It’s Creative Rebellion Month. We’re past the halfway mark in 2025, and we need to keep our creative MOJO intact to stay ahead.

The Blindingly Obvious Moment

Did you miss me? I sure missed writing these.
Confession time: I fell off my own marketing wagon. That last issue was shit! I spent two days on data, built a new format, leaned too much on ChatGPT and delivered my worst edition ever.

So I hit pause with the newsletter, LinkedIn and even the Connected Festival. Then I sat through a Mighty Networks cert and got slapped with a truth so obvious it hurt:

Blindingly Obvious Moment:

Marketing only feels complicated when we forget we’re talking to humans.
I did just that, my bad. But I am back with an overhaul. 

Quick favour before we dive in:
It’s a few minutes of your time to tell me what you really want, and it will shape every future issue take the survey so this lands exactly where you need it.

Need a reboot of your own?
Grab the five-minute Marketing First-Aid Kit, the same checklist that dragged me out of the clouds and back to giving you a boost every Wednesday.

Shamsia Hassan is a Kabul-born, spray-can poet of women’s resilience. She blasts bullet-scarred walls with dream-drenched murals of Afghan women, eyes closed but anything but silent. Each stroke is a message of survival, and a two-finger salute to anyone who’d paint them out.

Here’s What We’re Talking About Today:

👉 P.S. Did a friend send this your way? Sign up for free here.

Audience Insights & Future Trends: Creative Rebellion

This month’s theme, Creative Rebellion, is a rally cry to yank marketing back to its human core. Quick reality check:

• 80% of marketers are stuck in imposter mode

• 60% feel overwhelmed (Marketing Week)

• Budgets shrink while AI hype balloons

• Roughly 40% of ad spend still lands on bots and blank stares
  

I’m done letting that slide. So I boiled thirty years into one repeatable model; the secret sauce is you don’t need big ad budgets to make an impact and connecting these steps rather than departmentalising them is what counts.

Here’s why this matters: in a world of ever-shifting tactics and AI distractions, you need one simple, repeatable path that keeps you focused on real human connection, every single week.

The Connected Audience Flywheel

Gather: Real experiences that build trust

Capture: Stories that spark conversation

Engage: Media where your audience actually live

Connect: Community over rented reach

That’s another BOM, I am passing to you, it’s worked for brands like Virgin, Twitter, and Ericsson and I would like to invite you to continue to develop it with me. More on that later. 

Case Study: BERO Earns the Badge

Why I Chose This:

Spider-Man goes sober; the category wakes up. Tom Holland’s Dry Jan → Dry Life journey wasn’t just personal; it powered a fully connected launch for BERO, three premium non-alcoholic brews.

BERO’s Trans-Atlantic Power Serve

Challenge: Break into a crowded North American shelf and feel at home on both sides of the pond, with a start-up budget and one very famous founder.

Gather: Experience First

Rather than hiding behind PowerPoint, BERO took the product to people; real, vibrant experiences that built trust on the spot.

• Wimbledon pop-up in Covent Garden: branded merch and icy cans for the first 100 fans.

• BERO Padel Classic in London: Stormzy, Andy Murray and Anthony Joshua swapping rackets for cans.

• LA Cinespia drop at outdoor movie night: Holland himself poured beers; human connection > celebrity cameo.

Capture: Story Over Specs

Every piece of press and social content led with Holland’s sober-curious origin:

“I missed beer, so I built a better one.”

No ingredient lists up frontjust the human hook. At each event, Shopify POS and QR codes collected first-party data (emails and “Find Us” map opt-ins) to fuel ongoing conversations.

Engage: Focused Media (Go Where Your Audience Lives)

BERO didn’t silo media or treat PR as its own island. They wove content across the exact channels their targets inhabit, sparking word-of-mouth and shareable social moments:

• Ambassador scheme & flavor votes: superfans got surprise drops via email and TikTok, turning newsletter opens into social buz

• Design nerds discovered sleek can art on Dieline and Instagram carousels.

• Pop-culture fans landed on the Zendaya cameo via People stories and TikTok edits.

• Business press got the market-shift narrative in Forbes and LinkedIn thought pieces.

All of this crescendoed in a 1,400-store Target rollout during peak Dry-Jan chatter—so whether someone saw a TikTok clip, scrolled a newsletter, or walked past a cart, the hype was everywhere at once.

Connect: Community in Beta

Early adopters tagged #BeroMoments; from weddings and agency happy hours to sober raves. Behind the scenes, a “Dry Club” hub is brewing, complete with recipes, meet-ups and monthly challenges.

What You Can Steal

• Pop-up first: IRL energy beats algorithms every time.

• Lead with why: your human story always trumps a spec sheet.

• Sync media to culture: tailor each angle to the channel your audience actually uses.

• Build a club: turn buyers into community from Day One.
  

Key takeaway: Brand around humans, and your impact multiplies; fun, cost-efficient and unforgettable.

Behind the Scenes: Why I chose Community over Agency

For years I believed building challenger agencies would cure the imposter syndrome and kill the stress. Spoiler: they didn’t.

You can’t pitch your way out of a broken system. Walk into a boardroom full of overwhelmed marketers and no one’s listening, they’re mid-scroll, mid-panic, mid-AI overload.

We don’t need another pitch deck. We need a place to reset, swap notes and build differently. That’s Audience101.

Mood Board: Source Spotlight

👉 Call-to-Action

1. ✍️ Shape what comes next This newsletter only matters if it meets you where you are. Take 2 minutes to steer the next edition → Take the Survey

2. 💥 Join the Challenger100: Go from overwhelmed to in-control. Real talk with Source Members, monthly festivals, and no-BS marketing skills that actually move the needle. First 100 shape the future → Apply Now

Don’t just scroll past; this is your place to test, grow, and finally ditch the imposter feeling. Come build the rebellion!