Marketing to common people, OpenAI's social network plans, and making America think again
Issue #52
Weekly Exhale
Common People. That’s the nerve-touching title of the new Black Mirror opener. And if you haven’t seen it, prepare to laugh out loud and then feel your stomach curdle. The casting is a little off. Thank goodness, it might've been unwatchable if they’d gone gritty realism. Common People comes with the usual warnings about tech. But it’s also a mirror held up to modern marketing, and its reflection is not flattering.
No spoilers here, but in particular the show takes scalpel-sharp aim at the tiered subscription model, including the kind its own parent, Netflix, relies on.
The premise dragged me back to the early pandemic days, when starved of contact and brainwashed with fear, we subscribed to everything. Streaming, shaving, tampons, dog food. It felt good. You weren’t just buying things, you were joining things.
And it worked. Until the model collapsed under its own bloated promises. Remember when Netflix vowed never to take advertising? Today, that privilege will cost you double what it did in 2020.
It’s a reminder that when CMOs wax lyrical about authenticity and community, they’re mostly trying to soothe their souls. The show makes it plain that connections to brands are parasocial. The emotions are synthetic. The value exchange is brutally simple: First attract, then extract. Offer people a bag of free crisps. Then raise the price, shrink the bag and treat the sachet of salt as an add-on.
Of course, it’s Black Mirror, so there’s a little more at stake than potato snacks. David Ogilvy once said the consumer isn’t a moron, she’s your wife. In Common People, your wife's brain is accessible like a DSP. An ad platform you can optimise.
After all, the best-performing ads aren’t even ads anymore, they’re reads. The warm voice of your favourite podcast host. Ordinary folk in your feed, broadcasting from kitchens and bedrooms. So being able to media-buy your wife’s everyday chat is just great contextual placement. Word of mouth, endorsement, and social proofing, perfected.
Too far?
I’m not sure. Meta is worth over a trillion dollars today. But it can’t stop. It won’t stop. You don’t think there’s a team at Menlo Park sketching out what ten trillion looks like? You don’t think Meta-Neurolink is already a scribble on a whiteboard somewhere?
That’s the problem with Black Mirror now. It doesn’t feel like the future. It feels like the present with the brightness turned up. Just one episode in, and it’s hard not to look around you and see everything through a dystopic lens.
Take last Friday’s Rise Up. I was all positive. I’d just written about NASA’s class of 1978, the most diverse ever. It included Sally Ride, the first American LGBTQ+ woman in space, a Stanford-trained physicist who specialised in free electron lasers. Pride, progress, possibility.
No sooner had I hit publish than a new “all-female” space crew was announced. At first, I thought it was a beautiful coincidence. Then Katy Perry declared she was “putting the ass in astronaut”. The crew stood grinning in front of the Bezos rocket, which remains unnecessarily phallic. The flight lasted eleven minutes.
Blue Origin. Because You’re Worth It.
No, it’s not quite the clicks for self-harm we see in Common People’s viral live stream Dum Dummies. But it sure feels like the real-life billionaire version.
Charlie Brooker once wrote that the most horrifying visions of the future aren’t the ones we fear. They’re the ones we accept. Later that day, I watched a clip of Sam Altman, all empathetic, saying he wanted to build a world where his kids would never be smarter than AI. And I felt it. A sudden urge to crack him across the jaw. Bare knuckled. Draw blood.
Fight Club.
Not just out of disaffected rage, but curiosity. Just to check, and double-check, that he’s still human.
And if he is? He should absolutely join the Black Mirror writers’ room. On SAGA rates, obviously. I’m sure Brooker would agree that Altman’s probably not the guy we want designing society. But some of his dialogue surely deserves an Emmy.
My son turned twelve and may as well have turned twenty. His voice dropped. His limbs stretched. His frame filled out. And just like that, he unplugged from the cuddles and cartoon mornings I thought would last forever. I wasn’t expecting it to feel like grief. A loss of closeness I once found suffocating, and now there’s too much air.
Which gets you thinking about the big picture he’s headed into. I’m no longer starring in his story. I’m the Executive Producer. Put the money up and try to influence the plotline if you feel it’s going off track. But that's about it.
Watching Black Mirror’s opener doesn’t help. The title is the clue: Common People. But, the leads played by Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones are more Friends than Flashdance, say. Dowd comes across like a super well-paid ad creative who's ended up an American factory worker. And Jones (Quincy Jones’s daughter) seems more like a KPMG divisional head turned substitute teacher.
