To that end, I am re-sharing a post drafted last Fall, outlining how brand marketing can’t win if it is living in ambiguity. If you’re a marketing super nerd like me, you will like it as it is chock-full of research, examples, and some visuals you can rip off to show off in your next meeting.

Enjoy! 🤗

HOT TAKE: (MOST) BRANDS LACK DISCIPLINE AND IT SHOWS

It can be wild how bad brands are at briefing agencies.

Why even hire an agency if you can do it yourself they say.

Well, because agencies are not encumbered by internal politics or cow-towing to the egos that rule the room in the C-Suite or even the CFO.

Agencies have artists who know a thing or two about making art that generates attraction and consideration. Artists who have fresh takes on how to sell your product in a fresh, new way.

That matters because buyers pay attention to emotionally driven creative that hits them in the heart or jolts them in their minds.

That said, many companies are really bad at giving agencies briefs that are thought provoking, or worse, tell the agency how the ask ties back to their business.

1. DEFINE WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO ACHIEVE BEFORE YOU SET OUT TO DO IT

This is why I think Mark Pollard’s types of ideas in advertising outlined in his book is so refreshing, educational, and illuminating. Mark wrote these 16 bullets are meant to clarify the different type of advertising asks and needs so that people are clear on what the mission is at hand. Otherwise, as Mark points out, if you don’t define this clearly upfront, you may end up with heart ache on the back end. As my first boss in Hollywood told me years ago, never assume.

A lot of times brands give agencies ambiguous briefs, and as Mark writes in his book, you will save time, energy, and heartache if you get very specific on the types of ideas you’re looking to make so that the brilliant creative brains that live within the walls of an agency can let loose and make amazing work.

IT’S 2027 CREATIVE CAMPAIGN PLANNING SZN

If you want to level-up your brand creative and campaigns in 2027 know this: good money is not only being precise in what the exercise & deliverable but also tying your briefs to business goals and better yet asking for ideas that generate a sustainable creative platform that you can be modified over time. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment but first…

2. BUSINESS GOALS MATTER

Know this. If you want the creative idea to generate results, you must write in the business and/or user-behavior you’re aiming to change within the advertising brief itself.

In my recent post (THAT TIME I WENT VIRAL ON LINKEDIN) I talked about Les Binet and Peter Field’s work. In one of their seminal research projects that was based on 880 case studies, they found the best performing creatives campaigns came from advertising clear cut business and/or behavioral objectives versus the ones that did not. People generate better ideas when the sandbox in the playground is defined versus just giving them an open field to run through, and it actually does better for your business outcomes.

Who would have ever thought of that?! 🤪

3. CONSISTENCY OF MESSAGE OVER LONG TERM GENERATES BUSINESS IMPACT

Here are a few findings from recent research from the IPA and Systems1. If you want your CFO to love you and your marketing team you’d convince them to pay you enough money to 1) create a big creative idea and 2) money to generate follow-up ads or tactics and 3) enough money to put it into media so enough new (or current) buyers can see over a long enough period of time.

In other words.

Playing the long game pays huge dividends.

THREE EXAMPLES

Snickers developed this in 2010 with this spot featuring the legendary Betty White. They’re still using it 15 years later. It worked then, it worked more over time, and it’s generate terrific results for their business. While it’s the same message, BBDO and Snickers get to re-think how they can breathe new life into it year-in-year-out. FUN!

Progressive made their first Flo advertisement in 2007. They’re still making them and they even casted up a whole gang of supporting cast members to re-create messaging and creative versions of the same universe they build nearly twenty years ago. The company’s chief marketing officer, Remi Kent, told me, Progressive’s stock price was under $15. It recently closed at $157.67. “While I can’t give Flo all of the credit,” Kent said, “I think she has really become synonymous with the brand.”

You know this campaign because it’s been in the cultural lexicon since 1997! Because Mastercard has discovered that there is actually no such thing as wear out. Advertising does a better job of driving results when people are actually building off of a memory they already have. And research is starting to show, there is now such thing as wear out, which is industry code for “consumers don’t like our messaging anymore so we need to go find a new one.”

By the way, all of these campaigns ladder back to #6 - #10 in Mark’s “types of ideas in advertising.”

VISUAL VIBES OF THE WEEK (AKA PHOTOS I TOOK END OF LAST SUMMER)

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Good morning, Move Fast, Think Slow Readers - Welcome to Volume 87. Last week, I covered trends in brand media/advertising that I am both acting on and continuing to watch in the back half of 2026. While advertising is the same as it ever was, the ways in which brands project, defend, and foster trust, premiumness, and appeal has and will continue to evolve. Check it out here if you missed it.

In this week’s dispatch, we’re talking rituals, creativity, and a push for you to set yourself up for peace and joy by way of finding rituals that unlock new insights. It might not always be pretty, but it might be fun and bring you joy.

THE IMPORTANCE & MAGIC OF RITUALS

First of all, what is a ritual?

A ritual is a structured sequence of actions, words, or behaviors performed in a specific, repeated order. It often holds symbolic meaning and is used to mark transitions, provide comfort, or build community, extending from religious ceremonies to everyday habits. | SOURCE

Attending religious services is a ritual. Watching sports games is a ritual. Giving thanks for your food before dinner is a ritual. Having a pre-game pep talk with yourself is a ritual. Putting powder in the air before every single NBA game you play (ala Lebron James above) is a ritual. You get it.

Academic research suggests that rituals are a way for humans to manage uncertainty and anxiety, mark transitions, build group cohesion, or encode culture via a pre-meal prayer. Broadly speaking, it is fascinating that, as a whole, humans have been performing rituals for millennia across the globe.

If you’re a long-time reader of MF/TS, then you know I am big on neuroscience, which is the research behind our brains, because it can give us the explanation behind the explanation as to why we come back to certain behaviors. Neurochemically speaking, familiar ritual sequences calm the amygdala, dopamine is released during the anticipation and completion, and shared rituals trigger oxytocin, so a ritual, in a way, can be doing double duty: regulating fear and reinforcing bonding.

A repeated activity that gets us a dual effect. That sort of sounds like magic, doesn’t it?

HOW TO LEVERAGE YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS TO BE MORE CREATIVE

A colleague encouraged me to listen to this episode of The Hidden Brain called “Unleashing Your Creativity.” The basic concept revealed is that our brains work on problems in the background, drawing on vast memories and unlikely associations, even when we’re not consciously focused on them.

And when does our unconscious thinking work best? When we’re most relaxed, rather than when we’re straining to come up with the answers. History is littered with scientists, artists, and innovators having epiphanies while doing the most mundane tasks.

The ultimate insight here is to set the goal, step away, and let the answers come to you.

But how do you do it? Here are five pro-tips from the podcast:

1. Give your unconscious a deadline, then step away

2. Build in unstructured time, walks, showers, train rides

3. Trust and act quickly on the sudden certainty when it arrives

4. Protect intrinsic motivation from extrinsic creep (i.e. it’s not and should not be all about the money)

5. When you’re battling a hard problem, sleep on it

RITUALS & CREATIVITY

To work on a complex piece for the New Yorker, John McPhee would spend weeks lying on a picnic table in the backyard trying to figure it out. It’s how he works through all of his complex pieces.

The famous author, Haruki Murakmi wakes up at 4am, writes for five hours, and then goes running, everyday that is his process. Virginia Woolf wrote about going on walks to unlock complex plots. Tesla, Einstein, and Darwin all wrote and discussed how walking was central to their schedule around the important work that they did.

Studies have shown that rituals might be even tied to the success of sports performance, citing how rituals might regulate the brain’s responses to personal failures, giving people a sense of calm as they get ready to do intense activities that require precision.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

• What daily or weekly rituals are you doing but don’t even notice?

• Can you schedule daily walks just to get a breath of fresh air?

• What new rituals can you put into place, just to help your brain chillax?

• If you work on and with teams, what weekly rituals can you put into place that generate a shared connection and ensure our brains are in tune?

• What about scheduling purposeful unstructured time for teams to be more insightful?

THE RITUAL OF TRAINING & STAYING HUNGRY

Spending 18 weeks to get ready to run 26.2 miles is a grueling grind. The training program requires running six days a week. That’s why it’s a grind. Nearly everyday of the week I have to find the hour to two hours to get the run in. Sometimes it’s 5am, sometimes it’s lunch time, some times it’s the window right before dinner.

That said, it has become a daily ritual I have to do to get my body ready for a long-distance race in pursuit of getting new personal records.

While it is a grind, I feel I am at my very best during these training periods. Creativity starts to burst at the seams and ideas start to come flooding in. Some of them are good, some are bad, but a few have the potential to break through as the next best campaign idea or partnership package that helps my clients generate big business outcomes.

The consistent ritual, having to be dedicated, is a pain in the butt. But it is also an absolute gift. Consistency demands focus. Yet what is love if not making the effort to show up, even when you want to doom scroll instead? As they say, self-love is the best love. Why not check in on the rituals you’re incorporating in the spirit of loving life, loving yourself, just a tiny bit more?

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Hi Move Fast, Think Slow Readers - This week, I’m getting back into MF/TS advertising steez, sharing a few trends in media, advertising, and partnerships that brands will lean into to outgrow the competition.

Also:

• One great classic advertising (wisdom) thing.

• Creative work that I like because I said so.

• Meditative media: an interview you should bookmark to sit in a quiet room and listen to.

What can I say, I love this advertising stuff. 🙌

ONE GREAT ADVERTISING (WISDOM) THING 👆📸😎

Praveen collects some of the very best advertising wisdom in the game. This one from Sir John Hegarty is a banger.

FAME isn’t just for B2C companies selling to the masses; attaining FAME works for B2B companies, too.

Sounds straightforward, but in today’s world, fame isn’t just about the Ad, it’s about the world you can build around it. That’s why Michael Cera, CeraVe work campaign won Awards.

WORK THAT’S GOOD B/C I SAID SO 🎥👟

This short film by SAUCONY, showcasing their latest line of running sneakers, is chef’s kiss 🧑‍🍳🤌. SAUCONY also posted this in a way where you have to watch it in the wide-angle. There’s a story, but there isn’t a story. It is more of a vibe. As a runner, it got my blood boiling in the best way possible. Here is the YouTube link in case you’re on a desktop.

2H 2026 MEDIA & ADVERTISING TRENDS I AM WATCHING 📊👀

One thing I love about what I get to do at Giant Spoon is that the media universe is always changing. Keeping up with those changes keeps you on your toes. In many ways, advertising has never changed, yet the mediums we connect in, where you build trust, and how you verify a company’s value and their products is in fact changing. Here are trends I am keeping an eye in the back half of the year.

1. AEO replaces SEO as the core discoverability discipline: Searches are ending with out a click. Today, AI Overviews now appear in 48% of Google searches. Brands are finding that answers that live within AI answers are earn 35% more organic clicks. How does a brand be a value-add in these spaces? How can they rise to the surface? Harvard Business Review performed some experiments for Luxury companies within LLMs and it found that LLMs can’t discern for taste, so how does a luxury company deal with that? The companies that are value-adds and improve their discoverability within the LLM environments will have a leg up.

2. Creator formats (and partnerships) aslong-term media buys not just an influencer one-offs: This is not new, but it is continuing to be a way for brands to go from one-off integrations to more of a buy-out across multiple creators at once. Creators now have recurring formats that own shelf space in living room, since YouTube is now TV, with 50% of YouTube viewing happening on the big screen.

3. Podcasts, from ad-hoc buys to category ownership: The smartest companies aren’t buying podcast spots, they’re buying podcast territory. Long-term, multi-show, multi-year deals are carving out category monopolies in audio. Squarespace, AG1, Fan Duel, or Betterhelp aren’t investing in audio aggressively because it’s for fun, they’re doing it because it’s working. Look for brands to continue to move away from one-off spot buys toward structured packages with exclusivity, episode minimums, and content repurposing rights. A new model is emerging: a YouTube + audio buy, one deal gets you long-form episode placement, shorts clips, Instagram stories, and newsletter mentions as a bundled package. In 2020, the Podcast advertising space was estimated to be $842 million, today, $2 billion. Times are changing.

4. Women’s sports: an under-monetized and under-valued premium media ecosystem: McKinsey flagged a $2.5 billion sponsorship gap in women’s sports. Only 48 of 1,300 major women’s sports sponsorship deals were initiated before 2020. Athletes like Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and Simone Biles are driving attendance surges and merchandise sales. When the price of entry is low, the opportunity for innovation and longer term partnerships that turn up the volume high over a calendar year are major. The last time I checked, women are predicted to oversee $34 trillion in assets in the US by the year 2030. The work Ally Bank is doing is setting the gold standard, but also P&G, Gatorade, and Coach are making moves.

