The Subthread

@index.thesubthread.com.ap.brid.gy

Insight for those shaping what’s next 🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://www.thesubthread.com/, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

1 followers0 following60 stories

Longform Stories

Can Bluesky Rebuild the Foundations of Social Media?

As trust in big social platforms keeps eroding further, Bluesky continues to build a new kind of social infrastructure: open protocols, portable identities and community‑run feeds where scientists and…

2d ago·1 min read·106 words

If You Don’t Understand People, AI Won’t Save You

When AI is everywhere, the brands that win won’t be the most data‑rich, but the ones that spot unmet needs before the dashboards do.

5d ago·2 min read·217 words

Why Speed, Scale and Trust Will Decide the Future of Agencies

In a market where competitive advantage barely lasts a year, agencies are being pushed to behave like tech companies but without losing the one thing technology can’t replicate: trust.

Jun 2·1 min read·143 words

How Notion Turns Its Superfans into a Community-Led Marketing Engine

From SXSW coffee shops to AI agents with personality, Notion’s EMEA marketing lead Áine Dundas is building a brand that hands the mic to its users and lets them co-create what comes next.

May 28·1 min read·156 words

Why Founders Are Building Their Brands in Public

A new wave of founders are turning product development, missteps and everyday decisions into a live feed for social in order to forge deeper brand loyalty from the get go. But what do they need to be …

May 27·1 min read·121 words

Where Do Brand Leaders Go for Inspiration?

For the first season of Brandmakers, Hannah Bowler spoke to leaders across some of today's innovative brands, such as Notion, Zalando and Pinterest. During each interview she asked where the brand mar…

May 26·2 min read·239 words

How Dance Dance Revolution Rewired Pop Music (and Perhaps Invented Our Adaptive Future)

There is a direct line from a sweaty mall arcade in 2001 to the hyper-saturated pop landscape of 2026 that we haven’t acknowledged properly yet, writes MassiveMusic’s Roger Sho Gehrmann.

May 25·1 min read·168 words

The Most Radical Move in Marketing: Make People Feel Alive

Make people feel alive, not numb: Nishma Patel Robb explains why joyful, human marketing beats slop, and how brands can rediscover the connection they have with their audience.

May 23·1 min read·135 words

The Internet is Too Generic by Design

What happens to your brand when most people never visit your website again? In a recent talk, R/GA’s executive creative director Rob Northam argued that the internet we’ve been designing for is built …

May 21·2 min read·206 words

Why Brompton's CMO is Pushing Back Against Content Landfill

While many brands are starting to act as publishers, one brand is taking the opposite approach. Worried about adding to a constant stream of brand noise, Brompton’s marketing boss is betting on fewer,…

May 18·1 min read·137 words

Branded Entertainment’s Second Act

Branded entertainment didn't live up to the early hype. Now, with ad performance dropping off and entertainment financing under strain, brands and producers are starting to look for each other once mo…

May 13·1 min read·132 words

People Didn’t Reject the Metaverse, They Rejected Zuck's Version of It

The metaverse was supposed to be the future. Then, almost as quickly as it arrived, it fizzled out. Did it die or did it evolve?

May 12·1 min read·178 words

Hold Your Nerve: Why CMOs Win by Doing Less, Better

In an era of fragmented media, brands are tempted to be everywhere at once. Pandora's marketing director Stephanie Legg argues for doing fewer things better. Here she discusses Schuh’s fight to regain…

May 8·1 min read·52 words

Belonging is Sport’s Blind Spot

Sport talks a big game about passion, but its real growth edge sits with the almost-fans: people drawn in by stories, moments and culture, writes creative brand strategist Sofia Amburgey.

May 7·1 min read·35 words

Brandmakers with James Rothwell, Senior Vice President Marketing at Zalando

Zalando’s James Rothwell on how a retailer learns to think like a publisher, why content and entertainment sit at the centre of its next chapter, and what it takes to turn a fashion platform into a br…

May 5·1 min read·49 words

Brandmakers with Stephanie Legg, Director of Marketing at Pandora

Pandora’s Stephanie Legg on doing fewer things better, rebuilding a brand's cultural equity, and why being a CMO can be quite isolating.

Apr 30·1 min read·31 words

How Mailchimp’s ‘Expert Absurdist’ Studio Keeps Creativity Weird

From a monkey postcard to a full-blown “maker space”, Intuit Mailchimp’s in-house studio Wink treats creativity as a business multiplier and isn’t afraid to get a little strange in the process.

Apr 29·1 min read·39 words

A Brand That Thinks

A brand has always been a static thing. But now, as AI matures, agencies and brands are experimenting with “brand brains” that turn decades of explicit and tacit knowledge into something teams can act…

Apr 27·1 min read·52 words

How a Broadcaster Builds a Modern Brand in a Streaming World

ITV knows it can’t out-Netflix Netflix. Instead, the brand and marketing team at the broadcaster are betting on a sense of belonging: truly British, deeply relatable shows that give its audiences the …

Apr 23·1 min read·62 words

How Sports Partnerships are Evolving: From Logos on Shirts to the Group Chat

Modern sports sponsorships are shifting from logos on shirts to culture‑first partnerships. In a packed Soho pub, Chivas Regal, Snapchat and a Premier League club discussed how brands can build storie…

Apr 22·1 min read·60 words

Brandmakers with Jeremy Jones, Global Head of Creative at Intuit Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s Jeremy Jones on building an in-house creative team that always remains curious.

