do you disagree? Because we had, marketing examine had, at one point, 110, and then I cleaned up the list because I was like, hey, we're going to only do brand social. So I got rid of a bunch of people. I was telling people to unsubscribe. So we cleaned it up. Me building on.

If I just look at my company, we went from pivoting to what I would say is successful. Yeah. Because of Instagram. I think it depends on how you do it. For my career personally, I think I would be a little more siloed if I existed just on a platform like Substack or with a newsletter. Whereas people feel like they get to know me as a person, and it's opened a lot of network connections. And then I get some business from that on Instagram. So I guess it definitely depends on what you're trying to do. Whereas if I wanted to just, if monetization was the only thing that I wanted, I can sell a newsletter.

I can't sell my social media presence without also giving myself over to. Like, you know what I mean? I think that's an easier, here you go. Because you can. It's difficult, how you monetize on IG. It's same same but different. Yeah. But I. Yeah, it's difficult. Okay, I'll reframe the question. We're hopefully launching something. I don't know when. Who knows. 2034. Yeah. For real. Same year as the Utah Olympics. And I'm saying the brand brand.

Product brand. Would you rather have 150,000 subs or 150,000 followers to launch to? I think followers. Yeah. That's where I think it's like. It's different. That's a good question, though. Because, I mean, that's where you'd want to look behind the curtain and see what is actually converting. And. Because, well, the other thing to think about with a newsletter. And this is almost like me. I'm not attacking newsletters here.

What I'm saying with my prediction is you need to have a newsletter if you want to get closer. Yes. That's not the magic ticket. Instead of also posting on social. Because if you have 150,000 followers, you can have a video that gets in front of 10 million people. Yep. If you have an article that even performs amazingly well, it's probably not getting that reach. Your chances of getting that reach are significantly higher via a piece of content than an article.

There's also more creative tools you can lean into on social. You can have audio. You can have visuals. You can pull people into an experience when they're not reading. Which you could argue that you could do the same in a newsletter, but it's different. We're coming here to read in a very different capacity. I think you could sell. And you could repackage on social, right? You could take one idea, skin it 10 different ways. And. Yeah. But anyways.

Brand newsletters say all the same. Launch a brand newsletter. But again, it's from the. The person. It all depends on how we're positioning the idea and the trend and the POV of it. And the POV for this is. You do this because the consumers that love you want more from you. Newsletters let you do that at a level that is very hard to beat. Again, The B-Mail, The State, those are great, great examples, too, of also how you can do the thing and do it in a very high luxury fashion. Yeah. Where it feels like. If you're creating amazing content, your newsletter also needs to be amazing. Yes. It's another expression of your brand. It should hold the same creative excellence.

Yes. All of the other facets of your brand. Yes. What do you have? I think. I think. One more, right? I have one more. I kind of already touched on it, and this is so hyper-specific. The one trend that I'm seeing a lot is within tech, brand positioning within tech is, do something with the data. So consumers are exhausted by all the data that they have, but they also crave the hyper-personalization of all of that data. So a great example is Aura. Aura is exploding as a brand. But then you also see a group of people who are like, I feel so overwhelmed by all of this data. I feel so disembodied. I'm ditching the Aura ring. I'm listening to my body.

But what Aura did, they launched this one big thing back in 2025 where they said, hey, on opening the app, based on all of the user biometrics, you get a singular attainable goal. So it's, here's all of your data packaged up with a bow on it. Here's the one thing that you want to do. So it's. We don't want to just hand our consumers or our users data sets anymore. It's like, actually do the work. Translate it for them. Because we're inundated with data. I feel like that's a little less tactical and broad. The other thing underneath that tech umbrella of we rail against it, but also we embrace it at the same time.

A visual aesthetic that I think will be trending a lot is this retro futurism. So I think we'll see this with a lot of campaign art direction. It's essentially like positioning tech optimism with nostalgia. So people are comfortable embracing the tech. Like, this feels familiar and comfortable, but also this is bold and futuristic. On Running did that with a shoe campaign with Zendaya. Bandit did a similar thing with their shoe drop, with this outer space kind of look. We're seeing more of that, and I think this retro futurism aesthetic, you're going to see crop up a lot in campaigns. We tried to do a little bit of it with the Maverick, where it was like.