   

5. Community based programming: The rise of outdoor sports TV viewing is something interesting to see grow. It’s happening across FIFA, NBA, and even the US Open. Also, community based retreats, Mikey Fried’s PAGE BREAK, a book club retreat has done 5 brand partnerships and it just began a few years ago. Page Break has grown so much that it’s not just a retreat anymore they’re doing day reading clubs and hosting nightly Q&As. As our screen addictions zap us and AI slop and hype infiltrates our information ecosystems, people are going to be looking to different types of experiences that go beyond what’s been typical media behavior of years past.

6. Big ads on the big screen inside and outside of sports, still move the needle: The big screen with the right emotionally resonant creative ad, delivers disproportionate recall and consideration lift. CTV now achieves up to 4.5x higher ROI than linear TV when paired with the right creative. Pause ads are rising and the majority of consumers actually like them. This is less so a trend but more so a don’t sleep on the big screen. Yes, buying ads into sports costs a lot of money and in our experience it’s worth the costs, and even if budgets don’t permit companies need to find ways onto the big screen if they’re going get customers.

ONE LAST THING: THE INTERVIEW YOU SHOULD BOOKMARK NOW TO GO DEEP ON LATER 🤔 ✍️

I recently discovered Ocean Vuong, from this clip about America and the songs we sing that’s haunted me ever since I saw it.

“I am interested in if so much of American life is kind of a cage, as I am convinced now at this age of 37 as I understand it, that to be American is to be trapped in a free country. If we are in a cage, is it worth singing? What kind of songs could one sing”

🤔👀

In this interview, they talking about writing, but they’re really talking about creativity and what it means to discover a new way of expression that reverberates. I highly recommend you find yourself a quiet space and some time to give it a deep listen. Ocean is a real Professor who pushes you to tilt your head sideways.

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Good Morning! Can you believe it’s about to be the second part of 2026?

In the last dispatch, Move Fast, Think Slow pulled forward slow media thinking, sharing how reading BRAIDING SWEETGRASS to the kids turned into a mini-ritual that nourished our souls. FORGET TOUCHING GRASS, TOUCH PAPER!!

A week after I shared the dispatch, Brian Bannon, Chief Librarian of the New York Public Library, dropped a great piece, MAKE AMERICA READ AGAIN. In this piece he states, “Every time someone designs the conditions for reading, people read.”

In the age of AI, a power move is going beyond the screen into our own minds to explore the possibilities of new worlds within the fine print.

IN THIS WEEK’S DISPATCH

• Old man breaks records

• New possibilities live within the adjacent possible

• Looking for it & going for it is always fun

OLD MAN BREAKS RECORDS 🤙

I arrived for the Half-Marathon race early on a Sunday around 6:15 AM in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A home of nostalgic memories, a place where I used to have a lot of fun.

On this special Sunday, it was my birthday, I was getting one year older, and about to run my ninth Half-Marathon race. Does the old man still have it? “It” being the question of can I outdo the last race? The last race was just six weeks prior, and I hit the goal of breaking 90:00 minutes runing 13.1 miles. Woo hoo! 👏

This race was less complex, less popular, and lower maintenance than anything New York Road Runners puts on. This meant I was able to move to the front of the pack behind the Elite Runners, and the typical crowd for the first mile to two miles would be nonexistent. Hurray!

As the race started, a light shock settled over. I was looking at my watch at mile 1 and seeing 6:10 pacing. “Too fast, but this feels kind of good.” The watch read the times and I kept checking in to see if the paces were in a place that would be sustainable for 13.1 miles.

• Mile 1: 6:17 - Slow down my guy.

• Mile 2: 6:32 - That felt good, follow the person in the purple shirt.

• Mile 3: 6:27 - Is this the pocket?

• Mile 4: 6:28 - Let’s shred DUMBO.

• Mile 5: 6:25 - I think this is the pocket.

The primary strategy in these races is to rev the engine as high as I can without sputtering out. Overheating means grinding out the last few miles with slower times and not hitting the pace for 13.1. There is a kind of grace required to run good long-distance races. After giving the last mile a final push of 6:24, the watch read: 1:26:21. Holy sh**, new achievement unlocked. This old man can still do it. 👴💪

NEW POSSIBILITIES LIVE WITHIN THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE 🧑‍🔬

New possibilities can only happen if you are paying attention to the adjacent possible.

The “Adjacent possible,” a term first coined by scientist Stuart Kauffman, refers to evolutionary biology, the origins of order, and the forces that drive self-organization in complex adaptive systems. Yes, that is a mouthful, but this idea that lives within biological sciences…the evolutionary…the next advanced iteration of our current life structure lives within reach. Always.

Steven Johnson took the adjacent possible concept one step further in his book, stating good ideas don’t materialize miraculously from nothing, but build on existing knowledge and ideas.

“The phrase [adjacent possible] captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation…the adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself…each new combination ushers new combinations into the adjacent possible.”- Steven Johnson

Based on evolutionary science, the concept applies to coming up with breakthrough ideas. It applies to hitting new records in running. Does it apply to everything?

You might be asking, WTF is the point Mitch….MY POINT IS:

1. The new shiny thing, the new breakthrough comes from the existing thing

2. You can only find it if you are actively looking for it

3. Looking for it & going for it is always fun

THE JOURNEY ALONG THE HORIZON IS WHERE FUN LIVES AND FUN IS GOOD FOR YOU 🤪

Life’s best thrills sit on the edges. Those edges tend to be out there on the crest of the horizon. You can’t get there unless you are actually looking out there. You can’t get there unless you hit “go” and move, one foot after the other. The mystery unfolds, the questions get asked, the questions get unlocked, and within that journey is where fun lives.

It’s fun to ask questions. To not have the answers. To push forward and to find out.

The “why” behind the reason this old man tries to hit new race times lives within that pocket. Where mystery and delight sit. Can we still push? Can we seek out that edge? Can we still believe in ourselves enough to try our very best?

In this day and age, one must remain open to possibilities. And one must remain in constant motion, looking out for them from within. Bring joy there. Bring love. What this old man finds within running is also true within the pursuit of a creative life.

Sometimes, when I am running super hard, and my body is telling me to stop, I repeat, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself. Because the child in me is so proud of the old man. He hasn’t given up on him. He laughs. I laugh. We laugh together.

Sometimes, when I am feeling weak at the sour parts of a race, I repeat, You are powerful, you are in control. So I say to you.

You are powerful. You are in control.

Don’t stop looking out towards the horizon.

New possibilities sit there if you hit go.

VISUALS (AND WORDS) OF THE WEEK

By the way, what books are you reading?

I’d love to know.

If you have ideas, just hit reply and shoot me a book I should be reading and tell me why.

Go forth. Stay safe. Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Forget touching grass, let’s talk about touching paper! The older I get, the more I realize that the technology revolutionaries, the financially minded business people, and the futurists have had it completely wrong. Want to know how to win the future? Harness your very own superpowers! What might be our superpowers, you might say? It’s the supercomputer in your head. Did you know:

The human brain performs 228 trillion operations per second, has 86 million neurons, and has roughly 5 trillion neural firing events per day!

My goodness. Forget “artificial intelligence”, give me HUMAN INTELLIGENCE!!!

This past winter, I started a Saturday-morning habit that’s turned into a routine: reading aloud to the family over breakfast. I had no real thought going into it, but I realized we were unlocking a magical, superhuman experience that has been lost in the sauce. The more we did it. The more I realized it was a way back home. More on this below the fold.

RUNNING NOTES

In the last dispatch, I gave an update on my road to a 2:59:00 Marathon, with an overview of my NYC Half-Marathon performance. I ran another Half-Marathon, the BK Experience Half Marathon, this past April, and got an even better time! I’ll be sharing notes in the next dispatch. The new Half-marathon PB has me geeking out, pushing towards the horizon for an edge, consistency, luck, and how this overlaps with how the best brands market themselves and their products. Mitch, are you really about to merge running and brand marketing thinking together? Yes. Yes, I am. While that might seem like quite the leap, attempting to connect disparate dots to form new insights is a pastime of mine. Maybe something is there to take along for the journey. Maybe not. Either way, it’ll be fun.

GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO BE INSPIRED

Ethan Hawke has been a hero of mine for as long as I can remember. He’s an amazing artists who has given us amazing art for years. He’s also become a wonderful philosopher of life offering gems on how to see this journey. This clip is great for anyone who is curious about their own creative selves and how to check in on that. I’d argue, you are each very creative. No matter if you’re an “artists” or a “thinker” or a “math person.” Doesn’t matter. We are all creating all of the time. Give that video a watch. Check in on your creative journey. How are we doing? 🤔😊

THIS WEEK’S FOCUS: TOUCHING PAPER

Each weekend, as I wake up with the kids, I try to reach a few pages of the extraordinary book, BRAIDING SWEETGRASS. The book is a magnificent exploration of indigenous wisdom, ecological science, and an exploration of plant life by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Sometimes the kids listen intently. Sometimes they talk and gab while I read and can only get a few pages in. But every time, we share a moment of collective transformation. We press time out on the typical everyday routine. We remove ourselves from the pursuit of the tasks and to dos get to go to another place together.

It’s not big a splashy moment. There is no wizardry magic to it. But for a brief space in time, we can somewhere together to learn something new and give ourselves over to a prayer for this magnificent biological ecosystem that gives us life.

Robin lays out beautiful poetry and wisdom about our planet and the things we are all connected to but have been so far removed from. There are moments I well up with emotions for a variety of reasons. She has an ability to thread the magnificence and fragility and symphony our life experiences that leaves me in awe.

Reading as a group becomes such an awesome experience, I wonder if we, as a society were all better off when we were all reading out loud to each other more. Regardless, I am trying to read out loud to the kids as often as possible because there is something there that is not just about learning about diction, language, or story. There is something more happening, that allows us to go back to a space that’s been forgotten.

PSA ANNOUNCEMENT: READING OUT LOUD IS GOOD FOR OUR BRAINS

Reading out loud improves neuroplasticity in your brain, improves the production for memory, and slows down cognitive decline that comes with aging.

Listening to someone reading out loud actively synchronizes the brain with the person reading, helps language production, and positively effects moods.

Reading in general improves our brains flexibility and white matter organization, reduces stress, builds empathy, and helps prolong life.

Touching paper activates more parts of our brain which benefits stronger memories/better content retention, aids memory haptics, and activates a deeper hippocampal encoding.

So you know what that means, right?

HARD COPY BOOKS WORTH PICKING UP

• BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer: This books is nothing short of a triumph. Never have I read anything that threaded wisdom of indigenous people, the land, and our lives so well. You will rethink and relook at everything differently. You will be more grateful about your life after reading this. You will also want to do more about preserving whatever we can of this planet.

• WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING by Haruki Murakami: A blend of a running training log, a travelogue, and a memoir for any kind of runner. Murakami mixes his passion for the sport and writing, threading how both a grueling activities with their special kinds of rewards, that will humble you and will thrill you. I pick this once a year even though I’ve read it a few times. Murakami is that good.

• HIT MAKERS by Derek Thompson: An overlooked yet brilliantly researched book on what makes an idea a great idea. When I was at Paradigm talent agency at the start of my career, I studied every script and artists to understand what made them break through compared to the rest. What were loose theories in my head have been translated into actual concepts worth stealing in Derek’s book. If you’re in the business of coming up with ideas, you’ll want to read this one.

• MOVEABLE FEAST by Ernest Hemingway: I just learned this was published posthumously and written towards the end of his life. This book transports you to 1920s Paris and I am unsure what exactly about that puts me into a vivid time machine ride, but my goodness I love it so much. An easy to read and fascinating to think about so many legends of their time just hanging out, and pursuing their dreams.

• BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott: This books is a wonderful guide to any wanna be writer. Lamott has wisdom that is packed with a punch, poetry, and great stories of her own life. There is wisdom about the journey along with antidotes on the philosophy of writing that anyone can carry with them wherever they are going. And this is not just for writers, but I’d argue for any creator of any kind.

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

But I digress.

And despite this climate, I encourage you to be kind, chip in, and hold out for hope. The pendulum always swings. Maybe when it swings back, we can create momentum for a new kind of future your grandchildren can thrive in.

This week, I am catching you up on my running journey towards hitting 2:59:00 in the Marathon. A few weeks ago, we got a little bit closer with a fantastic showing at the 2026 NYC Half-Marathon.

“It wasn’t the race I wanted to run, but it was the race I was meant to run.” That’s how I felt when I got a 3:23:12 race time in the Philadelphia Marathon last Fall. As I said in my interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, “My revenge tour will be had, I will be back.” Yes, I was interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, and yes, it felt like a rock star moment.

But how did I even get here?

FROM CURIOSITY TO HUNTING FOR NEW POSSIBILITIES

At first, the question was: Can I even finish a marathon? And I did that in 2023 at the NYC Marathon (shout out to my old pal Kaitlyn for the race bib hook up), but I did not like the time I got (4:05).

So then the question was: can I break 4 hours, and I did that in the 2024 LA Marathon (3:43:45).

