Your ATTN Please || Wednesday, 17 September

Remember when fashion was actually about, um, art?

Music, film, and media were cultural spaces. Sure, brands had their part to play. But now, monetisation is the primary goal of every medium. New albums drop alongside brand collabs. Films debut with the star’s new clothing line. And the everything-is-a-branding-opportunity mindset has seeped into our lives, too. Content about your run is also a shoutout to the brands you’re wearing. A lazy Saturday becomes content featuring your viral slippers. So, when everything’s an ad, where does that leave us?

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

Pinterest clues us in on seasonal trends, IG intros disappearing photos & Altman gets trolled on X

Summer is on its way (for this side of the planet). Here’s what Pinterest predicts:

After watching all you Northern Hemisphere-ers soak up the sun while I send my power bill triple platinum and make yet another chicken soup I can no longer stand the taste of, I can say I’m very much ready for my transformation from "doesn’t own a razor ahh goblin" to the bronzed goddess I was always meant to be (life’s about duality, ok?).

Our ever-powerful trend guide Pinterest says here’s what people are searching for:

• Holiday makeup looks. While my bank account says “hehe, holiday to the lounge??” my makeup bag says “at least we’ll look cute on the couch?”

• Home entertainment ideas. Things like “backyard outdoor kitchen” and “dining room inspo” are up. The season of the dinner party is upon us.

• Food and beverage. On that note, “homemade cocktails" and “picnic dinner ideas” are trending.

While these are fairly obvious (basic), they can still help to shape your creative assets. If you match your campaigns to the current season/ mood/ vibe,  you can drive better results.

Instagram has another feature nobody asked for.

So it’s like BeReal, and Quicksnap mixed together, but really sh*t. The feature, Shots, appears right beside Notes in the app, and is essentially an option for little disappearing photos shared with followers of your choice.

If I’m honest, it seems pointless to me. But, go off, I guess.

Sam Altman is suddenly worried dead internet theory is coming true (I wonder why!!!?).

"I never took the dead internet theory that seriously," Altman tweeted on September 4th, “but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now."

X practically ripped him a new one. "You're absolutely right! This observation isn't just smart — it shows you're operating on a higher level," replied a user imitating ChatGPT's em-dash laden prose.

“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this!” responded many others, referencing a skit where, comedian Tim Robinson in a hot dog suit tried to deflect blame for (obviously) crashing a wiener-adorned car. This is like when Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb and then crashed out about its consequences. Womp Womp. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

Everything's an ad, so what's even real?

The Atlantic recently described a phenomenon called “grocery store simping,” where our identities are basically reduced to what we buy.

“I’m a blue-blooded American and therefore can only consume Grass-fed beef and if I come within a 5 mile radius of seed oils I WILL combust” type beat.

And honestly, it tracks. Because it’s not just about shopping habits. It’s about what happens when culture, creativity, and even relationships get completely fkn hollowed out – with nothing but brands to fill the space.

“I shop therefore I am” hits a little harder these days.

Because it is our reality. Our curse. Every purchase, every post, every preference has to signal something about who you are. And since culture has run out of juice, advertising has happily stepped in to replace it. Everything is an ad, and ads are everything.

Look at celebrities: no one is just an actor or musician anymore. They’re also a tequila tycoon, a skincare mogul, a podcast host, and a fast-food menu item. Even The Cut had to admit that Hollywood has reached brand-deal saturation. And here’s the kicker: billionaires don’t need side hustles. We do. But they cosplay as hustlers anyway, while the rest of us grind just to cover rent.

Gen Z and digital natives are expected to monetise every second of our lives.

Posting UGC, dropping affiliate links, turning hobbies into content, doing unpaid “volunteer work” for brands in exchange for exposure. Meanwhile, the President of the United States is out here, quite literally selling Bibles with his face on them while franchising golf courses around the world.

This is what I believe is ad-based psychosis: nothing simply exists.

A sweater isn’t just a sweater, brunch isn’t just brunch, even downtime is monetised into content. Everything stands for something, and that “something” is usually a brand. Identity has been completely colonised by commerce.

