BIG QUESTIONS
Is now the best time ever for companies to be good?
Given the state of… well, things, many of us are stressed and frustrated with our corporate leaders. Rollbacks of popular policies (e.g., remote work, fairness in hiring), circumventing consumer protections, shitty customer service, naked greed – the list of grievances is long. So, perhaps now is the PERFECT time to stand for something good: civility, compassion, empathy, and politeness. Call it “humanity” or “moral consciousness” – these are behaviors that translate to the holy grail of branding: trust. Instead of trying to “fit into” popular culture or the current political “vibe,” stand apart – after all, that is marketing’s purpose. Also, standing out for goodness is delightfully refreshing. Tom’s of Maine, Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, and our client LendingClub Bank are all great examples of brands that appeal to their audiences’ sense of kindness, fairness, justice, and humanity. The first step is deciding to stand for something good, then bringing it to life in everything you do. We guarantee your customers will love you for it.
TOOL JOY
Ready to go deep? ChatGPT introduces Deep Research
Have you tried Deep Research yet? ChatGPT’s scary smart new AI agent analyzes vast amounts of online information, completes multi-step research tasks, and draws conclusions, judgements, and inferences based on logic. Just select “deep research” in the message composer, give it a nice, chunky (multi-step) prompt, and it will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of sources to generate your report. At Pinwheel, we used it to analyze the entire content program for a new prospect at the click of a button: strategies, tactics, frequency, voice, the whole tamale. This changes everything (for Pro users, that is).
DESIGN WE ❤️
Opera Air web browser
As you’re no doubt well aware, it’s very easy to become transfixed by that bright colorful monitor and have hours pass by before you snap out of it with a stiff back and neck. Opera recently released Air, their latest web browser, which prioritizes well-being alongside functionality. What differentiates Air from other browsers is its seamless integration of mindfulness tools, like breathing exercises, meditation, and binaural beats. The minimal, Scandinavian UX design parallels the philosophy that we all could use tools that encourage us to balance our noisy and at times, chaotic, digital lives. Ommmmmmm…
SPECIAL FEATURE
Featured content format: The case study bundle
Pinwheel client Stripe introduced us to these (thanks @Marielle). It’s when you take multiple case studies that together support a larger narrative and you present them along with product data, customer quotes, marketplace context, and even how-to content. Why we like them:
- Showcases success across different industries, use cases, and/or customer types
- Builds more credibility and trust through the collective impact of multiple case studies and social proof
- Sales teams can use bundles for specific customer segments, while marketing can gate them for lead gen
- Allows the brand to tell a bigger, more powerful story than a single case study can tell
BEEP BOOP
Everything’s going to be A-OK. Consumers crave uplifting, positive content more than ever, according to a new study by Upworthy. Meanwhile, Meta and X are spigots of rage bait.
Rich, famous, litigious: Famously rich (and a little bit insane) Elon Musk is broadening his frivolous lawsuit against advertisers that avoid his misinfo/hate-speech party on X/Twitter. ?
Barf bag culture: Anti-nausea medication Dramamine has a 14-minute documentary about “barf bag culture” called The Last Barf Bag. Very Christopher Guest.
This is a sign: 156 average Americans were asked to draw famous logos from memory, and the results were ?.
February suuuux: This just in from KMOX NewsRadio St. Louis: “February is the worst month of the year, but it’s an honest month. It’s a month that doesn’t hold up life any better than it really is.”
WORD TO THE WISE
“Making great work is as hard as the planets aligning.
It’s that perfect storm of a great brief, great clients that want the same thing, a business problem that’s really interesting, talented creatives, talented collaborators, and everyone putting their heart and soul into making it the best it can be.”
Tara Ford, Chief Creative Officer Droga5 ANZ | CCO Accenture Song APAC | D&AD Advisory Board
WHAT CLIENTS WANT
Audiences → Products → Topics → Keywords
As you likely know, the key to smart marketing is to start with your audience. The same is true in SEO.
- Map out all of your audiences.
- Map each product or feature suite that aligns with each audience.
- Derive all the possible topics you can cover for said audience.
- Do keyword research within those topics at each stage of the user search journey.
The other key is to hire us to help you. ?
ICEBREAKER
Who is your favorite brand mascot and why?
Jason: The Geico Gecko is my favorite. I just like how he is a little self-deprecating and doesn’t take anything too seriously.
Melissa: 24 years later, the Pets.com sock puppet is still my favorite. Every commercial made me laugh.
Sarah: The Kool-aid Man. I like how he was always breaking through walls and stuff. Such drama! And weirdly my college buddy used to date the daughter of the man behind the voice, Frank Simms.
Nick: The LiMu Emu, solely because of this SNL skit. Can’t speak to how effortlessly The Departed-esque the LiMu Emu is in official brand messaging.
Marielle: The MGM lion. It’s the commanding roar, the abiding power, the fierce loyalty, the iconic mane. I mean, I am “a León.”
Kim: “Mayhem” for Allstate, played by Dean Winters. His pitch-perfect deadpan humor makes the worst disasters feel entertaining.
Todd: The Energizer Bunny. When first introduced, it was always taking the audience by surprise – constantly crashing other (fake) commercials. The combination of the two is gold.
John: The Spongmonkeys from the now extinct Quizno’s Subs. The ocularly challenged, low-budget, rodent-like creatures looked like they were created as a high school art class prank, and were among the pioneers of the ironic advertising movement. To this day, no one knows if the Spongmonkeys hastened the downfall of Quizno’s, but they were fun while it lasted.
FALLACIES, PARADOXES & THEORIES…OH MY
The illusion of infallibility
The C-suite’s favorite delusion: the belief that having abundant data means you have a complete understanding. It does not. More data doesn’t mean better judgment – just as owning a dictionary does not make you an exquisite poet. The sheer volume of information, often presented in sleek dashboards and AI-generated insights, seduces decision-makers into mistaking precision for wisdom. But data, however plentiful, remains only as useful as the questions asked of it. The map is not the territory. And as history has shown, overconfidence in numbers is often the prelude to spectacular miscalculation.
