January is always a bit brutal. One minute you’re losing track of the days between endless chocolate and reruns of The Holiday; the next you’re back at your desk, staring at the news cycle and wondering how the world managed to get louder while you were eating mince pies.

This year, the backdrop has felt especially heavy. Global politics, protests, endless wars, economic anxiety — it’s relentless. So when a celebrity family feud erupted across Instagram a couple of weeks ago, it almost felt… convenient. A distraction. Something lighter to talk about on the tube, in the office kitchen, or in the WhatsApp group that hasn’t mentioned interest rates in at least five days.

Brooklyn Peltz Beckham publishing a six-page Instagram story laying out his feelings about his family to 17 million followers did exactly what these moments always do. It broke containment. Memes followed. Hot takes multiplied. Hashtags climbed. And, almost inevitably, brands joined in.

Which is the question I keep coming back to:

When culture outruns judgement

If your feed looked anything like mine, the response was immediate and expansive. Creators riffed on it. Even ChatGPT took a side. News outlets framed it as cultural theatre. Even other celebrities waded in like Lily Allen — sometimes with a wink, sometimes with a product quietly attached.

What’s easy to miss in all the memes is that this wasn’t just celebrity drama — it quietly surfaced questions about identity, control and who actually owns a name once it becomes a brand. If that sounds abstract, Tamzin Burch’s Intellectual Gossip piece on Brand Beckham™ is worth reading; it turns a viral celebrity moment into a surprisingly sharp lesson in trademarks, power and consent.

And once a moment carries that kind of emotional and structural weight, it changes what “reacting” actually means for brands. This is where reactive content stops being a quick cultural nod and starts becoming a decision about proximity, judgement and responsibility.

Reactive content isn’t new. It’s been a part of social strategy for years. What has changed is how close brands are now willing to stand to real people, real families and unresolved situations and how quickly that distance collapses once performance metrics start lighting up.

I’ve had countless conversations about this over the past few days. Some people firmly in favour. Others deeply uncomfortable. Enough tension there that it felt worth slowing down and writing it out.

Yorkshire Tea: wit, well deployed — and slightly stretched

Yorkshire Tea, a tea brand, were quick to respond, publishing a three-slide Instagram post that mirrored the tone and structure of Brooklyn’s statement, but replaced the family conflict with an absurd metaphor about spoons ruining their relationship with tea.

It was unmistakably Yorkshire Tea. Dry, self-aware, and written with confidence. Strategically, it made sense: this wasn’t a sudden tone pivot, but an extension of a brand that has spent years building equity in British understatement and cultural parody.

It also worked, at least in the short term. Engagement was strong and praise followed. But so did discomfort. Some people loved it. Others felt uneasy about using the emotional structure of a real family conflict as a comedic device.

That tension is the point. Just because something is on-brand doesn’t mean it’s on-mission. Beyond reminding us that Yorkshire Tea is witty, the post didn’t deepen what the brand stands for. It borrowed emotional gravity for contrast and that’s where the wobble crept in.

As Mark Ritson would likely ask: you’ve won the moment, but what memory are you actually building?

Deliveroo: cultural proximity without a point of view

Deliveroo, a food delivery app, took a different route. The post — shared on Instagram and TikTok — featured a Brooklyn-Beckham-ified version of Lily Allen’s album cover (originally designed by artist Nieves González), reworked so Brooklyn appeared in a Deliveroo jacket, captioned: “pov: brooklyn delivering the tea last night.”

It performed well. Scroll the comments and you’ll see the applause — “genius”, “give the social team a raise”, industry approval all round. On the surface, it looks like neat reactive content: timely, restrained, careful not to say too much.

But creatively, this sits in a different territory. This isn’t satire or abstraction. It’s visual insertion. Deliveroo didn’t comment on the drama; it placed itself inside it.

That distinction matters. Using someone’s likeness, even via AI, doesn’t make the association disappear. If a person is recognisable, audiences still read it as them. From an IP and governance perspective, this nudges the work into questions of personality rights and implied endorsement. AI may soften the visual edges, but it doesn’t remove the commercial connection. That doesn’t make the execution automatically wrong, check that with your legal department or friendly lawyer, but it does mean it isn’t neutral.

More revealing is what this says about brand priorities. Deliveroo’s mission is rooted in convenience, community and making everyday moments easier. Historically, it’s a brand built on service, reliability and operational excellence rather than cultural commentary.

This post doesn’t clearly ladder back to that. There’s no product insight or service truth being reinforced; just recognition and cultural heat. A moment borrowed, briefly worn, then moved on from.

That isn’t inherently a mistake. Some brands choose relevance over consistency. But it does signal short-term orientation. If you measure success solely by engagement and industry praise, this worked. But if you look at the brand metrics that actually compound over time — fame, the associations people hold, whether they’d choose you over someone else, whether they come back, whether they’d recommend you — the picture becomes far less clear. Visibility is easy to buy or borrow. Preference, trust and emotional loyalty take much longer to earn, and much longer to repair if diluted.

How other brands played the moment

It’s also worth saying that Deliveroo wasn’t alone. Several brands climbed onto the Beckham-wagon, each revealing something slightly different about their instincts.

On the Beach, a package holiday provider, moved fastest and loudest, turning the moment into a tactical product hook with its “Beckham clause” — agile and engineered for headlines rather than heritage. It made sense for a brand selling holidays, where immediacy and conversion are part of the deal.

Reformation, by contrast, chose a very different vehicle. They used email, not social, and let copy do the work. The subject line — “Dancing Inappropriately” — was a quiet, knowing nod delivered in a tone of voice so distinctive it didn’t need explanation, visuals, or amplification. That kind of restraint only works when a brand has spent years refining how it speaks.

Mercedes-Benz sat closer to Deliveroo’s territory, using AI-rendered visuals and recognisable Beckham cues to signal cultural fluency, but in doing so leaned more on association than meaning. Across all of them, the pattern is clear: the closer brands move to likeness, realism and visual insertion, the more they risk overreaching. The lighter, more abstract the touch — where format is borrowed but emotional weight is left untouched — the more the brand, rather than the moment, is what lingers.

Coldplay vs Beckham: why brands behaved differently

The Coldplay concert moment last summer looked similar on the surface: real people, a viral clip, the internet piling in. But some brands treated it very differently and rightly so.

Coldplay wasn’t celebrity culture. It was private individuals accidentally pulled into public spectacle. No pre-existing “brand of fame”, no media training, no expectation that personal moments might become content. The power imbalance was obvious. Real families, real jobs, real consequences unfolding in real time. That’s why the online chatter felt more cautious, and why many brands stayed silent.

Those that did engage kept their distance, like Netflix, IKEA and Paramount did engage. They avoided individuals and judgement, staying in metaphor, mascot or product-led territory. The further brands stayed from real people and unresolved harm, the more the work held up.

The Beckham situation sits in a different cultural lane. The Beckhams aren’t just a family; they’re a celebrity brand, carefully constructed and monetised over decades, with combined revenues now comfortably in the hundreds of millions and an estimated brand value nudging into the billion-pound range — a scale that gives their empire far more shock absorption than most. Their lives already exist within the cultural economy. That doesn’t make family conflict fair game, but for some brands, it does lower the perceived risk of proximity.

