Eugene Healey | Brand/Culture (@eugbrandstrat)

One year in, let’s do an introduction 🎤 A little about me, what I do for work, and what we can do together. This one’s for those of you interested in the ideology that informs my content, lecturing, consulting and speaking practice. #marketing #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #brandmarketing

It's time to de-optimise. The microtrends we're seeing right now - the death of the optimised Instagram face, or the so-called analog revival, or cigarettes coming back in - are not so much hedonism as a rejection of the economy's broken promise that treating your body well means the world will treat you well in return. Pinterest's shift to become a platform that "Designs the Exit" and Coinbase's now iconic "Your Way Out" ad are both examples of how brands are responding with their own promises to help people catch a break. -- Follow @eugbrandstrat for more insights on how brands can effectively navigate modern digital spaces.

Friction in the idea. None in the action. Today: why I think @manychat is one of the most useful tools for social marketers right now - how it keeps attention on your message by making audience action effortless. #ManychatPartner

Hard work no longer pays off. What happens now? Today: predicting the decline of optimisation culture - the microtrends pointing to a rejection of the economy’s broken promise that self-improvement leads to success, and why brands like Pinterest are leaning into our need for a rest. #brandstrategy #marketing #marketingstrategy

Your job as a creator is to build "future demand". -- I'm Eugene Healey, a strategist and educator exploring the intersection of advertising, culture, and desire. Follow @eugbrandstrat for more insights on how brands can effectively navigate modern digital spaces.

Don’t be a meat proxy. Today: how to use tools like @claude to interrogate and stress-test your thinking rather than generate it. Interrogate your argument, find the gaps, synthesise. #ad #brandstrategy #marketing #marketingstrategy

New article: "Images are losing their cultural power" out now for Considered Chaos on Substack - link in bio 🔗 #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #marketing

Techbros are realising you can't prompt a real marketing strategy. Today: understanding the "math club" mentality of the tech sector and the central challenge of creative marketing right now - and the reason you need someone who can answer why your brand matters and where it needs to show up. #marketing #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy

"How can you build your brand in a way that your associations survive across different contexts?" #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #communicationsstrategy

The "Little Treat Economy" is our entire cultural condition. We buy a daily matcha instead of saving for a house we can never afford. But our politicians are also running the same logic at scale, avoiding hard decisions on welfare and affordable housing that nearly guarantee a bleak future. South Korea has been living in their own "f*ck-it expense" economy for a decade, showing us what the future of society looks like without an organised labour movement: substantially declining living standards and plummeting birth rates. The matcha stays the most rational option until the future is worth saving for. #littletreatculture #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #marketing

What even is a "distinctive asset"? Today: attention creation vs. attention appropriation - how we can broaden our understanding of distinctive brand assets to convert attention into recognition. Building a brand in the Post-Social Era? Check out my course, The New Fundamentals of Brand - link in bio to enrol #brandstrategy #marketing #marketingstrategy #communicationsstrategy

Real influence is now happening in private. Today: sharing some of the thinking I’ve been producing at Snapchat’s annual conferences about the social media reset - why public broadcast logic is no longer enough for brands when users are increasingly retreating into private, why the most effective forms of marketing are now some of the most intimate, and why Snap for Business is such a strong platform for doing so. #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

Marketers, it's time to loosen up. Today: saying goodbye to the Authoritarian brand era - how to construct solid brand associations when others are delivering messages on your behalf. Building a brand in the Post-Social Era? Check out my course, The New Fundamentals of Brand - link in bio to enrol #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #communicationsstrategy

The New Fundamentals enrolments are closing this week. Come learn about how to build brand in fragmented environments, to develop your pattern recognition and cultural acumen, and how to negotiate and influence to ensure great work can actually get out into the world. Class is nearly in session. Come learn with me!

