Need to reach a young audience? Just throw some money at the platforms and BOOM, they’d show your ads to a bunch of kids and that was it. But now that Australia and the UK have made a ban official, and with Canada and a dozen European countries moving in that direction, the good ol’ days of low-effort marketing are coming to an end. But maybe being forced to get creative again is actually a good thing…

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

You just didn’t get paid for it. Well, now you can. Our referral program gives you 25% of every sale you send our way, and your code knocks 10% off for your audience. Works across all our products.

Heavier than it’s ever been before, maybe. Why? You ask. What could be so awful that I genuinely want to scream to the gods “WHY, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS. WHY WOULD YOU TAKE THIS FROM US!?”

Yeah well, A24 just signed a deal with Google AI. THAT’S WHY. For $75m, mind you. The studio claims it wants "a seat at the table" to help design AI tools for filmmakers. But fans are obviously absolutely gutted, given that the entire brand is built on being edgy, hip, and anti-corporate. They were like, the brightest star in the sky to me </3

Devotees (not me) are literally leaving tombstones in the comment sections and threatening to pirate upcoming releases. Turns out, you can’t sell niche tote bags to cinema purists and then go to bed with Silicon Valley without getting some serious backlash. Which makes we wonder, was it just a bait and switch all along? Please respect my privacy in these trying times.

Maybe I need to focus on more important things, like my wellness and perhaps build a sauna - like literally everyone else my age is. Because apparently if your home doesn't currently resemble a high-tech medical clinic, everyone from your peers to real estate developers think you are doing adulthood wrong.

No, I mean, like, it’s literally reshaping American real estate as wellness and longevity features become the ultimate home status symbol. We aren't just talking about a basic home gym. Wealthy buyers are demanding built-in cold plunges, infrared saunas, circadian lighting systems, and medical-grade air filtration built right into the drywall. Your house now needs to be like a new-age Dracula’s coffin; a million-dollar biohacking pod designed to keep you alive forever.

And to help you pay off that cyber-villa, the internet boys have discovered a new cognitive hack. And it’s crazy, because I’ve been doing it for 16 years with no clue it was a hack at all. In fact, I was told it was the opposite. A bizarre new wave of wellness influencers and "biohackers" on TikTok are rebranding nicotine as a productivity tool. Creators are claiming that popping a Zyn or a nicotine lozenge is a legitimate way to enhance focus and get "locked in" for work.

Doctors are already waving massive red flags, pointing out that while nicotine is a stimulant, the claims are heavily exaggerated. Not to mention building a literal chemical dependency just to clear your inbox is a terrible trade-off. But, hey, whatever works for you, kiddo. I can’t judge.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

But while tech giants argue in court and regulators celebrate their new age-verification toys, the commercial landscape has been fundamentally re-zoned. Australia, the UK, and a growing list of nations are completely locking under-16s out of major platforms. And the foundational pipeline of youth marketing has unarguable been severed. Whether that’s good or bad is not what I’m going to discuss here.

What I want to discuss, is the fact that if your marketing department’s default reflex for reaching a young demographic was to throw money at Meta, TikTok, or Snapchat, your playbook is now illegal.

For a decade, the industry has outsourced its creativity to a 15-centimetre glass screen and a black-box algorithm. The bans have forced us out of our comfort zone and back into the real world. We’re now in an era of post-platform marketing. And the brands that adapt right now are about to capture the most valuable attention in the world.

We can’t deny that for years, targeting a younger demographic was stupidly easy (and it shouldn’t have been). You didn’t actually need to understand human behaviour. You just needed to feed a pixel some budget. And the algorithm would hyper-profile the consumer youth, trapping them in endless attention loops.

Youth attention hasn't vanished into thin air; it has merely migrated into spaces the bans can't touch. It is leaking into un-addressable gaming environments like Roblox, private Discord servers, localised offline communities, and encrypted message threads.

The marketers currently panicking are the ones who relied on brute-force reach over actual relevance. You cannot rely on a feed to force your brand in front of a teenager’s face anymore. So now, you have to build something so culturally compelling, they will actively seek you out.

"Contextual" and traditional media.

With digital feeds restricted, contextual placement, physical out-of-home advertising, and high-impact experiential events are delivering a massive premium. Meet people where they are physically moving, not where an algorithm thinks they should be looking.

Owned ecosystems.

If you do not own the data, you do not own the relationship. You need to invest in building your own digital properties. This may be proprietary apps, private online communities, highly engaging newsletters, and first-party digital portals that require zero algorithmic intervention to operate.

Overt ethical alignment.

Want to build an unbreakable wall of consumer trust? Openly acknowledge the concern consumers currently have regarding big tech. Explicitly communicate that you want to earn attention responsibly rather than exploit the digital addiction loop.

Audit for age-verification churn.

As platforms enforce mandatory ID checks and facial scanning for anyone logging in, expect massive user friction and a dramatic drop in casual, passive scroll-time across all age demographics. Optimise your content to hook the remaining high-intent audience in the first three seconds.

Invest heavily in creator-led culture.

Creators are decentralising. Instead of buying programmatic ads around creator content, partner with creators directly to build bespoke, long-form, or real-life cultural moments. Let the creator's direct relationship with their audience be your vehicle. Bypass the platform’s ad network entirely.

Quality over volume.

When attention is constrained, the brand that prints generic, automated content loses instantly. Shift your resource allocation from churning out twenty forgettable videos a week to producing one definitive, high-production, high-utility cultural asset that stands completely on its own merit.

The regulatory walls are up. The fines are massive. And the platforms are purging accounts by the hundreds of thousands. But this isn’t a moment for corporate mourning babes… it’s a moment of immense professional opportunity.

If you want to survive the next 24 months, maybe don’t keep trying to find clever loopholes to sneak past the age-gates. Instead, look at the locked gate, turn around, and remember how to build real, unshakeable human connections out in the open air.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The sound comes from Martin of SlushyNoobz (SlushyNoobz MENTION AAAAA), a Canadian YouTube duo known for their gaming videos, vlogs and general chaos that has accumulated over 1.4 million subscribers. In the clip, Martin is watching his Twitch hype train climb and completely loses it, screaming "come on, bring me there! bring me there! bring me there! come on!" with the energy of someone whose life depends on it. Out of context it is genuinely one of the most uncomfortable sounds on the internet right now. In context, it makes perfect sense. Either way, the internet needed it immediately.

People are using it for anything they're desperately trying to be transported to:

Lipsync the audio and put whatever you're desperately trying to get to on screen.

A few ideas to get you started:

-abdel khalil, brand & marketing exec

😂Yap’s funniest home videos - When you get out Kiwi'd
❤How wholesome - Tap out soldier
😊Soooo satisfying - Shutter speed
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Spanish Tortilla

Hey Renata!

The truth is your great ideas aren't doing you a whole lot of good if they are only becoming one-off videos. A truly good idea will be something you can repeat over and over because it hits on a core human truth that speaks to your audience. So rather than thinking about something that would just be cool to post, you need to come up with a concept you can return to again and again. Then, you need to just get your reps in rather than trying to make each video perfect.

Most successful creators are only good at what they do because they have created thousands of pieces of content. They've failed, learned from that failure, and continued to improve every day. So don't worry about getting everything just right. The most important thing is to keep creating, keep experimenting, and build your content muscle over time. Even if you make some videos that aren't amazing, you're still learning and improving with every piece of content you create.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.