Lower risk, though, doesn’t equal better strategy. The question isn’t only “is this allowed?” but “what does this build?”. ColdplayGate showed that virality alone doesn’t create brand equity when the brand has no natural role. The Beckham moment shows something similar: even with higher cultural licence, the upside is often short-term salience rather than lasting meaning.

Renting relevance is easy. Owning meaning is harder.

Heritage brands, challenger brands, and the real decision

This is where the debate often gets oversimplified.

For challenger brands, moments like these can genuinely matter. Attention isn’t a nice-to-have; it can be oxygen. Opportunism can be rational when visibility is the goal.

Heritage brands don’t have that same excuse. If your brand is meant to last decades rather than quarters, every cultural shortcut compounds. The question shifts from “will this perform?” to “what behaviour are we normalising?” Restraint becomes a strategic asset, not a weakness.

Which brings me to the real question. If this were my brand or my boss/manager/client asked me, “Should we do one?” my answer wouldn’t be yes or no. It would be: who are we, what is our strategy; what are our values?

Michael Corcoran’s point about moral compasses shifting with proximity captures this perfectly. When everyone’s feed is shouting the same thing, judgement softens. Decisions start to feel right because they’re culturally fluent, not because they’re strategically sound. That’s usually the warning sign.

If the main upside is short-term reach, applause in the comments, and a Slack thread celebrating the numbers, I’d push back. Not only because it’s immoral — but because it’s lazy strategy dressed up as bravery.

Should we post?

A practical framework for the next time “should we post?” lands in your inbox:

1. Brand first, trend second

Does this moment reinforce what the brand is already known for, or are we stretching tone to chase relevance?

2. Distance from harm

Are real people, real pain, or unresolved personal situations at the centre of this trend? If yes, tread carefully — humour doesn’t neutralise context.

3. Role clarity

Are we the punchline, the commentator, or the opportunist? If you can’t explain our role in one sentence, we probably shouldn’t play.

4. Memory test

In six months, what will people remember — the brand, or just that we “posted on it”?

5. Rights & governance check

Are we using names, likenesses, formats or implications that create legal, IP or ethical grey areas? If you need to squint to justify it, pause.

6. Incentive honesty

Is this being driven by brand strategy, or by the dopamine hit of likes, shares and internal praise?

7. Walk-away confidence

If we don’t post this, do we still feel strategically sound? If silence feels like failure, that’s a red flag.

This isn’t about killing speed or creativity. It’s about giving teams a way to slow their thinking down just enough to decide whether a moment is building something or simply passing through.

As a final thought, a line from brand voice and copywriter Vikki Ross has been sitting with me all week. She wrote about waking up to brands jumping on another viral moment — “the latest celeb gossip that’s none of their business” — and ended simply with: stay classy.

It’s not a call for silence or seriousness, in a culture that rewards speed and spectacle, choosing not to jump on the Beckham-wagon might sometimes be the boldest move of all.

Having a busy Q3 and Q4, personally and professionally, meant my newsletter had to sit quietly in the corner for a while.

Between getting married, hosting our civil reception, having shoulder surgery, and working with some genuinely brilliant brands, something had to give. And as my partner keeps reminding me: you can’t do everything, all at once, at a high level.

Insert cute little pick from our civil wedding below:

So the newsletter paused. Not because I ran out of opinions (never that), but because I needed to prioritise being human for a minute. I’m not brilliant at switching off, but I have been working on this the last few years with my therapist (hope I made her proud), so this was me practising what I preach. This pic below was from a recent getaway trip in the English countryside at Somerset back in November.

Now I’m back, with more energy, more perspective, and a lot more conversations under my belt.

With the holiday break is behind us, I wanted to share something practical: a guide to what actually constitutes good social content as we step into 2026, based on recent work with brands, agencies and platforms, and countless conversations about what’s changed and what still works

Before we get to examples of great work, let’s start with the foundations.

Social media algorithms have become far less predictable. There was a time when publishing a solid piece of content came with a reasonably reliable expectation of reach. That sense of certainty has largely disappeared.

At the same time, the way people use social platforms has fundamentally shifted. As Derek Thompson has observed, only a small fraction of time spent on social media today is genuinely “social”, meaning checking in with friends and family. The majority of time is now spent watching video content, much of it from creators users don’t personally know. Meta has reported that over 80% of time on Facebook and more than 90% on Instagram is dedicated to video consumption.

In other words, social platforms have quietly moved away from connection and towards consumption. And that shift has significant implications for how content needs to be made, framed and earned.

Today, if a post doesn’t generate shares — not just likes — it’s likely to disappear quietly. Follower-based distribution has been replaced by recommendation systems optimised for discovery, DMs, Reels and watch time.

Instagram has been explicit about this. Adam Mosseri has announced back in September last year that followers matter far less than they used to. The algorithm cares more about whether people send, save or stick around.

I keep coming back to a simple question: what makes someone stop, stay, and send?

That’s the bar. Not “did they watch”. Not even “did they like”. But: did they share it with someone else? Did it earn a DM? Did it turn into a tiny social object that travelled?

That’s the building block.

So what do you actually need to create good social content now?

A) Hooks: Capturing Attention AND Keeping It

I know the word “hook” has developed a bad reputation thanks to certain corners of the internet, but to be clear: a hook isn’t a trick, a gimmick, or a box-ticking exercise.

People aren’t stupid. They can smell clickbait from three swipes away. And yes, you’ll still see plenty of “You won’t believe this…” intros doing numbers, but it’s the creative equivalent of cheap perfum; loud at first, then vaguely nauseating.

You don’t need to shout, exaggerate, or promise life-changing revelations that never arrive. But when people scroll the height of the Statue of Liberty every day, you do need to give them a reason to stop. Attention is no longer guaranteed. It’s earned, every single time.

Jason Murray (@jason_swet) articulates this brilliantly, using examples from film, TV and books. Think about the opening scene of The Dark Knight or the first episode of Breaking Bad. They don’t explain themselves. They pull you in.

A useful way to think about it is this:

HOOK = Visual × Text × Audio

• Visual: the aesthetic, the framing, the movement

• Text: what’s written or said and how fast

• Audio: music, voiceover, rhythm

Jacquemus is a masterclass here. The visual world is instantly recognisable. The angles feel intentional. The pacing is confident.

People scan before they commit. Familiarity buys you milliseconds. Consistency buys you trust.

B) Music

Music is one of those things everyone agrees is important, right up until legal says “absolutely not” and the idea dies in a shared doc like a sad little plant.

Rachel Karten has written about this topic with the clarity we all wish we had in our internal decks. Her core point is uncomfortable but necessary: platform access doesn’t automatically equal legal permission, and risk tolerance varies wildly by brand. And I’sure you don’t wish to end up like Iconic London, who was sued by Warner Music.

One line from my own lived reality sums it up: I’ve turned down more ideas than I can count because they were built on a trending track we simply couldn’t touch.

But this is also where brands can get smarter. If trending audio is the easy sugar hit, sonic identity is the long game. Rajeev Raja, founder of BrandMusiq, puts it well on this WARC opinion article: it’s not a one-off campaign flourish, it’s an audio fingerprint — as recognisable as a logo, but felt rather than seen.

