Your ATTN Please
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Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 19 June

Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 19 June

Charlotte Ellis
June 19, 2025

You know that guy in the group project who slept through class but still got an A?

Yeah, that’s kind of what AI has done to your search traffic. You did the research. You wrote the report. And now, ChatGPT is serving up your answers while your web traffic goes down the drain. SEO’s not dead. Search isn’t doomed. But if you’re still playing by the old rules, you’ll be left doing all the work while AI smugly presents the slides.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

IG lets us rearrange our grids, Germany breaks up with Teams & Disney buys Hulu from NBCUniversal

You can FINALLY rearrange your Instagram grid.

Hey now, hey nowwww this is what dreeeams are made of. For years, YEARS people, I have wished for this. Instagram has just announced that it will FINALLY let us swap around our grid. The platform is ALSO testing a way to quietly post to profile without the content appearing in feed (because sometimes you just want the aesthetic without the noise). This would give users the ability to build their profile without the pressure to perform. There will also be a new Spotify integration that allows users to share any song they’re listening to in real time to their Instagram notes. Yes, yes, yes, to all.

An Entire German State: “we’re done with Teams.”

Idk why but this is so funny to me. Like they all just collectively broke up with Microsoft. That’s so sass. In fact, in less than three months not a single civil servant, police officer or judge in Schleswig-Holstein will be using any of Microsoft's ubiquitous programs at work. They will instead switch to an open-source software to "take back control" over data storage and ensure "digital sovereignty", its digitalisation minister, Dirk Schroedter, told AFP. "We're done with Teams!" he said, speaking on a video call, via an open-source German program, of course.

Disney is about to fully own Hulu (for a $439 million price tag).

That’s a hefty price tag. Disney has actually run Hulu since 2019, effectively becoming a silent partner. In 2023 it announced it was acquiring a 33% stake in Hulu from Comcast for around $8.6 billion. Now, Disney will pay Comcast’s NBCUniversal nearly $439 million for its stake in Hulu, taking full control of the streaming service. Meanwhile, I have $4 until payday. Coolcoolcool.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

ChatGPT ate my clicks: the future of search (& what to do about it)

Remember when SEO was the hill every marketer chose to die on?

You’d stuff keywords into your blog posts like they were suitcases on a budget airline's overhead compartment. You’d chase backlinks like a Victorian ghost chasing closure. You’d spend hours lovingly crafting content, all for that sweet, sweet #1 spot on Google.

Good times.

But lately, there’s been a vibe shift. Better yet, a behavioural one. People aren’t searching the internet the way they used to. They’re not scrolling through blog posts or trawling page 3 of Google results. They’re going straight to AI. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, even voice assistants, and they’re getting all the answers they need instantly. No links. No traffic. No credit.

So, what happens to SEO when nobody’s clicking? What happens to all that content when AI is out here serving up your hard-earned knowledge with zero backlinks and a side of sass?

Let’s talk about it.

AI is eating search (and your strategy with it).

We’ve officially entered the age of answer engines. AI tools are becoming the first stop for consumers. Whether they’re trying to compare products, plan a holiday, write a cover letter, or figure out wtf “fractional marketing” actually means.

Instead of typing “best noise-cancelling headphones 2025” into Google and opening 11 tabs, people are asking an AI assistant and getting a quick, snappy list with pros, cons, and prices, all in one go. That’s convenience Google simply can’t compete with.

Not to mention, a lot of those AI answers are being pulled from your website. Your blog post. Your product page. With. No. Click. Ouchies.

Now don’t get me wrong, SEO isn’t dead. But it’s definitely gasping.

Google still matters. People obviously still search. But SEO as we know it—obsessing over meta descriptions, praying to the backlink gods, and playing the keyword game—is losing power.

Why? Because traditional SEO was built for a world where humans searched, clicked, and read. Now, AI is the middleman. It’s doing the clicking for users and summarising the results in one neat paragraph. A paragraph that most likely doesn’t link back to you.

So, if you're still measuring success in pageviews and impressions alone, you might be missing the bigger picture: discovery is happening without attribution.

Well then that begs the question, how do you stay discoverable?

The good news? There are ways to show up in the age of AI. But they require a shift in thinking, from ranking to resonating. From optimising to owning.

So, here’s how to stay in the conversation (even when you’re not being clicked):

Be the source. AI needs places to pull from. The more original your data, insights, frameworks, or POVs, the more likely you’ll be cited or influence the output, even if you’re not credited directly.

Build a brand people ask for by name. If someone types “What’s the best mascara?” the AI might give them a list. But if they ask “Is Glossier’s Lash Slick actually worth it?” you freaking win. Brand awareness isn’t vanity. It’s visibility insurance.

Think beyond Google. Search is now fragmented. People are looking things up on TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, and yes, AI chatbots. You need to meet them where they are, not where they used to be.

Create content worth quoting. If your blog sounds like everyone else’s, AI will paraphrase it. If it sounds like you: funny, sharp, opinionated, original, it might actually stand out in the training data. (Or, at the very least, be remembered by a human.)

Long story short.

SEO isn’t over; it’s just not the whole game anymore. The new search isn’t about rankings, it’s about relationships. It’s about trust, attention, and showing up in the places consumers are actually spending time.

The question is no longer “How do I get people to click on me?” It’s: How do I become the brand they already have in mind when they ask AI for help?

Not an easy feat, I know, but you got this.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

You ain't gotta die (to be dead to me)

We all know someone who fills us with stupid amounts of spite -

Not enough to want them literally dead, but enough to make them dead in our hearts and minds! TikTokers have been capturing this feeling recently using the country pop bop "You Ain't Gotta Die (To Be Dead To Me)" by Kaitlin Butts. In one of the verses, she opts for some spoken, sarcastic lyrics:

"You know, I think I have heard of that man. I think, I think I heard he got run over by a train? Mauled by a bear? Maybe? Hopefully!"

For one reason or another, we've all made someone dead to us - sometimes over life-altering damage, other times over the tiniest inconveniences. Because whether you're literally stirring the pot over a toxic ex or breaking down after Subway messes up your order, we all make mortal enemies we'd like to forget - but murder is illegal, obviously.

How you can jump on this trend:

Take this sound, turn the camera on yourself and lip sync with the lyrics. Add some onscreen text and give context to a situation where someone's really making your blood boil. If there's ways you can incorporate items, locations or even other people into your story, then please go wild!

A few ideas to get you started:

When you lend your favourite pen to Jonathan, only for him to lose it (so he says)
When a ragey client demands an “urgent” meeting, only for them to forget about it
Leaving a meeting and seeing a full cake in the Teams chat, only to find said cake demolished

- Devin Pike, Copywriter

TODAY ON THE YAP PODCAST

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

ASK THE EDITOR

Are hashtags still important reach? -Forrest

Hey Forrest!

Nope! In the past, platforms used hashtags to categorise content. But now, they've just become something people overuse in an attempt to hack the algorithm. Many people end up hurting their reach because they aren't using the correct hashtags, anyway.

These days, social platforms can understand what your content's about based on the visual, OST, and captions. So there's really no need to use hashtags anymore. If you want to make sure the algo shows your content to the right people, your focus should be on creating clear and compelling content that naturally communicates its purpose, not on choosing what hashtags to use.