BRANDED

Is the economy booming, or is the DOW 50K just a shiny brand hiding a "K-shaped" disaster? This week on Branded , Ben Kaplan exposes why Big Tech is gambling $650 BILLION on an AI future that hasn't paid a single bill yet. We’re breaking down the shift from "one-night stand" commercials to Super Bowl franchises and why the Olympics are turning every living room into a data-...

From Netflix’s massive $480 million bet on Stranger Things to a four-year-old "invisible" song dethroning Taylor Swift overnight, TOPAgency.com CEO Ben Kaplan deconstructs the week culture moved faster than the boardroom. We’re double-checking the ROI on $8M Super Bowl ads and diving into how a "cheap" Chinese AI model just undercut OpenAI by 50x. Is "Made in China" t...

From McDonald's AI Christmas disaster to Disney's billion-dollar gamble on letting you remix Mickey Mouse,  TOPAgency.com  CEO Ben Kaplan breaks down the wildest marketing moves of the week—and reveals why more brand control might mean letting go. Featuring: McDonald's fully AI-generated Christmas ad (and why it flopped) Disney's $1B OpenAI deal: Remixing Mickey without losing cont...

From Pepsi undoing a decade of design history to Olipop parking a SpongeBob Airstream where digital ads can't reach, we're learning from the week's wildest marketing news. Did you know that BMW paid for an entire highway lane to give their drivers a free ride—and then forced Mercedes and Audi owners to advertise for them to get the same perk? Ben Kaplan (CEO,  TopAgency.com ) breaks do...

Minimalism had a long run. But consumers got bored and brands felt it. BMW pulled off a toll-lane stunt that turned Audi and Mercedes drivers into unwilling brand ambassadors. Apple dropped a knitted “iPhone Pocket” that has more in common with Hermès than hardware. And Pepsi just ended a decade of flat, sanitized branding with a bold return to maximalism. The new wave isn’t clean, quiet, or neutr...

LeBron had millions bracing for goodbye—until the twist revealed it wasn’t retirement at all. And that’s just one part of this week’s story about belief: who has it, who earns it, and how brands weaponize it. From China blocking influencers without real credentials… to Cheetos turning a baseball superstition into an official MLB deal to Prime, Feastables, and Stanley proving that today’s strongest...

IKEA made a bed for your phone. Whole Foods turned a grocery list into a cultural forecast. Volkswagen’s top-selling product isn’t a car—it’s sausage. This week on  BRANDED Weekly , Ben Kaplan (Founder + CEO, Top Agency) breaks down how brands stopped reacting to culture and started  writing it . From IKEA’s behavioral design experiments to Whole Foods’ 2026 trend report and Volkswagen’s nostalgia...

Cheetos sold the mess. Domino’s engineered a sound. The Ordinary called beauty a scam while selling it. This week on  BRANDED , Ben Kaplan (Founder + CEO, Top Agency) breaks down how brands turned irony into influence and self-awareness into strategy. He breaks down how emotion, irony, and algorithmic storytelling are reshaping the attention economy. From absurd stunts to sensory branding, these c...

In 2025, emotion  is  the business model. From Ferrari’s Apple-designed EV to Doritos’ cheese-pull spectacle — Ben Kaplan breaks down how outrage, nostalgia, and virality became strategy.

MTV didn’t die — we killed it by scrolling. In this week’s episode of  BRANDED Weekly , Ben Kaplan breaks down how nostalgia, dopamine, and brand emotion are reshaping business.  From  MTV’s collapse  to  Build-A-Bear’s 2,000% stock surge ,  Chili’s viral mozzarella moment , and  Michael Jordan’s $70M jet , we explore the one metric that now decides who wins:  attention .  The real question? In 20...

Beer, Rings, and Body Doubles: The Internet’s Attention Economy Gen Z is putting ice in their beer. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement feels more like a dynasty merger than a romance, with brands racing to crash the party. And online, people are debating whether Trump really met Putin in Alaska or a body double. In this week’s  Branded , Ben Kaplan unpacks how these viral stories spiral, w...

In this episode of  Branded Leaders , host Ben Kaplan sits down with  Brian Irving, Chief Marketing Officer at Lyft , to discuss how Lyft differentiates itself in a rideshare industry that often looks like a race to the bottom. Brian shares how Lyft avoids competing solely on price by leaning into its DNA as a  purposeful rebel  brand — building services around freedom, connection, and customer ob...

In this episode of  Branded Leaders , host Ben Kaplan sits down with  Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK , to explore why safe, logical marketing often fails — and why embracing chaos, irrationality, and unconventional thinking can create the biggest wins. Rory explains why capitalism is less about efficiency and more like betting on long shots, how seemingly “bonkers” decisions (like Ama...

