Notes from
the studio.
Strategy and brand insights, plus the operating system behind modern marketing teams. Written by the studio for people building ambitious companies. No marketing podcast clichés, no “10 tips” lists.
- 02 Brand Anyone can say it now. Proof is the position. When AI can generate a plausible version of any claim, and every rival promises the same outcome in the same words, assertions stop persuading. What is left is evidence a buyer can inspect. Sept 2026 · 6 min Read story
- 03 Studio The founder is the cheapest channel you own Before anyone trusts your logo, they trust a person. Early on the founder is the most efficient distribution and credibility a company has. Here is how to spend that without becoming the single point of failure. Sept 2026 · 6 min Read story
- 04 Strategy The funnel is a fiction The tidy awareness-to-conversion funnel does not describe how anyone actually buys. Buying is non-linear, mostly invisible, and largely decided before a buyer identifies themselves. Two consequences for the person holding the budget. Sept 2026 · 6 min Read story
- 05 Brand Competence is now free. Taste isn't. When generative AI makes competent design, copy and campaigns effectively free and infinite, the whole category drifts toward the same mean. The scarce, defensible asset becomes distinctiveness, and the taste to enforce it. Sept 2026 · 7 min Read story
- 06 Strategy The 95% you aren't selling to At any moment only about 5% of your buyers are ready to purchase. The other 95% decide who to buy from long before they are in the market. Most growth-stage companies spend as if the reverse were true. Sept 2026 · 7 min Read story
- 07 Digital The answer engine is your new homepage Buyers now ask an AI and get one answer with a handful of citations. If you are not one of them you do not exist, and unlike SEO you cannot game your way onto the list. Here is what actually earns the cite. Aug 2026 · 7 min Read story
- 08 Strategy Strategy is the product A logo on its own can't change a market. A campaign on its own can't change a buyer. The thing that compounds is the strategic decision behind both, and whether the work in market is faithful to it. Apr 2026 · 4 min Read story
- 09 Brand Why brand is a budget line, not a vibe Most finance teams can tell you what they paid for cloud compute to two decimal places. Ask the same team what they spent on brand and the answer is a shrug. That shrug is the problem. Mar 2026 · 4 min Read story
- 10 Process Audit before you art-direct There's a kind of agency pitch that arrives in week three with eight visual directions and zero questions answered. It is theatre. The work that performs starts somewhere far less photogenic. Feb 2026 · 4 min Read story
- 11 Studio The case for a smaller agency The agency org chart is a confession. Read the boxes and you can predict the work before the kickoff call. Jan 2026 · 5 min Read story
- 12 Strategy What every Series B should fix before scaling brand The week after the round closes, the marketing budget triples. The same week, the four cracks that brand spend can't paper over also triple in size. Dec 2025 · 6 min Read story
- 13 Process The Growth Lifecycle, fully annotated A long-form walkthrough of the six-stage process we run on every engagement. What each stage is, what tends to break it, and the line in the sand we draw before moving on. Nov 2025 · 9 min Read story
- 14 Brand Why most rebrands fail (and the three that don't) A new logo can cost a company three quarters of growth. Sometimes it is worth it. Usually it is not, because the rebrand is solving the wrong problem. Oct 2025 · 6 min Read story
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