Then the question was: can I get a better time than 3:43 and my revenge in NYC. And I did that in 2024 in 3:25:30. Way better than expected.

And now, I am wondering: can I break or get very close to a sub three hour marathon?

HERE’S THE THING ABOUT IT, NEW RECORDS CAN HAPPEN

Nick Thompson, the CEO of Atlantic Monthly, has written about how he got back into running later in life, broke 2:30 in his 40s, and set the American record for 45+ in the 50K in 2021. Ludovic Pommeret won the Hard Rock 100 Ultra at the age of 49.

There are all kinds of stories about people hitting their best times in their 40s.

So the signal is yes, new athletic feats are possible at the middle stage of your life. With each race time improving, even so slightly, I get a little push to keep asking what new times might I unlock? And yes, a sub-three-hour marathon is possible.

THE 2026 NYC HALF-MARATHON, GETTING ONE STEP CLOSER

Running in races like this, with thousands of runners, is, low-key, a religious experience. The pitter-patter of our feet hitting the ground. The sounds of our breathing. The movement in the same direction. Everyone is testing their own wits and abilities. Sharing all these little moments that go by in a flash.

The adrenaline is welcome. The joy resonates. The discoveries are made. Your body is ready for it, but your mind has to tell the body to keep going. And the mystery that unfolds is the uncertainty if you can hit the paces you were planning to hit while running the race in your mind the weeks prior.

This course is spectacular. You start out in Brooklyn, run through Prospect Park, set out for the Brooklyn Bridge with a nice downhill streak, cross the Brooklyn Bridge, tough it out on the FDR Highway which is a little bit lonely and surreal (cars on the opposite side are doing 60 the other way), and then rock out in Manhattan crossing 42nd Street to 6th Avenue to head home to Central Park.

I felt like I left a little bit on the table on miles 10 and 11, but I let it rip with a great kick in the end (hello 6:20 pace on the last mile). And yes, it was a win to get the time I wanted (1:28:38, an almost 2-minute improvement in the Half), but the win was also showing up for training. The win was putting in the work. The win is the anchor that running has given my entire life.

RUNNING GIVES YOU TAIL WINDS

“I have a chapter, it’s called “a tiny imperceptible tailwind.” The general idea is that every time you do something right it creates this little tailwind in the rest of your life. And so the daily practice of running creates a little tailwind, right? A little tailwind through everything else you do, whether it’s work, whether it’s your self-examination, or your parenting. And so if you can figure out how to get it in, you can figure out how to do it. You can figure out a way that you can enjoy it, you know, you can create a positive force that flows through your entire life.” - Nick Thompson

It’s been an absolutely amazing journey running the past 2.5 years as I’ve stepped up my approach. It’s fun, and it is also exhausting. But I think I need the exhaustion in a way. I think the exhaustion makes me forget about all the rest of the junk going on in my life. And the truth is, nearly all of the junk is just stuff I make up in my head. But my trouble is, I like to make up a lot of stuff in my head.

NEXT UP

This weekend, I get another crack at the Half running the NYC Runs BK Experience, another exceptional course. Do me a favor and pray to the weather gods that there is no rain, otherwise I might have to skip it. After this, I rest up a. bit, and then it’s time for the Chicago Marathon build.

I love the training cycles. They require so much weekly mileage, that I am forced to be healthy in all facets of my life. And yet, I also dread them in a way. The first eight weeks are cute. The last ten aren’t so much. By the last six, you end up asking yourself why am I even doing this?

The goal for the next 26.2? Break 3:15:00 en route to getting a few steps closer to a sub-3:00.

Wish me luck. 😃

VISUALS OF THE WEEK (P.S. IT WAS THE BOSTON MARATHON THIS PAST MONDAY AND AMERICANS CRRRUUUUSSSHED IT)

Boston Marathon was last Monday….Americans put in amazing, amazing times.

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

In the last dispatch, I handed over the reins to my guy Bobby Edwards, and he did not disappoint with his thoughtful piece on AI and human agency in HOW HUMANS WIN. A highlight I enjoyed.

My push for you is to find that “you know your kid” element in your job. Think about that irreplaceable human element that’s unique to your role. Run with it. Get better at it. Evolve it. Perfect it. Then pull it apart and do it again.

If you need a starting point, MIT Sloan School of Management has a list (EPOCH) of capabilities that humans have, and AI does not. It’s a quick read and will set you on the path to winning.

Give it a read if you missed it.

This week, I write you a little note on hope, a perspective on an era shift (albeit a tough one, but are they ever nice), reading Nice News (literally) and giving hope a chance.

Holding out for hope, being an optimist, and holding the line for a brighter future is the punk rock of today.

Based on what the algorithms would have us read due to the corporate obsession with measurement and the need to drive “engagement” to further drive profits, it can seem like the world is heading towards the end. And yes, we all know it’s bad. I won’t run through the list of dour, sour, sad, and disappointing things happening here at home and abroad.

But what if all the bad is just a really erratic moment that’s spawning a new era, where we have a chance to emerge from the ashes anew?

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” - Antonio Gramsci

This quote made the rounds earlier this year because, well, does it not feel fitting to the current moment? The guy who apparently wrote it was imprisoned for 11 years by Italy’s Mussolini in the 1930s. The end for Mussolini, albeit a while later, was not so kind for him. I’m not here to share a history lesson; I am here to point out the idea of a “new world struggling to be born.”

Jump to astrology! Yes, astrology. In 2007, an astrologist made claims of what America would be like in the 2020s, and not in short order, he nailed the vibes. And that brings us to more astrology analysis, including numerology for one of my favorite Gen-Z intellects (@Nikitadumptruck).

I highlighted in a post from last year that Kissinger said the freak in the White House is typically just a footnote in history, but in history, people like him signal a shift in the era that actually has nothing to do with them.

So I ask you, if this thing all burns down, how do you want to rebuild it?

The thing is this: If you wanna be anti-establishment punk rock, be an optimist, hold out for hope, and hold the line for a brighter future.

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BUT WHERE IS THE PROOF?

Jacob Simon popped into my feed last year, and I said “yes, yes, and yes” right away. He does these quick videos on “THINGS THAT WENT RIGHT” around the world that I highly recommend you follow and subscribe to his HOPE MAKERS newsletter.

Check out all the things that “went right” in 2025 by month from Jacob/Hope Makers.

• January: 🐻‍❄️♳🦌 An Arctic drilling lease sale failed when no company placed any bids, Thailand banned plastic waste imports, and 16 new wildlife crossings were announced across 16 US states.

• February: 🦬🍄‍🟫🏔️ 540 buffalo returned to their ancestral homeland, scientists invented a 3D-printed fungi battery that decomposes when out of power, and the Taranaki Maunga mountain in New Zealand was unanimously recognized as a legal person.

• March: 📚🪧📉 The 200,000th Little Free Library was created, protests broke out across every National Park site to protect our public lands, and the UK’s emissions fell to the lowest level since 1872.

• April: 🧸💰🌊 The EU banned harmful PFAs in toys, Chevron was forced to pay $750 million for illegal damages, and over 800 marine species were discovered in a global search for unknown life.

• May: 💸🧑‍🔬🌺 The US ended hidden “junk fees” or misleading prices from hotels and events, community scientists recorded 3.3 million wildlife observations, and Hawaii added a tourism fee to protect their natural resources.

• June: 🤝👗🐋 The biggest Indigenous land back deal ever in California was completed, France adopted a bill that bans ultra fast fashion ads, and a real princess from Tonga called for the recognition of whales as legal persons who can defend their rights in court.

• July: 💦🧑‍⚖️⚡️ Flint, Michigan finally finished replacing 11,000 lead pipes to clean up the city’s drinking water, the highest court in the world ruled that countries must to prevent activities that harm the environment, and Poland generated more power from clean energy than coal for the first time despite being Europe’s most coal-dependent nation.

• August: 💥🌞🐢 8 coal plant towers were beautifully destroyed in the biggest-ever simultaneous demolition, researchers made a new solar cell that works with indoor light to replace small batteries, and former sea turtle poachers transitioned to working for conservation organizations in Cabo Verde.

• September: 🐘✈️🛍️ The last captive elephant in Argentina was released into a sanctuary as the nation closes down their zoos, a solar-powered plane broke a record by reaching 9,521 meters on a 5 hour flight over the Swiss Alps, and a secondhand shopping mall in Sweden with donated items turned 10 years old.

• October: 🇮🇹💡🌊 Italy became the first European country to make harmful deepfakes illegal and punishable by prison, new data showed the world’s biggest electricity source became renewables, the UN High Seas Treaty to protect international waters reached enough countries to become legally binding next year.

• November: 🎟️🧸🏞️ The UK made it illegal to resell live event tickets for more than the original cost, all children in New Mexico started getting free childcare, 2.2 million acres of land was returned in one of Australia’s biggest Indigenous land back deals.

• December: 🌊🎥🌸 Norway paused deep sea mining through at least 2029, Ecuador’s Indigenous Otavalo community made an anime to preserve their fading language and customs, and nature’s inherent right to exist is remaining after Ecuadorian citizens voted against a proposal that would rewrite their constitution.

THAT’S A LOT OF THINGS!

And know this: All those things pointed out above were only possible because a handful of humans got together, stayed focused, and pushed new ideas through, or policies, or technologies that benefit humans, that benefit the collective.

I try to look for Jacob’s updates and also the newsletter, Nice News. I highly recommend you do this too; you will realize there is so much goodness happening in the world today, despite the madness happening as well.

Before we go, ask yourself this: who does it benefit for us to give up on hope? Who does it benefit if we are to believe the end of the world is true? Who does it benefit if we are just to submit to whatever the tech overlords tell us is true? You already know the answers to these questions, but the questions matter more than the answers.

The work to be done is to ask yourself what your constitution in this time. How do you implement said constitution? Do you still believe that democracy is the best form of government ever created? (History tells us it was and is). And if so, what little things can you do every day, and what friends, old or new, can you make to help map out a better future? You don’t just have to write the laws or vote; you have a say in who you are, how you treat your neighbors, who you help out, and what you can give or donate to those less fortunate each and every day. Each and every week. My bet is, you will be proud of yourself when you are old and grey, that you made some decisions to live with more intention, to help out, to be punk rock. Then you can tell your children and your grandchildren, we were punk rock, baby. We didn’t submit to the doldrums of madness; we imagined a better future, and we built it back up for you, brick by brick.

I think Antonio almost had the quote right. I’d spin it, though. “The old world is dying; the new one is struggling to be born. Now is the time for heroes waiting to be born.

WHAT PARTIALLY INSPIRED TODAY’S DISPATCH: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT (AND CONSUME)

This is the notorious food pyramid.

This is the food pyramid turned into a media pyramid by the brilliant. . I think about this every single day when I am thinking about media, my clients, innovation, and the right kind of impressions to help grow businesses. Yes, while I am punk rock, I still want to make a living, and I actually think being punk rock is very good for business.

More on this pyramid in our next dispatch, but I also share it for you to keep in mind, just like YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT. YOU ARE WHAT YOU CONSUME, so be careful with what kind of stuff you’re putting into your eyeballs.

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

In this week’s dispatch we are switching it up with a guest appearance from the great Bobby Edwards. I had asked him if he’d be keen to write something up for MF/TS on the state of the state and he took me up on it. 🤗

I met Bobby while at Giant Spoon, the Ad agency I’ve called my work home for the past seven years. Bobby is one of the sharpest, most curious, and diligent minds I ever worked with. Today, he leads strategy on American Express at UM Worldwide, helping a premiere financial company sustain and grow their position in the marketplace.

So without further ado, dive into this week’s MF/TS by Bobby Edwards.

Look out, it’s another AI read. But this one is different. It’s not just the one you’ll want to read, it’s the one you need to read. At least before our lives are optimized into a dashboard and summarized back to us as a weekly report. 🤪

This is “How Humans Win”.

The Creds:

More than half (61%¹) of American adults have used AI in the past 6 months. Nearly 1 in 5¹ rely on it every day. Scaled globally, that’s over a billion people who have used AI, and hundreds of millions using it daily.

We’ve passed the tipping point and progressed from curiosity to infrastructure. Cool.

The Tension:

Only 17% of Americans believe AI will positively impact society over the next twenty years. 56% of AI experts feel the same². Talk about a gap. Also. Twenty years?!

It took Netflix over 10 years to reach 100 million users³. Spotify over 4 years. It took ChatGPT less than 3 months. Yet this AI arms race, and a barrage of speculating, predicting, and anticipating the future, floods all social platforms and news publications. We can’t possibly know what will happen in the next 20 years, let alone 20 months.

So what can we do? More specifically, what can you do?

You can focus on you, and you can do it now.

Quick disclaimer - future proofing is necessary. It’s what many, if not all, of our jobs require and there is no escaping that. But this obsession with what’s next is the fastest way to miss what is happening right now.

