A24's marketing for The Materialists rage baited every man in NYC - and they fell for it
📰 NoGood News | Vol. 96
Hi NoGoodies 👋
Welcome to NoGood news where we talk about all things marketing — the good and not so good.
In case you missed it, the Materialists movie by A24 had the internet divided, but they got one thing right — their marketing strategy. From OOH ads to height measuring boards in theaters, Materialists knew how to make their movie a hit.
Ads are out, branded entertainment is in. As the impact of traditional advertising decreases, more brands are tapping into newer formats to capture audiences’ attention. The brands who succeed are ones who can tell a good story.
News flash: product-led growth is the new sales-led growth. As technology advances, scalability is now offered at a fraction of the cost.
Enough for the TL;DR, let's jump into it.
The Materialists collaboration with the NYSE rage-baited every man in NYC
Are we witnessing the death of advertisements?
Product-led strategies are replacing sales
Ready? Let's get into it.
📈 The Materialists OOH ad rage-baited every man in NYC stocks
Hear about A24’s OOH ad for Materialists
Sex sells, and A24 knows it.
But not in the way you expect it to.
Materialists by A24 is set to release this week and they dropped the biggest OOH stunt this year.
Find your NYC match with the New York Stock Exchange.
In a live interactive website, men can enter information about themselves, similar to a dating profile, and find out if they are worth investing in.
Whether it’s their height, income, or lack of hair, all these qualities add up to low or high stock numbers.
Creating a website to promote a movie is one thing, but teaming up with the New York Stock Exchange is another.
OOH ads are being challenged to step outside of the box.
And A24 took their marketing strategy one step further.
Marketing that is interactive and user-driven builds hype, especially if it makes customers feel like they’re a part of the experience.
Materialists is set up in NYC with the main character owning a matchmaking company.
Not only does this tie back perfectly to the movie’s plot, it allows for excited viewers to interact with the world of what Materialists is about.
OOH ads are getting more creative by the day with brands figuring out how to get their customers involved in their marketing efforts.
What are your thoughts on the Materialists stunt?
👀 Are we witnessing the death of advertisements?
Read about the evolution of branded entertainment
Branded entertainment taps into this timeless tradition, placing brands in the narrative before the marketplace. It’s a fusion that doesn’t disrupt. Brands that craft content or experiences that subtly inject their values, product, or mission into mediums that people search to watch, play, read, or listen to.
Formats where branded entertainment come to life
Podcasts: An intimate, trust-building format, perfect for brands that want to share detailed insights, values, or human stories over time.
Mini-Series & Films: Long-form narratives give brands space to go deep, emotionally, culturally and creatively.
Social-First Shows: On platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, episodic storytelling is allowing brands to engage in fast, culture-savvy ways.
Webtoons & Comics: For brands with rich story worlds or character-led narratives, visual storytelling formats can build cult-like fandoms over time.
Docu-Style Storytelling: They create an emotional resonance that feels more like journalism than marketing with real stories, real people, and real impact.
Games & Interactive Content: They build immersive experiences orchestrated by the brand as a world users are welcomed into.
🔍 Product-led strategies are replacing sales
Learn from our complete guide on PLG strategies
Traditionally, SaaS and digital products required a robust sales team, generally supplemented by a healthy marketing budget, to produce growth at scale.
Then product-led growth entered the scene, offering scalability at a fraction of the cost.
PLG is an approach where the product itself serves as the primary driver of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
What are the 4 PLG strategies?
Market penetration: We can sum up market penetration as acquiring more users or customers in your existing market.
Market development: If you’ve reached your original total addressable market and want to expand, you can try to reach new markets with your current product—presuming the fit makes sense.
Product development: If your product lacks a key feature that competitors use to close deals or expand usage, introduce new features or add-ons that drive upsells and retention can push your user base up.
Diversification: While this step may require the most effort, it should mean you’ve already maxed out your market penetration, market development, or product development efforts.
🎙️ Q&A with an expert
A bi-weekly interview series with the best in the game
Q: How should brands balance storytelling with brand presence to avoid feeling too “advertorial”?
A: We’re seeing a growing wave of brands building their entire presence around storytelling and aspirational lifestyle content, making brand values, not products, the core driver of engagement. This approach has proven effective in cultivating highly engaged communities. For established brands, pulling back on advertorial content and instead focusing on messaging that delivers value, motivation, or speaks directly to the audience’s pain points can deepen connection and strengthen brand affinity. As screen time continues to rise, so does content and advertising fatigue across all generations.
To break through, branded content must deliver intriguing entertainment or educational value, without feeling transactional or self-serving. If it doesn’t offer something meaningful to the viewer upfront, it risks being instantly scrolled past. Attention is the most valuable currency in today’s economy. Competition is no longer direct competitors, it’s endless doom scroll, and if your brand can't show up authentically across different mediums, it'll be look over.
Q: As more brands create entertaining content, do you think this strategy will become overdone and feel more like a marketing play?
A: While branded entertainment is gaining momentum, there’s potential for oversaturation as more brands adopt this strategy. However, the content that will feel tired or overly promotional will be the stories that lack emotional depth or authenticity. Brands that break through will be the ones showing up where audiences already are, offering compelling, emotionally resonant stories that feel worth looking for and engaging with.
✍️ We wish we wrote this
Articles that caught our eye these past 2 weeks:
Shopify completely blew off UX design
Waiting in line for a Labubu lasted longer than Labubu’s meme coin
Shutterstock rebranded thanks to AI
👀 Keeping up on the socials
Because IYKYK is better than FOMO:
The pro-aging era is finally here
Rhode’s glazing mist holder is the next best thing to their phone case
Did Addison Rae successfully rebrand from TikTok star to celebrity?
This is Apple’s riskiest commercial yet
🔥 Trend Radar: Blow up or fall behind
The trending topics, sounds, and formats to key and eye on:
keep your head turned around while stating a red flag, then turn your head back and say, “who said that?”
person 1 introduces person 2’s collection and says to be nice, then person 2 presents while person 1 makes faces at the camera
includes 3 overlay texts: your age, what you get “drunk” on, and your guilty pleasure
Something to take the edge off
overlay text: “just something to take the edge off” with your guilty pleasure item in hand
🚀 Ready to meet your NoGood partner?
Tell us where you are and where you want to be — and we’ll help get you there.