Your ATTN Please || Monday, 9 June

The Summer Body is out. Relentless “self-optimisation” is in. All. Year. Long.

Not long ago we were prepping for Hot Girl Summer. Now it’s a freaking Hot Girl Fiscal Year. The “summer body” isn’t seasonal anymore. It’s a full-time hustle, fed by TikTok trends, wellness grifters, and a dash of Ozempic-core. Unfortunately, marketing is partially to blame for opening the gates of hell and turning glow-ups into a never-ending grind.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

How to *actually* win on Instagram in 2025

Join our team for a 90-minute workshop to find out the exact strategies we've used to grow our Instagram following to 600k+. This workshop is not about theory. It's about giving you actionable takeaways you can implement straight away.

Learn what's working on the platform right now from:

• Jony Lee, our expert short-form strategist

• Stanley Henry, founder at The Attention Seeker 

Bring your questions and we will bring everything we've learnt spending thousands of hours on Instagram. We're not gatekeeping anything, so get ready!

Friday 13 June | 8:30–10:00am NZT | $49

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

“Summer body” is now “year-round body,” 50% of TikToks about mental health are wrong & Neopets returns

The "summer body" has fallen victim to the fully optimised self.

The age-old "summer body" narrative has morphed into a relentless, big, ugly year-round pursuit of self-optimisation. This shift is driven by Gen Z's obsession with TikTok trends and wellness culture (also maybe a little Ozempy), as per Vox. But the move from seasonal fitness goals to perpetual body enhancement reflects a deeper, more ugly marketing strategy. That is, selling the idea of constant self-improvement, promoting ever-evolving fitness fads.

You know the ones. Pilates today, HIIT tomorrow, no-carb high protein recipes every day within 30 minutes of waking up or you’re in the shame corner for the rest of the day. This has created a cycle where everyone is trying to chase the next trend. And of course, brands are capitalising on this by positioning products and programs as essential tools for achieving the latest body ideals.

A study finds that over half of the most popular TikToks about mental health are inaccurate, at least to some extent.

No sh*t, Sherlock. And yet, everybody wants to go to social media for mental health advice. Meanwhile, influencers are wielding therapy speak and “quick fixes” to lifelong traumas. And they're peddling misinformation to those seeking advice in their most vulnerable time of need. A recent study by The Guardian took the top 100 videos posted under the #mentalhealthtips hashtag on TikTok and shared them with psychologists, psychiatrists and academic experts. These experts then took a view on whether the posts were BS or not.

“The experts established that 52 out of 100 videos offering advice on dealing with trauma, neurodivergence, anxiety, depression and severe mental illness contained some misinformation, and that many others were vague or unhelpful.” The lesson? Go to therapy, not TikTok.

Neopets is back and 13-year-old me is screaming.

Miniclips didn’t make it. Neither did Club Penguin. Of all the fallen soldiers of our younger computer gaming years, I did not expect this underdog to rise from the ashes in what’s being called “a community driven comeback in a crowded entertainment landscape.” The virtual pet site came under new leadership in 2023. Since then, it has tripled its monthly active users to more than 400,000 with daily peaks hitting 250,000—the highest in over a decade!! If you want nostalgia to hit you right in the feels go check it out (I can’t recommend enough). The world is healing, and so is my inner child. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

How to make killer short-form content (no matter your age)

When it comes to getting eyes on your brand, few avenues are as reliable as short-form video (SFV) content.

But if you’re an experienced, old-school marketer, this recent boom in SFV content might have you feeling anxious about getting in front of the camera. You might even be telling yourself you’re too old and/or unrelatable to build a brand on social media.

I looked to Bhaskar “Buskey” Sharma, a 300K follower-strong content creator and creative director at The Attention Seeker, to get his take. Having been in the personal brand game for 5 years, he shared his insights on staying relevant in the age of SFV and how to overcome those mental barriers that scream “this is so stupid”.

Sup Buskey! You’ve been a content creator for a while now. Tell us a bit about that.

So for the last five years, I've worked with big brands both nationally and internationally. I've also been writing, directing, shooting, editing and starring in my own skits, and a lot of them have done really good numbers. From that experience, I now understand what the audience wants and how to build momentum from specific shots and editing styles.

You mostly film skits, both scripted and unscripted. Where do your content ideas come from?