Humans are winning.

I don’t mean the human collective. And I definitely don’t even mean at scale; jobs are being replaced by AI every day. However, there are humans out there that are winning and you should be one of them. You need to be one of them. Otherwise, the concerns of the remaining 83% - those who don’t believe AI will be a net positive - will become a reality for you. And it will happen swiftly with no remorse. You can submit if you want. Or you can ascend.

Yasu hits the nail on the head with the statement above. The thing is, this unpredictability doesn’t only apply to creative. There is an irreplaceable human element in most jobs, and that’s where opportunity lies.

You need to find it in yours.

Check out Shae O. Omonijo’s work if you need a spark. Her video on Critical Thinking in the Age of AI will challenge your current mindset. She addresses how AI depends entirely on us - on humans. Our books, our lectures, our songs, our conversations. “You’re talking to a mirror of human-generated content” when you speak to AI. Artificial intelligence is predictive in its response, but it can’t think. And it definitely can’t conduct deep critical thinking. That’s a purely human ability.

Just take a look at the evolution of AI. For a long time, the goal of advanced AI was to think like a human. To reason, feel, and understand the world the way we do. Being intelligent meant being human-like.

That goal has quietly changed.

OpenAI and researchers like Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio (note: if AI had a list of “founding fathers” they’d undoubtedly be near the top) are redefining intelligence as “the ability to outperform humans at economically valuable tasks.” Not understanding. Not judgment. Not meaning. Just productivity at scale.

In other words, AI doesn’t need to be human anymore. It just needs to be useful.

The danger isn’t that machines become more human. It’s that we start measuring ourselves the same narrow way: by tasks completed, outputs produced, and value priced by a market. If intelligence is now defined by task efficiency, AI will always win at the parts of work that are predictable, repeatable, and measurable.

But the most human parts of work, like judgment, taste, empathy, creativity, and the ability to make sense of ambiguity, don’t fit neatly into a task list or a spreadsheet. Those things don’t scale cleanly. And that’s exactly why they matter more now, not less.

If you build your value around tasks, you’re competing with machines on their terms.

If you build your value around human insight, you’re operating in a category machines can’t enter.

Know Your Kid (and Yourself)

I’ll spare you the rant about how right now many industries, especially Marketing, need strategists. How the roles that feel farthest from the bottom line and are easiest to cut first are often the exact ones companies desperately need.

Instead, I’ll focus on the single most human job in the world - being a parent.

I have two little dictators at home (I say this with the utmost love; being a parent is my favorite job and it’s not even close). My daughter is almost four and my son recently turned one. My wife and I are in the sleep deprived, beautifully chaotic early years that are both the hardest and best of our lives.

We’ve read the books. We’ve listened to the podcasts. We’ve spoken with countless doctors, other parents, even the wall a few times during particularly long nights. Guidance is abundant but do you want to know the one, single piece of advice everyone defaults to?

“You know your kid.”

That’s it. That’s the safety net. There are countless studies, best practices, tips, tricks…the list goes on. An entire INDUSTRY built on making sense of things. But at the end of the day, consensus is that you just have to know your kid.

There it is, the irreplaceable human element.

For fellow parents out there, I hope this makes it all make sense in your day job. And for those that aren’t parents, at least take this anecdote with a grain of salt and please enjoy your full night of sleep tonight.

In either case, my push for you is to find that “you know your kid” element in your job. Think about that irreplaceable human element that’s unique to your role. Run with it. Get better at it. Evolve it. Perfect it. Then pull it apart and do it again.

If you need a starting point, MIT Sloan School of Management has a list (EPOCH) of capabilities that humans have and AI does not. It’s a quick read and will set you on the path to winning.

AI is redefining intelligence downward to what it can do best.

Your advantage is leaning into what it can’t do at all.

If an algorithm is reading this in twenty years, that alone doesn’t mean AI won. Algorithms will exist. They always will. AI only wins if we decide that efficiency is intelligence, that output is judgment, and that being human is optional.

Choosing not to make those tradeoffs is how humans win. Go be one of the winners.

Sources: MenloVentures¹, Pew Research², BOND³

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

This week, we talk running, pain, and action.

In six weeks I will let it rip for 13.1 miles (aka a Half-Marathon) for my first ever NYC Half. The route is awesome, it kicks off in Brooklyn, turns into Manhattan, and wraps up in Central Park. A new personal best time is within sight and I am gearing up to give it my all! 😤

At this point, having new races on the calendar is how I cope, and how I aim to thrive. Without a race on the calendar, I don’t feel so good. And unfortunately, that can slide into every other aspect of my life.

In every training cycle, there are three types of runs that are mandatory:

• 1 speed session

• 1 half-marathon pace session

• 1 long run

All the running science and gurus say that if you want better race times then this is the way. The only catch is if you do this for weeks on end, you are signing up for guaranteed discomfort. You are signing up to run through pain.

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THE JOURNEY WITH PAIN

I spent so much of my life “mastering” pain, that I am unsure if I know how to detect it at first brush. My mind will question, is this real pain or is it just discomfort?

As a boy, if I wanted to play sports with my older brother, I had to get over the shock of pain. We played basketball and a lot of hockey. If I wanted to be competitive with him, I had to get over the discomfort of being dominated, and at times roughed up by someone seven years my senior.

Then there was the pain of my scholastic challenges as a young child with learning disabilities, known today as neurodivergence (which sounds so much cooler by the way), as I had to get over the pain of not getting the right answers to the questions all the time. There was the pain of questioning my own intelligence.

As a teenager, I was schooled on pain by playing football at one of the best high school programs in Austin, Texas. I was taught to embrace the pain of the workouts, the pain of the weight room, and the pain of the game itself.

As a young adult, there was the pain of being a financial failure, and the anxiety of wondering if I would ever get it right.

So thing about pain. These heavy moments of discomfort is this: I am now so familiar with the feeling, I don’t shrink or run from it. In fact, I now wonder, do I purposely run towards it?

RUNNING THROUGH THE PAIN

Any runner who trains for marathons knows what it means to run through constant discomfort. That’s core to the training. It’s how to build resilience, strength, and stamina. You do these workouts even though you’re sore. Even though, at times, the motivation is down.

The world pushes us around all the time. For some, more so than others. And at times, the force varies. Constantly being sore isn’t just about training to marathons, it is how most of us constantly experience life.

Life throws waves at us like it does when we are in the ocean. The waves are constantly tossing us around. But, our grace, our beauty, are our potential are really about what we do when the waves come crashing in.

Lately, I find myself letting out a little cry while I run. Sometimes I put extra mustard on the high effort workouts. I’ve been in a state of grieving. There’s been anger. The running helps, but it’s not enough. It is not helping me manage the pain like it typically does.

What am I in pain about?

I’m in pain about losing American narrative of my youth.

The pain of how naive I was about the prevalence of American fascism, especially for those of the minority populations, which is now turned all the way up.

The pain of watching so many people who I thought were the heroes in culture, business, sports, and the arts stay silent in the face of absolute immoral behavior and everyday horrors.

The pain of watching journalist be held hostage by capitalism so they can’t call out out the injustices with the truthful urgency that is required.

The pain of having to question, is this the place I should raise my children if the populace and power structures are so immoral?

The running isn’t enough. Now I wonder, do I need to run towards more discomfort in my life, in pursuit of building new systems for generations I will never meet. Is it time I push towards a new type of building block?

RUNNING TOWARDS THE FIRE

I look at every workout as an opportunity to shed old skin and renew my armor. To throw away old maps and start charting out new paths off of new blank canvases. The discomfort doesn’t help, unless I use it to move towards new spaces in spirit of a revolution. The pain can be useful. It can be the signal that it’s time to lean in even more.

What good is the discomfort, if I don’t activate it towards pushing to not just new personal records, but new revolutionary ideas. Ideas that build humans up instead of tearing them down. The offer up enlightenment instead of darkness.

The truth is comfort is the enemy of progress. I run through the pain, in search for new pathways towards ideas and actions I never once considered. The old maps no longer apply.

As Rage Against the Machine’s Zach de la Rocha has said, “anger is a gift".” He also said, “we don’t need the keys, we’ll break it.”

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Mom: What do you do for a living?

Me: I’m an Account guy.

Mom: Do you make the ads?

Me: No, that’s the creative department.

Mom: Do you tell them what to put into the Ads?

Me: Not that’s part client, and part creative department.

Mom: So what do you do again?

Me: I make sure everyone plays nice and that the trains run on time.

Mom: And they pay you for that?

It doesn’t go exactly like that but kind of goes like that.

And here’s the thing, Account folks don’t really get their flowers inside and outside of the Ad industry.

Not unless you’re like the great leaders at Giant Spoon or healthy clients who give praise every now and then. But if and when things go bad, then everyone on your team moves to the shadows, and the Account leads are on the line to explain why things went bad to the leaders who run the agency. It’s not in the job description per se, but oh yes, it is part of the job, and yes, they will pay you for that, just as long as the trains show up on time most of the time.

HOW DAVID OGILVY CRYSTALIZED EVERYTHING ON WHAT AN ACCOUNT PERSON DOES

Warren Buffett bought $21MM worth of shares of publicly traded Ogilvy & Mather, owned it throughout the 70s, and sold it in the 80s for 6x its value, at an estimated return of $40MM+.

That’s an aside to tell you how valuable Ogilvy & Mather as an international business and how good David Ogilvy was at slanging great ideas in the Advertising trade.

So it was illuminating, validating, and funny to read in a book that Ogilvy wrote 42 years ago about advertising, the work and clients 65+ years ago. He hit the nail on the head in his “Jobs in Advertising” chapter written in his seminal book (OGILVY ON ADVERTISING).

Here was his key takeaways on what makes a very good Account Exec in advertising and what the job calls for.

1. Be the best informed person at the agency on your client’s business. Go deep, far, and wide on business intelligence.

2. Most of the work will be routine maintenance.

3. Find the best places to eat because that’s part of the job, but it’s not fun when sales are down.

4. You are like a waiter that shuffles between the customer and the kitchen, bringing updates for the team to act on.

5. Even though all the above is true, you can still come up with ideas that can help sell more product.

6. You will never become a good Account Executive unless you learn how to make good presentations. They must be well delivered and well presented.

7. Do not mistake your clients as dopes. Buy their stock. Believe in their products.

8. Tell your clients what you would do if you were in their shoes but never second guess their decisions, ultimately it is their’s to make.

9. Write brief memorandas (today known as Decks and/or E-mails), your clients have more homework than you do and they don’t get read if they are not short, punchy, and to the point.

I felt seen because I spend time gabbing with the clients about how to get more people excited about their products or how we can get people to pay a premium.

I felt seen because in many client-agency situations I did feel like a waiter at a restaurant, doing my best to get the orders from the guest at table and fast track it back to the kitchen for the chefs cooking up the brilliant ideas, who will yes yell at you while you explain the order from the guest at the table (aka our clients) and the deadline we need to hit (dishes need to get out of the kitchen), just like they do in at fancy shmancy restaurants!

I felt seen because many days, the job is a routine maintenance. Helping clients and brilliant makers of marketing to be prepared, organized, and understanding the task at hand. After all, we have to make sure we hit the brief out the park and get to the next train station at a prompt time. Budgets are not infinite in advertising, and it’s Account people’s jobs to make sure we don’t burn them up because our business is margin protection. Just like every single business in the world.

TIMELESS WISDOM & WHY IT APPLIES TO EVERYONE - BE OF SERVICE!

Ogilvy’s job description and advice is still relevant all these years later. Our technology changes but people and business does not. And I would also add, no matter what your role is in any organization there is wisdom to be had about what Ogilvy lays out about being a good Account person.

Know how to communicate. Understand the mission and business objectives of your (or your clients) organization. You will be mostly doing maintenance in your job but there will be occasions for opportunity.

The old roman quote that is still true: “luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”

If you are constantly in a state of practice, research, tinkering, writing, and thinking while doing your job, an opportunity will show itself and you can “get lucky” with that next big idea for a new product, that new efficient process, or a that better way to generate a high volume marketplace.

I absolutely love the analogy of serving customers in a restaurant. If your main objective is to serve and be of service, in business and in life, you will be surprised by how fast your positive reputation will build amongst the people around you and the higher ranking executives. Just like a delightful, unique restaurant experience leaves a lasting impression on you for a long time, the same goes for any professional experience. At an agency, a brand marketing team, a data science team, tech, product, coaching, or otherwise.

Think service first and make it fun, and the rest usually works itself out.

Have a great end of the week!

VISUALS OF THE WEEEK

IF YOU WANT TO GO DEEPER - THE EXCERPT FROM OGILVY ON ADVERTISING

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Hi Move Fast, Think Slow Readers - This week we’re keeping the dispatch high and tight. In before times, literally 14 days ago, I had thoughts on other ideas I had wanted to share in January about running or advertising but those thoughts have since been derailed. Hopefully, I can refocus on those ideas in the days ahead. In the meantime, here are some notes on communication technologies, AI, and pushing boulders up hills.

