MARKETING

The Pratfall Effect, what it is, the brands that used vulnerability as a strategy, what the research says, and 3 marketing moves you can use to put this marketing psychology principle to work immediately. STUDY CITATIONS Aronson, E., Willerman, B., & Floyd, J. (1966). The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness. Psychonomic Science, 4 (6), 227–228. Helmreich, R., Aronso...

We're looking at Bonne Maman, the French jam brand that became the #1 premium preserve in the United States without running a single national ad campaign. We'll break down the packaging strategy that did it, the insight behind it, how they deployed it across 50-plus years and eventually turned a jar of jam into one of the most coveted holiday items in the country, the research that expla...

The real difference between SEO and GEO, why ranking #1 on Google doesn't guarantee you'll show up in a single AI answer, what the research says about the gap between these 2 disciplines, and 5 steps to make sure your brand is visible in both. STUDY CITATIONS Aggarwal, P., Murahari, V., Rajpurohit, T., Kalyan, A., Narasimhan, K., & Deshpande, A. (2024). GEO: Generative Engine Optimiz...

This is your marketing news for the week of May 28th, 2026. This week we have three big marketing stories. OpenAI shipped a wave of upgrades to ChatGPT ads and the trajectory tells you exactly where they're headed.  Google dropped another core update and sites started feeling it over the weekend.  And Google just folded an entire campaign type into another one, with a stat that might change h...

This is your marketing news for the week of May 21, 2026. This week we have three big marketing stories. Google just held I/O and Marketing Live back to back and the way ads show up inside AI Mode is about to look completely different. Then, the Google search box. Google just redesigned the Google Search Box for the first time ever. And a new study landed on a number that changes how all of us sho...

The Transparency Effect, what the Transparency effect is, the brands that have built entire pricing and culture strategies around it, what the research from Harvard and MIT says, and 3 marketing moves you can put into play immediately. STUDY CITATIONS Buell, R. W., & Norton, M. I. (2011). The labor illusion: How operational transparency increases perceived value. Management Science, 57 (9), 15...

This is your marketing news for the week of May 13, 2026. This week we have three big marketing stories. ChatGPT just changed how product ads work on its platform.  Google killed a search feature that's been live since 2019.  And a study by Ahrefs tracking nearly 6,000 web pages just contradicted one of the most repeated recommendations in AI search optimization. Please follow the Marketing P...

We’re breaking down Comfrt’s marketing strategy, the weighted hoodie brand that went from zero to over $1 billion in sales run rate in just a few years, with no outside investors, no retail stores, and no celebrity endorsements.  We break down how they positioned their product to stand out why that repositioning unlocked a distribution strategy their competitors couldn't copy, what the resear...

This is your marketing news for the week of May 6 2026. This week we have three marketing big stories for you. Everything most of us believe about the state of search just got updated by hard data.  Bing posted a number this week that changes how you think about your media plan.  The biggest search platform on earth reported its quarter and the number that matters most is not the revenue headline....

We're explaining the P-R-O-M-P-T framework, the six-component system for writing AI prompts that get you usable output for your marketing on the first try.  We walk through each component of the prompt framework with a short marketing example so you can hear exactly how it works and start using it for your marketing as soon as you finish this episode. STUDY CITATIONS Chen, B., Zhang, Z., Lang...

We’re breaking down Narrative Transportation, what it is, the brands using it to raise and sell hundreds of millions while reshaping their brand categories, what the research says Narrative Transportation does to your buyers, and the marketing playbook you can use to put this principle to work immediately as part of your marketing strategy in increase conversions and sales. STUDY CITATIONS Escalas...

This is your marketing news for the week of April 30, 2026.  This week we have three hot marketing stories for you. Google has a setting inside its own ad product that could trigger one of its own search penalties and the enforcement date is 47 days away.  Spotify just reported the number that puts a hard data point on where audio advertising has been heading.  And YouTube made a permanent change...

