Meme Team

Warner Bros. and Paramount are merging under the Skydance name, YouTube is done rewarding content farms, Amazon MGM turned a movie set into a creator activation, and Apple just quietly blocked half the ad tech industry from iOS 27. Sonia Baschez and fractional GTM advisor Gregory Kennedy break down what each of these moves actually means for brands, creators, and anyone paying attention to where t...

Disney just announced John Watts for Star Wars Episode 10 and simultaneously undermined him by pairing him with Simon Kinberg — the writer behind X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, and a failed Twilight Zone reboot. Taylor Swift's bonus "encore" to Life of a Showgirl got dismissed by critics and hit number one anyway. Letterboxd is up for sale at $300M with A24, NYT, Netflix, Sony, and Paramount...

Mbappe just walked away from a lifetime Nike deal for equity at On Running, and Thierry Henry has been quietly running the football strategy behind it since 2025. Meanwhile, Lily Reinhart built a viral press tour for The Love Hypothesis with basically no help from Amazon, then Amazon showed up after she hit 1.7M impressions on her own. Four stories this week about which brands are staying ahead an...

Prada is making films with Barry Jenkins and Zohran Mamdani has 69% approval for posting about potholes. Hilary Duff just sold out a tour that has nothing to do with nostalgia, and Americans are spending $350 a day in Europe while Portugal buys ads in Times Square. Sonia and brand strategist Gia Jasing get into all four stories on the Meme Team, the podcast where we discuss viral pop culture momen...

Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto calling for open, democratized AI the same week Meta was defending itself in six active monopoly lawsuits. Bumble scrapped the women-message-first rule, which was literally the brand. Obama launched a book podcast on an audio platform and somehow it's one of the smarter marketing moves of the year. Jonathan K. Lowe joined me to talk through all of it, pl...

Spider-Man Brand New Day just hit $1 billion, and Disney's CEO is already publicly attaching Avengers Doomsday to that momentum. That's a bold bet with a lot riding on it. Sonia Baschez and journalist Shannon Miller look at the gap between brands that genuinely show up for fans and brands that just extract from them, from Disney's new TikTok creator deal to vinyl labels charging $40 for incomplete...

Zendaya's press tour for The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is generating more coverage than either studio's marketing budget combined. Christopher Nolan crossed $650M without a traditional campaign, the IMAX CEO is sitting on the biggest missed opportunity in entertainment, and Marvel Doomsday is locked into a same-day release against Dune 3, which is a position nobody should want to be in...

Sonia sits down with Brianna Miller, to break down Jennifer Lawrence saying she hates doing press, Christopher Nolan's take on Gen Z rejecting AI slop, Apple quietly dominating the Emmy nominations, and why Netflix, Paramount, and Sony are all trying to buy Letterboxd. The big thesis: authenticity isn't optional anymore, and the brands that engineer trust without manufacturing it are winning the c...

Sonia sits down with Jess Zafarris, author, etymologist, TikTok creator, and editor at large at Ragan and PR Daily, to break down Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding brand activation, FIFA's controversial red card reversal for the US Men's National Team, and TikTok's new AI generated mini drama feature. The big thesis: speed isn't enough anymore, and brands that chase every cultural moment wit...

Sonia sits down with Lia Napolitano, founder of Our Mutual Friend and former Apple and Oculus designer, to break down Meta's Kylie Jenner glasses partnership, Google DeepMind's $75 million investment in A24, Universal's decision to exclude influencers from The Odyssey screenings, and why a $25,000 golf cart designed by former Apple and Audi designers is selling out. The big thesis: partnerships re...

Sonia sits down with Ashwin Balakrishnan to break down Obama's presidential library speech, Mayor Mamdani's Knicks championship address, Norway's Viking World Cup campaign, and why Shrek 5's trailer is getting destroyed online. The big thesis: joy-based solidarity is undersupplied in political and brand content right now, and the brands that engineer hope without manufacturing it are winning the m...

Sonia Baschez sits down with Jay Kapoor, General Partner at VSC Ventures and host of the Climb podcast, to break down three viral pop culture moments from sports and marketing, and what they tell us about sincerity, brand strategy, and the shifting power dynamic between athletes and the companies that sponsor them. A German soccer fan named Freddy drove from Atlanta through Georgia, Tennessee, and...