THE PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY

Over the holiday, I picked up a book I read from a few years ago called THE PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY. I wrote about the book a few years ago (3.5 years ago I can’t believe it). The general premise is a study on this: when new communication technologies are introduced into society, a massive amount of pressure is applied to democracy. The book also states, that which is a strange relief, democracy is always under pressure. Yes, democracy is imperfect, but history shows time and again, that democracy is the very best governing system ever created in the history of mankind because of freedom of speech to challenge power and develop new ideas.

The bedrock of democracy is communication. The bedrock of democracy is people sharing thoughts because when you share thoughts and ideas you are in an active place of practicing democracy. If you remain silent, you’re not practicing democracy. Pretty simple, right?

These days, I find myself looking up base definitions, for example, what liberal really means or what’s the core definition and background of morals and ethics. Which is the philosophy of good versus bad, you know, “do no harm to others” philosophy. The type of stuff we all teach our kids so they don’t go on acting like caged animals ready to eat flesh at a moment’s notice. You know, so we can make sure everyone gets along and no one gets hurt. You can imagine why I’m looking these things up in this day and age.

Speaking of liberal, want to know what is ironic? These people with the most power in this society want to complain about the very environments that enabled their own success, a liberal democracy with a society that had a good balance of morals and ethics. It’s the very arena that enabled them to earn billions. And now that they’ve “earned” this immense amount of wealth and power, they want to invest in PR, media communications, and campaigns to have us all believe that a liberal democracy is a bunch of junk and needs to get thrown out to the trash with yesterday’s news. Ain’t that something? By the way, just so to put it into perspective, a million days ago equates to 2,737 years ago versus a billion days ago equates to 2,737,909 years ago. That’s how huge that gap, is just for some perspective. Or better yet play this fun game based on Bezos wealth to get perspective, all you have to do is scroll! But I digress.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE SPEAK ON IT? (AN AI CASE STUDY)

McDonald’s in Netherlands made a holiday Ad purely based off of AI. It went spectacularly bad. So bad that they had to remove the Ad from the air. Everyone in corporate social mediaville quickly jumped on to laugh about it and wag their finger at those bad marketing folk. The agency bemoaned about how the work took them LONGER than if they had just shot and produced with humans.

A creative visionary decided to use this moment and the McDonald’s work itself to make a broader statement about AI and the ethical dilemma it presents. He made a video featuring one of the AI “actors “in the McDonald’s ad to prove a point.

“Hi, I’m one of the AI actors from the McDonald’s Christmas commercial. You know, commercials used to use real actors, and those real actors used to be under contract buyouts. That meant they couldn’t turn around and support a competitor. But with AI actors, it’s different. I don’t really exist, so I could be programmed to say anything. I could say the McDonald’s commercial I was in was an overstimulating mess filled with unsettling character designs, poor visual treatments, and AI effects that bungle basic physical realism. I could say all the McDonald’s burgers in the Netherlands are made from rats. Or TBWA\NEBOKO is a bunch of weenies who wouldn’t know creativity if it were handed to them in a happy meal. Of course, with human actors, you’d have to pay them to do something like that. It almost seems like we should value human labor, craft, and creativity. But what do I know? I’m just AI. I’ll say and do anything.”

The response to this was telling. It was shared widely and highly commented on, With reporters and influential voices in marketing weighing in on the video.

This is just a small example of what happens when someone speaks up about the questionable elements surrounding AI and its implications for humans who make a living from human creativity. Someone stood up, said something others joined in agreement, and better yet they had gratitude for someone saying something about the thing we are all seeing, feeling, and living in real time, and then culture starts to shift. Dare I say, this is (a form of) democracy in action.

Without communication, we don’t know what the best ideas to debate over. And when more people are willing to speak and stand up for good, it increases the chances for a society to be filled with the right type of morals and ethics we are raised on when we were in elementary school. You know, the type of stuff we teach our children, or so you hope we do.

They keep telling us AI is going to change the world. But for whom? Why? And at what cost? No one seems to know the answers to those questions. Just like no one knew the answers to those questions when we were all introduced to social media over ten years ago and yet it ended up disastrous for an entire generation of young people who were raised on it. Apple CEO Tim Cook won’t let his niece have a smartphone made by the company he leads and Bill Gates never let his kids use a computer in their own bedrooms, only in the kitchen in their home. So I am sure this AI thing is going to go spectacularly well for us as a society.

EVERYTHING WE LIKE IN OUR LIVES TODAY DID NOT COME FROM COMFORT

A fun fact that never gets shared much these days is the fact that humans had to die for us to get a five day work week.

People had to stand up to bullies. To power. To fight tooth and nail for policies to change. There were literal fights with goons at factories so people could make a living wage and so they couldn’t get worked to the bone just to eat and provide for their kids.

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, a predecessor of today’s AFL-CIO, called for all workers to have eight-hour days by May 1, 1886, playing a crucial role in the push for a five-day workweek (source). Henry Ford enacted the five-day workweek at his factory in 1926 and it only took a short 12 years before it became a federal mandate in 1938. Real change for the positive benefit of humans doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen without a fight.

We were living in a kind of golden age of naiveté. I know many of you scoff and many won’t even finish reading this newsletter this week because we want to hang on to that naiveté. To hang on to convenience. To hang onto comfort. I know we all want comfort for our children, but the truth is that era is completely gone, and it never was really here if you’re really looking at society through a fine-tooth comb.

When you’re old and thinking about your life, what kind of story do you want to tell about who you were in this moment? The truth? Or a revisionist history for your own comfort? As they laid it in the PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY, democracy is like a boulder we push up a hill, it can only go as far as we push for as long as we can. That’s how it worked then, and that’s how it will work now.

And before we go. Her name was Rene Good, a mother of a six year old, and she was murdered by a federal government official in Minneapolis on Wednesday, January 7 after she said to him, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

OPTIMIZING MYSELF TO DEATH

In wanting the very best for this newsletter I am constantly thinking about how to maximize the efforts of each dispatch. I am constantly asking myself: What’s the best format for the readers? How can I get the message across clearly? What will get shard around?

I struggle with formatting this thing to be some small bite-sized email newsletter. Like Justin Welsh who sometimes goes deep but often times keep his newsletter high & tight, and has 175,000 subscribers.

Do my topics require too much from you the reader? Am I asking you to knuckle down, use your brain, and lean in too much?

Or do I need to Axios the sh** out of this newsletter….

• The Pivot: I can write like this.

• The reason why: Because people are skimming everything, no one is reading so conventional internet wisdom says you need bullet and clean cut sentences.

• Functionally efficient; functionally dead: Maybe you just read these bullets faster than you can read a paragraph, but I wonder how much does any of does information land for you and your soul? Will this format really strike a chord in the depths of your heart? Perhaps that’s what a novel is for and not email newsletters.

I’m sharing the existential crisis because I am struggling to consider how I write about Advertising, running, and culture in a way that is punchy, effective, and better yet, gets shared around a little bit.

I wonder if I too have fallen victim to what Ted Gioia so excellently laid out:

This shift has taken place rapidly—and now the sterile AI style of writing is everywhere. Every sentence is crystal clear, although that is no guarantee of accuracy. AI is cold and confident, even when making the most foolish errors. The surface polish can’t hide the shallowness and total lack of human warmth.

This is the dominant communication style of our time, whether we like it or not. Even worse, this is also the dominant thinking style of our time. - My Problem with Clear Writing, Ted Gioia, December 8, 2025

What’s fascinating is that a handful of my most read dispatches happened in 2024 and not in 2025 when I switched up this format. They were deeper reads on the 8th wonder of the world (compound interest), Stealing marketing secrets from Liquid Death’s CEO, or notes on my running year.

In this coming holiday break I am going to give it a good think. Here’s to getting back to the heart of it in 2026.

And now, a few notes on the fuckery and being punk rock.

THE ANTIDOTE TO THE FUCKERY

Douglass Rushkoff had great, spoken word like thoughts for this moment in time, which feels very punk rock, which I think everyone should listen to. It is time we all get punk rock in every single facet of our lives.

To quote a key moment in Rushkoff’s “Cracks in the Pavement” episode:

“The current neo-fascist-techno-feudilist-billionaire pseduo simulation has no room for the wonderful….environment disaster is the excuse but the aspirations are the same. America 2.0 hatched ex-nilo as if from nothing but more important accounting for everything…no surprises, no wiggle room, no magic, no women for that matter…just robots…”

“All I am trying to get across here is that when things seem impossible, bad, or inevitable, consider the impossible. Challenge the evidence. Find the cracks in the pavement. Tilt your head to the side like a dog. And welcome the state of confusion. Embrace the absurdity. And stop making sense for long enough to make sense of what is happening.

We are living in an economy where everyone is gambling and no one is happy. Where we have twisted our information ecosystem into a negative sh** hole. That being the case, my question to you as well as to myself is, what are you going to do about it? Rushkoff is right, we can’t mire in this environment and just let is wash over us, we have to rise up to this moment and imagine how something beautiful can actually blossom through the cracks in the pavement.

In a separate yet related episode (The Intentional Collapse), Rushkoff calls for you to call on yourself. Call on your neighbors. And to imagine a world we all once knew from times long ago. Collectivist culture. Relying on one another. You know, being a community.

You might say to yourself, but how? But where? How does it benefit me? And I say to you everywhere and in every way.

It’s not a key that unlocks a door that you walk through. These actions. These efforts their bricks to a new, or different home we all would rather live in that whatever the hell is currently being served to us by the powers that be. I know for a fact, there are more people around us who believe in decency, who want to dream of new possibilities and progress, and yes I’d argue we can actually bring those dreams to a capitalistic means of survival.

We’re in a moment of where do you stand on decency, fairness, and potential progressive greatness. Remember that idea? The future can be better for us than it was yesterday.

Whether it be trojan horsing-in radical ideas at work, taking on that project you always wanted to do, or being more direct than you ever have been before about what’s quality versus trash. Or just getting off that slot machine known as our smartphones and striking up a conversation with a stranger. Be different and do different with imagination and magic at it’s heart.

That feels punk rock, because at it’s heart punk rock is about authenticity, agency, resistance to authority, belonging, and transgression with purpose.

We all have agency. We all have a capacity to imagine. Rushkoff said in his brilliant rant there is a way better world to fight for and put forward than what’s being served to us because life is and can be magical. So my note to you, and to myself is this: go be magical.

Photos of the Year

Ride the wave.

Have a happy holiday.

Catch you on the flip side.

-Mitch

Hi Move Fast, Think Slow Readers - Welcome to volume 76 of this here newsletter. There are a few new readers joining so let me re-introduce Move Fast, Think Slow. MF/TS is (mostly) a weekly newsletter focused Advertising, creative/business culture, and running. This originally started out as a newsletter focused on trends, stoicism, and culture but I’ve been pushed to refine the focus and hopefully you dear reader like that refinement.

Subscribe now

In this week’s MF/TS we dive into:

• 🤓 The smartest thing I recently read on our culture (and why we should fight it)

• 🖼️ The pro-tip that will help you reach new horizons yourself, your family, and/or your team

• 🏃‍♂️ See what I’m putting into my veins (metaphorically speaking) to get pumped up for the Philly Marathon I’m running in 5 days

🤓 Want to make the world better? Be weird.

“People are less weird than they used to be. That might sound odd, but data from every sector of society is pointing strongly in the same direction: we’re in a recession of mischief, a crisis of conventionality, and an epidemic of the mundane.” - The Decline of Deviance, Adam Mastroianni, 10.28.25

This is article is one of the most throughly researched and well put assessments of the flattening of culture, and in this case, the culture of weird. Give it a read, or at bare minimum a skim.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since and it’s was an undercurrent of my post, What is the punk rock in media / marketing today? In a world that’s lost it’s edge, the punk rock to approach to anything is needed to remind us that we’re all humans who are alive, humans who can fight back against the tide of a slow death, and can be whatever weird thing we can imagine!

And you know what, the great Robert Greene said “be weird, we need more weird people in the world today.”

🖼️ Pro-Tip: Make a mood board and stay focused on It for a long time

Here are a few studies that show how visualization helps generate behavioral activity that increases the chances of transformation, increases the chances of landing at your desired destination.

• Four Researched Reasons why this works: 4 Scientific Reasons Why Visualization Will Increase Your Chances of Success

• Tennis Mastery Study: The research results suggest that pursuing both a mastery goal and a performance goal is more beneficial when using imagery, compared with pursuing only one of these goals, a finding that aligns well with the notion that imagery can serve multiple different functions (Paivio, 1985).

When I make mood boards they’re less so about behavioral changes and more so about:

• Reminders of who I want to be

• Visions of where I want to be

• Sparks for who I want to be

• Frames of art I’d want to make

Now the the genie in the bottle hasn’t turned everything I’ve put onto the page into reality (yet), but I’ve felt more focused, at home, and inspired than I have in the past.

