In 2025, community building is about more than just sharing mutual interests
📰 NoGood News | Vol. 88
Hi NoGoodies,
Before we jump into another round of the NoGood News, here's a quick TL;DR of what's below:
Physical brand communities like wellness experiences are creating meaningful relationships
Read about how leveraging physical wellness experiences drives brand loyalty
Is it normal to DM your customers in the middle of the night?
Learn more about IKEA’s successful direct marketing campaign
Discoverability is not what it used to be
Join us at our SXSW event to learn about next-gen discoverability
Ready? Let's get into it.
🚴♀️ Physical brand communities like wellness experiences are creating meaningful relationships
Read about how leveraging physical wellness experiences drives brand loyalty
In the last decade, brands have leaned heavily into how technology can be a driving force in creating modern-day communities.
Online platforms became the primary medium for building and sustaining connections, replacing in-person interactions. In 2024, 76% of internet users actively participated in online communities, signaling a significant shift towards digital.
However, the pendulum is swinging back. D
Despite the convenience of digital platforms, people are recognizing the irreplaceable value of in-person connections.
Why is this shift important for brands in 2025?
By creating tangible experiences, brands can…
transform potential and current customers into loyal community members via anatomical benefits
tap into the psychology of social identity
nurture authentic relationships that digital platforms only scratch the surface of
🛏️ Is it normal to DM your customers in the middle of the night?
Learn more about IKEA’s successful direct marketing campaign for their mattresses
Can sliding into DM’s be a viable marketing strategy? 🤳
For IKEA — it was.
Between the hours of 10pm and 5am, IKEA DMed people a “u up?” text.
Some of those who responded were then rewarded with a free mattress. 🛏️
This DM campaign was a simple yet strategic way to double down on the pain points their audience faces.
It’s all about meeting the right people at the right time — and for IKEA that was between 10pm and 5am when people were struggling to fall asleep.
We’re also seeing a rise of brands using more of a playful and conversational tone of voice to better relate to their consumers. 🤝
Consumers today hate ads that feel like ads, meaning brands have to think of more creative ways to organically engage and provide value to consumers.
Creating relatability around the shared experience of insomnia helped IKEA win the right consumers over when their frustrations around sleep were most prominent.
What did you think of IKEA’s DM campaign?
🔍 Discoverability is not what it used to be
Join us at our SXSW event to learn about next-gen discoverability
Discoverability is not what it used to be.
The way consumers seek information has evolved — and their skepticism of brands is at an all-time high.
Customers no longer blindly trust the owned content that brands produce and share.
From Substack to TikTok, Reddit and ChatGPT, they seek content validated by trusted sources, creators and curators before selecting brands to engage with.
Lucky for you, SXSW is almost here!
Join us March 7th from 11:30AM to 12:30PM CT at JW Marriott, Salon FG to hear from our founder and CEO, Mostafa ElBermawy, as well as the speakers from Chime and Lucidlink, as they discuss how to build strategies for next-gen discoverability.
Key takeaways:
👉 Strategy building for discoverability
👉 Learn about community-driven search
👉 Enhance brand visibility, trust, and relevance
March is just around the corner so block off your calendar because you don’t want to miss this.
We can’t wait to see you there!
🎙️ Q&A with an expert
A bi-weekly interview series with the best in the game
Q: In your own words, how would you describe the 10X AI marketer?
A: In engineering, we often hear the term “10X engineer.” It’s usually used to describe a software engineer who is considered significantly more productive than their peers and performs at a level roughly ten times more effective than the average engineer. This concept was rarely applied to marketers but with the advent and integration of AI, marketers can supercharge and optimize their workflows for better outputs, faster. In short, 10X AI marketers get 10 times the results in a fraction of the time without doing 10 times the work themselves because ultimately, AI is doing the heavy lifting.
Q: What core concepts should 10X AI marketers master?
A: 10X AI marketers often master prompt engineering and know how to leverage AI agents and agents workflows. Prompt engineering is about speaking to an LLM in a way that elicits high-quality, relevant responses. The best AI marketers know how to specify the context, have chain of reasoning, and often push the AI to produce sharper content. AI marketers also know that LLMs can do more than answer questions—they can act as agents that handle tasks end to end. By wiring up an LLM to a database and knowledge system, you can create fully- or semi-automated workflows. These intelligent processes can be custom built to meet specific needs, reach certain goals, or provide defined outputs.
✍️ We wish we wrote this
A curated list of the past 2 weeks’ must-read articles:
The unternet is currently in its TMI era where oversharing becomes ‘lore’
Did The White Lotus go overkill on their brand partnerships?
The world of cinema is being destroyed — thanks to Netflix
👀 Keeping up on the socials
Because we know you like to stay in the know:
Hatch threw shade at Apple in an OOH campaign
If the office was Love is Blind
The Apple Vision Pro was a huge flop but why?
Was it the right move for Jaguar to change their logo?
🔥 Trend Radar: Blow up or fall behind
The trending topics, sounds, and formats to key and eye on:
Everyone is talking about hyperpigmentation
Babies at their first hibachi is the funniest thing ever
Showing brain rot pictures to the elderly and strangers
🚀 Ready to meet your NoGood partner?
Tell us where you are and where you want to be — and we’ll help get you there.