I’ve seen this work brilliantly when brands treat sound as a system: a palette of moods, instruments, rhythms, and voice choices that reinforce the brand over time. For Snickers (disclaimer I brand I work with), for example, we adapted iconic cues for social-first contexts, not copying old assets, but translating them into a digital language that still carried the brand’s memory.

C) Characters & People: Faces Still Matter (Mostly)

We’ve moved from faceless brand feeds to humanised ones and now, interestingly, faceless content is surging again.

On the creator side, it makes sense. Anonymous voiceover, slick B-roll, tightly defined niche, repeatable templates. It’s efficient. It scales. And if you obsess over one subject, you can build a surprising amount of trust without ever showing your face. According to TikTok & Digiday, #faceless has hundreds of thousands of posts, and networks like AffiliateNetwork.com report creators earning significant monthly income.

For brands, though, I’m going to be annoyingly firm: if you want emotional connection and long-term trust, you need humans. Not necessarily founders monologuing daily, but a consistent cast of characters your audience can recognise.

This is the part many brands skip: they hire a creator, run a few UGC ads, then wonder why nothing sticks.

A better question is: who are the recurring people in your content universe? The founder, the product expert, the community manager, the scientist, the maker, the customer, the creator who “feels” like the brand. Not as a one-off campaign device, but as a pattern.

And just as importantly: what do they stand for and how do they show up repeatedly?

From Currys making his employees the main characters of the content (and yes we know it’s not actually the real employees but paid creators) and Oxford University using their professors the star of their show to Patch (disclaimer I brand I work with) using their Plant Doctor to share useful tips & answer plant related questions.

Faceless content can absolutely support distribution, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a brand’s owned voice.

D) Social SEO: discovery is a design choice

If you’re not thinking about social SEO in 2026, you’re working too hard for too little.

Discovery doesn’t happen by accident anymore. It’s increasingly intent-driven: people searching, asking, researching, comparing. And platforms are meeting them there.

Ofcom’s latest report is a reminder of how much time we’re all spending online and how platform habits keep shifting. UK adults now average four and a half hours online daily, up year-on-year, with YouTube used by 94% of adults.

When attention is this fragmented, search becomes a stabiliser. It’s how people find useful content when they’re not in “scroll for fun” mode.

So our job isn’t only “make it engaging”. It’s also “make it findable”. That means thinking about keywords in titles and captions, what’s said in voiceover, subtitles, alt text, and even location tagging when relevant.

TikTok’s Creator Search Insights is one of the most straightforward tools you’ll ever get from a platform: it shows you what people are actively seeking answers to. Also you can find here a helpful article by Search Engine Land on how to use it.

And Instagram’s own explanation of search is broadly consistent: it prioritises matching search text, user activity, and signals like popularity and recency.

Not glamorous but very effective.

E) Recurring formats: social is moving into the living room

Here’s the part that’s both obvious and still slightly surreal: social is becoming television in a literal way, not just a metaphorical one.

And this shift isn’t theoretical. Just the other day, Procter & Gamble announced it’s working on a full social-first soap opera. The Golden Pear Affair is a 50-episode “micro-soap”, launching initially on social platforms and later expanding into a bespoke mobile app, according to Variety. It’s also worth remembering this isn’t a sudden creative whim for Procter & Gamble. The company has been entwined with serialised storytelling for nearly a century; it’s just shifting that instinct into a social-first context.

@pixieusareelsWelcome to our new story: ✨The Golden Pear Affair✨ A whimsical, fast paced adventure romance—coming to you soon presented by @Native #TheGoldenPearAffair #PixieUSA #microdrama #verticals #booktok

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It’s a telling move, not because every brand should suddenly produce a soap, but because it shows how seriously the biggest advertisers in the world are taking serialised storytelling on social. This is not campaign thinking. It’s programming thinking. Long arcs, recurring characters, anticipation, and habit-building; the same mechanics that have kept people watching television for decades, now designed for feeds, not schedules.

You can see this shift everywhere. From YouTube securing the Oscars broadcast from 2029, to Netflix expanding into podcasts, to social video moving decisively into the living room.

As of 16 December 2025, Instagram is testing a dedicated TV app for watching Reels, launching first in the US on Amazon Fire TV devices.

This isn’t a cute side project, it’s a signal. People are already watching short-form video on big screens, and platforms are following the behaviour. The living room is becoming part of the social battleground and the ad money sitting behind connected TV makes that even more inevitable.

Which brings us neatly to formats. It is exhausting to invent from scratch every week. To chase trends. To constantly reset your audience’s expectations. Episodic content - recurring series, repeatable formats — solves this in a way that’s both creative and operational

It builds familiarity and reduces production chaos. It gives you something to refine instead of reinvent. It also makes the algorithm’s job easier: it understands what you do, who it’s for, and when to serve it.

Rachel Karten calls this out well in her writing on “focus your feed”: the power of repeatable structure — place, characters, format, editing style — is that it trains the audience and the platform at the same time.

I’d add one more ingredient: distinctive brand assets. Colour, sonic cues, tone, framing. Things that make your content recognisable in half a second.

You can see this working beautifully in formats like Craighill’s design deep dives, Mr Lohause’s quietly cinematic adventures, a refined Lisbon gentleman sipping espresso, always in their glasses, InStyle’s The Intern, which turns a simple premise into a recognisable world through tone and repetition. Different categories, different audiences, but the same discipline. Each feels familiar because it is built, deliberately, that way.

Closing thoughts

This isn’t exhaustive. But it is what I’d call table stakes for good social content in 2026: hooks with craft, sound with intent, humans with consistency, discovery by design, and formats that build familiarity over time.

The goal isn’t to please algorithms at the expense of people. It’s to build creative systems that respect both and still feel like you.

If you think I’ve missed something, please tell me. I mean that genuinely. I’m collecting notes like a magpie.

To start the year, here are a few things I’ve loved recently:

– A View from the Bridge Christma’s take ( talking about serialised content)

– Barbour × @JosephMachines collaboration

– @joshfavaloro - A sharp take on creative faceless accounts

– A format by @noellehamoe I’d happily watch ten more episodes of

– Rains’ genuinely thumb-stopping ads like this one and that one

– Porsche’s human-made animated holiday film

– And a very good Guinness meme ad that reminded me humour still works when it’s earned

Thank you for reading; here’s to a thoughtful 2026. See you on the other side.

When did you last push yourself truly out of your comfort zone, perhaps surprising yourself by finally doing that thing you’d shelved for years, feeling wonderfully good about it afterwards?

When was the last time you did something simply to learn more about yourself?

This past year, I've said a resounding 'yes' to new things: seeking growth, embracing discovery, and finding joy in every unexpected turn.

Table of Contents

• My 2025 Journey: The Initial Leap

• The Endless Pursuit of Knowing

• Hands in the Clay, Head in the Clouds

• The Joy of New Faces

• The Gap Between Wanting and Doing

• Lessons from Clay

My 2025 Journey: The Initial Leap

This past year has indeed unfolded as a period of significant growth and bold decisions, seeing me tick off a fair few things from my mental to-do list. Some have taught me more than I ever anticipated, some pushed me to my limits, a few were purely for pleasure, and yes, some tested my sanity – I’m looking at you, accounting and taxes.