You can do it too.

Just go open Google Slides or whatever your presentation maker of choice is. Look up images, copy and paste them onto the page. Re-size them. Put them together. Then just print it out. Then put it up somewhere you can see it daily.

Bonus points": Link to my my Pinterest pins here with a ton of images you might find useful for your mood board too.

PS: I have watched this video of America’s fastest Half-Marathon and Marathon runner Conner Mantz shredding miles in Central Park and I’m fairly certain it influenced my running style, and has resulted in helping me improve my per mile times.

🏃‍♂️ Putting Goggins into my veins to get jacked to run 26.2 miles in 5 days

HERE WE GO: After putting in 620+ miles over the past 18 weeks it all comes down to a few days and a few runs before I let it rip for 26.2 miles in Philadelphia this weekend. It’s such a unique moment in the training cycle as it comes to an end. To be with a body in peak shape, to be grateful for the journey I took to get here, and the excitement for what will transpire over the weekend.

There is nothing left to think through or do, all is left is the path towards the race, getting some good sleep, and letting it rip.

And before I do, I’m going to listen to David Goggins to get jacked up!

This isn’t for the masses. This is for those who want to leave normal behind.

Those in search of a new realm. It’s a lonely journey. You’re isolated.

Those who use to keep pace with you, will fall off.

Go see where their world ends. And yours beings. Your ability to suffer! Endure! Outwork! Must be greater.

You must be willing to extend yourself to the limit, with no guarantee of success.

Everyday. You must ask yourself.

Did I do enough?

David Goggins

You might look at this guy and say “psycho” and you’re probably right. But he is right about the journey. I’m looking forward to entering into a new realm this weekend as I get a new PB in the Marathon.

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

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Good Morning Move Fast, Think Slow Readers!

Move Fast, Think Slow is (mostly) a weekly newsletter focused Advertising, culture, and running, written by an optimistic Ad executive. This originally started out as a newsletter focused on trends, stoicism, and culture but I’ve been pushed to refine the focus to mostly write about marketing/advertising and running.

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Is that refined focus speaking to you? Should I just shut this thing off and start over? 🤣

In all seriousness, I am playing with the idea of starting another newsletter believe it or not. I have a dream of having a quarterly magazine one day and said newsletter would be an incubator for that concepts until I raise enough cash and get enough collaborators to do a version 1. Watch. This. Space!

For this week’s dispatch, I am re-posting a newsletter I dropped from earlier in the year. It was one of the most viewed dispatches, and it has quotes and ideas I find myself going back to often.

Please enjoy!

From April 20, 2025

1. Intellectualism is dead - long live intellectualism an idea by Bea 🤔

This is what is at the core of this shift. Where public intellectuals once shaped cultural discourse by challenging ideas, most influential figures today shape culture by modeling a lifestyle. The Kardashians, the Jenners, and the endless legion of influencers who dictate internet micro-trends don’t engage in public debate or articulate their philosophies in essays and lectures. Instead, their ideas are embedded in the lives they project. Their impact is absorbed passively, not through engagement, but by constant exposure. - The death of the public intellectual by Bea, 4.2.25

Back in Homer’s day, people lived within an oral culture, then humans slowly developed a literate culture. Now we seem to be moving to a screen culture. Civilization was fun while it lasted. - Producing Something This Stupid Is the Achievement of a Lifetime by David Brooks, 4.10.20

Thoughts

Bea’s piece was reminiscent of the legendary / early accurate book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. He wrote it in 1985. And Television is the medium that rules the day. Regardless, his findings in 2025 are still accurate in that we are no longer a literary culture, but a screen-based sound bite one. I think about how the American Revolution, was fueled by pamphlets. A time when the only way to get the message out was with the written word on the page. I think about how abolitionist were effective in putting a light onto the immorality of human bondage and slavery. By printing the written word and creating an argument via the Essay format. As Bea notes at the end of her piece “The intellectual sphere may have shifted, but it isn’t gone. We simply have to work to reclaim these spaces with people who are willing to engage deeply with ideas.” And it makes me think of Podcast and even Substack. Maybe we can reclaim a pursuit for better and an ideal moral code in these spaces. One theory that I have about Podcast continued rise in prominence is that in a world where everything is synthetic content being pumped at you ad nausem, hearing voices and conversations are the true authentic connection to narrative and a shared culture. Think about it.

2. Artisanal Advertising in the Age of AI via the brilliant Faris Yakob 🎨🤖

“So we can begin to see an outline of what might happen. Budget conscious marketers apparently want the cheapest possible services. Production costs using AI will come down and look ‘good’, so shoots will become less common. New strategies will have to be developed that reach the top ten percent. Artisanal advertising and communications planning led by craft and creative integration rather than AI will become luxury goods - but then arguably they always were. When cars replaced horses and cameras replaced portrait painters they became super luxury items for the wealthiest. Industrialization in advertising may have similar impacts.: - Artisnal Advertising by Faris Yakob, 4.11.25

Thoughts

I think anyone who is telling you they’re not worried about AI stealing their jobs is lying to your face (or to themselves). And the worry comes from all the AI hype we see in the media and in our social newsfeeds. That said, no one talks about the opposite of what already is and will continue to happen as a results of the addoption of AI in advertising and business at large. Which is, the things produced by humans will have a higher premium of price and will be seen as higher quality. Just like the luxury goods that are made by hand. The truth is, anyone who is trying to dumb down marketing to be a predictable set of modes of production doesn’t really understand humans and selling at all. They are lazy thinkers with bad ideas using the tech as a way to lie to themselves and everyone else that somehow the tool will get to better answers, and do it faster. AI is a great tool, like all of technology, but it can never replace the super powers in our brains.

3. When in doubt, listen to (marketing genius) Rory Sutherland 🎯

“Business is probabilistic, but everyone wants to pretend it deterministic. The reality is you’re placing a bet on one particular version of the future, but it’s still a bet. Marketing is a casino with pretty good odds, but it’s still a casino. And what we did as marketers we got enthralled with all the techie people and said this can exact science like as logistics, or engineering, or newtonian physics. But since we fundamentally deal with the future and human psychology, that idea that you can have all the data you need to make a robust idea…is completely unsafe.” - Rory Sutherland

“[Brand] Fame is a luck multiplier. Nassim Taleb would say that the purpose of being famous is to increase your surface area of exposure to positive upside optionality. It makes it much more likely that you will get lucky in ways that you wouldn’t expect.” - Rory Sutherland

Thoughts

These two quotes are constant battles in my line of work. First, every Chief Financial Officer and Procurement office wants Marketing to prove it’s worth, when the fact of the matter is that some things aren’t measurable. Rory does a great job highlighting examples of companies that do things that aren’t measurable but are known to be their signifying differences, such as AO Appliances delivering a little green bear to households with kids, and that it’s just a good idea that doesn’t need to be measured to prove a result. And he’s right, because not only is the entire household delighted to get their new appliance installed, but there’s an extra delightful memory thanks to the bear being given to their child while it’s happening. It’d behoove more businesses to think like this versus thinking through optimizing transactions through the filter of an Excel spreadsheet. The second battle is helping companies become more famous or even get famous for the first time. As obvious as that sounds, you’d be surprised about how many compaines are truly scared of fame. Lol marking is about growth but I guess some people prefer to play it safe and light money on fire. I don’t know I’m just trying to secure long-term revenues bro.

4. Quote of the week 🙏

“Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position – it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.” – Nick Cave

VISUALS OF THE WEEK

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Move Fast, Think Slow is (mostly) a weekly newsletter focused Advertising, culture, and running, written by an optimistic Ad executive. This originally started out as a newsletter focused on trends, stoicism, and culture but I’ve been pushed to refine the focus and now we’re mostly talking marketing/advertising and running.

Last week we discussed Why brand marketing can’t win living in ambiguity, showing great research and case studies of long-term brand building. The week before that, we asked the question What is punk rock in media / marketing today in search of the way to build new, authentic, culturally relevant tribes. And the week before that I shared running updates on my current training cycle to prepare for the Philadelphia Marathon plus a few great things I’ve read recently.

Give those 👆👆👆 a read if you missed it.

If you have not yet subscribed to Move Fast, Think Slow you can do so here.

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RUNNING HAS BEEN AND CONTINUES TO BLOW UP

As someone who has been running around NYC the past few years I can tell you running has blown up big time. I see the signals of it’s growing popularity in many places.

There are run clubs everywhere, with people 15, 20, or even 50 people deep.

When you go to sign up for races on NYRR they are selling out within minutes.

And if you zoom out, Ultramarathons, the races to go 50, 100, or even more miles have shot up from 200+ on 2015 to 2000+ in 2024. That’s a wild development.

This Sunday there will be an estimated 55,000 runners pounding pavement to eclipse 26.2 miles in NYC, in 2010 that number was 44,000 and 2000 it was 29,000 runners.

The thing about running is anyone can do it. It really doesn’t matter how fast or how slow you go. Anyone can lace them up and give it a go.

There are so many reasons running is growing over the past 10+ years but one thing is for certain, the more people pick up on the magic of running, the better.

THE NEW YORK MARATHON IS SPECIAL

55,000 runners.

12,000 volunteers.

Nearly 1M spectators will watch.

Yeah, that’s a real big stage to run on.

And it is exhilarating!

Some memories of mine running in last year’s NYC Marathon.

• The sound of the faint then loud roar of the crowd coming off the Queensboro bridge is unlike anything you experience in life.

• The runner next to me on First Ave. seeing me pick up the pace screaming “F*%$ yeah baby, get it”

• The pace partner I had in the last ten miles who ended up beating me in the last mile

• Of course seeing my family get out there to give me a boost & cheer

“Human beings have recognized the virtues of sports since the ancient Greeks, who believed in the harmony of mind and body. They saw sports as a component of human flourishing. Athletic competition was also an arena in which people could display arete, or human excellence. Athletic excellence requires not just natural talent but also discipline and determination, hard work and study, resilience and focus, and the willingness to fight through pain and fatigue. Sporting competition at its best creates a deep bond among teammates, even as it fosters respect for competitors.”

It’s fascinating how that bond strengthens within the immedieacy of a marathon race. You don’t have to know-know your fellow runners but you do respect the crap out of each other, and even the spectators, many of which are non-runner respect the crap out of the runners too. And there is something really special about that space. A celebration of our own humanity lives there and it’s quite sweet.

To the 55,000 NYC Marathon runners going 26.2 this weekend, I salute you and will be there to high-five a few of you. 😊

WHILE WE ARE TALKING RUNNING LET’S GIVE NEW BALANCE THEIR FLOWERS: THEIR RUNNING SHOES/MARKETING IS CRUSHING IT

Last year I dabbled with various running shoe brands to find my rotation of training and race shoes and I ended up always coming back to New Balance. I run in the 1080s, 880s, and the SC Elite for races. The only non-New Balance shoe I run is are the Asics Superblast.

Apparently New Balances business has been doing very well the past few years and I think it has to do a with a number of key decisions.

Personally I think their product line is simplified (and so is their brand) which speaks volumes in an era of a lot of complexity and noise.

There is nothing overly complicated about the shoes. There have a wide variety but there is something about the way they name the products and the color ways that are very simple and my theory is that in a noisy, loud, absurd world, the simplicity invites curiosity and the consistency creates comfort & trust.

The partnership with New York Marathon is very smart too. Studies show that when a brand associates itself with a popular sporting event it bodes well for their bottom line. And I love how they use athletes but also everyday creators/human-first voices like our guy Timm Chiusano who is featured in this Ad above. There is a growing trend among sports companies to partner with everyday athletes on top of the super start athletes. It’s smart because it makes the connection to the product/brand more genuine and to the future buyer it makes running feel within more reach.

And it’s not just running. I am noticing more New Balances on the street more and more as a casual observer. I asked a friend recently, when was the last time you bought a pair of Nike’s and he said he couldn’t remember. Me either and I grew up LOVING Nike. I feel like New Balance has been super smart with their product and their marketing, it’s stripped down but yet very modern.

From New Balance’s CMO:

While official numbers were not disclosed, Davis says the privately-owned company has experienced double-digit growth over the past few years and has become a top three brand in big box retailers like Foot Locker and JD Sports.

And they did something we talk a lot about at my agency and in previous post on MF/TS:

Chris Davis did what many CMOs & CEOs don’t have the stomach for. He flipped New Balance’s existing marketing mix—70% direct response, 30% brand—to the exact opposite. In the face of 15 years of revenue decline, and a mandate from the CEO to turn it around, he proposed SCALING DOWN directly asking people to buy shoes. Instead, he wanted to SCALE UP the public’s opinion about New Balance’s vibe, what they believe in, and ultimately, their opinion on New Balance’s shoes. SOURCE

VISUALS OF THE WEEK (RUNNING VIBES ONLY OBVIIIIIII)

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

In the last dispatch, I talked about how brands can create the next awesome idea, campaign, or product launch by looking to Punk Rock for inspiration. It’s the first time I used Claude (AI) to help me with a piece which felt filthy as well as smart.

