Your ATTN Please || Monday, 23 June

You’re not like a regular brand. You’re a cool brand. Right?

That’s why you dance on TikTok or drop memes on X, even when you’re not sure how they connect with your actual strategy. But in those moments between refreshing your engagement stats, you’re wondering if there’s a way to stay relevant without losing your soul. Well, glad you asked—there is. The secret is to hop off the trends hamster wheel and to start paying attention to culture instead.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

DEEP DIVE

How to make content that keeps up with culture – not just trends

If you’re reading this right now, I’m gonna assume you like our newsletter and get a fat dopamine hit when we hit your inbox each morning.

We love y’all and take in all the feedback you give us – so it’s not lost on us how many of you click with our writer extraordinaire Sophie Randell. So this week, I sat down with her and picked her brain on how to find confidence in your own voice and create content rooted in culture and longevity – not just fleeting viral moments.

Sup Soph! What’s your MO when writing for YAP?

My main goal when I'm writing is to click with all kinds of marketers, not just the marketing girlies. I want to make their lives easier by bringing trends, insights and information about our industry to them, instead of them having to go and look for it, and helping break down those things. There’s so much jargon in our industry, so I really try to unpack those messy concepts and make them digestible for the average marketer, even someone who just graduated and has no f**king idea what a “funnel” is.

Where do you find inspiration for your articles?

My job is to really scour the internet every morning, looking for industry news. And while reading I’ll notice words and trends popping up, or common insights in discussions. If I'm seeing something pop up all the time, but I don't really understand what it's about, I go and do my research, do my due diligence. Then I break it down for our readers, who are probably wondering about the same thing.

What value is there in being on top of marketing and social media trends?

Trends are so fleeting, especially on social media. They're a good way to quickly go viral and show you’re “with it.” But chasing trends all the time is exhausting and by the time you do one, the next two or three things come in. It’s something you can play around with, but trends aren’t a good enough strategy.

When writing, I try to keep up with culture, not trends. That’s why I hang around weird corners of the internet and pick up what I can from sources I trust, and then spot what fits our values, messaging and audience. It’s important to keep your audience in mind. I'm always thinking about what they’re struggling with, what they don’t understand and what their priorities are.

I guess it’s about finding balance, right? Because you should align yourself with a culture, but you shouldn’t just let yourself blend into the crowd. You gotta be yourself and stand out.

Exactly. It's so important that my readers connect with me, because my trope is being the sassy, bitchy media girly. I love that because it’s who I am, and I get so many messages from people saying they love my hot takes, personality and tone of voice. But I have to be careful, because it's such an explosive, fiery, feisty personality. As long as you're showing up as your true self, though, I feel like the right people will find you and appreciate that.

How do you go about bouncing back if you make a mistake, or write something people take issue with?

I try my best to be as impartial as possible, but sometimes my opinions bite me in the butt. Honestly I just try to be my authentic self in everything that I do and write. What I say is true to how I feel and the things I see and like, but it's all a learning experience.

I always take it on the chin, and you know, nothing’s completely solidified in the worlds of marketing, culture and social media. It’s all so fluid and there's so many opinions. So you just have to take everything with a grain of salt, because there's a lot of people out there, they all think different things.

Your stories get sent to thousands of inboxes every day. Do you think much about how many people see your writing, especially when taking risks?

It's become so natural to me, having this parasocial, one-way conversation with people. I don't really think about the sheer volume of readers. I just think of them as my friends that I'm having conversations with. And that applies to all content. I try to remember that no one actually gives as much of a sh*t about your content as you do.

If you post and it flops, then no one even saw it anyway, so it doesn't matter! But if you post it, it's true to your authentic self, you know you spent time on it, it feels good posting it, and it performs well, then that's amazing. You can't really lose, so just f**king do it. Everyone and their grandma and their grandma's dog is making content. It's not that deep, just post it.

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

DEEP DIVE

This one goes out to my baby creatives: you’re not behind, you’re just starting

So. You’ve just graduated. Congrats!!

Your cap has been tossed, your LinkedIn has been updated, and you’re ready to finally dive head-first into the big shiny world of copywriting, art direction, design, whatever your particular flavour of creative magic is.