This is your marketing news for the week of April 23, 2026.  This week we have three big marketing stories: The ChatGPT ad platform just showed us what it actually looks like inside  Anthropic launched a new design tool built specifically for marketers and founders Google gave every Dynamic Search Ads advertiser a hard September deadline.  The common theme in marketing news this week, the AI layer...

Today we're covering how to train Jasper.ai's Brand Voice feature so your AI-generated content actually sounds like your brand, not like generic output your audience has read a hundred times before.  We’re looking at what the research says about why voice consistency moves the needle and finish up by walking through 3 steps to set up Jasper.ai to program it to get the output you’re looki...

We're breaking down the Bandwagon Effect, what it is, the brands that have turned it into a growth engine, what the research says about how to engineer the Bandwagon Effect, and 3 marketing moves you can put to work immediately to accelerate adoption before your competitors figure out what's happening. STUDY CITATIONS (APA) Leibenstein, H. (1950). Bandwagon, snob, and Veblen effects in t...

Your Marketing News for the week of April 15, 2026.  This week we have 3 big marketing stories for you: Google just reversed a three-year-old product decision you may not have noticed, but you'll want to.  TikTok put a full video production tool inside your ad platform.  Reddit launched something that could flip how you promote every event and product launch you have this year. Please follow...

We're talking about ClickFunnels, the marketing move that made their software feel like the only logical next step, the insight that cracked it open, how they deployed it across books, challenges, live events, and a streaming library, the research that explains why this strategy works on a psychological level, and a 3 Step Marketing Playbook you can start using for your own product or service...

We're breaking down what your website schema needs to look like in two thousand and twenty-six (2026) to get your content cited by AI agents. We’re defining what schema is, what the research says generic schema is doing to your citation rates, which schema types carry real weight with AI systems, and the five steps to get your implementation right. There's a downloadable cheatsheet for t...

We're breaking down the Peak-End Rule, what the Peak-End Rule is, the brands that have built entire experience strategies around it, what the research says, and three marketing moves you can make with this new information to take advantage of the opportunity to optimize for the moments your customers remember the most about you. STUDY CITATIONS (APA) Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B. L., Schreibe...

This is your marketing news for the week of April 8, 2026 and this week we have four marketing stories for you. Google moved two new ad formats live inside AI Mode and it's not just ads, it's full checkout.  ChatGPT advertising dropped its $200,000 entry barrier this month.  Beehiiv made a move worth knowing about if you run a podcast.  Semrush just published a study with 42,000 data poi...

We're breaking down Michelin’s marketing playbook. how a French tire company in 1900 turned a free pamphlet into one of the most influential cultural institutions on the planet by doing something no tire company had any business doing: creating the desire for the lifestyle their product required, then we’ll look at what the research says why this works, and finish the episode with 3 marketing...

We're building your Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategy in 5 steps.  You learn What each platform rewards, how to build presence across all of them, and how to know if it's working. GEO WORKBOOK CHEATSHEET DOWNLOAD STUDY CITATIONS Qwairy. (January–March 2026). Analysis of 118,000 AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Claude. Cited in: Probert, C....

We're breaking down one of the boldest pricing experiments in music history, Radiohead's "In Rainbows" pay-what-you-want release.  We're breaking down the dilemma they faced, the insight behind the move they made, how they executed it, what the science says about why people pay when they don't have to, and exactly how you apply this to your business. STUDY CITATIONS K...

This is your marketing news for the week of March 31, 2026. This week we have three stories for you. All three marketing news stories happened in the last seven days. And all three involve a platform you depend on to distribute your content. Google. Instagram and Apple Podcasts. We'll start with a Google update that just a few days ago and if you’re generating AI content you better check this...

We're breaking down how Vacation Inc. built an $80 million sunscreen brand in four years, not with a bigger ad budget, not with a celebrity spokesperson, but by making the product itself the marketing. We deep dive into the problem Vacation saw, the insight, the marketing tactics, the science, and exactly how you apply this to your business with Vacation's marketing playbook. STUDY CITAT...