Being punk rock in the era of chaos can be a path towards finding your brands anchor movement to be authentic and build future and repeatable buyers who believe in the product and brand.

HOT TAKE: (MOST) BRANDS LACK DISCIPLINE AND IT SHOWS

It can be wild how bad brands are at briefing agencies.

Why even hire an agency if you can do it yourself they say.

Well, because agencies are not encumbered by internal politics or cow-towing to the egos that rule the room in the C-Suite or even the CFO.

Agencies have artists who know a thing or two about making art that generates attraction and consideration. Artists who have fresh takes on how to sell your product in a fresh, new way.

That matters because buyers pay attention to emotionally driven creative that hits them in the hearts or jolts them in their minds.

That said, many companies are really bad at giving agencies briefs that are thought provoking, or worse tell the agency how the ask ties back to their business.

When in truth is writing disciplined, precise briefs tied to value creation ought to be FUNDAMENTAL.

1. DEFINE WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO ACHIEVE BEFORE YOU SET OUT TO DO IT

This is why I think Mark Pollard’s types of ideas in advertising outlined in his book is so refreshing, educational, and illuminating. Mark wrote these 16 bullets are meant to clarify the different type of advertising asks and needs so that people are clear on what the mission is at hand. Otherwise, as Mark points out, if you don’t define this clearly upfront, you may end up with heart ache on the back end. As my first boss in Hollywood told me years ago, never assume.

A lot of times brands give agencies ambiguous briefs, and as Mark writes in his book, you will save time, energy, and heartache if you get very specific on the types of ideas you’re looking to make so that the brilliant creative brains that live within the walls of an agency can let loose can make amazing work.

IT’S 2026 CREATIVE CAMPAIGN PLANNING SZN

If you want to level-up your brand creative and campaigns in 2026 know this: good money is not only being precise in what the exercise & deliverable but also tying your briefs to business goals and better yet asking for ideas that generate a sustainable creative platforms that you can be modified over time. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment but first…

2. BUSINESS GOALS MATTER

Know this. If you want the creative idea to generate results, you must write in the business and/or user-behavior you’re aiming to change within the advertising brief itself.

In my recent post (THAT TIME I WENT VIRAL ON LINKEDIN) I talked about Les Binet and Peter Field’s work. In one of their seminal research projects that was based on 880 case studies, they found the best performing creatives campaigns came from advertising clear cut business and/or behavioral objectives versus the ones that did not. People generate better ideas when the sandbox in the playground is defined versus just giving them an open field to run through, and it actually does better for your business outcomes.

Who would have ever thought of that?! 🤪

3. CONSISTENCY OF MESSAGE OVER LONG TERM GENERATES BUSINESS IMPACT

Here are a few findings from recent research from the IPA and Systems1. If you want your CFO to love you and your marketing team you’d convince them to pay you enough money to 1) create a big creative idea and 2) money to generate follow-up ads or tactics and 3) enough money to put it into media so enough new (or current) buyers can see over a long enough period of time.

In other words.

Playing the long game pays huge dividends.

THREE EXAMPLES OF WTF WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

Snickers developed this in 2010 with this spot featuring the legendary Betty White. They’re still using it 15 years later. It worked then, it worked more over time, and it’s generate terrific results for their business. While it’s the same message, BBDO and Snickers get to re-think how they can breathe new life into it year-in-year-out. FUN!

Progressive made their first Flo advertisement in 2007. They’re still making them and they even casted up a whole gang of supporting cast members to re-create messaging and creative versions of the same universe they build nearly twenty years ago. The company’s chief marketing officer, Remi Kent, told me, Progressive’s stock price was under $15. It recently closed at $157.67. “While I can’t give Flo all of the credit,” Kent said, “I think she has really become synonymous with the brand.”

You know this campaign because it’s been in the cultural lexicon since 1997! Because Mastercard has discovered that there is actually no such thing as wear out. Advertising does a better job of driving results when people are actually building off of a memory they already have. And research is starting to show, there is now such thing as wear out, which is industry code for “consumers don’t like our messaging anymore so we need to go find a new one.”

By the way, all of these campaigns ladder back to #6 - #10 in Mark’s “types of ideas in advertising.”

TODAY’S PRO-TIPS FOR TEAMS PLANNING 2026 MARKETING INITIATIVES

1. Define the objective clearly and ask of the agency or internal creative teams clearly

2. Tie the briefs to business outcomes core the the CFO and CEO’s remit

3. Want return-on-investment and to help future advertising prosper? Create communications that can last over the long-term (and be patient)

On top of this, there are ways to program the messaging into culture alongside the advertising messaging to further expand on the value and speed of which you can build memories in the eyes of future buyers. But that will be a conversation for another time.

VISUAL VIBES OF THE WEEK (AKA PHOTOS I TOOK END OF SUMMER)

Lol I started writing post over a month ago so these shots feel a little bit dated now, arrrggh I can’t keep up with the machine 🤪🤣

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Let me you tell a quick story.

It’s a story that comes from my old man.

This was some time in the early 1980s. He was walking in the streets of Los Angeles after dinner with his mentor and business partner of sixty-something years of age.

They stop in front of a Levi’s store to stare at a picture. The picture is of a kid all punk’d out flicking off the cameraman. 🖕 And to my Dad’s astonishment, the mentor exclaimed, “isn’t this just great, I mean this is just fantastic!” My Dad couldn’t believe it. He thought his elder would see this picture and be completely offended. But not old boy. Old boy understood, that the culture will move to places you don’t understand but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paying attention and try to move towards those spaces. That is of course, if you are in the business of relevance.

I think about this story often. And as someone who works in media & advertising I am often wondering what is the punk rock of culture, Ads, and brand communications today?

Before we can ask this question, let’s take a look back at the phenomenon of what punk rock was and is:

THE ORIGINS AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PUNK ROCK (brought to you by Claude i.e. not written by me but still a great breakdown)

Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s as a raw, stripped-down rebellion against both mainstream society and the perceived excesses of contemporary rock music. Its origins are typically traced to two primary scenes: New York City (1974-1975) and London (1976-1977), though proto-punk elements existed earlier.

Key cultural elements that converged:

• Musical predecessors: Garage rock bands of the 1960s like The Sonics and The Kingsmen established the template of simple, aggressive three-chord rock. The Velvet Underground brought artistic transgression and downtown New York’s avant-garde sensibility. The Stooges and MC5 from Detroit added raw power and confrontational performance. These bands rejected technical virtuosity for emotional intensity.

• Economic and social crisis: Punk exploded during a period of economic stagnation, particularly severe in Britain with high unemployment, labor strikes, and urban decay. In New York, the city was near bankruptcy, Times Square was dangerous, and the Lower East Side was derelict. This bred disillusionment with postwar promises of prosperity.

• Youth alienation: A generation felt excluded from both the hippie idealism of the 1960s and the corporate rock establishment of the 1970s. Progressive rock’s complexity and arena rock’s spectacle seemed disconnected from everyday struggles.

• DIY ethos and accessibility: Punk democratized music-making with the philosophy that anyone could start a band, even with minimal technical skill. Fanzines, independent labels, and small venues created alternative distribution networks outside corporate control.

• Art school influence: Many early punk figures had art school backgrounds (Malcolm McLaren, Sex Pistols’ manager; many Talking Heads members), bringing conceptual art’s confrontational strategies, Situationist philosophy, and performance art sensibilities.

• Fashion as statement: Punk fashion—torn clothing, safety pins, unconventional hair, deliberate ugliness—rejected both mainstream conformity and hippie aesthetics. It turned poverty and marginalization into aggressive style, often with deliberately shocking imagery.

WHAT PUNK REPRESENTS TO ITS DEVOTEES

For those who love punk most deeply, it represents something far beyond musical genre:

• Authenticity and honesty: Punk values raw emotional truth over polish or pretense. It’s about expressing genuine feeling, even when ugly or uncomfortable, rather than manufactured sentiment.

• Individual agency: The DIY ethic isn’t just about making music—it’s a philosophy that you don’t need permission, credentials, or resources to create, express yourself, or build community. This extends to publishing, organizing shows, starting labels, creating art.

• Resistance to authority: Whether challenging political power, corporate control, social conformity, or aesthetic gatekeeping, punk embodies questioning and rejecting imposed structures.

• Community and belonging: Despite its individualist rhetoric, punk created spaces where outsiders, misfits, and marginalized people found acceptance. The scene became family for many who felt alienated elsewhere.

• Permanence of spirit over style: True punk devotees distinguish between the aesthetic (which can be commodified) and the ethos (which represents ongoing resistance to co-option, authenticity, and independence). The spirit transcends any particular sound or look.

• Living differently: Punk suggested you could live outside conventional paths—reject career expectations, create alternative economies, build your own culture. It offered a blueprint for living according to your own values.

• Transgression with purpose: The confrontational elements weren’t just shock for its own sake but challenged social hypocrisies, exposed uncomfortable truths, and forced confrontation with what society preferred to ignore.

The enduring power of punk lies in this transformation of musical style into life philosophy—a framework for maintaining integrity, creativity, and resistance in a world that constantly pressures conformity and compromise.

THE WISDOM OF PUNK ROCK / WHERE IS IT TODAY? (back to MF/TS writing)

The climate that bred Punk Rock feels eerily similar to today’s climate. Economic stagnation, youth alienation stick out. And just like then, there already are and will continue to be emerging movements that are designed to resist the cultural norms or what techno-capitalist tell us is the truth (“AI is the future”) or what the loudest and meanest people in media say is true.

• For example, Page Break, a new book club is a retreat that enables people to read out loud and form new bonds, without a smartphone. That’s punk rock.

• The Offline club, established in Amsterdam and now with multiple offline clubs scattered throughout Europe is creating spaces for phone-free environments for people to meet/talk to strangers and have a digital detox. That’s punk rock.

• Nutter Butter’s unhinged TikTok channel that’s so weird and yet so funny is punk rock.

• The dating app Hinge’s latest ad campaign “No Ordinary Love” that took true love stories from people who used their app to romantically connect and then turn that into a Substack and book is punk rock.

• The Onion, the satirical media organization has gone back to print and thinks it’s the future of their success, claiming they can fill 3 Madison Square Gardens with the amount of print subscribers they have. That is punk rock.

• Liquid Death, the fast-rising water company, who creates zany advertising themselves, is of course punk rock.

These are just a few examples of experiences, brands, and campaigns that indicators that going against “the norm” can help you stick out and be authentic.

In a world not just filled with a lot of noise, but a lot of trash, there will be more movements emerging as the anti-AI, the anti-dehumanization, anti-sea-of-sameness or the anti-digital.

I think there’s a huge opportunity for people, brands, and media entities to cut against the grain in spirit of bringing humans together or at bare minimum coming off like you’re not completely full of sh**.

I keep thinking about this today but it is relevant in any time or era.

What is the punk rock of today?

What happens when you make something that fits inside that unorthodox box?

And better yet, what happens when you stick to it over a long period of time?

VISUAL VIBES OF THE WEEK

postcards from my saved pinterest

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Good Morning MF/TS Readers - Welcome to volume 71 of the MF/TS newsletter. The last dispatch was weeks ago but to refresh memories we dove into one brand strategy thing I can’t stop thinking about, which speaks to how companies can leverage the real time test lab of social media to identify the best Ads for traditional advertising channels.

Traditional ads are things like a brand’s next Super Bowl TV / Social campaign a brand wants to go gangbusters. The thing is, the next Super Bowl TV / social campaign costs a lot of money. Like a loooootttt of money. And this is why the social test lab approach is notable because…

1. social media is cheaper and better at audience targeting, so you can get interesting insights on your creative test & learns against your known buyers

2. Traditional Ads are more expensive, not as good at targeting, but are way better at delivering large business effects and are seen as higher quality to consumers when compared to any content people see in the social newsfeed…which by the way higher quality tends to mean generating the kind of positioning for better pricing power for a business.

Research constantly shows traditional advertising pays off bigger business dividends but has also some real serious built-in risks.

What Eugene covers in the video from MF/TS last dispatch, is that in a world that’s constantly in flux. Building your brand with the world versus for the world is likely have better returns for a company.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Without divulging too much personal details, I’ll say the family has been in expansion mode while we also settled into a new home. Which is to say, it’s been an incredibly exciting whirlwind the past few months. One that’s wonderful, beautiful, and exhausting AF lol.

Which is why it’s an absolute miracle I’ve been able to pull off marathon training in the middle of all of this to prepare for the 2025 Philadelphia marathon.

In this week’s dispatch we’re talking running, some cultural enlightenment, hot takes worth reading, and of course visual vibes by yours truly. 😜

NEW TRAINING CYCLE = NEW ME 🏃‍♂️🎉

They say every training cycle should be 18 weeks.

