Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 3 July

Feeling stuck in the “murky middle”?

Even if you don’t know it by name, you’ve been there before: that awkward dimension between the top and bottom of the funnel, that “figuring out” space between customer introductions and final results. Yesterday’s YAP was all about incrementality, what it means and why it matters. So today, we’re telling you how you can use it to navigate the chaotic and uncertain nature of the murky middle.

- Devin Pike, Guest Editor 💜

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

Meta AI wants your private pics, Nike Football gets spooky & The Devil Wears Prada gets a sequel

Facebook wants your thirst traps.

Even if you’re not posting them. A new pop-up from Meta is asking users for permission to automatically upload their private, unpublished pics for “cloud processing”. The prompt pops up when Facebook users attempt to upload a story, which seems normal enough, however according to The Verge, it allows Meta AI to access images directly from their smartphone storage.

Once more, we’re left to question Meta’s privacy practices, which seem to be consistently questionable at best. Users have to actively agree to use it – but it’s not like it’s overtly stating “WE WILL HAVE ACCESS TO ALL OF YOUR CONTENT WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT”. So, stay vigilant and scrutinise features like this critically before activating.

Nike says “don’t just beat them, give them nightmares. Be Scary Good”.

In a new star-studded campaign, the iconic brand pairs horror with hype. “Scary Good” is the new chapter of Nike's football division, using players who are redefining the sport to bring fun back into the game, and consists of nine ads depicting stories from the field in a late-night TV/spoof -esque setting (Think Late Night with the Devil vibes).

The star-studded lineup includes Alexia Putellas, Kylian Mbappé, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Giulia Gwinn, Erling Haaland, Kerolin, Sam Kerr, Cole Palmer, Salma Paralluelo, and Vini Jr. The campaign comes after another quarter of disappointing financial results, leading the brand to pivot from lifestyle marketing to performance wear through a new strategy called “Sport Offense”. So far so good, Nike.

Ever feel like we need LESS sequels and remakes of iconic films?

Because same. The global film industry’s annual revenue stood at US$77 BILLION in 2022. The fact that we’re just hashing out old sh*t and not investing in new stories actually boggles my mind. Anyway, that wee rant was to preface the fact that The Devil Wears Prada 2 has officially started production, just as Anna Wintour has stepped down from Vogue, who, as we all know, was famously the inspiration for the diabolical Miranda Priestly. Much to her dismay, since Meryl Streep's Miranda character is, well, a giant b*tchacho. There's no release date set for the sequel, but by God, if it’s not at least comparable to the OG, I may have to storm Hollywood myself.

- Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

Conquering the murky middle: How incrementality can help you win where it’s hardest to measure

[this is a Part 2, carrying on from yesterday's article, What is incrementality and why does it matter?]

The top of the funnel is all vibes. The bottom of the funnel is all spreadsheets. But the middle is lowkey a mess.

Welcome to the Murky Middle, where customers drift in and out of awareness, content gets consumed without clear outcomes, and attribution gets muddy—fast. They see an ad, read a blog, watch a video, forget you exist, come back three weeks later via a different device. And your CRM is like, “No idea who that was.”

And yet, this is where most of your potential customers are actually making up their minds. So how do you bring strategy to the most chaotic part of the funnel?

You start measuring what matters. You start measuring incrementality.

Justin Choi, founder of Nativo, described the Murky Middle at Cannes 2025 as that space where “the customer goes through, learns about things, consumes content, and you lose them, and then they show up again later.”

It’s the wandering phase. The figuring it out phase. The “maybe I’ll just open a tab and never return to it” phase. If you know, you know.

And it’s full of signals that we often ignore or misread because they don’t result in clean conversions. But here’s the thing: influence doesn’t always look like a click. This is where incrementality shines.

Incrementality helps you separate what works from what just happened to be there.

It’s the difference between:

• That content series that made someone actually care vs.

• The retargeting ad that just happened to close the deal

If you want to know which touchpoints are actually moving people through the funnel and not just toward a transaction, but toward trust and preference, you need to start thinking in terms of additional lift.