I liked how you all did it differently. Because. And again, this is. Okay. On and Bandit did retro futurism. So how can you position it? With a lot of. Campaign. Art direction. It's essentially. Positioning. Tech optimism. With nostalgia. So people are comfortable. Embracing the tech. This feels familiar. And comfortable. But also this is. Bold and futuristic. On Running. Did that. With a shoe campaign. With Zendaya. Bandit. Did a similar thing. With their shoe drop. With this. Outer space. Look. We're seeing more of that. And I think this. Retro. Futurism.

Aesthetic. You're going to see crop up. A lot. In campaigns. We tried to do a little bit of it. With the Maverick. Where it was. I liked how you all did it. Differently. Because. And again, this is. Okay. On and. Bandit. Did retro. Futurism. So how can you position it. In your own unique way. Agreed. I think one thing that's important. When anybody's developing. These campaigns is. If we're only looking at art direction. As the single thing. That we're going to communicate. That's a problem. Yep. And so there needs to be.

Okay. Yes, there's art direction. But what is the actual. Actual story. That is getting told here? What's the story. And what's the goal? What are the little things. We're trying to sneak into the story? Yes. Because. There are people that have done. And we have done. The same. Aesthetic. Right? Where. We could even take Maverick. That have shot on a treadmill. In a studio, etc. And that's. For them, that's the whole campaign. Because it's all. It's just the look. They're just going for the look. And then.

You actually watch the content. And it's just text overlays on top. And then I'm like. Well. Yeah. That's interesting. But there's no substance there. That's the. Again, that's becoming saturated. People are able to produce high-quality content. Really well. So there has to be strategy. Behind what you're producing. Like a story. And so if you look at the Maverick campaign. As an example. For the eighth post to make sense. You have to consume the seventh post. Yeah. And the sixth. And the fifth. And the fourth. All the way down to the first. Every part of it was. Or it literally was. Eighteen or nineteen pieces of content. That all told a sequential story. Right. And so.

Excuse me. The. Treadmill scenario. It wasn't us just doing that for a specific aesthetic.

So it looks a specific way. Right. On feed. It was actually. The scientist. Is so precise. That we use a spotlight on the treadmill. To create the feeling of obsession. That this guy has. Of. I am maniacally. Looking at my test subject.

And observing them. And looking at all the data.

It's not just. Oh. It would be cool. To have a silhouette. With a spotlight behind it. To mimic X. And back to. If we can say. The podcast that we're releasing. Where we interviewed the founders of APL. They were talking about. We don't lead with all of the insane tech specs. In our shoe. Because people glaze over. And they don't care. Yeah. We sneak it in. Through the story.

And through the aesthetic. And then when they dive deeper. Oh yeah. And here's all the tech. Behind the product. And that's exactly what you all did. How can we.

The whole thing behind. This mad scientist. Who's so. Obsessed with precision. Is because there is so much tech. Inside of that shoe. 100%. I think that's it for me. Yeah. We've hit for. I think an hour. I don't know. Hour plus. As we wrap up. Use AI. Launch a newsletter. Delete your Instagram. All right, so to wrap this thing up. We're actually going to package this. Into a notion. All of our notes. Into something that you can just look.

This. We're filming this. If you're watching this on Tuesday, December 9th. We're literally filming it. December 8th. So we're going to sprint. To be able to get this done. But we're going to put. This all. A bunch of links. So you can look at a bunch of stuff. Link is in the show notes. Yeah. I have to add a lot of context. I saw your notion page. And I was like. Oh shit. I got to. The hesitation was more so for me than you. I saw how much work you did. How much you prepped it. We can pull. Yours are so tactical. I pull points. People on their own. That I feel like it'll be easy to just. Let's pull links and.

Yeah. I'll put some stuff. I'll put some stuff in there. But. We hope you enjoyed that. Tatum and I are probably going to be doing another episode. Eventually. If not. Soon. All we do is. Talk this shit. Talk about this. So. We might as well put a camera to it. And we got some dope shit launching next year. Yes. So. All right, y'all. If you haven't already. Like. Subscribe. Please help us out. We're going to be doing a lot for this show. Smash that like button. Yeah. Welcome to YouTube. And then Tatum. Plug all of your. So. You can find me. I hang out the most on Instagram. At Tatum Brant.

