Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 29 May

In the great circus that is the internet, something will eventually explode in your face.

Maybe it’s a dodgy campaign. Maybe it’s a poorly aged tweet. Maybe your brand accidentally tried to solve racism with a can of soda (hi Pepsi). When that moment comes, your logo won’t save you. Your personal brand will. The thing is, you can’t wait until you need it. The time to build it is now.

-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?

AI takes over Google I/O 2025, New Skims bra divides the public & Nissan Formula E Team releases video game

What went down at Google I/O 2025...

Very AI-forward as you can imagine, but here’s what you need to know without watching a two-hour keynote. Gemini has apparently levelled up, and Google just unleashed a tidal wave of its AI upgrades:

• Gemini Live now sees through your camera + shares your screen. It talks to your calendar, literally.

• Deep Research + Canvas turn dense docs into quizzes, podcasts, infographics - yes, really.

• Imagine 4 slays image generation with actual readable fonts (RIP weird AI text).

• VEO + Flow let you direct entire videos with characters, motion, and sound. Like Pixar, but make it AI.

• Android XR is real: AI-powered headsets and glasses with live translation and virtual navigation.

• Oh, and there’s a new Ultra subscription with premium tools, storage, and YouTube Premium baked in.

The future of AI isn’t coming. It’s rolling out... today.

Kim Kardashian has divided the internet with new Skims pierced nipple bra.

Kim, the visionary that you are ♡. Unfortunately, being a visionary means haters – and they’re deep in the discourse around the new Skims product. It's a first-of-its-kind bra, detailed with faux nipple piercings (so you can get the "ooo" without the "ouch," as the brand puts it). The original nipple bra was modelled off Kim herself and is one of the brand's most popular products – so why not make a version for the edgy girlies? Because people like to complain about anything.

"Can you imagine being asked, 'Wow! Do you have nipple piercings?' and you answer, 'No, I just wear a bra to pretend I have them.' How disappointing! The sensuality of those piercings is REALLY having them, not faking them", someone wrote.

"So now we have photo shopped clothes lmao," another chimed in.

There are literal wars happening?? And famine?? And climate change??  Direct your energy towards something useful and let the rest of us have fake nips lol.

Dark Horses has created the Nissan Formula E team’s first-ever video game - "NISMO Electric Racer Tokyo".

If the nerd in you sees the nerd in me, you will know how fkn cool this is. Hear me out: it's a retro-inspired arcade game in collab with Japanese illustrator Kentaro Yoshida to get fans hyped for the Nissan Formula E team’s race at the Tokyo E-Prix this month. Like!??? Is this not peak branding? The game honours Tokyo’s iconic gaming culture in an 8-bit visual style where players take control of a stylised Nissan Formula E car through a Tokyo cityscape featuring Mt Fuji and cherry blossom trees. AAHHH I’m obsessed. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

When sh*t hits the fan, your personal brand is a life raft (here's why)

When the pitchforks are out and the headlines are flying, people don’t trust corporations.

They trust people. Real, flawed, knowable people. And if you’ve spent time becoming one of those, congratulations—you’ve built yourself a safety net.

People trust you more than your PR team because:

Nobody likes a faceless apology. We’ve all seen the copy-paste crisis statement: “We take this matter seriously.” It’s corporate Mad Libs. People don’t want a statement. They want a human. Someone they know. Someone they’ve seen online, unfiltered, before all hell broke loose.

Consistency makes you believable. If you’ve been showing up regularly—sharing ideas, being honest, occasionally oversharing on Instagram Stories—you’ve been quietly earning trust. So when it all goes wrong, people are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt.

You’re more than your About page. When you have a strong personal brand, you don’t go down with the ship. If a business tanks or a product flops, people still follow you. Because they didn’t just buy what you were selling. They bought into you. That’s why founders like Emily Weiss or Sophia Amoruso can pivot and still keep their audience.

Ok, so what happens when you hide behind a faceless brand?

When Pepsi tried to solve world peace with Kendall Jenner and a can of cola, the backlash was instant and savage. But what made it worse? No one from the brand said a damn thing. No real person stepped up. Just a vague apology from a soulless logo.

Same goes for brands like Balenciaga and Jaguar. Beautiful logos, zero personality. When things go wrong, they hide behind legal teams and triple-checked press releases. And the internet notices. Faceless brands don’t get the benefit of the doubt. They get dragged.

Build your brand before the fire starts.

Here’s how to build a personal brand that’ll have your back when things get messy:

Be loud before you need to be. Start talking now. Show your face. Share your opinions. Build familiarity so when something controversial happens, people already know where you stand.

Tell the truth, even when it’s boring. Don’t just post your wins. Talk about what you’re learning, what you’re struggling with, and why your last launch was a flop. Vulnerability isn’t a trend. It’s a trust builder.

Make your name your biggest asset. Your product might change. Your business might rebrand. But your name? That’s yours forever. And when the headlines come for you, it’s your name they’ll Google. Make sure what they find makes you proud—or at least human.

When everything hits the fan, people don’t want statements. They want someone to believe. If you’ve put in the work to build your personal brand, that someone will be you. And if you haven’t? Well. Good luck hiding behind the Pepsi logo.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

This. is. happening.

This trend features the intro from Chris Brown’s "New Flame," and it’s all about the beat.

And it's simple. Pretty much anything can fit the beat, so creators are writing OST to get across a message they want heard. Then, they're filming themselves saying that message to the beat of the sound, repeating it as if it's the lyrics to the song. It's like manifestation... but with better rhythm. Creators are using it to drop a hint, tell someone to do that thing, or even just put out positive vibes.

How you can jump on this trend:

Choose a message you want to put out into the world that fits into the beat. That’s your OST. Then, film yourself lip-syncing that sentence three times in time with the sound.

A few ideas to get you started:

• Start the damn newsletter

• Download the template

• Book the discovery call

-Helena Masters, Copywriter

ASK THE EDITOR

My small accounting firm is struggling to get business this year. I've been working on building my brand on social media, but I'm starting to see it will take time. How do I get clients faster? - Ed

Hey Ed!

Yes, you're right. Building your brand is part of playing the long game. It's absolutely worth it, but if you need clients ASAP, it may not be as fast as you'd like. So if you’re desperate for clients right now, my suggestion is to get out there and network in person. Go to events where potential clients are and meet as many people as you can. This will be a more effective way to get new business faster.

- 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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