Your ATTN Please || Tuesday, 2 September

24 hours to go until the How to build a 7-figure personal brand workshop.

It’s your chance to get in a (virtual) room with our team and learn how to pull one of the most powerful brand-building levers that exists in 2025. This 7-figure business was built off the back of our founder, Stanley Henry’s brand. And tomorrow, he’s sharing how you can 1) build your CEO’s brand so they become someone customers believe in, and 2) leverage your own personal brand for your career growth. Today’s your last chance to register, so get your ticket now.

PRESENTED BY IZZYAGENTS - YOUR ATTN PLEASE’S AI PARTNER

Likes don't pay the bills. Sales do.

You run the campaigns. You get the comments. Then… nothing.

Leads slip away. And all that effort? Wasted.

An AI agent helps you capture every single person who engages with your content so you can:

➡️ Turn competitions into customer lists (think 8,500 emails from just 1 giveaway)
➡️ Qualify leads on autopilot (think 1,200+ leads a month without extra staff)
➡️ Turn webinar sign-ups into sales (think $80k of sales in 48 hours)

You’ve already paid to reach them. Don’t lose them now 👇

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

SSENSE goes down the drain, Mschf creates a brand agency & BlueSky lures scientists away from X

Tariffs lead SSENSE to file for bankruptcy protection.

The go-to purveyor of overpriced designer labels aimed squarely at your local hypebeast has dramatically tripped over its own runway by filing for bankruptcy protection, thanks to Trump's tariffs.

I’m sorry, but I must point out that this is peak irony. The same crowd that happily shelled out rent money for $900 sneakers couldn’t keep afloat the very platform that sold them. SSENSE built an empire on inflated price tags and still managed to go broke… ouchies. It’s a cautionary tale old as time I fear: a hype machine undone by economic whiplash. Welp.

Mschf launches a brand agency.

Mschf happens to be my fave Brooklyn-based art collective. It's responsible for unpredictable and delightful culture hacking stunts (Big Red Boot, Lil Nas X Satan, the Bull & Moon app that recommends stocks based on your zodiac sign, and Eat The Rich popsicles, to name a few).

And now, the brand has pulled yet another stunt--maybe its best one yet--launching a brand agency. Applied Mschf launched on August 18. Its aim? To compile its creative practises under one umbrella and offer brands the same chaotic yet methodical energy that has made MSCHF the cultural engine it is.

The science community has gone to BlueSky.

PLEASE. TAKE ME WITH YOU. According to Ars Techinica, the scientists are fast-tracking their exodus from X – and parachuting onto Bluesky. Which is crazy, considering once upon a time, Twitter was the academic watering hole, buzzing with links, discussions, and discovery.

Now it feels like a deserted mall. And Bluesky is basically screaming “science party!” from across the lot. The platform now offers seriously higher engagement, with likes, reposts, replies, quotes all soaring by orders of magnitude compared to X – which is all in all, not surprising in the slightest. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

How to survive going AI-first without killing your culture

AI isn’t the CMO’s latest stress test. 

And not because the software is hard to find – because it’s freaking everywhere, like glitter after a craft project… even in places you really don’t want it to be.

The real test is cultural: AI is moving faster than most marketing orgs are built to handle. It’s exposing the cracks in how we work, what we value, and the stories we tell ourselves about “creativity.”

For many teams, going “AI-first” isn’t a quick memo from the C-suite.

It’s a psychological rewiring. It means rethinking roles, rewriting workflows, and poking at sacred cows that have lived comfortably in marketing departments for decades.

So, here are five fault lines that AI is pressing on, and what they reveal about us.

1. The job-security jitters. 

The first thing AI disrupts isn’t a campaign. It’s the mood.

Before the pilot programs even launch, fear walks into the room and pulls up a chair. Content teams wonder if the blog calendar will be outsourced to a prompt. SEO specialists give a bombastic side-eye to the “AI metadata tool” their boss bookmarked.

And if we’re honest here, they’re not wrong to worry. Some tasks are being automated, like, quickly.

But the bigger test isn’t about automation. It’s about honesty. Leadership’s job isn’t to pretend everything’s fine; it’s to acknowledge the shift and help people imagine their next value. Because people don’t fear AI. They fear irrelevance. And that’s valid.

Takeaway: Talk early, talk often. Spotlight the humans who are experimenting, not hiding. Fear is contagious, but so is curiosity.

2. The culture clash. 

For decades, marketing’s growth model was simple: hire more people, do more work. AI flips the logic: do more work, maybe with fewer people. Suddenly the question isn’t “Who owns this?” but “Should this be done by a human, a team, or an agent?”