And then my creative studio. I focus on brand strategy and identity design. That's Brant. B-R-A-N-D-T. Creative.co. Both Instagram and URL. And plug your agency. What you guys do. Yes. So we do brand strategy and identity design. And brand messaging work. Primarily for the fitness and wellness industry. So if you see the hyper focus on fitness and wellness. That's what we build out. We work with brands who are both going through a rebrand process. And trying to actually establish their personality for the first time. When they've built a successful company. You kind of hit your limit of DIY. And then it's okay. We got to go back to the foundations.

Or startups who are like. We're approaching our first round of funding. We need to get some of the shit dialed in. The product is excellent. Let's actually get the brand taken care of. You're going to see our rebrand coming out in a bit. You guys did that. Yeah. You guys. We got to work on House of Distribution. And that was fun. We got to. We got to go a little more themed. And I like how it turned out. I'm excited for it. Yeah. To roll it out. And we have content that we have to film for it. Yeah. It's going to be cool. All right, y'all. Appreciate you guys. Tune in next time. We'll see you next time. Again. The B-mail. The state.

Like those are great great examples too. Of also. How you can do the thing. And do it at a very like high. In a high luxury fashion. Yeah. You know. Where it feels like. If you're creating. Amazing content. Your newsletter also needs to be amazing. Yes. You know. It's another expression of your brand. It should hold the same creative excellence. Yes. All of the other facets of your brand. Yes. What do you have? I think. I think. One more right. I have one more. I kind of already touched on. And this is so hyper specific. So the. The one trend that I'm seeing a lot. Is like. Within tech. Like brand positioning within tech. Is like do something with the data.

So consumers are. Exhausted. By all the data that they have. But they also crave the hyper personalization. Of all of that data. So like a great example. Is like. Aura. Aura. Is exploding as a brand. But then you also see like. A group of people. Who are like. I feel so overwhelmed. By all of this data. I feel so disembodied. I'm ditching the Aura ring. I'm listening to my body. But what Aura did. They launched this like. One big thing. Back in 2025. Where they said. Hey like on opening the app. Based on all of like. The user biometrics. Like you get a singular attainable goal. So it's. Here's all of your data. Packaged up with a bow on it. Here's the one thing.

That you want to do. So it's. You know. We don't want to just hand. Our consumers. Or our users. Data sets anymore. It's like. Actually. Do the work. Like translate it for them. Because we're inundated with data. I feel like that's a little less. Tactical and broad. The other thing. Like underneath. Kind of that. Tech. Umbrella. Of like. We rail against it. But also we embrace it. At the same time. A visual aesthetic. That I think will be trending a lot. Is this like. Retro futurism. So I think we'll see this. With a lot of. Campaign. Art direction. It's essentially like. Positioning. Tech optimism. With nostalgia. So people are comfortable. Embracing the tech.

Like this feels familiar. And comfortable. But also this is. Bold and futuristic. On Running. Did that. With like a shoe campaign. With Zendaya. Bandit. Did a similar thing. With their shoe drop. Like with this like. Outer space. Kind of look. Like we're seeing more of that. And I think this kind of. Retro. Futurism. Aesthetic. You're going to see crop up. A lot. In campaigns. We tried to do a little bit of it. With the Maverick. Where it was like. I liked how you all did it. Differently. Because. And again. This is. Okay. On and. Bandit. Did retro. Futurism. So how can you position it like. In your own unique way. Agreed. I think one thing that's important.

When anybody's developing. These campaigns is. If we're only looking at art direction. As the single thing. That we're going to communicate. That's a problem. Yep. And so there needs to be. Okay. Yes. There's art direction. But what is the actual. Actual story. That is getting told here. What's the story. And what's the goal. Like what are the little things. We're trying to sneak into the story. Yes. Because. There are people that have done. And we have done. The same like. Aesthetic. Right. Where. We could even take Maverick. That have shot on a treadmill. In a studio. Etc. And that's. For them. That's the whole campaign. Because it's all. It's just the look.