Honestly, what is it about those numbers that makes them so utterly impenetrable and dull? My top tip for anyone venturing into self-employment: get yourself a brilliant accountant. Seriously, it's a game-changer; it buys you back precious headspace.

Anyway, this year, I took the plunge and went solo, launching my own consultancy. I'm now working with agencies, founders, and brands, diving deep into social media, content strategy, creator & brand marketing. It's been a whirlwind, collaborating with startups and creators, crafting strategies for FMCG giants, and even navigating the world of B2B projects, which was entirely new territory. I've been able to blend my personal experience of building my own brand with the corporate insights I’ve gathered over the years.

It’s probably the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. Two years ago, this wasn't even a flicker on my radar. Yet, the last six months alone have been a masterclass in professional development. There’s no safety net, no one else footing the bill for your growth, no gentle pat on the back reassuring you that mistakes are all part of the journey. But boy, do you learn.

The Endless Pursuit of Knowing

With that glorious lack of a safety net comes a relentless, yet rather exhilarating, drive to constantly educate myself. I’m at industry events whenever I can be – hello, DMVF and Madfest (Cannes still hasn’t sent an invite, mind you). I’m devouring everything I can about AI, playing with new tools, crafting my own custom GPTs, and even building agents with platforms like Launch Lemonade. I’m glued to podcasts like ‘Everyday AI’, I’ve joined ‘AI for Non Techies’, and I’m a regular at Section’s webinars.

Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't for the faint of heart. It demands a chunk of your time and a good portion of your brainpower. But it's how you truly build the skills that keep you relevant in today’s rather fast-paced climate.

That said, I’m a firm believer that you also need time simply to play. To create for the sheer joy of it, to try new things and see what sticks. Amie McNee, in her brilliant Ted Talk, makes a compelling case for how creating art empowers you, gives you a voice, and helps you reclaim your attention from the endless noise. It’s an act of rebellion in itself.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve dipped my toe into the newsletter waters. It’s my way of putting thoughts out into the world, without the grand ambition of writing a novel or self-publishing anything.

It’s simply because writing has always been a quiet, lingering thought (perhaps inherited from my grandfather, who was a journalist and writer back in Greece). I’ve decided to finally spill all those overthinking thoughts onto paper. If even one person reaches out to chat about an idea, that makes me ridiculously happy. So, consider this little corner of the internet a space for exactly that. It’ll evolve, of course, just as my own writing does – some articles will be practical and educational, others more general musings.

Hands in the Clay, Head in the Clouds

Speaking of new beginnings, I tried pottery the other day. My goodness, my mind was utterly blown by the craftsmanship, by the sheer dedication required to let go of tension, to simply be present, and to create something so beautifully handmade in a world that’s increasingly manufactured. While everyone else is fretting about AI’s role in art and creativity, I prefer to use it to make my work more efficient, not to supplant my own creative spark.

I’ve also finally jumped on the Duolingo bandwagon. Now I understand the hype! It was a great LinkedIn post from the Bold Bean Co's founder, Amelia Christie-Miller that sealed the deal for me – they swapped social media scrolling for the productive, engaging fun of learning a new language. Genius, really.

Then there was the valiant, if ill-fated, attempt at padel with my partner. It ended with a dislocated shoulder and an impromptu visit to A&E. Turns out, my right shoulder, after an old accident, wasn’t quite ready for such a demanding sport. But hey, it was my first trip to A&E, and the doctors, nurses, and staff there were absolutely amazing. So, another new experience for the personal diary, I suppose!

The Joy of New Faces

Something else I've truly embraced this year is actively meeting new people. I wish I’d done more of it sooner. It’s opened my perspective, fostered connection, sparked engagement, and helped me grow. Especially in marketing, where interacting with diverse cultures and viewpoints is so vital.

I’ve thrown myself into various communities – UpClub, Ruvo, Founders Social, Get Shit Done and Stack World, to name a few. Over the past few months, I’ve been incredibly lucky to meet some truly brilliant minds, engage in wonderfully deep conversations, and realise that, actually, we all face similar fears and challenges. We all doubt ourselves, overanalyse things, and it’s simply brilliant to tap into these communities for support, a sanity check, or a helping hand – whether that’s for an accounting contact, a recommendation, or simply to geek out about new cultural trends.

This newfound openness has led me to attend several events on my own, often without knowing a soul. My goal isn't necessarily to network, but to simply learn and challenge my thinking on a particular topic. If I meet someone interesting along the way, that’s a bonus.

And speaking of interesting people, I’ve also had the absolute pleasure of attending a few dinners with strangers. Honestly, how wonderfully fulfilling! I've met some truly inspiring women from all sorts of backgrounds, experienced brilliant hosting, and found myself in conversations with people I’d never have crossed paths with otherwise.

One dinner, in particular, was serendipitously themed around ‘the art of new beginnings’, which was just perfect for this current chapter of mine. I enjoyed it so much that I'm now desperate to host my own – just need to pin down the dates! If you're ever looking to try something similar, do check out A & The Table. It's a delightful way to broaden your horizons over a shared meal.

I’d consider myself a sociable person, but not one who easily initiates conversations or actively seeks out new people. I've truly realised how much I was missing out. Putting yourself out there for more opportunities, more visibility, and more eyes on your thoughts and your work is both terrifying and fascinating. But it absolutely expands your thinking. Which, I suppose, is exactly what I'm doing with this newsletter. Perhaps you'll join me on this journey of expanding our horizons by becoming a subscriber.

A few days ago, I even gave a university lecture at University of Birmingham to MSc in Marketing students on social media, creators, and Generative AI – focusing on the mindset and skills needed to thrive. I was absolutely bricking it the day before, wondering how on earth I’d hold their attention for five and a half hours on a beautiful sunny day.

To my surprise, they were genuinely interested. Perhaps it was the memes in my presentation that kept them laughing, but I think it was also because I was real. I spoke about my own struggles at their age, my insecurities when changing jobs, and shared advice on navigating a first job and building a new life in London. And through it all, I realised how much I absolutely love giving talks, educating others, and sharing what I’ve learned.

The Gap Between Wanting and Doing

We all harbour that ideal version of ourselves, the one who attends creative workshops, speaks confidently on stage, or actually opens that gym membership email. But the chasm between wanting and doing can feel utterly enormous. And we often waste precious time trying to construct the perfect bridge.

Sometimes, the only way across is to take a wobbly, uncertain step into the unknown. To simply start before you feel ready. Because, truthfully, you never will be.

Lessons from Clay

At the pottery wheel, you quickly learn to work with your hands, not against them. You discover patience. Gentleness. The subtle art of letting go. You realise that pressure in the wrong places collapses everything you're trying to build.

You centre your hands. You lean in slowly. You breathe.

And the clay, it listens.

It's a quiet, beautiful reminder that life isn't about muscling your way through. It's about presence. Those small, subtle movements. Trusting the process – and trusting yourself.

As I look at this photo of younger me, I can’t help but wonder what I’d tell her, not to prepare her, but to protect her.

