Your ATTN Please || Saturday, 7 June

Let’s be brief here - your brief is boring.

Excuse the pun, but the fact is your brand isn’t as painfully milquetoast as you might think it is. The fact is, a single decision by a single person probably didn’t cause the headache you’ve got. More likely than not, the issue falls squarely on the quality and clarity of your brief - and by extension, the quality and clarity of the conversations being had between your strategy and creative blocs.

- Devin Pike, Guest Editor 💜

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?

Trump & Musk slap fight online, Lilo & Stitch get Spam-my & Pinterest becomes one with nature

Trump Vs Musk: A case in why hard launching can damage your brand.

Because nothing screams “take us seriously!” like two extremely powerful, not to mention grown men arguing on social media. I’m not going to dive too deep into it, considering it’s no doubt on everyone’s feed right now, but with the drama heating up, this very public uncoupling on X is basically the stuff of tabloid dreams. But beyond the drama, it’s a textbook lesson in why hard launching relationships (business or personal) can backfire.

When you tie your personal brand too tightly to someone else’s - especially in public - you inherit their baggage. And when things go south? So do your optics. The Trump/Elon bromance was once a mutual hype machine. Now, it’s a reputational liability for both. The lesson here: be careful who you publicly align with. A loud love-in might win you attention today, but tomorrow’s fallout could be louder. Anyway, MOVING ON.

Speaking of better collabs that just make sense. Spam X Lilo & Stitch??

The stuff of marketing dreams, truly. THIS IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. Sorry, a little too excited, but it truly does just work. A beloved food product of Hawaiian families for generations, and a beloved tale of a little Hawaiian girl and her insane accidentally adopted alien. Mwah, chefs kiss.

“Hawaii is so special to the brand,” Spam’s senior brand manager Dan Kubiak told Marketing Brew. “This was just a great partnership for us to drive that authentic connection with our consumer base and really tell that story together within Hawaii.” Also, the can looks cute asf.

Pinterest highlights the latest rising trends in its Midyear Report.

In Pinterest we stand. In Pinterest we trust. When Pinterest tells us the mood of the season, we listen. Pinterest is our gospel. And apparently, it’s a digital detox winter. In their words, “Think cabin stays, bush retreats, and winter getaways as searches for digital detox ideas and digital detox vision boards trending up by 72% and 273% respectively.”

Nature bathing’s also on the rise with Gen Z, and searches for relaxing in nature have increased by 32% as they opt for serene environments. We also have Farmhouse Cottage Interiors +370%, Book Retreats +103% & Cool-Toned Beauty up 376%. Welp, the girlies are going glamping.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

How to turn bland briefs into better business

NEWSFLASH: your brand isn’t boring - but maybe your brief needs a rethink.

Let’s talk about the space between strategy and creative. The part where good ideas can either get sharpened, or smoothed into sameness. Personally, I believe a brand rarely ends up looking or sounding “meh” because of a bad decision. Usually it's because the signal got fuzzy between intent and execution, which often comes down to the brief.

Good strategy needs a clear transition layer

Strategy is about insight, positioning, differentiation - all the big thinking. Conversely, creative is about expression, storytelling, execution, otherwise known as: the magic. But the bridge between them? That’s the brief.

And too often, that bridge is full of vague language. and placeholder words. Terms like “Bold”, “Modern”, and “Approachable but confident” (okay but dude… what does that even mean?) When briefs rely on generalities, creative teams have to fill in the gaps. And when everyone’s working from a slightly different interpretation of “authentic”, the work can lose focus fast.

A better brief starts with better convos

This isn’t about blaming the brief-writer, the designer or the strategist. It’s about naming the gap and fixing it together. I’ve seen teams butt heads for weeks on problems better solved by putting minds together - not against one another.

The strongest brand work happens when:

• Strategists clearly define the “why”.

• Creatives feel empowered to challenge, question, and co-create.

• Everyone gets specific about language, references, and audience insight.

• There’s room for friction, not just blind agreement.

We’re not aiming for consensus, but for clarity. That way, everyone gets in the room aligned on the real problem we’re solving and how the brand shows up to solve it.

From vibe to vision

For the love of God, let’s ditch the aesthetic therapy and build briefs that mean something! That move beyond moodboards and into actual messaging.

A great brand brief should include:

• A clear positioning truth

• The emotional problem we solve

• The enemy or tension in the market

• What we are not

• Language we’d never use (this one’s surprisingly helpful)

Because when the strategy's sharp and the language is honest, creative teams can stop guessing and start building something distinct.

Here’s the long and short of it: 

Most creative work isn’t “bland”, it’s just been briefed in a way that left too much room for interpretation. To build truly great brands, we don’t need better adjectives. We need better alignment between strategy and creative. Between insight and output. Between what we say we stand for and how that gets built into the brand from day one.

No shade here, just a shared goal: To build sharper briefs, and watch sharper brands follow.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

Nobody knows exactly how you feel

Remember yelling "you just don't understand me!" at your parents while slamming your bedroom door?

Yeah, this trend has those kind of vibes. The sound goes, "My pet peeve is people saying 'I know exactly how you feel.' No one knows exactly how you feel." And it perfectly captures that "no one truly gets me" feeling. Creators are using it to describe things they hate, like when I have to wear black shoes to work or things they're obsessed with, like no one understands how much I love cheese.

We all love that feeling of being so special that no one could possibly understand us, so this is a trend that can work for a huge range of situations.

How you can jump on this trend: 

First, think of the situation where you feel like no one truly understands (the more dramatic, the better). Take some footage of you looking at the camera, showing how that thing actually makes you feel (whether that's upset, annoyed, etc.). Add the sound, which you can lipsync to or not (up to you)! Add OST explaining what people think they get about you, but just don't.

A few ideas to get you started:

• “No one knows how much I love getting to inbox zero

• When they say, "Oh a 4pm meeting on a Friday's not that bad"

• When they make "a few tweaks" to the copy I spent hours perfecting

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

TODAY ON THE YAP PODCAST

Want even more “YAP”ing? Check out the full podcast here.

ASK THE EDITOR

I know I should be posting content about my new clothing brand but I can never bring myself to make content. What should I do? - Warren

Hey Warren!

This is such a common thing that holds so many people back from posting content. One thing that helps me is remembering that no one is thinking about me the way I'm thinking about me. Everyone is paying more attention to themselves, just like I am!

Or as our Head of Strategy Nate says, there's not a stadium of people waiting for you to put content out. Once you realise no one cares that much, it's liberating. You can be ok posting content that's good enough.

Because you can't improve on something that doesn't exist yet. I hate to say it, but you just have to get over yourself and do it scared. It will get easier once you just start.

- 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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