Brand Crimes + Other Offenses

You think your influencer campaign is working. The FTC thinks it’s a liability. Right now, brands are running influencer programs like it’s still 2019… loose contracts, vague disclosure, no monitoring, no documentation. Meanwhile, enforcement has ramped up fast, penalties are sitting at $53,088 per post, and every single piece of content counts as its own violation. So that “successful” campaign?...

What’s happening in marketing right now is not a “future of AI” conversation. It’s not a trend. It’s not something to casually keep an eye on. It’s already happening. Teams are being restructured because the math no longer works. Not because people are bad at their jobs, but because a lot of those jobs were built on limitations that don’t exist anymore and the layer getting hit first is the middle...

In this episode of Brand Crimes & Other Offenses, Sasha Monique opens a case file on one of the most expensive mistakes creators, founders, and online businesses are still making in real time: building their entire business on platforms they do not own. This is not a conversation about whether Instagram works. It obviously does. This is a conversation about what happens when your reach, revenu...

In this case file of Brand Crimes & Other Offenses , Sasha Monique examines Stanley’s Quencher phenomenon and the strategic risk that appears when viral product success is mistaken for brand strength. Stanley, founded in 1913 as a durable thermos brand, experienced a massive resurgence after the Quencher tumbler gained traction through The Buy Guide’s audience and a women-focused relaunch. The...

In this episode of Brand Crimes & Other Offenses , Sasha Monique opens a different kind of case file. Instead of dissecting a single brand crime, this episode acts as a forensics report: a rapid-fire Q&A covering the strategic mistakes founders make around brand identity, brand messaging, content strategy, and premium positioning. Sasha explains how to diagnose whether your identity is att...

In this episode of Brand Crimes & Other Offenses, Sasha Monique opens a case file on Lululemon’s September 2025 earnings call, where CEO Calvin McDonald admitted the quiet part out loud: “We’ve become too predictable.” And if you think that’s a harmless comment, you’re missing the crime. Because for a premium brand built on innovation and cultural dominance, predictable isn’t stable. Predictab...

In this episode of Brand Crimes & Other Offenses , Sasha Monique breaks down the Bad Bunny halftime show as a masterclass in brand strategy, category ownership, and cultural authority. This is a behavioral analysis of the seven industry “crimes” Bad Bunny was expected to commit and how refusing them is exactly what built a $100+ million brand empire. From infrastructure over virality to politi...

Most brands don’t collapse from one catastrophic mistake. They fade from small branding and strategy errors repeated over time. In this episode of Brand Crimes and Other Offenses, Sasha Monique breaks down the seven most common brand strategy mistakes that quietly destroy momentum. From overdesigning and under positioning to identity drift, narrative incoherence, and creative cowardice. If you’re...

Identity Fraud: Understanding When and Why Rebrands Fail In this episode of Brand Crimes and Other Offenses , Sasha Monique breaks down why so many rebrands fail — and why the problem is almost never the logo. If you’re a founder or business owner questioning a rebrand (or the urge to start one), this episode examines what’s really happening underneath the surface. Using real-world examples like C...