BIG QUESTIONS
How exactly DO you stand out as a brand?
Human beings are pattern-noticing creatures. We marketers establish brands by establishing specific patterns and sticking to them. But it helps if you pick a pattern that breaks an existing pattern. That’s how your brand stands out. The novelty of a provocative NEW pattern jolts us out of our trances, creating a tingle of surprise, delight, and intrigue. We love this.
Let’s take internet service providers, for example. There was a time that ISPs advertised and, when they did, allllll they talked about was speed. Over and over again, each one would try and outdo the others in how they dramatized the concept of speed. Rockets, superheroes, etc. Then Comcast introduced two animatronic talking turtles named “The Slowskys” who talked about the virtues of slowness – representing those customers who’d prefer Comcast’s slower DSL competitors. It was still about speed (which, in fairness, was really the only meaningful differentiator in the category), but it broke the dominant pattern in a fun, charming way while subtly revealing a tiny sliver of truth: There’s joy in living the slow life and some turtles (people) just don’t want to go fast.
TOOL JOY
Raindrop.io: Taming the tab overload
There’s a particular low-grade stress that comes from 40 open tabs and hundreds of bookmarks you swear you’ll get back to. Raindrop.io turns that chaos into a living library. Organize links into collections, tag them across themes, add notes, and actually find them again (our favorite part!). The visual layout makes browsing easy, and shared folders make it useful for teams. If you collect ideas for a living, this is how they compound instead of scatter.
DESIGN WE ❤️
Infinite Mantra
We are transfixed by the work coming out of Infinite Mantra, the studio run by multimedia artist Lindsay Kokoska. Her creations are a unique blend of traditional media, digital compositing, and AI. Kokoska describes her work as “a visual language moving between abstraction, surreal elements, and subtle figurative forms, often carrying a quiet transcendental quality… The aim is to create spaces that evoke reflection and allow people to recognize the magic that already exists in their own lives.” It’s encouraging to see truly original and compelling work using AI as a tool that enables the artist to realize their creative vision.
BEEP BOOP
Spurious Correlations: Ever notice how when margarine consumption goes down, so too does the divorce rate in Maine? No? How about the mysterious link between air pollution in Washington, D.C., and the distance between Neptune and the Sun? These random correlations are derived from silly (but factual) data, turned into linear line charts and posted here.
Folgers Remixed: Folgers’ new TV spot pulls in six popular songs that are all about waking up with regular folks singing to them. It’s relatable, and a nice way to refresh their brand pattern. (Pulled from creative director John Kovacevich’s blog.)
Exsquweeze me?: Researchers have built a coin-sized device that snaps onto your underwear and senses hydrogen gas from your farts – then tracks it over time. They hope it’ll illuminate some of the mysteries about those trillions of gut microbes. In the meantime, it has merely proved we fart about 32 times a day.
WORD TO THE WISE
“The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before.”
– Albert Einstein
SPECIAL FEATURE
Search is now a conversation (with a camera)
Google’s Search chief says AI mode is closing the gap between “links” and “chat.” People are asking longer questions, then follow-ups. Behind the scenes, Search “fans out” one query into many, so the winners aren’t shallow, catch-all pages, but content that nails one specific job. Discovery is also getting wildly visual (think Circle to Search with Google Lens), and ads are evolving into “the best next answer,” not a banner you ignore. For marketing teams, the move is: Publish crisp, trustworthy, up-to-date product info (and rich media) that machines can parse and humans can trust. You can read more about it here.
Bonus advice: Build “follow-up bait” – a cluster of tightly scoped pages that each answer one distinct question deeply (pricing, security, implementation, an FAQ of some kind), then cross-link them like a good “choose your own adventure.”
BECAUSE WE CARE
The CEO only buys your idea if it’s their idea
Getting executive buy‑in for marketing can be a full‑blown internal campaign. You don’t just sell your plan, you sell it back to the CEO as their vision and convince the CFO that it feeds their metrics. These decision-makers are customers in their own right, so you must drive the narrative accordingly. In other words, it should be about them, and the idea of funding the outcomes they’ve already said were important. That’s how to get your marketing line items approved.
ICEBREAKER
If you could get free food for life from one restaurant, where would it be?
Kim: I’d have to go with Tandem Coffee, which has the best coffee, amazing sweet treats, and a feel-good philosophy to boot.
Melissa: Being an Oaklander, and having my family celebrate every birthday at this place since my mom was 5, I will have to say Fentons – which just granted Olympic gold medalist and fellow Oaklander Alysa Liu ice cream for life.
Sarah: NYC’s Lombardi’s Pizza. The birthplace of New York-style pizza, America’s first pizzeria, and my long-time corner haunt.
Jason: Hillstone has my favorite roast beef sandwich. It’s $32 for the sandwich, but so worth it (and very valuable to have for life). They also have the best barbecued artichokes.
Todd: I’m a deli guy. And hands-down the best deli in San Francisco is Golden Gate Market Deli in the Marina. Every cleverly named sandwich on their list, and there are about 30 of them, sounds delicious. I’d take a lifetime of those for sure.
Laura: Houston’s, hands down. I could have their spinach artichoke dip anytime I wanted without the two-hour wait.
Irene: My and my mom’s favorite Thai place in Oakland (Pagarung)! But I just need a lifetime supply of the crispy basil chicken!
John: Sadly, my first choice no longer exists, but back when I lived in Lafayette, CA, there was an old greasy spoon downtown called The Squirrel’s. Stepping inside was like a time warp – faded polyester bench seating, yellow painted walls, old-school lighting fixtures, chrome accents. Completing the experience was the heady and seductive aroma of cheap coffee, frying bacon, and waffles all mixed together. Oh, and it was cheap!
FALLACIES, PARADOXES & THEORIES…OH MY
The Von Restorff Effect and standing out in a crowd
When everything blends together, the oddball gets remembered. That’s the Von Restorff effect. Psychologists also call it the isolation effect. Like the only green apple in a bucket of red ones or a neon Post-it in a stack of beige memos. Really anytime one item pops against a sea of sameness.
For marketers, that means that when it comes to getting the attention you desire, being distinct is better than being explanatory. An unexpected element, an offbeat metaphor, a visual rule-break, zigging when the category is zagging can buy you extra cerebral real estate in the minds of your audience. Because their brains cannot help themselves. Just ask Who Gives A Crap brand toilet paper.