Maybe: “You don’t need to try so hard. You’re already enough.”

This is the girl I carry with me. The one who thought the world was full of wonder and hadn’t yet equate achievement with worth.

Here’s to rewriting that story. One birthday at a time.

The Mask of High Achievement

This piece is part quiet celebration, part resistance to the glossy wellness narratives we’ve come to accept as truth. Mental health doesn’t always show up as falling apart. Sometimes it wears nice Sandro clothes, smiles on Teams, delivers quarterly targets, and still crumbles the moment the front door clicks shut. For years, I lived that duality, a high-functioning perfectionist performing at full volume while quietly fraying at the edges. I achieved. I overachieved. I pushed through. Until I couldn’t.

I hesitated to write this. Not because I don’t believe in the power of vulnerability, but because it demands a kind of truth-telling that makes your fingers freeze mid-sentence. Still, if sharing this helps someone recognise themselves before they burn out, then it’s worth the discomfort.

Starting Over in a New City

Let’s rewind. London, 2015. I arrived for a master’s in International Business at the University of Warwick, hopeful, determined, wide-eyed. I had just left behind a crumbling country, Greece, which at the time was in the depths of an economic crisis, teetering on the edge of a "Grexit" that ultimately never happened. My first job came quickly: a Shoreditch-based digital agency working on luxury clients. Fresh off internships in Athens and my family’s business, I was eager to dive in. The commute from Leamington Spa, four hours a day, felt like a rite of passage. I soon moved into a flat in Isle of Dogs, where I learnt, the hard way, that there’s a difference between subletting and renting. Let’s just say, the deposit never came back.

Agency life was vibrant but unsteady. Leadership chased new clients instead of nurturing the ones they had. When a media agency offered me a role in their content department, I said yes before they’d finished the sentence. It turned out to be the right thing to follow my instincts, the agency I was leaving soon lost its main client and eventually closed, some of whom, coincidentally, ended up under my new agency. I swapped East London for Tottenham Court Road and immersed myself in media life. The pace was relentless. The culture, intoxicating. There were lunches, dinners, drinks, complimentary manicures, concerts, even Barry’s Bootcamps. But none of it was enough. My hunger for “more” never slowed.

Eventually, stepped into a newly created role, leading social, content, and creator strategy for a global personal care portfolio, all within an in-house agency setup. I learned the language of media plans, KBRs, and viewability metrics and I had a crash course in managing high-stakes clients. I thrived, until I didn’t. WhatsApps at dawn, copy edits at night. I had no boundaries. I was exhausted.

And then came COVID. The pressure dialled up. The work was non-stop. Every campaign felt urgent. Every task felt existential. And under it all, this quiet fear: that if you slowed down, you might be next. Redundancies were rumoured. Teams were shrinking. I didn’t know if I’d still have a job the next week, so I just kept going.

I pivoted to other brands but something was off. The spark was fading. Then came an even bigger media agency, where I led cultural strategy and activations: a major TV partnership that shifted perceptions around fashion, and a travel-focused docuseries that aired on a global streaming platform. It was creative, impactful, fulfilling, but still something in me felt unsettled, as I always wanted to see the world of brand marketing.

When Everything Started to Fracture

That’s when a global health company came calling. A client-side role, leading content and creative across Northern Europe. I nearly didn’t reply yes to the recruiter. Imposter syndrome whispered all the usual lines. But I got it. And I learned about PAGB, consumer health, digital transformation, managing agencies (switching sides was fun and challenging as I was able to bring all my agency experience building the right agency setup) and just how broken internal systems can be. The hours were punishing. The culture, dysfunctional and full of conflicts and politics. I burnt out.

Luckily, I’d started coaching by then. It helped me see what I couldn’t from inside the mess: this wasn’t about personal failure. It was about being in an environment that made success impossible. Eventually, I made the painful decision to leave and yes, I stayed to help my replacement get my job. Because boundaries were still a lesson I hadn’t learnt.

I moved into another global health company, expanding my remit across even more markets. I got stuck into UX, GenAI tools, global rollouts, and website migrations. Then came the restructure. Redundancy. At first, I was shocked. But then it became the permission slip I didn’t know I needed.

The Work That Actually Changed Me

That’s when therapy began, the proper kind. Not coaching. Not goal-setting. But the kind that makes you excavate. I looked at old stories, relationships, family dynamics. I started to understand why I’d tied my identity so tightly to achievement. Why stillness felt unbearable. Why I kept chasing future versions of myself without ever pausing to ask if I liked the present one. Face my childhood trauma right in the face of it all and all the ways it shaped me.

Therapy showed me I’m not just a marketer. I’m a person. I love film, pottery, photography, and dissecting a soundtrack like it’s literature. I read directors’ choices the way others study wine labels. I wander through exhibitions not to be seen but to feel. I want to create again, not for clout, but for joy.

I’m learning to say no. To sit with discomfort instead of fixing it. To stop turning hobbies into hustles. To accept that rest is not a reward. And that starting something new doesn’t require instant mastery. Therapy didn’t hand me a blueprint, but it gave me something far more useful: awareness. It helped me realise that while ambition is commendable, never feeling satisfied or proud of yourself isn't.

The real issue was not the drive itself, but the inability to stop, acknowledge, and celebrate the present. I was constantly sprinting towards the next milestone, never pausing to notice the view. That, I learned, was where the real burnout lived. A way to check in, to recalibrate, to stay grounded in the present rather than constantly performing for the future.

A Return to Self

Therapy helped me return to who I’ve always been beneath the coping mechanisms: someone bubbly, warm, sociable. I love hearing people’s stories, understanding what drives them, finding ways to support them. That’s always been my superpower, bringing people together, building alignment, defusing tension. I shine in cross-functional, collaborative environments because I make others feel seen, involved, committed to something bigger. It took therapy to help me realise those aren’t just nice-to-haves. They’re leadership traits.

A Letter to Myself

So yes, this is a love letter to my therapist. But more than that, it’s one to myself. For sticking with it. For doing the work. For piecing things back together slowly, and gently, and still choosing kindness even when I felt anything but.

Looking inward is rarely graceful. You meet parts of yourself you’ve spent years trying to outrun. You grieve versions of who you thought you were. You sit with the moments you wish had gone differently. But eventually, you emerge. A little clearer. A little steadier. More aware of what you want and what you no longer need to carry.

If you’re in the thick of it, wondering when it gets easier, I promise you it will. You’re not behind. You’re just getting started.

And the best parts? They’re still ahead.

And to the girl in the photo, with the big brown eyes, the red cup, and the loud laugh, you were always enough. I see that now. And I’m finally learning to live like it.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to have you along for the journey.

I write about marketing, mindset, and the messy middle of figuring it all out, with a side of strategy, storytelling, and self-reflection.

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That’s where Content Operations comes in: the unsung hero behind the scenes. Done well, it’s the difference between chaos and clarity, silos and synergy, noise and impact.

This series unpacks what Content Operations really is, why it’s essential in today’s marketing landscape, and how to build a future-proof system that supports both creativity and consistency. In Part 1, we set the foundation. In upcoming pieces, we dive into audits, workflows, and (Gen)AI integration.