Distraction Marketing: Sex, Scandal, and Sydney Sweeney American Eagle’s ad with Sydney Sweeney sent their stock flying, their mentions surging, and the internet into meltdown. But was the controversy part of the plan? In this episode, we break down how brands are using distraction and deliberate outrage to win the attention economy. From Gwyneth Paltrow being hired as crisis cover after a Kiss Ca...

In this electrifying episode, we unpack three stories shaking the world right now: Astronomer CEO Andy Byron's explosive Kiss Cam scandal at a Coldplay concert—is his career truly over, or can scandals this massive become epic comebacks? We then dive into OpenAI's game-changing ChatGPT agent, promising everyone a $38,000/year personal assistant for less than your weekly coffee spend. Final...

In this episode of BRANDED Weekly, we break down the brand moves (and misfires) dominating headlines:– Grok’s AI glitch: What happens when your chatbot forgets the filter?– Nvidia’s China play: Smart diplomacy or dangerous double game?– Amazon’s 4-day Prime Day: A flex or a flop?– KFC’s rebrand: Why the Colonel’s now obsessed.– Superman x Roku: Movie marketing meets voice AI.– Sprite’s spicy stunt...

The biggest brand moves – July 4–11, 2025 Amazon expands Prime Day to four days, but do longer sales lose their punch? Sephora offers free Lyft rides to stores, Coca-Cola brings back “Share a Coke” with a Star Wars twist, and Ben’s Original tries to move on from Uncle Ben. Plus, TikTok Shop crosses $1B in US sales, Boeing tries to fix its image, and Wall Street sends mixed signals on ad budgets. A...

Nike’s back to its roots. Unilever just paid $1.5B for a soap brand. Cloudflare declared war on AI. Oh, and Pamela Anderson is suddenly a branding icon again. This week, Ben Kaplan and Tom Cain unpack the smartest (and strangest) marketing moves across the globe: Nike ditches lifestyle for core athleticism Dr. Squatch and the billion-dollar soap game Cloudflare vs. AI crawlers — is the internet ch...

This week on  BRANDED Weekly , Ben Kaplan and Tom Cain dissect the marketing strategies hidden in world news, tech headlines, and viral campaigns. Why did Iran give advance notice before launching missiles? Is Meta’s $100M talent grab a turning point in the AI arms race? Why did job site giants like CareerBuilder collapse? Plus, we debate scratch-and-sniff armpits as a marketing tool, the fall of...

In this episode of BRANDED, Ben Kaplan and Tom Cain dive into the biggest business and culture stories of the week, blending serious insight with sharp wit. They discuss Meta's aggressive push to poach OpenAI talent with $100M offers, the Trump family launching a gold-plated smartphone and mobile network, and why Airbus is feeling confident while Boeing flounders. Plus, they explore the impact of...

In this episode, Tom and Ben unpack the branding implications behind this week’s biggest business headlines. They start with Apple’s latest developer conference and whether the company is still seen as an innovation leader or has shifted into incrementalism. They also discuss a quirky new hold-music feature that Tom is excited about, and how Apple’s brand promise of “things just work” creates high...

Welcome to the new era of BRANDED. In this refreshed format, Ben Kaplan and Tom Cain team up weekly to break down the biggest stories in branding, marketing, tech, and business—with sharp takes, bold questions, and zero fluff. In this episode: Hailey Bieber sells her skincare brand for $1B—how attention became the most valuable currency Meta signs a  nuclear  deal to power AI—literally Apple tries...

In this episode of  Branded , Ben Kaplan sits down with Bridget Evans , the Global Head of Business Marketing at Spotify, to unpack the platform’s growing role as a multimedia advertising powerhouse. Bridget breaks down Spotify’s evolution from a primarily audio-based brand into a dynamic player in video advertising and podcast monetization. They explore: Spotify’s strategic pivot to include more...

In this episode, we sit down with Meghann McNally , Chief Marketing Officer at Wrench Group, to explore how she’s transforming the home services industry through predictive analytics, local brand empowerment, and a bold growth mindset. From leading digital disruption in traditionally offline sectors to integrating marketing with data science, Meghann shares her approach to building trust, scaling...

Rand Fishkin —founder of Moz, cofounder of SparkToro, and now leading indie game studio Snackbar—joins us to talk about what it really takes to build a brand people care about. From disrupting the SEO world to rethinking audience research, Rand shares how transparency, community, and a bit of rebellion have shaped every step of his journey. We dig into why most marketers get audience targeting wro...