This breaks brains. We’re conditioned to crave ownership, process, predictability.

But AI rewards speed, ambiguity, and constant iteration, which feels a lot like chaos if you’re used to quarterly roadmaps. The shift is exposing a quiet truth: the organisations that cling to polish are already getting outrun by those that embrace velocity.

Takeaway: Progress > perfection. Reward testing, not just tidy reports. Survival now belongs to the messy but fast.

3. The role confusion. 

Here’s a scenario: AI can churn out personalised email sequences at scale. Suddenly, the outreach team wonders, “So… what exactly do we do now?” This is what I call the awkward adolescence of AI adoption.

The machine handles the easy lift. The human value is in the nuance: strategic discovery calls, follow-up that requires emotional intelligence, multi-threading across complex accounts. But unless leaders paint that picture, teams are left staring at a very blank job description.

Takeaway: Show the “after-after.” Don’t just say what AI takes away; make clear what humans step into.

4. The quiet resistance. 

Not all resistance looks like open rebellion. The trickiest kind is polite agreement followed by… nothing. Teams nod along in workshops, smile at the new playbook, then quietly keep working like it’s 2022.

This isn’t laziness. It’s cultural drag. It’s the weight of old norms. And it kills momentum faster than a bad dashboard. Leaders who miss it risk mistaking attendance for adoption.

Takeaway: Track belief, not just output. Curiosity, experiments, and weird little side projects are proof the culture is shifting. Polite silence isn’t.

5. The ambiguity overload. 

Every week, there’s a new AI tool. A new demo. A new hot take. There’s no universal playbook, which means teams are often paralysed by choice.

The smartest orgs don’t fight the chaos (because you literally can’t). Instead, they normalise it. They run open office hours for half-baked ideas, keep a shared backlog of prompts, and celebrate experiments that didn’t crash the brand tone into a wall. When “I don’t know yet” becomes acceptable, learning accelerates.

Takeaway: Build safety nets for play. Celebrate wins, even if they’re weird, scrappy, or incomplete.

AI-first isn’t about tech. It’s about belief.

And belief can’t be outsourced to IT or delegated to a task force. It starts with leaders using the tools, sharing experiments, admitting they don’t know everything.

The irony is that the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t the machine. It’s us!! Our fears, habits, and old cultural wiring. Which means the real CMO stress test isn’t whether your AI pilot program delivers ROI this quarter. It’s whether your culture can evolve fast enough to keep up.

So come on, baby, get those training wheels off and let's roll!

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

You could be having a nice day and then…

To Set Adrift on Memory Bliss by P.M. Dawn, today's track is a 90s throwback hit that’s been repurposed on TikTok.

Creators are pairing it with text that starts with “You could be having a nice day and then…” followed by something small, inconvenient, or painfully relatable that instantly ruins the vibe.

The format is super simple. Creators film themselves sitting or looking annoyed while overlaying text about the thing that derailed their “nice day.” Popular examples include life milestones that make you feel behind (like someone your age buying a house or getting engaged).

How you can jump on this trend: 

To the sound, think about everyday inconveniences, work frustrations, or small but dramatic moments that flip your mood. Keep the text short and punchy, and make sure the delivery looks deadpan or fed up.

A few ideas to get you started:

• You could be having a nice day and then someone adds “per my last email”

• You could be having a nice day and then Slack hits you with “quick question?” at 4:59 pm

• You could be having a nice day and then your bank balance reminds you rent is due tomorrow

- abdel khalil, brand & marketing executive

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😂Yap’s funniest home videos: Introducing the new SLIP N FLIP
❤How wholesome: my heart 😭 
😊Soooo satisfying: this itches my brain so good
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Chicken Tacos 🌮 

ASK THE EDITOR

How do we grow our email database for a newly created start-up through our blogs in a market that is not as developed in terms of marketing? -Rafik

Hey Rafik!

There are so many ways you can go about getting people onto your email list. If you're specifically thinking about using a blog, you could consider creating some gated content. This should be something especially valuable that requires your audience to enter their email to get access. Then, you can use social media to get the word out about these resources. Another way to get email sign-ups is to do some free webinars for your target audience. You can promote these on LinkedIn and require an email to register.

Since you're just starting out, you should definitely be going to as many networking and industry events as you can, too. You may not collect emails from the people you meet (although you might), but connect with your new contacts on LinkedIn and stay in touch there. Building up a database will be a slow grind, but the more you get out and meet people, the faster your network will grow.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

PSST…PASS IT ON