What Are Content Operations, Really?

A content operation is not just a function, it’s the infrastructure that supports every content effort in your business.

It’s the people, processes, and technology that enable teams to plan, produce, distribute, and optimise content efficiently, strategically, and at scale.

When done right, it ensures:

• Teams aren’t duplicating efforts.

• Content is created with purpose.

• Tools work together, not against each other.

• Quality, speed, and impact are not trade-offs.

Think of it as the connective tissue that brings your content strategy to life.

Why Content Chaos Is the Norm

With media proliferation and the algorithmic demand for “more,” most teams are caught in a race to scale, churning out assets to fill what Tom Roach & Grace Kite calls the “worlds of little,” where fragmented, fleeting content dominates but rarely delivers lasting value. But volume alone doesn’t solve:

• Misaligned messaging across channels

• Slow approvals and last-minute edits

• Too many cooks in the kitchen

• Lack of clarity around what “good content” even looks like

Despite 52% of marketers saying they’re creating content faster than ever, 64% struggle to maintain quality standards as they scale. And while teams now manage 28% more content assets annually (with an average of 15.7 assets produced weekly), the output often lacks cohesion or purpose.

The result? A lot of teams are operating like this:

I’ve seen this firsthand. Without clear operations, content becomes a guessing game where whoever shouts loudest gets the biggest budget. What’s often missing isn’t creativity, it’s coordination.

As Robert Rose brilliantly puts it:

“Businesses will win with content marketing when they can constantly reconfigure their activities and manage portfolios of content-driven experiences.”

The Pillars of Content Ops: People, Process, Technology

These three elements must work in harmony:

• People: Do team members know their role in the content lifecycle? Are they empowered to collaborate or stuck chasing approvals?

• Process: Are there clear, documented workflows from brief to publish, or are you reinventing the wheel every time?

• Technology: Are your tools integrated and actually supporting the work or are they just adding friction?

Currently, 73% of teams report workflow fragmentation across 6+ tools, and 41% of creative time is spent on non-creative tasks like approvals and revisions.

You can’t fix what you can’t see. And most inefficiencies are invisible until they become urgent, missed deadlines, bloated costs, duplicated work, or underwhelming performance.

Content Teams Often Obsess Over Trends

The latest TikTok challenge, a viral post, a new platform update; these often drive short-term decisions. But before reacting, pause and ask:

• Does this fit our content vision?

• Does it serve our audience or just the algorithm?

Your content ops should act as a filter. A system that allows creativity to flow but not at the cost of purpose or clarity.

Purpose vs. Mission: Your North Star

Before fixing tools or processes, start with two essential questions:

• What is your content purpose?

Why does your content team exist? What is the guiding reason behind every brief, asset, or video? Think of it as the guiding star for all content efforts.

• What is your content mission?

Who are you speaking to? What kind of impact are you trying to create awareness, trust, recruitment, brand advocacy or sales?

Having a clear purpose and mission unifies teams. It reduces second-guessing and makes decisions faster. Especially when only 29% of marketers can directly tie content efforts to revenue, while 38% of teams are being asked to prove ROI.

Your Team Needs a Vision, Not Just a To-Do List

Whether you’re a CMO or a content lead, your title matters less than the vision you cast.

Content isn’t about vanity metrics anymore, it’s about brand growth, customer retention, or sales pipeline. Too many senior marketers have risen through the ranks without learning how to read a boardroom, or how to speak the language of executive teams.

If your team is stuck in reactive mode, chasing algorithms and firefighting briefs, it’s time to zoom out. Reassess not just what you make, but how you make it.

That’s the soul of Content Operations.

Coming Up in Part 2

In Part 2, we’ll get practical:

• How to run a content audit that uncovers gaps, overlaps, and bottlenecks

• How to map your workflows and processes (with real examples)

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Until then — start asking not just what content are we making? but how are we making it better?

On my last Substack, I promised a deep dive into content operations—how brands are using Gen AI to work smarter, faster, and with integrity.

That piece is still cooking (shoutout to the 11 of you waiting patiently—two of whom are reading this in my group chat).

But if there’s ever a time to follow the curiosity, it’s on your own Substack. And lately, I’ve been thinking about something else:

How brands have started acting like people—and what happens when we start expecting them to behave like people, too

Over Easter, somewhere between brisk Norfolk walks and roast potatoes, I found myself explaining the Katy Perry vs. Wendy’s internet drama to my mum. Mid-rant, I paused.

“Wait… why is a fast food brand subtweeting a woman in STEM?”

When a Burger Brand Becomes a Moral Commentator

Let’s rewind. Katy Perry recently completed a spaceflight with Blue Origin—the Jeff Bezos-owned rocket tourism company—joining an all-female crew that included Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, and Kerianne Flynn.

I’m not here to dissect the cultural weight of that mission; though I recommend this piece by the Contrarian and this one by the Guardian for excellent perspective. Instead, I want to zoom in on what happened next and what it reveals about brand voices on social media.

Wendy’s, the fast-food chain known for square burgers and even sharper tweets, responded to a post announcing Katy Perry’s return to Earth after the 11-minute flight with the now-notorious line: “Can we send her back?”

The internet split in two.

Some found it hilarious and they congratulated Wendy’s for using their unhinged TOV to immerse themselves into the conversation. Others (including Perry herself) were hurt. Critics pointed out that a billion-dollar brand was using its platform to publicly undermine a woman’s accomplishment.

One source close to the mission told People Magazine, “This was a billion-dollar brand using its platform to publicly demean a woman.” The backlash prompted Wendy’s to follow up with a now-infamous statement: “We respect Katy and the out-of-this-world talent she brings to everything she does.” It stopped short of any real apology. That refusal to acknowledge harm only fuelled the criticism further.

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone: a brand whose logo is literally a woman — based on founder Dave Thomas’s daughter — took aim at another woman making history. It added an uncomfortable layer to the fallout and called into question how well brands truly understand the weight of their voice.

The incident underscored the risks of brand personification — when a company adopts a human voice, it also inherits the responsibilities that come with it. In the rush to be entertaining, relevant, and algorithm-friendly, it’s easy to forget the weight that words carry — especially when directed at individuals. As Cindy Kerber Spellman aptly put it:

“Digital responsibility is on all of us. And so is integrity.

If you want to joke like a person, you also need to be accountable like one.

Yes, brands can be cheeky. They can be bold. But they also need to know when they’ve gone too far — and more importantly, who they’re speaking to. Especially in this current climate, and especially when humour comes at the cost of a woman making space for herself — quite literally.

Ryanair’s Social Media Strategy: Where Wit Meets the Wall

If there’s a brand that’s mastered the art of walking the fine line between irreverent and inappropriate (most of the time), it’s Ryanair. Under the creative direction of Michael Corcoran, the airline’s social media presence evolved into a case study in bold, platform-native content — unapologetically cheeky, ruthlessly self-aware, and often wildly viral.

At the time of writing, their TikTok account boasts over 2.6 million followers and 53.4 million likes. Their strategy? Embrace the brand’s budget reputation, meme it before anyone else does, and use humour to turn flying frustrations into shared cultural moments. The result was a social voice that resonated — particularly with younger audiences who value honesty over polish.

