How to fix your brand's social account, the cheat sheet for great hooks, AG1 is sponsoring student scientists
plus... the art of the souvenir
This week, Oren covered the magic of unboxing branded advent calendars, while Clayton discussed the history of the Clarks Wallabee in music and pop culture.
How to build a bank of UGC during Q4
The amount of content you need to put out in Q4 has never been higher.
It’s a velocity game.
And the reality is that having great product photography or a few paid hits on TikTok in the final months of the year won’t cut it. You need a clear rhythm of assets across the season.
Ultimately, what separates average brands from great brands when it comes to content is the way they plan their UGC campaigns like an ad calendar, strategically and in sequence.
Our friends at Minisocial built something smart for exactly that.
It’s called the “Holiday 3-peat,” which is a campaign structure that helps you partner with a consistent group of creators for three key moments:
Early access: building anticipation before the rush
BFCM: driving conversion when attention peaks
Last-chance gifting: capturing final shoppers before the end of the year
This is a simple way to keep your message steady while generating a library of organic posts and ready-to-use ad content that actually fits your brand.
As always, if you subscribe to our newsletter, you get 15% off your first project with minisocial. Just get the ball rolling before the end of October!
How To Start Your Brand’s Social Media in 2025 From Scratch (or fix an existing account)
This week, Oren breaks down what everyone asks for: how to actually plan and execute brand social from scratch…
How many videos
What to test
What styles to experiment with
This video focuses on service businesses and products that can be promoted using expertise, as expertise-driven content is the most consistent way to drive sales from organic social media in the current climate.
If you want to dive into making content with feedback, join our FREE Cut30 3-day challenge, which is back next week, starting 10/21, and you can join HERE.
We need to bring back brand souvenirs
Saw a photo of someone selling vintage L.L. Bean Weather Station clocks, and made me nostalgic for a time when brands unapologetically made their own souvenirs.
No, we’re not talking about forgettable merch or throwaways. We’re talking future vintage. Collectibles. Things you’d have a sense of pride in passing down to your grandkids. That’s the L.L. Bean clock.
FWIW, we did see Only NY drop a clock with the MoMa (random?), and it’s pretty fun. More brands should do that.
What we can learn from ending a business
A friend of ours, Saeed Ferguson, posted a few months ago about his decision to shut down his brand.
If you know anything about Saeed, you know what an incredible inspiration he’s been on the creator-entrepreneur brand side of things, showcasing how others can step into their own creativity and just make shit happen.
He’s been building his own brand, All Caps Studio, for 7 years, selling out of countless drops, inking deals with brands like Zara, and so on.
So it felt odd that he abruptly announced he was shutting down the brand.
But after watching him share the reasons why, it sparked an interesting conversation about the nature of creative work, and how we should be just as thoughtful about ending things as we are about starting them.
There’s often a stigma around failure, moving on from something, or closing up shop. But the reality is that there’s just as much for us to learn in the endings as there is from the beginnings.
You should watch it when you have a moment. Hopefully, it gives you some perspective if you’re going through something similar.
A cheat sheet for great Hooks
This is a reminder that as you go into Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you need to have proper hooks for both organic and paid content.
Here’s a cheat sheet we put together with our friends at Darkroom below.
Quick hits of marketing on the internet lately
AG1 is sponsoring student scientists. Call it mad.
Ramp is launching a livestream for the “terminally (tech) online” (i.e. X/Twitter users) and is using modern methods (paying clippers) to spread it far and wide.
Porsche is leaning into the pilates Porsche girl accusations with pilates popups in various markets. Rare, savvy car company marketing W for the Germans.
Nike did alright with this one.
Mango is leaning into informative, educational content from its experts (all major brands should be doing this, fwiw).
Hyper reports
Check out our market reports. We spend many hours researching markets, categories, and brands & products within the consumer space so you don’t have to.