You find a job listing that sounds like you, until you scroll down and see it: “Entry-Level Position. 3–5 Years Experience Required.”

Excuse me??? Be so serious rn.

Let me tell you something that not enough people say out loud:

You're not imagining it… this bit is hard. Really hard. You’re not broken, untalented, or falling behind. You’re just… in the gap. That weird little space between being qualified on paper and bursting with talent in real life.

And that space can feel like a creative purgatory. But here’s the good news: It’s temporary. And it’s not the full story.

I’ve worked in marketing for a while now, and I’ve seen how this industry works. Yes, it can be gatekeep-y and experience-obsessed. But I’ve also seen brilliant creatives get hired because they made a meme out of their resume, or a giant version made of 64 individual pages glued together (no, literally.) Or turned their portfolio into a zine. Or sent a fake campaign pitch to the brand they wanted to work for.

I’ve personally rooted for people not because of their degree or job history, but because they had bold, smart ideas and the guts to share them.

Your spec work? That’s still real work. That passion project? Also real work. 

That weird branding assignment you made up for a fake oat milk brand in uni? ICONIC AF. AND, YUP, YOU GOT IT, REAL WORK. You don’t need a Cannes Lion to prove you’re creative. You just need proof that you care, you can think, and you can do. And believe me, THAT can come in way more exciting forms than a 2-year agency internship.

The truth is that creativity is your currency. Spend it on yourself. Build your own brief. Make the work you wish you were getting paid to do. Start a fake agency with your friends. Launch a TikTok series roasting bad ads. Slide into a creative director’s DMs with a campaign idea that will knock their freaking socks off. Make your portfolio a love letter to your brain.

The grads who stand out aren’t always the most polished. They’re the ones who show us who they are before we even ask.

What I am trying to say is, if you’re a baby creative that happens to be here, reading this, feeling stuck, discouraged, or like you're screaming into the LinkedIn void, this is your reminder that you are not behind. You are not too late. You are not invisible. You are just starting.

And frankly, that’s the most exciting place to be! Keep going. Keep making. We see you.

Love, A Fellow Creative (who was also once a confused, broke, post-grad with a Canva-made CV and a dream)

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

“Do you wanna have a slumber party in my basement?”

It's no secret Ke$ha is having a revival (we're in another recession, so obviously, right?).

But here's a brand new way the TikTok community is using her "Your Love is my Drug" hit to communicate their... unhinged moments. Because this audio is all about the slightly unsettling quote: “Do you wanna have a slumber party in my basement?”.

It's giving creepy-cute, unhinged BFF energy. And it's the perfect way to show off your most questionable ideas, habits, or toxic-but-make-it-fun scenarios. The delivery is sweet and innocent, but the implication? Slightly off the rails.

How you can jump on this trend:

Think of a situation where what you're doing is bit deranged or obsessive (in a funny way). Think "me after saying please and thank you to chatgpt so that when the robots start attacking humanity I will be safe" to "how life feels when ur with a calm man who lets you be insane".

Then, either film yourself lip-syncing the audio OR show clips of the scenario you’re describing. Add OST and you’re good to go!

A few ideas to get you started:

• POV: me asking my manager if they “have a sec” knowing full well I’m quitting

• POV: me asking “can I grab 5 mins?” and then dropping a fully scoped rebrand idea

• How it feels to send a “circling back!” email for the fourth time with an unholy amount of smiley faces

- Maggie Hablous, Client services exec

ASK THE EDITOR

When trying to build up my following, what's more important, posting a lot of content or posting high-quality content? -Rosie

Hey Rosie!

If you're starting out, think of this as your information gathering phase. You don't know what your audience wants to see from you, so there's no point spending days or weeks trying to create the perfect piece of content. Instead, you should go for quantity at this stage. Try stuff and figure out what content style resonates. Then pay attention to your engagement.

What kind of reach are you getting? Are those people turning into followers? Where do they drop off in watching your content? Use this data to refine what you're doing. Eventually, you'll want to make incremental changes to improve the overall quality of your content. But for now, you are trying to figure out what content style will work for your brand, so go for volume.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

Not going viral yet?

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.

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