This isn’t new, but it is different.

Of course, culture and commerce have always been intertwined. Andy Warhol’s soup cans blurred the line between art and advertising in the 1960s. The consumer boom of the 80s and 90s gave us brand obsession as a lifestyle (hello, Nike.) But what’s different now is absolute scale and saturation. Advertising does not influence culture; it has eaten the whole damn thing whole.

There’s no alternative scene, no refuge, no “outside.” Everything folds back into a monetisable moment.

Living in this environment means constant performance.

If everything you do might be branded, you start acting like your own marketing director. Even rest!!!! Rest isn’t freaking rest anymore!!!! God save us. It’s a chance to post, optimise, monetise. “3 things I do to wind down with This Brand of Matcha in this Lounge Set.”

The result is exhaustion, anxiety, and the creeping suspicion that nothing is ever authentic. If everything is strategy, what’s left of sincerity?

Fashion, music, film, and media used to be cultural spaces first, commercial spaces second.

Now, they’re just marketing arms. TikTok trends double as shopping lists. New music drops are announced alongside alcohol collabs. Even memes are designed to sell. What we used to call “culture” is increasingly indistinguishable from advertising campaigns. Or anything else for that matter.

It’s a big giant nothing soup.

What’s left when everything is an ad?

If art, community, and even politics have all been absorbed into branding, what remains untouched?

Can anything carry moral weight if it’s also a marketing opportunity? Maybe that’s why politics feels indistinguishable from influencer drama, merch drops, celebrity endorsements, meme campaigns. In the end, the cultural recession isn’t just about boredom or recycling old aesthetics. It’s about living in a vacuum where identity has been completely replaced by commerce.

Kiss being a consumer goodbye. We are now walking billboards. Marketing collateral, drafted into advertising whether we like it or not.

And that’s the curse of this era: everything stands for something, but nothing ever just is.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

“It’s couture, honey. Look at the tag.”

You want sass? I'll give you sass.

Straight from Paris Fashion Week, Lisa Rinna gave us an instant classic. In a Balenciaga backstage clip, someone questions her outfit with: “It’s couture? It doesn’t look like couture.” Without blinking, Lisa fires back: “It’s couture, honey. Look at the tag.”

It’s the perfectly sassy audio for the moments when something you’ve put serious time, money, or brainpower into is getting wildly underestimated.

It's all about flexing quality and correcting assumptions. My fav examples include:

• When someone calls my MacBook a “laptop” 💔

• When someone misgenders my iPad and calls it a “tablet”

• When I’m wearing basic Skims and people think it’s Shein

How you can jump on this trend:

To the sound, film yourself lip-syncing the line and overlay text that calls out your own “hidden luxury”: the work or product that only looks simple.

A few ideas to get you started:

• When someone calls your perfectly timed brand collab “just another TikTok”

• When someone says your 60-slide content strategy is “just a mood board”

• When someone thinks your custom typeface is “just a Canva font”

• When the boss thinks the viral video was “luck”

- abdel khalil, brand & marketing executive

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😲WTF: TikTok Deal Reached?!
❤How wholesome: W Maleficent
😊Soooo satisfying: ASMR Keyboards
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Garlic & Herb Steak Bites

ASK THE EDITOR

As a mortgage broker, I want to create more educational content. How do I present it in a way that's interesting to watch? - Val

Hey Val!

If you're looking for an easy content format, you can start with creating "talking head" videos. This just means you film yourself talking to the camera about your area of expertise. Think about some little-known insights about your industry and create content around these. For your hook, try calling out your audience then introducing this information, such as, "First home buyers, did you know...?" This creates curiosity and zeros in on your target audience in the first couple seconds.

Another content style you could try is breaking down common scenarios of first home buyers on a whiteboard. This could be an easily repeatable content style as there are an endless combination of factors that go into the decision to buy a home. Don't be afraid to try several different video styles to see what works for your audience!

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

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