The creator is dead. Long live the creator. Today: reframing "creator" from a job to a model for how modern influence is generated, spread and leveraged - how the lack of trust in institutions has resulted in demand for trustworthy individuals across industries. Building a brand in the Post-Social Era? Check out my course, The New Fundamentals of Brand - link in bio to enrol #brandstrategy #creatoreconomy #marketingstrategy

The creator is dead. Long live the creator. Today: reframing "creator" from a job to a model for how modern influence is generated, spread and leveraged - how the lack of trust in institutions has resulted in demand for trustworthy individuals across industries. Building a brand in the Post-Social Era? Check out my course, The New Fundamentals of Brand - link in bio to enrol #brandstrategy #creatoreconomy #marketingstrategy

brand.ai is hiring for the newest role in marketing. Today: a little on the brand engineer - a role focused on embedding the systems and processes of a brand into the entire organisation, so it functions like an operating system instead of just a comms layer. #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

Ragebait marketing thrives on manufactured ‘discourse’. It’ll stop when we do. 

Today: why there is a secret symbiotic relationship between liberal media and figures like Sweeney, where we relish the misdeeds of others as they help amplify our voices, and why the key to defeating ragebait marketing, like all ragebait, lies in ignoring it altogether.

The feed is a firehose. How does your brand stand out? Today: putting the "story brand" to rest - why building worlds instead of stories is the key to standing out in a nonlinear media environment. Building a brand in the Post-Social Era? Check out my course, The New Fundamentals of Brand - link in bio to enrol #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #monoculture #communicationsstrategy

The feed is a firehose. How does your brand stand out? Today: putting the "story brand" to rest - why building worlds instead of stories is the key to standing out in a nonlinear media environment. Building a brand in the Post-Social Era? Check out my course, The New Fundamentals of Brand - link in bio to enrol #brandstrategy #marketingstrategy #monoculture #communicationsstrategy

Do CMOs and CFOs…. actually agree on things? Today: Unpacking @Tracksuit latest survey with some interesting findings - CMOs and CFOs both agree brand drives long-term growth, that cuts mostly come from conflicting priorities not belief, and why your job working in brand is to make the invisible visible. #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

The smart way to use technology is to have it help build out your team, not substract from it. Today: how I used @Claude to help me figure out my skill gaps in building The New Fundamentals, and support me in the initial stages of the hiring process. #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

It’s finally ready. Come learn with me. The New Fundamentals of Brand is the most significant encapsulation of everything I’ve ever learned or taught about how modern brands need to be built. It’s my answer for how we find coherence out of the chaos the modern media environment presents us. October 12. 7 weeks. Let’s make some sense from the mess. Enrolment open now at the link in bio #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

It’s finally ready. Come learn with me. The New Fundamentals of Brand is the most significant encapsulation of everything I’ve ever learned or taught about how modern brands need to be built. It’s my answer for how we find coherence out of the chaos the modern media environment presents us. October 12. 7 weeks. Let’s make some sense from the mess. Enrolment open now at the link in bio #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

The medium is the message. Today: digging into why where you choose to advertise is just as important as what you choose to say, using some @tataritv research that once again shows brand marketing IS performance marketing. #marketing #brand #brandstrategy

Nothing ruins expertise faster than getting stuck fiddling with technology. Today: how I use @Canva as my core design platform due to the functionality cloud design software offers - ensuring everyone in my brand team works off the same source of truth, and avoiding nasty tech conundrums during some of my work’s bigger moments. #canvapartner #ad

What's driving the smoking revival? Today: Instagram face, looksmaxxing and how we started keeping the body's score - and why cigarettes are becoming the weapon of choice against optimisation culture #cigarettes #brandstrategy #communicationsstrategy #marketingstrategy

What's driving the smoking revival? Today: Instagram face, looksmaxxing and how we started keeping the body's score - and why cigarettes are becoming the weapon of choice against optimisation culture. #cigarettes #brandstrategy #communicationsstrategy #marketingstrategy

Images have lost their authority. Today: How algorithmic ubiquity and AI skepticism have exhausted the image's ability to signal aspiration or reflect reality - and how brands can unlock desire through long-term community patronage. -- I'm Eugene Healey, a strategist and educator exploring the intersection of advertising, culture, and desire. Follow @eugbrandstrat for more insights on how brands can effectively navigate modern digital spaces.

What purpose does TV play in the modern media mix? Today: why TV now sits as the nexus of a marketing campaign rather than the point-of-origin, the organising idea that unifies the fragments over which your brand shows up, and how platforms like @tataritv allow you to build TV out as a channel with the same social-first thinking traditionally associated with performance channels.