@ryanairyou thought it was free? 🪟 #stitch w/ @Molly #ryanair

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Corcoran has openly shared the mechanics of this approach: the team followed internet culture closely, played with formats native to each platform, and kept the tone agile. But even the most seasoned brand voices can find themselves on shaky ground.

Earlier this year, Ryanair posted a meme on X (formerly Twitter) that appeared to mock a passenger’s baldness. While some laughed, others—including marketing expert Andrew Tindall & Hristina Tsolova called it out for crossing a personal line. The backlash quickly turned into a wider conversation: how far is too far when brands act like people?

What made the moment notable was Corcoran’s response. Though no longer at Ryanair, he took to LinkedIn with a clear, thoughtful reflection. He acknowledged the brand’s proximity to the edge — but drew a firm line between playfulness and personal attacks. During his tenure, he explained, the team was clear: no jokes about appearance, identity, or anything that punches down.

“I’d layer with today’s social & how extreme it is - that the comedy effect of what we were doing is fading as the extreme online haters love the roast/clapback and they are eating this up, hating more and can get more dangerous.”

Corcoran’s response didn’t just explain the strategy — it showed what responsible social leadership looks like. Behind every viral joke is a team making real decisions with real consequences. The goal, as Corcoran put it, was always to centre humour around the flying experience — not individuals.

And that’s the nuance more brands could learn from: wit is powerful, but respect is what sustains longevity.

A Brand That’s Doing It Right: Monzo Bank

Monzo Bank has become the poster child for how personality can exist in regulated industries like finance. Led by Social Media Lead Richard Cook, Monzo’s voice is witty, charming, and refreshingly human.

Their standout move? Enter 'Greg at Monzo'—a fictional employee with his own LinkedIn presence. Greg shares inside jokes, office anecdotes, and subtle nods at corporate life, all with a tone that’s absurd, timely, and unmistakably Monzo. Greg lives in the Monzo universe to build connection, not push product.

This is what happens when a brand truly understands platform culture. Instead of fighting LinkedIn’s weirder side, Monzo leaned in — hard. They saw what people actually want to engage with (humour, relatability, chaos), and met them there. The result? A finance brand people want to follow. Imagine that.

By putting the audience first — not the product — Monzo has carved out a tone that feels conversational, creative, and refreshingly unbank-like. It’s helped speed up content production (less stakeholder fuss, more audience-first thinking), and it’s won them genuine engagement, not just vanity likes.

In a sea of safe B2B comms, Monzo dares to be…a little bit weird. And it works. Because the best brand personalities don’t mimic people — they behave like people. They tell jokes. They break the fourth wall. They make you feel like someone’s actually behind the screen.

Where’s the Line?

The more human a brand becomes, the more it’s held to human standards. And unlike real people, brands don’t get the benefit of the doubt.

Is it when Wendy’s jokes about a woman’s career milestone? Is it when Ryanair pokes fun at baldness? Is it when Oatly posts something so self-aware that it forgets to sell the product?

The truth is, the line keeps moving. But maybe that’s the point.

Closing Thoughts: When Brands Talk Like People, They’re Judged Like People

I love that brands are showing up with more personality. I love that we’re past the era of sterile product shots and curated flatlays. But brand personification isn’t just a strategy — it’s a responsibility.

When companies start speaking the language of the internet, borrowing from human behaviour, humour, and identity, they inherit some of the same expectations. And that comes with a higher bar. Because once a brand starts acting like a person, we’ll expect it to know better — and do better.

So before your brand claps back or jumps on a trend, ask: is this a moment? Or a misstep?

Let’s keep our brand voices bold — but let’s also keep them grounded.

And yes, that content ops deep dive is still coming. Probably.

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If this sparked something, share it with someone who’s been thinking deeply about brand voice, tone, or where the line really is.

Someone in your orbit might need to hear it too.

Sharing is caring — and keeps the real ones writing.

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Pinterest boards are overflowing with wedding hairdos no stylist could recreate, and Instagram feeds are morphing into uncanny dreamscapes. Social feeds are becoming uncanny moodboards — less creative expression, more algorithmic hallucination.

Welcome to the era of AI slop — content that looks polished but feels empty, that grabs attention but leaves no impression. The problem isn’t the tools. It’s the taste — and the shortcuts we’re taking in the name of scale.

Pinterest, But Make It Unusable

Pinterest users have been vocal about the AI content taking over their feeds. Once a haven for real-world inspiration and creative planning, the platform is now littered with images that either don’t exist or can’t be replicated in real life. Wedding hairdos that defy physics. Outfits that exist only in pixel. And hands... lots of extra fingers. Some users have even called the issue "The Enshittification of Pinterest."

"I stopped using Pinterest because 80% of the results are AI-generated images” — Reddit user Mjrn

Users aren’t just scrolling past; they’re leaving. It’s a warning shot for any brand prioritising generative volume over creative value.

Spotify Wrapped & the Year We Didn’t Feel Seen

Spotify Wrapped has long been the poster child for personalised, joyful marketing. But in 2024, fans felt something was off. Made-up genres like "Pink Pilates Princess Strut Pop"? AI-generated podcast hosts summarising your stats with zero emotional payoff? Wrapped, once culturally iconic, was now accused of being "AI slop."

"Spotify Wrapped was famously created by an intern. There’s currently no code for that." - Paul Maker, Raconteur

This wasn’t about the tools, but how they were used. It’s a reminder that even the best-loved formats can falter when human insight is removed from the loop. AI can replicate structure. But not sentiment.

KFC, Coca-Cola & When AI Doesn’t Taste Like the Original

KFC’s attempt to blend humour and AI came in the form of an April Fools’ campaign that introduced Colonel Sanders as an AI-generated influencer, complete with algorithmically designed content. While the brand aimed for irony, the execution lacked clarity.

The AI-generated visuals and messaging left many confused — was it satire, or a serious new direction? According to the brand’s Instagram post, audiences described the creative as "inauthentic" and even "creepy," signalling that the joke hadn’t landed, and the trust had wobbled.

It’s important to remember that not every AI experiment will land, but with the right creative oversight, they become learning curves, not cautionary tales.

Coca-Cola’s Christmas campaign, developed with three AI studios, attempted to evoke festive nostalgia by remixing its iconic 1995 "Holidays are Coming" spot. Instead of rekindling warmth, it delivered jarring, uncanny animations that left some viewers feeling cold.

Still, the ambition was clear: experiment with new production tools to deliver at scale. The lesson? AI can support creative efforts, but emotional resonance still requires human hands on the steering wheel.

There’s a Better Way: KitKat & Dove

It’s not all doomscrolling. Some brands are doing it right.

KitKat’s "Have an AI Break" campaign is a masterclass in satire — and it won Gold at the 2024 Strategy Awards in the Content category for good reason. Rather than use GenAI to impress, it used it to mock the current overuse of the technology. The ad introduces a fictional, AI-generated version of KitKat’s classic line, with cringe visuals and wooden copy like “Have algorithmic pause.” A human voice quickly interrupts to remind us: “Nothing beats the original.”

It struck the perfect balance — embracing the AI conversation without losing the brand’s human charm. The campaign resonated because it acknowledged the hype, stayed true to its tone, and gave us a laugh (while reminding us what real creativity looks like).