That’s the amount of time your body needs to get use to the mileage, the wear and tear, and energy required to run 26.2 miles at the fastest, most comfortable pace possible.

In the last training cycle I discovered the Hansons Method which is a pretty hardcore approach to preparing for the marathon but it has proven to work to improve race times. This training program wants runner to put up 50-60 miles per week for an 14 out of the 18 week timeline. I’m using Hansons again, but with a twist.

As this is my fourth marathon in two years, plus the fact that your boy (that’s me) is now edging to his mid-40s, it’s important that I don’t over do it in this training cycle. I got hurt 2x in the last one, and by the end of it, I was basically taking naps every other day out of pure exhaustion. LOL it was A LOT!

THE UPDATED APPROACH

In the first six weeks of the training cycle I got up 30 miles per week and then held it at 35 miles for a few more weeks.

In September I tried to push it to 40 but it was hard to stay consistent. But now that the dust has settled in October, I am looking to put in 50 mile/week.

While my legs require constant treatment to be able to handle the 45 - 50 miles per week volume, they’re feeling the strongest they’ve ever felt in my life. So the great news is I’ll be able to get high volume heading to November, meaning that by the time the race hits on 11/23 we’re going to be vibing.

TRAINING STATUS: BIG LITLE SIGNALS

Last weekend I met up with a fellow Dad/Runner who was doing his last big long run before NYC Marathon on 11/3. It was super cool to run with someone who can hang at my pace as I do most of my runs solo-dolo. I know. Sad. So it was refreshing to have a running partner push it with you and help you not even notice the strain of clipping 12 miles at sub 7-minutes.

We’re looking at a modest improvements here when compared to the last marathon training cycle when these splits were ranging between 7:25 - 7:40 last year. Now, in this latest season, 9 out of the 12 miles in the marathon pace workout were 7:15 or lower.

To maintain this for another six weeks will be an absolutely grind but this is also my favorite part of the training cycle. It’s the moment where you catch a glimpse of the possibilities. Where the initial goal can be blown up and replaced with a new, bigger goal.

I’m geeked about Philly.

It’ll be cool, it’ll be flat, and I’ll be ready to let ‘er rip.

LFG!!!! 👏 👏 👏

GET ENLIGHTENED: RECENT READS, 🎯 HOT TAKES, and REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

Here are some great reads, smart hot takes, my thoughts on current events in the world of AI, and an amazing optimistic/good news source that all MF/TS readers ought to bookmark and subscribe to.

1 - Eddie Huang’s cultural hot takes have been on fire lately

Eddie Huang always been an incredible storyteller whether it’s his TV shows, documentaries, and now his Substack! LOL. He’s had some great takes on the culture, the marketplace, and how bizarre this has all become. The latest How Social Media Turned My Social Life to Slop a little bit of a mirror of what’s transpired in my life and really probably to all of us who have or spent some time making a living within the media, entertainment, and communications industries.

I feel like the woman that used to sell ads to restaurants in the Orlando Tourist Guide that hustled from restaurant to restaurant gathering contacts, spitting out stats, promising foot traffic to the restaurant if we placed ads with $10.99 Prime Rib coupons except now I’m the chef, the owner, and the lady selling coupons on social media.

All of us are the lady selling coupons and its insane.

2 - Ted Gioia take on Hamlet being the play for Gen-Z is eye opening

I truly believe Ted Gioia is one of the foremost writers and breathtakingly honest thinkers of our time. His latest analyst of how Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the Gen Z Story we need right now was eye opening and also a little bit depressing but hey, that’s America in 2025 baby, am I right?

And now today we recognize a completely different Hamlet:

• He’s the college graduate who can’t pay off all those student loans.

• He’s the over-educated and under-employed worker who can’t get a job because of AI.

• He’s the incel who can’t forge a relationship.

• He’s the unhappy child of a broken home, struggling with depression.

• He’s the scroll-and-swipe phone addict who retreats from the world, but at a devastating psychological cost.

• He’s the person posting cries for help on social media—but nobody listens.

It blows my mind because when I read this list out within the context of the plot of Hamlet, making the parallels that Hamlet is essentially a failed influencer and his tragedy is a story of how he fails at that. It’s a wild analysis, but poignant.

3 - Pro-Tip get positive news into your life ASAP

If you’re like me and hate all of the doom and gloom noise that comes from our news media then you should you will find The Hopemakers refreshing AF. They share quick headlines of things that are going right in our world.

It turns out are many, many humans who are taking action to try to save this planet, to try to make our communities better, and to try to leave this place slightly better off than how we found it.

The Hopemakers

Subscribe to replace dread with hope & action… We report what’s going right in the world and elevate little-known heroes who are building a better future!

By Jacob Simon

4 - My current thoughts on this AI situations

It feels like the confidence in AI is really starting to waver. And I can’t lie, I feel validated by it. But also, validated by Shannon Vallor’s book title AI Mirror.

I have been telling friends time and again that this AI thing thus far is just a big gigantic mirror. I’m not so sure what else to make of it beyond that. And as Shannon’s points out, is how that mirror has some serious limitations because we as humans we are limited by our own imperfections.

There’s been too much capital poured into it for promises made for a future no one really wants. But I do think the pocket of the population AI will be useful for will be a small pocket of the population which are basically capitalist and market manipulators. Don’t take my word for it, Kyla Scanlon’s latest on this AI is the market and the market is the government, explaining how the addiction to making the market grow has now interlocked the two and trust continues to erode on what’s real versus what’s make believe (by virtue of the goldrush around gold). But hey, that’s show biz baby!

VIBES OF THE WEEK (AKA PHOTOS I TOOK)

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Subscribe now

ONE BRAND STRATEGY THING I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT

Brands should stop doing big planning cycles with big creative ideas, but instead build an incremental creative test and learn path towards doing their BIG IDEA. We’re no longer in a linear only communications ecosystem, and brands are leaving value on the table by planning like it’s still the 1990s.

Give this 100 second clip a listen as Eugene is speaking to a super power every brands should consider when it comes to 2026 brand creative that can get even more famous.

The tl;dr that I think can speak to the future of agencies & brand building (or right freaking now)

“Back is what the brand strategy plan for that brand now and how is it different than we traditionally used to plan. [We] first off is [need to] leave behind that idea of the like the big Ad, I think that's that's the first thing is like why a lot of these ad agencies are struggling is they still think about it like that.”

“Of interesting conversations [I am having] about what it means to bottom up brand build and inductively brand build rather than deductively. So rather than you spend months on developing a strategy, a persona and then 12 months from now you might get something out into the real world. Test propositions through creator marketing, test propositions through performance marketing and stuff that works in those contexts. Start to bring that upwards into a little bit more creative marketing, then maybe owned marketing and then you build the brand platform up against that. So you build it up through.”

^^That right there is how the smartest companies in the world are doing it^^.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

RECENT MOODS

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

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If you are new here, MF/TS is a newsletter focused slow living, Advertising, culture, and my life happenings (mostly running notes and photography) written by an optimistic advertising exec (that’s me)! 🤗 If can think of a friend who might dig this chili sauce, please share with it with them!

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Now that is out of the way, let’s summarize what we covered last week and dive into this week’s KNOWLEDGE DROP!

In last week’s dispatch we explored 1) who are the customers in the U.S. that matter most to companies and how best to connect with them, 2) wisdom on how to approach your life (showing up consistently), and 3) the thesis around Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity and how you might apply it to your own life.

In this week’s dispatch we’re learning how advertising really works, why new storytelling formats are getting more popular, and why young people are either going all in on being attention seeking grifters or alternative career paths.

1. THAT TIME I WENT LINKEDIN VIRAL (ADVERTISING WISDOM WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO)

Okay I didn’t go viral per se but nearly 300 people liked this post (tiny internet numbers but HUGE for little ol’ me), I tagged the GOAT who wrote this Les Binet, and he even responded in the comments section! My marketing geekdome went through the roof!

Some folks asked questions and Les chimed in with:

“Every word on that slide has been chosen very carefully.”

He also added

“Marketers who don’t understand that activation is largely about helping the shopper complete their mission are the ones that produce shitty, annoying spam. Think about your marketing from the perspective of the customer, not your own point of view. I like to think of good activation as a kind of customer service BEFORE the sale.”

For those of you who don’t know, Les has spent his career delivering the best Advertising research on how to get the most value out of marketing investments and creative efforts. He’s answered the biggest existential questions the Chief Marketing Officers will get and has solved much of the puzzle. He’s won more IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards than anyone else in the history of the competition.

When he says, every word has been chosen very carefully he’s telling us that those words are based on four decades of research. FOUR DECADES!! Some of his best reports (Long and Short of It, Effectiveness in Context, or Marketing in the Era of Accountability) are long term, multi-brand, multi-year studies. In short, they’re the truth in advertising when it comes to answering what kind of creative work and tactics drive the largest returns.

In my personal experience, it’s extraordinary how many people don’t know who Les is or don’t follow his research to bring discipline to the trade. Tag and save this for the next time someone wants to doubt the value of advertising or needs an explanation of what it’s for.

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2. GIVING BROOKLYN COFFE SHOP THEIR FLOWERS & THE NEW STORYTELLING FRANCHISES

“Created by Pooja Tripathi, a New York-based writer, producer, and performer, Brooklyn Coffee Shop is a satirical series that distills the internet’s most peculiar subcultures into tightly composed, hyperreal vignettes set in a fictional café.” - Disha Bijolia, Homegrown, June 6, 2025

Thoughts

This show is flat out hilarious. A little old meets new in that it’s great writing, the dialogue speaks to the state of (internet) culture today while being witty and fitting within the bite-size length requirements of the social entertainment feed, neatly packaged for "dwell time” behavior.

Gen-Z is mastering the art of storytelling in new formats for themselves and we love to see it.

“We saw how long it takes and how many hoops you have to jump through to get a TV show made, and we understood that instead of waiting for those things to happen, we could try making a TV show for social media and see what happens." - Pooja Tripathi

This reminds me a bit of of Subway Takes in it’s originality and it’s neatly, quick pacing back and forth packaged perfectly for the new attention spans that revolve around smartphone entertainment. While Subway Takes is a human on the street interview show, it’s packaged well and is coming into the feed consistently, a major key to building a show brand and following. Albeit niche, these shows bring a welcomed perspective in a world filled with performative / low quality entertainment.

Some brands are taking notice too, I see Dunkin’ Donuts sponsoring a lot of these type of Gen-Z programs, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t just make their own one shows like SaaS company ClickUp. The barrier of entry is low and the upside can be incredibly valuable. After all, the longer someone pays attention to a story/person/narrative, the more likely they’re to build a memories, and the more likely they are to consider that brand/product.

Nevertheless, I’m a huge fan of Brooklyn Coffee Shop and I don’t care what anyone says, the kids are alright.

3. BEST THING I READ THIS PAST WEEK ON YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE ECONOMY

“Across the U.S., young people tell me the same thing: They’re worried about jobs, but more important, they question whether the concept of a “career” will even exist in five years. They’re graduating into a Great Uncertainty, where traditional pathways to security are disappearing, affecting how they think about their entire economic future — from employment to homeownership to marriage to having kids.”

“To understand what’s happening, we need to understand two things: the attention economy and the real economy. But let me start with a very surreal moment that crystallized everything for me.” - The Attention Economy and Young People by Kyla Scanlon, August 8, 2025

Thoughts

Kyla is so good at understanding the internet and explaining how it relates to culture and the economy. She succinctly captures the moment, how it relates and shifts what we had understood about economics but is now different, and the culture (in this case young people) are responding to the overall economic climate and the world they see through their screens.

What happens when world of grifters are getting rich off of just monopolizing attention and a world where “the traditional” route towards a career (and security) doesn’t look as reliable as it once did? You can sign up for the grift/attention show online or pick up a trade. Her perspective wakes me up and breaks my bubble up in a good way and it might do the same for you.

I wish we had leaders and policy that actually responded positively to it so we could recalibrate correctly….speaking of which…

4. RECALIBRATION IS POSSIBLE

Don’t ever let anyone tell you change for the better isn’t possible. Jonathan Haidt shared this from a teacher in Alabama who is reacting the first day his students were in class without their phones thanks to a new law that was signed into the state of Alabama. Give it a listen here. The teacher asked out loud, was it that easy this entire time? YES CHEF IT IS THAT EASY. His students completed a lesson and after it was over, imagine this, they spoke to each other! I have never understood how or why schools allowed smartphones (or any technology for that matter) into the schools in the first place. 15 states have put this policy into action, but with 35 more states who don’t have this policy, there is clearly more work to be done.

VISUAL VIBES OF THE WEEK (AKA PHOTOS I TOOK)

Go forth.

Stay safe.

Ride the wave.

-Mitch

Subscribe now