startup-brand

Škoda Turned the Tour de France's Penis Graffiti Into Free Media

Škoda and agency FCB London spent this year's Tour de France converting the crude graffiti that gets scrawled across the race route into stencilled artwork promoting the Tour de France Femmes, all under the hashtag #WatchTheFemmes. The stunt borrows a broadcast audience that Škoda pegs at roughly 3.

Noble Mobile Turned "Use Us Less" Into Its Entire Growth Strategy

Noble Mobile, the wireless carrier founded by Andrew Yang, just bundled the minimalist Light Phone III into a plan that pays customers up to $5 for every gigabyte of data they do not use. The product mechanic is the marketing. Instead of bidding for a slice of someone's

Claude Won a Cannes Grand Prix for an Ad About Not Running Ads

Anthropic's Claude won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2026 for two Super Bowl spots that mocked AI chatbots steering people toward ads. The campaign ran the same week OpenAI started slipping sponsored cards under ChatGPT answers, and it helped push Claude's app from No.

When to Start Brand Marketing (Most Startups Wait Too Long)

Most startups treat brand marketing as a switch they flip after Series A. That timing is wrong in both directions. The cheap part of brand work has no reason to wait, and the expensive part should wait for a measurable signal instead of a funding round. The real trigger to

StreetEasy Took 2046 Reservations and Quietly Built a 20-Year Customer File

StreetEasy launched Reserve Your Future on May 20, 2026, letting New Yorkers book reservations dated 20 years out at 12 NYC venues including Russ & Daughters, the Guggenheim, and Playwrights Horizons. The campaign marks the platform's 20th anniversary and ships every booking with a verified name, email, and

Brand Voice Development: A Framework for Teams, Not Just Founders

A brand voice framework only works if it survives the handoff from founder to team. Most fail because they describe how the founder sounds rather than giving writers a repeatable way to produce that sound. The fix is operational, not philosophical: rules, examples, and exclusion lists, graded on every piece

Oscar Mayer Used a 500K Wiener Sales Lift to Re-Up the Wienie 500

Oscar Mayer's first Wienie 500 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2025 sold nearly 500,000 more wieners year over year, drew 85,000 fans in person, and pulled 8 million viewers across Fox and social. Kraft Heinz used that sales delta to greenlight a bigger 2026 race