Apr 21·1 min read·24 words

Why Brands Need to Start Acting Like Creators

As audiences show they tire of overtly promotional posts, brands are learning to think like creators. They show up in the comments, build fan pages and invest in longer-form stories that feel more lik…

Apr 20·1 min read·48 words

Don’t Become an Onion: How Great Brands Win When Voice and AI do the Shopping

When shopping becomes a process that requires the buyer just to express a single sentence, only the brands that we can actually name will survive. Here’s how to become that default brand... before the…

Apr 17·1 min read·54 words

Why Netflix Doesn’t Need to Own Live Sport

Netflix is quietly rewriting the rules of sports media – swapping expensive rights and endless fixtures for scarce, high-impact moments that behave more like cultural premieres than TV slots, and givi…

Apr 16·1 min read·48 words

From Vanity Metrics to Sanity Metrics: Why Social’s Real Wins Don’t Show Up on a Slide

A quiet manifesto for marketers who’ve fallen out of love with big numbers, and want to measure what actually sticks, such as the saves, shares and small corners of the internet where fandom, not reac…

Apr 14·1 min read·55 words

Brandmakers with Paul Ridsdale, Director of Brand & Marketing at ITV

Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music Watch on YouTube And we're back, this week the Brandmakers podcast dives into the world of ITV, a major UK broadcaster and content studio reaching millio…

Apr 13·1 min read·95 words

The End of the User Journey: Why the Future of Experience is a Conversation

As we move towards intelligence you can talk to, and a world where the interface breaks free from the screen, designers need to rethink their approach. The next era of design isn’t about making better…

Apr 13·1 min read·54 words

What the Training Data Can’t See

How dyslexia, neurodivergence, and a sideways way of seeing the world become an advantage in an AI era obsessed with speed, compliance, and clean answers.

Apr 10·1 min read·31 words

Pinterest’s Louder, Bolder Bet: Culture-Led Marketing and Real-World Creation

After two decades of growth, Pinterest is stepping into the cultural spotlight – doubling down on experiential activations, product differentiation, and moments where the platform has a legitimate rol…

Apr 7·1 min read·43 words

When Community Sits Upstream: How Elf Turns Social Signals Into Products

Elf Cosmetics is rebuilding its innovation pipeline around social media. The beauty brand treats fans as co-creators and has made the traditional lengthy path from feedback to product disappear, turni…

Apr 6·1 min read·48 words

Brandmakers with Louise Foley, Director of Marketing, Europe at Pinterest

Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music Watch on YouTube Welcome back, it's week three of the Brandmakers podcast, and Hannah is joined this week by Louise Foley, who is director of marketing, …

Apr 2·1 min read·93 words

Sport as the Operating System for Culture

Sport has stopped being just a sponsorship channel and has slowly but surely become the operating system for culture. Leagues, brands and athletes can all win if they treat every fan touchpoint as par…

Apr 1·1 min read·58 words

From Cost Centre to Growth Engine: How AI Has Pushed Creativity Center Stage

Thanks to AI we’re moving to one-to-one advertising. The catch is, it only works if you can produce and iterate enough distinct creative for the machines to find the right ad for the right person at t…

Mar 30·1 min read·64 words

Mattel’s IP Play: How The Toymaker Is Turning Into an Entertainment Powerhouse

Hannah Bowler dives into Mattel’s slow, deliberate shift from selling toys to building franchises – and asks its head of licensing and partnerships, Ruth Henriquez, about the decision of betting on fa…

Mar 27·1 min read·55 words

Has The Word ‘Trend’ Lost Its Meaning?

Everyone’s chasing social “trends”, but the word has become shorthand for fads when it was meant for something deeper and more strategic. Industry insiders say it’s time to retire the term altogether,…

Mar 24·1 min read·163 words

Designing The Future We Actually Want

If we can’t picture the 22nd century, we can’t build it. Here’s how creative teams, brands and foresight thinkers can swap a commonly shared abstract and dystopian view of the future for something wor…

Mar 23·1 min read·42 words

Culture Isn’t a Channel: Jägermeister’s Kea Kleihauer on Earning Relevance

Brands can’t buy their way into culture. Jägermeister’s global head of culture and experiential, Kea Kleihauer, argues the case for usefulness and long‑term community investment over KPIs and quick wi…

Mar 20·1 min read·40 words

From Worldbuilding to World Belonging: What Animal Crossing can Teach Brand Experiences

A cozy island game where nothing much happens has quietly become a masterclass in building worlds people actually want to spend their time in. Here’s what brands can learn from games like Animal Cross…

Mar 19·1 min read·53 words

Why ‘Friction-Maxxing’ Is Catching On and Why Brands Are Starting to Care

From Polaroids to perfume stores with no websites, a cultural shift is pushing back against relentless convenience. As consumers add friction back into their lives, strategists and brands are explorin…

Mar 18·1 min read·52 words

When Results Don’t Matter: What Fandom Teaches Brands About Loyalty

From relegation scraps to exploding phones, the strongest fandoms aren’t built on wins but on identity, belonging and a story people are proud to stay part of.