Like they're just going for the look. And then. You actually watch the content. And it's just like text overlays on top. And then I'm like. Well. Yeah. Like. You know. That's interesting. But there's no substance there. That's the. Again. That's becoming saturated. People are able to produce high quality content. Really well. So there has to be strategy. Behind like what you're producing. Like a story. And so if you look at the Maverick campaign. As an example. For the eighth post to make sense. You have to consume the seventh post. Yeah. And the sixth. And the fifth. And the fourth. All the way down to the first. Every part of it was. Or like it literally was. You know.

Eighteen or nineteen pieces of content. That all told a sequential story. Right. And so. Excuse me. The. Treadmill scenario. It wasn't us just doing that for a specific aesthetic. So it looks a specific way. Right. On feed. It was actually. The scientist. Is so precise. That we use a spotlight on the treadmill. To create the feeling of obsession. That this guy has. Of like. I am maniacally. Looking at my test subject. And observing them. And looking at all the data. It's not just. Oh. It would be cool. To have a silhouette. With a spotlight behind it. To mimic X. And back to. You know. I mean. If we can say. The podcast that we're releasing.

Where we interviewed the founders of APL. They were talking about. We don't lead with all of the insane tech specs. In our shoe. Because people glaze over. And they don't care. Yeah. We sneak it in. Through the story. And through the aesthetic. And then when they dive deeper. Oh yeah. And here's all the tech. Behind the product. And that's exactly what you all did. How can we. The whole thing behind. This mad scientist. Who's so. Obsessed with precision. Is because there is so much tech. Inside of that shoe. 100%. I think that's it for me. Yeah. We've hit for. I think like an hour. I don't know. Hour plus. As we wrap up. Use AI. Launch a newsletter. Delete yourself.

Your Instagram. All right. So to wrap this thing up. We're actually going to package this. Into like a notion. All of our notes. Into something that you can just look. This. We're filming this. If you're watching this on Tuesday. December 9th. We're literally filming it. December 8th. So we're going to sprint. To be able to get this done. But we're going to put it. This all. Bunch of links. So you can look at a bunch of stuff. Link is in the show notes. Yeah. I have to add a lot of context. I saw your notion page. And I was like. Oh shit. Like I got to. The hesitation was more so for me than you. I saw how much work you did. Like how much you prepped it. We can pull.

Yours are so tactical. I pull a point shit. People on their own. That I feel like it'll be easy to just. Let's pull links and. Yeah. I'll put some stuff. I'll put some stuff in there. But. We hope you enjoyed that. Tatum and I are probably going to be doing another episode. Eventually. If not. Soon. All we do is. Talk this shit. Talk about this. So. We might as well put a camera to it. And we got some dope ship launching next year. Yes. So. All right y'all. If you haven't already. Like. Subscribe. Please help us out. We're going to be doing a lot for this show. Smash that like button. Yeah. Welcome to YouTube. And then Tatum. Plug all of your. So. You can find me.

I hang out the most on Instagram. At Tatum Brant. And then my creative studio. I focus on brand strategy and identity design. That's Brant. B-R-A-N-D-T. Creative.co. Both Instagram and URL. So. And plug your agency. What you guys do. Yes. So we do brand strategy and identity design. And brand messaging work. Primarily for the fitness and wellness industry. So if you see the hyper focus on fitness and wellness. That's what we build out. We work with brands who are both going through like a rebrand process. And trying to actually establish their personality for the first time. When they've built a successful company. You kind of hit your limit of DIY. And then it's okay.

We got to go back to the foundations. Or startups who are like. We're approaching our first round of funding. We need to get some of the shit dialed in. The product is excellent. Let's actually get the brand taken care of. You're going to see our rebrand coming out in a bit. Like you guys did that. Yeah. You guys. We got to work on a house of distribution. And that was fun. We got to like. We got to go a little more themed. And I like how it turned out. I'm excited for it. Yeah. To like roll it out. And we have content that we have to film for it. Yeah. It's going to be cool. All right y'all. Appreciate you guys. Tune in next time. We'll see you next time.