Sonia sits down with Dino Delic, head of data driven communications research lab at Meltwater, to break down Christopher Nolan's Odyssey IMAX strategy, World Cup brand activations, and Ronnie Cheng's viral Harvard commencement speech telling graduates to destroy AI. The big thesis: scarcity is a strategy, and the brands that engineer demand without oversaturating win the monoculture moment. Christ...

Sonia sits down with Visa Veerasamy, writer, marketing consultant, and author of Friendly Ambitious Nerd, to break down Steven Spielberg's first podcast appearance, how YouTubers are skipping film school and breaking box office records, and why Ferrari's electric car launch flopped. The big thesis: own your audience before you ask for permission, and platforms are selecting for people who can spea...

Sonia sits down with Brianne Kimmel, founder of Worklife Ventures and GTM Advisor at ElevenLabs, to break down how AI is reshaping content creation, what Barnes & Noble's stance on AI books means for publishers, and why horror films are the new path to Hollywood stardom. The big thesis: here’s what Silicon Valley and Hollywood can learn from each other and how creatives can flourish in both indust...

Sonia sits down with Robin Simon Wood, SVP of Production at New Motion, to break down how Hollywood women are talking about AI, why CMO fatigue is real, and Spencer Pratt's clipping campaign for LA mayor. The big thesis: if you're going to take a stance, figure out what you're actually trying to say, and stick to your guns. Demi Moore spoke at Cannes and said AI is inevitable, so we should work wi...

Sonia sits down with Hiten Shah, founder of Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and Nira, to break down how companies are using AI as cover for layoffs, how Netflix reversed its brand promise without blowing up, and why Cannes Lions just created an AI craft category. The big thesis: AI is here to stay, but companies need to stop using it as an excuse and start being honest about what's actually working. Coinb...

Sonia sits down with Moshe Isaacian, a freelance brand marketing strategist who's worked with Lego, Snapchat, Nike, Toyota, and Epic Games, to break down how companies are talking to their customers in 2025. The big thesis: authenticity wins when CEOs show up like humans, not corporate mouthpieces, and the brands that engineer emotional ecosystems walk a fine line between loyalty and exploitation....

Sonia sits down with Christina Garnett, author of Transforming Customer Brand Relationships and fractional Chief Community Officer, to break down Xbox's fan-first rebrand, Nike's marathon messaging disaster, Netflix's TikTok play, and Tim Cook's exit from Apple. The big thesis: nostalgia wins when it's authentic, and the most human brand wins. Xbox is doing what almost no brand has the guts to do:...

Sonia sits down with Jason Levin, founder of Memelord Technologies, to talk about: organic marketing isn't dead, it just got industrialized. And if the audience loves the music, does it matter how they found it? We're talking about: Geese psyop: Wired exposing Chaotic Good Projects running narrative campaigns for the band, TikTok backlash calling them an industry plant, and whether engineered ecos...

Sonia sits down with Sophie Vershbow, a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, and Esquire (and who spent six years doing social media for Random House), to break down how politicians are running creator playbooks and winning, OpenAI's podcast acquisition, and why competency porn is the new political content strategy. The big thesis: video is non-neg...

This week Sonia Baschez and guest Yury Molodtsov discuss Project Hail Mary, which crossed $300M globally in its second weekend — only a 32% drop from opening, which almost never happens. Sonia and Yury get into why space-as-adventure is having a cultural moment, what IMAX has quietly done to become one of the most powerful co-brands in film, and why optimism is a content strategy, not just a tone....

AI is getting bad PR, and audiences are fighting back. 78% of Gen Z can now identify AI-generated images and will scroll past them, causing CTR to drop 40%. Hatchet Book Group pulled Shy Girl after weeks of speculation that sections were AI-generated, and readers went back to edit their positive reviews to call out the AI use. Meanwhile, Yahoo is having a moment on social—partnering with Cardi B t...

ChatGPT uninstalls surged 295% after the Department of Defense deal, the Pope told priests to stop using AI for sermons, and Netflix just opened its ad inventory to Amazon audiences. We break down all of it. Disney/Hulu's marketing mess, Claude's new community ambassadors program, Timothée Chalamet's hot take on ballet and opera becoming irrelevant, and Twitter's new exclusive threads feature. Plu...

The McDonald's CEO posted a video eating the Big Arch burger and couldn't bring himself to swallow it. Sam Altman publicly backed Anthropic's stance against the Department of War, then swooped in to take the same contract hours later. And Friend AI released an ad so bleak it made loneliness look like a feature. This week was rough for brands. Sonia Baschez and guest Nic Allum (founder/CEO of Cultu...