Meme Team

Disney just announced John Watts for Star Wars Episode 10 and simultaneously undermined him by pairing him with Simon Kinberg — the writer behind X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, and a failed Twilight Zone reboot. Taylor Swift's bonus "encore" to Life of a Showgirl got dismissed by critics and hit number one anyway. Letterboxd is up for sale at $300M with A24, NYT, Netflix, Sony, and Paramount all circling. And on the same day Meta unveiled its Muse Charm AI wearable, news broke that Muse AI had been caught reading Apple messages after being explicitly told to stop. Timestamps 0:00 — Star Wars Episode 10: John Watts, Simon Kinberg, and why Disney keeps getting in its own way 21:00 — Taylor Swift's "The Encore": what happens when critics stop mattering to commercial success 33:00 — Letterboxd for $300M: who should buy it, who would ruin it, and the Goodreads warning 51:00 — Meta Muse Charm: Tamagotchi-style AI wearable and the iMessage scandal that hit on launch day About Kushaan Kushaan Shah leads marketing at Superhuman and writes about consumer behavior and growth. Find his newsletter at substack.com/@kushaan

Mbappe just walked away from a lifetime Nike deal for equity at On Running, and Thierry Henry has been quietly running the football strategy behind it since 2025. Meanwhile, Lily Reinhart built a viral press tour for The Love Hypothesis with basically no help from Amazon, then Amazon showed up after she hit 1.7M impressions on her own. Four stories this week about which brands are staying ahead and which are reacting too late. Timestamps 0:00 Intro 1:19 Mbappe, On Running, and Nike's brand crisis 19:03 Lily Reinhart's method dressing press tour 37:24 Netflix, A24, and the streaming wars 56:51 Xbox CEO Asha Sharma goes undercover in customer support 1:05:07 Takeaways 1:10:43 Wrap About Danielle Danielle Messler, head of marketing at Captivate Talent and content strategy practitioner. Fine her at https://www.daniellemessler.com/ and on X @danielleismessy

Prada is making films with Barry Jenkins and Zohran Mamdani has 69% approval for posting about potholes. Hilary Duff just sold out a tour that has nothing to do with nostalgia, and Americans are spending $350 a day in Europe while Portugal buys ads in Times Square. Sonia and brand strategist Gia Jasing get into all four stories on the Meme Team, the podcast where we discuss viral pop culture moments in movies, TV, music, and politics. Timestamps 0:00 Brands are the new Hollywood (Martin Scorsese/LavAza, Prada/Barry Jenkins, Ben Affleck/Dunkin, Ryan Reynolds/Maximum Effort, Gap + Running Point) 20:55 Zohran Mamdani's governance as content strategy 37:48 The rise of the American tourist in Europe 58:59 Hilary Duff's Lucky Me Tour 1:11:53 Takeaways About Jiya Jiya Jaisingh is a brand strategist and behavior change marketing specialist. Find her at www.jiyajaisingh.com/ and on X at @JaisinghJiya

Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto calling for open, democratized AI the same week Meta was defending itself in six active monopoly lawsuits. Bumble scrapped the women-message-first rule, which was literally the brand. Obama launched a book podcast on an audio platform and somehow it's one of the smarter marketing moves of the year. Jonathan K. Lowe joined me to talk through all of it, plus the FAA quietly solving a hiring crisis by recruiting video gamers. Timestamps  0:00 Zuckerberg's AI manifesto vs. Meta's monopoly problem 23:48 Bumble drops women-message-first (and what the Southwest comparison reveals about brand strategy) 42:00 Obama's Audible book podcast and why celebrity co-signs beat institutions now 54:00 The FAA is hiring gamers as air traffic controllers 1:03:00 Key takeaways About Jonathan K. Lowe Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Salt Foundry, a fractional CMO collective, and author of "Keeping People Interested: How Leaders Use Marketing to Capture and Sustain Attention."

Spider-Man Brand New Day just hit $1 billion, and Disney's CEO is already publicly attaching Avengers Doomsday to that momentum. That's a bold bet with a lot riding on it. Sonia Baschez and journalist Shannon Miller look at the gap between brands that genuinely show up for fans and brands that just extract from them, from Disney's new TikTok creator deal to vinyl labels charging $40 for incomplete pressings to Flock Safety's police camera cover-up. Timestamps  00:00 Disney, Josh DeMaro, and the TikTok IP deal 24:00 The Vinyl Trap: why your record probably has missing tracks 41:55 Flock Safety and the police surveillance scandal 55:47 BTS Ari Dang World Tour and how K-pop does fan activations right About Shannon Miller Shannon is a journalist and former managing editor at AdWeek covering the creator economy. She co-authored "A Miscellany of Weird and Wonderful Facts" with Jess Severis and writes her own newsletter. Follow her on Threads and Instagram @ShannonL_Miller.