Hi NoGoodies,
We get it, you’re busy. So here’s our weekly digest to catch you up on all of the marketing news you may have missed this past week...
YouTube says the mainstream just got redefined
YouTube’s newest Culture & Trends report argues shared culture just relocated, with it now living on channels with 500 million-plus subscribers instead of TV or old-school mass media. Reach is no longer the hardest metric to earn, but instead actually being understood is the new gap.
IKEA fixes Skyrim’s 15-year-old clutter problem
IKEA and agency Mother built KALLAX Storageborn into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a free companion voiced by Matt Berry that fixes the game’s long-mocked “over-encumbrance” mechanic with unlimited storage and auto-loot. Rather than just placing the brand in-game, IKEA turned its storage expertise into an actual mechanic, complete with a summonable Dragon Shout and a boss fight against a “Clutter Golem.”
Old Navy’s MrBeast partnership boosts back-to-school engagement
Old Navy tapped MrBeast for its back-to-school campaign as Gap leadership doubles down on creators as the primary driver of cultural relevance, with early engagement outperforming past seasonal pushes for the brand, which has been trying to break a sales slump.
Apple launched iPhone Duo. Then it got hijacked by Samsung and Duolingo
Apple unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the $1,999 iPhone Duo, at a September 9 event. The name handed Duolingo an easy joke, and Samsung piled on with mock “solidarity” over Apple copying its Galaxy Fold; Duolingo clapped back, calling Samsung an “ugly stranger” claiming it as a twin. The exchange outperformed Apple’s own keynote in social conversation, and Duolingo’s stock reportedly dipped nearly 5% that day.
Ramp brings back the corporate Broadway musical, this time for accounts payable
Ramp, a corporate card and spend management platform, is staging “Bill Pay The Musical,” a real one-night Broadway show about accounts payable at the Broadhurst Theatre on September 25, starring Billy Porter and free with RSVP for CFOs. It’s a nod to a real tradition: GE, Ford, Xerox, and Chevrolet all staged Broadway-style musicals for sales teams from the ‘50s through the ‘80s. Co-CEO Eric Glyman calls it a revival, arguing B2B marketing lost its nerve somewhere along the way.
Sydney Sweeney’s nude sports betting ad sparks backlash from Olympians.
Sydney Sweeney’s ad for sports prediction market Novig, where she’s an equity partner, has her posing nude across four sports, covered only by footballs, hockey sticks, and basketball hoops, with the tagline “Novig is just sports.” Female Olympians called it a “mockery” of women in sport, with boxer Skye Nicolson drawing a line between “looking sexy because you do sport” and “using sex to sell sport.”
Anthropic’s CEO calls for the industry to “pace the frontier.”
Dario Amodei published a plan for slowing AI development, calling for third-party evaluators embedded inside frontier labs, coordinated safety standards among Western AI companies, and cautious cooperation with China on high-risk uses like bioweapons. Anthropic is committing to the evaluator model unilaterally, and Sam Altman said OpenAI will follow suit. The post comes days after an Anthropic researcher publicly resigned, warning that leading AI companies are “gambling with our lives.”
Any other news we may have missed? Let us know in the comments!