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign also held its ground. To mark 20 years of its Real Beauty platform, Dove launched a renewed commitment: a formal pledge to never use AI to represent real women in its advertising.

The campaign was accompanied by research revealing that 90% of women say they’ve been exposed to AI-generated images of beauty — yet 76% don’t trust these portrayals.

Dove responded not with synthetic visuals, but with a rallying cry for authenticity over automation. It wasn’t about jumping on a trend — it was a values-first statement that resonated precisely because it felt honest, not engineered.

The brands getting it right are the ones using GenAI to amplify their brand world — not replace it.

The Commoditisation of Creativity

As Lucy Jameson of Uncommon put it in on the Advertising: Who Cares? podcast, the rise of GenAI has created an environment where brands feel pressured to scale quickly and automate everything. But in that pursuit lies the danger of the commoditisation of creativity. When everyone uses the same tools, the same prompts, and the same templates, the result is sameness. And sameness is deadly for brand building.

"The more content you generate, the more average it becomes — unless you bring a sharp point of view." — Lucy Jameson

Originality ≠ Output

Just because GenAI can churn out a thousand images doesn’t mean any of them will move people. But that doesn’t mean it can’t play a valuable role.

Most GenAI tools are designed to generate what’s statistically likely — the median idea, not the breakthrough. That’s incredibly useful for speed, scale, and variation. But the spark? That still comes from us.

Originality lives in tension, context, and emotion — the things that don’t always scale, but always stick. It’s the unexpected insight, the cultural nuance, the perfectly timed punchline. That’s the stuff people remember.

GenAI can help us get there faster. But it still needs human intent to point it in the right direction.

The Value of Difference

Tom Roach’s essays — "The Stupidity of Sameness" and "Brand Building in a World of Creative Fragmentation" — feel more urgent than ever in the age of AI-generated content.

In a world where creative output is increasingly templated, templatised, and tool-generated, brands risk losing the very thing that made them memorable. Roach points out that with every platform pushing its own formats, and with brands tailoring execution by channel, there’s a real danger of brand fragmentation. The core brand idea gets diluted, pixel by pixel.

And then, when you add AI to that mix — with its tendency to output the most "probable" option — that sameness becomes exponential.

“The stupidest thing you can do is make work that looks like everyone else’s.” — Tom Roach

The antidote? Go back to fundamentals:

• Clear brand positioning — not just a tagline, but a truth that informs every brief

• Distinctive brand assets — those repeatable visual, tonal or structural cues that are unmistakably yours

• Emotional resonance — the human layer that makes someone feel something when they see or hear your brand

As Grace Kite writes in Marketing Week, brand building still counts. In fact, it may matter more now. When short-term, performance-driven optimisation dominates, the long game of memory and emotion becomes your strategic advantage.

The brands that win won’t be the ones that adopt GenAI the fastest. They’ll be the ones who can use it without losing what made them different in the first place.

Not All Brands Need AI in Comms

Rachel Karten in her Link in Bio newsletter made an important observation: not every brand needs to use GenAI in their comms. In fact, taking a conscious stance not to use it can be a powerful brand move in itself — especially in categories oversaturated with AI visuals. AI isn’t a requirement — it’s a tool. Knowing when not to use it is as strategic as knowing when to go all in.

"We don’t need AI to be more human. We need brands to be." — Rachel Karten, Link in Bio

This sentiment echoes across campaigns gone wrong. Often it’s not the AI itself that fails, but the brand’s attempt to make it do the job of emotion, taste, and timing. Tools can support creative teams — but they can’t lead them.

The Future of Organisational AI: Strategy, Not Just Execution

There are so many promising use cases for AI — from content personalisation and prototyping to transcreation and trend prediction. But to realise the benefits, organisations need more than experimentation. They need a clear strategy and a coordinated approach. Siloed initiatives can lead to inconsistency, inefficiency, or worse — brand risk.

This is where governance comes in. A cross-functional AI Steering Committee — bringing together brand, marketing, legal, tech, and ethics — can help set standards, define red lines, and align AI usage with brand values. Think of it as your internal taste team: part innovation lab, part risk radar. Because deploying GenAI isn’t just about generating content — it’s about ensuring what you create still feels right, safe, and distinct.

GenAI Isn’t the Problem

I’m not against GenAI. Quite the opposite. I think it can massively drive growth, creativity, and speed. But it needs to be integrated properly. Thoughtfully. With your team, not in place of them.

Use it to amplify creative process, not replace it. Use it to support your strategy, not flatten your brand voice. Use it to scale what works — not automate what should be felt.

We’re not at war with machines. But we are in a race for meaning. If brands want to win hearts — not just timelines — they’ll need to do what machines can’t: bring nuance, tension, direction, and a real point of view.

Or as Zoe Scaman puts it: “We don’t win by rejecting the machines. We win by knowing what makes us different from them — and doubling down on that.”

If this hit a nerve, feel free to share with someone trying to cut through the noise. Or the AI slop.

Sharing is caring — and keeps the good stuff going.

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Next up:

I’ll be diving into the internal side of GenAI — how to build smarter workflows, improve content ops, and futureproof your marketing engine (without frying your team in the process).

Thanks for reading. It means a lot.

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I’m a London-based marketer with Greek and Armenian roots, a dog named Bruno who thinks he runs the flat, and a career that’s been everything but linear.

Over the past 10+ years, I’ve worked across global brands, buzzy startups, and plenty of pitch decks, from pet nutrition to haircare, helping scale marketing strategies that actually make sense to real people.

And somewhere along the way, I got tired.

Tired of the noise.

Tired of the jargon.

Tired of the performance of it all, especially in marketing, where we’re constantly being told to “be authentic” while navigating a sea of sameness.

I found myself craving honest conversations. About the work. The burnout. The culture. The creative joy. The existential dread. The tech that excites us —and also low-key terrifies us.

I missed writing for the sake of thinking, not just selling.

So, here we are.

Why Marketing Recipes?

Because I believe the best marketing is a bit like cooking.

Some inspiration. A tested method. A handful of chaos. And a personal twist that makes it yours.

Also because I am a foodie at heart ❤️

This newsletter is a place where I’ll share my learnings (and un-learnings) from a decade in the industry, from content strategy and creative direction to the psychology behind what we post, share, and buy.

It’ll be part reflective journal, part practical guide, the kind of thing I wish I had earlier in my career. Sometimes deep and analytical, sometimes light and chatty, always grounded in honesty.

What to expect

Here’s what’s on the menu:

• Cultural trends through a marketing lens

• Creative strategy, social media & brand thinking

• Tech & AI musings for the modern marketer

• Honest chats about burnout, ambition & trying to find your spark again

• Real advice from someone who’s lived the chaos

• A few deep dives, a few lols, and a whole lot of heart

No fake urgency. Just marketing with soul.

🕐 When: I’ll be sharing new posts around once a week (maybe more, maybe less — I’m human, and I like to sleep).

💌 Cost: Free for now. I’ll introduce paid options down the line for those who want even deeper insights, templates, or community extras, but first, let’s get to know each other.

Let’s build this together

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