Mar 17·1 min read·37 words

Why Creator Investors Are Becoming Football’s New Distribution Partners

KSI’s minority stake in Dagenham & Redbridge is the latest sign that celebrity ownership is changing how lower-league clubs grow. In this week’s issue: the rise of creator-backed football clubs, New B…

Mar 10·1 min read·51 words

Love’s Weird: Why Imperfect Brands Win Deeper Affection

In a culture hooked on scroll-stopping tricks, the real competitive edge for brands isn’t understanding and playing into the algorithm, it’s about being brave enough to lean into a niche, be a bit wei…

Mar 9·1 min read·47 words

Why Visual Social Listening Is The Next Frontier For Brands

With an increasingly visual-first internet, brands still obsessed with text-based social listening risk missing the real signals hiding in images, videos, and the emotions they capture.

Mar 7·1 min read·36 words

Winning the World Cup Before Kick‑Off

Brands may chase the magic of a World Cup moment, but the real wins will go to marketers who design their creative and media to work together in the feed, long before the first whistle.

Mar 3·1 min read·41 words

When AI Starts Selling, What Happens To Trust?

For many AI chatbots feel closer to confidants than simple search tools. As they start recommending products and slotting in sponsored answers, the real question isn’t only whether we trust what they’…

Mar 3·1 min read·56 words

Revenge Of Millennial Cringe: How Brands Can Grow Up With Their Fans

As Millennials’ “cringe” era loops back into cool, brands face a harder question: not how to stay young forever, but how to stay culturally legit while their fans grow up – and a new generation wants …

Mar 3·1 min read·53 words

Why the NFL Is a Masterclass in Winning New Fans

A century-old American institution is learning to win hearts in markets with no history, no marching bands and no generational loyalties – by building fandom from the ground up, one digital touchpoint…

Mar 2·1 min read·45 words

What Real Community Looks Like (And How to Build It)

“Community” is on every marketer's deck right now, but most brands are just renaming their audience strategy. Here’s a more honest – and more hopeful – way to think about audience, fandom and communit…

Feb 25·1 min read·49 words

Football Isn’t Just the 90 Minutes Anymore: 3 Signals for 2026

If you care about how brands show up around big cultural moments, this summer’s World Cup is going to be a stress test. Not just for creative work, but for how well we understand what football actuall…

Feb 24·1 min read·53 words

Innovation Is a Mindset, Not a Process

Creativity used to be about chasing ideas worth talking about. Now, as tech eats the word “innovation,” Wayne Deakin and Jeff Bowerman argue that real progress still comes from wandering minds, bold e…

Feb 19·1 min read·46 words

Scaling Smart: Why Creative Teams Shouldn’t Produce Just Because They Can

Two creative leaders share how they’re chasing growth, experimenting with AI, and still saying no to work that only adds to the noise.

Feb 16·1 min read·34 words

Where Have All The Humans Gone? The Retreat Of Customer Service

As brands rush to automate every interaction, the ones worth trusting are quietly rediscovering the power of human interactions.

Feb 14·1 min read·30 words

Lock In for Content, Stay for Community

As subscriptions saturate everyday life, the brands that win don't just sell services but instead build flexible, emotionally resonant communities that people are proud to belong to.

Feb 9·1 min read·34 words

Why Brand Trust Is Needed Now More Than Ever

In a noisy, AI-saturated world, trust is the most important metric deciding which brands still get through.

Feb 6·1 min read·26 words

In Search of Innovation: What Good Leadership Really Looks Like

Innovation rarely fails because the ideas aren’t there. It fails because teams don’t have time, safety, or a clear “why.” Here’s what I’ve learned about leadership from the people who actually make ro…

Feb 4·1 min read·55 words

Brands Can't Be Neutral

As brands rush to “be in culture,” many still cling to the safety of neutrality – but you can’t have the reach of culture without accepting its consequences. If you want real emotional connection, you…

Feb 2·1 min read·44 words

Fashion, Cultural Fluency and What Comes Next

A wave of January announcements hints at the next phase of sponsorship: sport as a space for relevance, identity, and cultural weight rather than just audience size.

Jan 28·1 min read·34 words

‘Human-Made’: The Premium Worth Paying For?

As brands split their spend between premium, human-made showpieces and cheap, AI-generated volume, a new question emerges: what happens to the creative work in the middle – and how should agencies rea…

Jan 27·1 min read·38 words

Creative Director Camille Chu on Brand Craft in the AI Age

Buck’s Camille Chu on scrappy beginnings, brand systems, pragmatic AI – and why a bit of discomfort is the shortest route to real brand growth.

Jan 22·1 min read·36 words

The Digital Recalibration: The Rebirth of The Indie Internet

A quiet revolt against Big Social’s optimized sameness: why people are retreating from performative feeds into smaller, human rooms. This is where brands can only earn trust by participating, and the …

Jan 9·1 min read·50 words