My most viral videos have been me waking up and picking up the phone and just recording what feels right. If you go my old videos, some which got around 2 million views, you can see that I do a “millennial pause”, then after the third clip I stop and turn the camera off. Like, that's how much I didn't care at that time. But that just shows that if the idea is strong enough, the execution doesn't really matter.

A lot of people think of SFV ideas but never post out of a fear of looking stupid or embarrassing themselves. Is that a barrier for you?

I'm of the mindset that haters equal more views. Being an Indian that makes videos about South Auckland, I'm gonna get haters and I just don’t care. I think all my ideas are stupid, but I just post them and if they do well, then they do well. If not, then they don't. Those “what ifs” you ask yourself just stop you from growing. If you started making videos now, posting every day for a few months, then you might be 10-20K more followers ahead than if you didn't start.

As a creative director with TAS, you’re helping people and businesses find their voice on social media. What's your approach with them, and how do you know where to draw the line?

The important thing to remember is that they all have a vision. Everyone’s vision should be respected and cherished. Without it you've got nothing. You also have to understand their morals and their lines that they can't cross. From there, you can recommend some ideas and push them to be a little bit cutting edge. They don’t have to go that route though. Like one of the best TikTok accounts I follow is Bradley On A Budget, and he just shows how he saves money. It's "boring" in comparison to some other types of content, but people want to see things like that.

With either your own personal brand or others’ brands, how do you keep growing when you’re unsure what direction to take things?

It's all about momentum and consistency. If you post a video and it gets only 100 views, then you think of ways you can do again that's 10x more relatable, 10x funnier, 10x more entertaining. 100 people saw your video because of the algorithm, and there’s millions out there like them who could see it, too. So you just have to see if you can stick with a niche and topic, but just change it up a bit and make it more interesting. It’s really hard to pick up momentum, but once it’s there, you gotta go with it.

Your dream is to be in a Netflix movie, and according to you, it’s "going to happen, could be when I’m 50, could be next year”. What would you say to people who worry about their age and getting “too old” to learn or accomplish something?

For me it’s inevitable, it's gonna happen. I feel like things are clearer once you’re a bit older. When you’re young, you make dumb decisions. But when you're older, you're more in tune with yourself, your morals and the way that you want to be seen and represented. And even if you just think about the next two years, it sounds like a long time but it’s gonna come fast.

You can't stop time, and wherever you want to be at the end of it is fully up to you. You could sit around moping, wanting to do content and “waiting for the right time”, only for those two years to pass and hit you between the eyes. Or, if you just start now, just give sh*t a go, then you could be somewhere else entirely when those two years end.

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

TREND PLUG

Sorry, wrong number

Today's trending audio repeats “sorry, wrong number” with a flustered, panicked energy.

And it's perfect for that moment when you literally want nothing more than to shut down a conversation before it even begins! Creators are using it to show just how done they are – whether it’s with drama, baggage, or an opinion they didn’t ask for. Think: the ex who won’t disappear or the friend who reappears post-breakup. It’s also being used for moments of instant regret when you made the call (took a risk, made a bold move), and now you’re worried about the consequences. Cue caller’s remorse and some frantic backpedalling!

How to jump on this trend: 

Film yourself as if you're answering a call, then realising who it is (we’ll forget we have caller ID and literally never have to take a call we don’t want to these days!). Lip-syncing “sorry, wrong number” to the audio.

Add OST to explain who your "caller" is, like, “When the job I applied to calls for an interview…”. Sell it with your face: you want absolutely no part in this conversation, and everyone needs to know it.

A few ideas to get you started:

• When you’re told the target audience is “everyone”

• When a client asks for “just a few quick tweaks”… on final creative

• When you say “we can definitely turn this around by EOD” and it’s now EOD

- Helena Masters, Copywriter

ASK THE EDITOR

My brother and I just started a wedding planning business. Just wondering how we're meant to find time to create content when it's just the two of us? - Caroline

Hey Caroline!

This is such a common struggle for small businesses, and there's no silver bullet. Creating content does take time. But the best thing you can do to create content at scale is to have a system to help you get it done. For example, you might decide you're going to spend 1 day a month bulk creating 4 weeks of content. So you'd mark that day on your calendar, work out how many hours you need for filming vs. editing, then just stick with it.

When you can afford it, you might want to look into getting a freelancer to help you with this. Eventually, your time will be better spent developing your business. So if you can outsource some content creation, you'll likely get a better result and free up your time to do other things. But in the meantime, create a system then just be consistent. That's really all there is to it.

- 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.

WHAT DO YA THINK?

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