Incrementality forces you to ask: Did this creative move the needle? Did this placement change behaviour? And when applied to the murky middle, it becomes a flashlight in the fog.

The practical problem, though, is that it’s a data maze.

It’s not as if marketers don’t want to measure incrementality in the middle. It’s that doing so feels like solving a murder mystery across six tabs, four channels, three devices and a burner TikTok account.

As Tim Vanderhook, cofounder of Viant, pointed out at Cannes, today’s consumer journey spans countless digital touchpoints. “The challenge,” he said, “is lining all these metrics up so it makes logical sense.”

This is where a smarter, multi-touch approach to incrementality comes in:

• Track exposure across formats, not just clicks.

• Measure lift across different segments and geos.

• Run holdout tests during content campaigns, not just after.

• Stop over-rewarding the last click and start rewarding the actual turning points.

The new creative brief for the middle.

The Murky Middle doesn’t mean throwing content into the void and hoping it sticks. It means designing for curiosity, optimising for dwell time, and measuring what nudges people forward - not just what gets them to buy.

That could look like:

• Native formats that drive meaningful exploration

• Creative that’s built to earn time, not just impressions

• Programmatic content placements that are built for engagement, not just reach

And most importantly, testing all the above with an incrementality lens. Because a 3% lift in brand affinity here could be the reason someone buys from you later.

The takeaway here is to not abandon the middle, but master it.

The Murky Middle used to be a black box. Now, it’s a place you can actually map, but only if you stop chasing neat numbers and start asking harder questions.

Incrementality isn’t just a measurement framework. It’s a mindset. One that says: “I don’t just want to know what performed. I want to know what mattered.” And in a funnel where customer journeys are increasingly chaotic and non-linear, that’s a strategy that will keep you moving forward.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

You better be nice!

This trend has become a wholesome (but intentionally slightly patronising) way to introduce something deeply personal, quirky, or niche — before handing the mic to the person who cares way too much about it.

Their enthusiasm? Unmatched. Your patience and support? Admirable. Because hey, if you’re suffering through a passionate show-and-tell about micro-greens or medieval battle reenactments… everyone else is coming along for the ride. And whether they like it or not, they’d better be nice.

Boyfriends are bearing the brunt of it on TikTok (with their enthusiasm for Pokémon cards, Formula 1 merch, tiny kitchen utensils, etc). But we’re also seeing it used by teams to spotlight the founder with a passion for the product, or a colleague with a management system they’re disproportionately proud of.

How you can jump on this trend:

Film yourself or a teammate telling an audience who is going to show them what. Make it obvious you’re a little nervous about everyone’s reaction, so your final command is “And you better be nice!” Then, hand over the spotlight to the person presenting their beloved (and possibly a little unhinged) obsession.

Encourage a little over-the-top audience participation (clapping, nodding, commenting “SO GOOD!”) like you might do for a pre-schooler showing off their rock collection.

A few ideas to get you started:

• Your ops lead walking through their colour-coded Notion system

• A new product demo with the team hyping it up like it’s a preschool talent show

• Your social media manager presenting the meme folder they’ve been curating since 2022

- Helena Masters, Copywriter

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😲WTF: Jaguar’s sales drop by 97%?!
❤How wholesome: in another life we’re all bunnies
😊Soooo satisfying: this scratched everything in my brain
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Viral Big Mac Tacos

TODAY ON THE YAP PODCAST

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

ASK THE EDITOR

How can I manage endless content requests in a large organisation like higher education? -Danielle

Hey Danielle,

It sounds like you're being asked to create more content than you can, given your time or budget constraints. Those are obviously limited resources, so you'll have to prioritise based on the larger goals of the organisation. One way to do this is to create a flowchart you can use to determine whether you should fulfil a request or not. This should include a series of questions around the purpose of the content, whether there is a budget to produce it, and how it aligns with wider priorities. This will help you say no to requests that aren't going to serve those goals.

- 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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