So are Dowd and Jones miscast? If they are, the net effect is chilling.
You’re looking at a husband and wife who seem to have fallen from the heights of their real-life $30 million combined net worth. In Common People, status symbols move in reverse. The couple, clearly in their forties, still haven’t been able to conceive. They can afford a second-hand crib thanks to a chance eBay listing. They drive an old Volvo. And hamburgers out are for special occasions.
At one point, Jones soothes a child who’s been teased for having to wear someone else’s shoes. “They’re vintage”, she says. I promised no spoilers, but let’s say the couple go on a journey where it’s not just their livelihoods at stake, but their dignity.
Jarvis Cocker once sneered at the rich for wanting to “live like common people.” But stealth wealth is soooo last decade. TikTok is currently drowning in exposés of $35,000 Birkin bags made in China, with “Made in France” labels added later under the legal fiction of “substantial transformation.” A win for everyday people, finally freed from aspiring to what the rich have? Of course not. It’s the opposite. The scary version? Hermès starts heat-stamping the label on the outside just to make it crystal clear: I can. You can’t. Money wins.
My upbringing had a clear path to the red carpet. It feels like that carpet is shorter now, and more tightly roped off. In a post-tariff week, we may even be staring at a future where a $346,820 Harvard degree doesn’t mean that much at all.
For sure, Brooker's show marks the end of marketing as a liberal art. It’s shifted. I came up in a time when users mattered and creativity billed. And billed big.
So I worry. That the paths and craft skills that worked for me won’t help my son, any more than my Dad’s could’ve helped me. He was a signwriter. Back then, you needed steady hands and squirrel-hair rigger brushes to paint advertising. One careful curve at a time.
But instinct survives. As does resolve.
And the stubborn refusal to go along with what’s put in front of you.
If you want to see what a digital coup looks like, watch Carole Cadwalladr’s TED Talk in the links. But be careful, it only takes you further down the rabbit hole, past even where Brooker dares to go.
Some weeks, readers, these exhales won’t land on the Wonder Years ending I’m hoping for or the quiet hope you might be coming back for.
But I’ll say this: I hope you get a perfect long weekend. Away from Brooker’s dystopian forecast. Back in the present tense of your own plotline. A happy one with people that matter.
For me, that means stealing a few moments with my son.
Because I know how this goes.
I’ll blink and he’ll be all grown up.
Let's rise together with every issue. ♡
Market Movements
UK inflation falls to 2.6% more than expected | Financial Times
Uncertainty off the charts but no recession | BBC
How America’s wealthy position themselves during turmoil | Wall Street Journal
Brand Beat
Easter campaigns round-up | Campaignlive
IG launches ‘Blend’ to share reels with friends | Fast Company
Muller snaps up Biotiful gut health in £100m+ deal | The Grocer
IPA Bellweather shows first marketing spend decline in four years | IPA
All female astronauts take Blue Origin flight | The Guardian
Big brands send out a barrage of junk food ads ahead of ban | The Guardian
Make work that impacts “culture culture” not “LinkedIn culture” | LBB
Zendaya soars to space in new On Running campaign | LinkedIn
4 lessons all CMOs can learn from Liquid Death’s UK demise | Ad Age
Shein and Temu reveal ‘price adjustments’ coming soon | Fast Company
What small fashion brands can do when tariffs hit hard | Glossy
Erewhon’s most profitable shave brand uses OnlyFans to drive success | Forbes
It can’t be boring, brands on using Snapchat | MarketingWeek
While Harry’s Razor seeks to build consumer goods empire | New York Times
Twinkies’ new owner wants to court stoners | Wall Street Journal
Working mums: Is marketing only for the ‘chosen few’? | MarketingWeek
Hypebeast gets into the property ad game | Instagram
The real AI challenge for WPP isn’t scale, it’s control | Digiday
TikTok’s exposés during trade war takes aim at luxury | Jing Daily
Matcha brand wars heat up | BuzzFeed
System1’s ad of the week features Jennifer Aniston | System1
Lyft scoops up FreeNow in €135m cash deal to launch in Europe | Sifted
Google is once again deemed monopoly, this time in adtech | Wired
Introducing Heinz Grillz, new campaign | Instagram
Trending: Saie skincare infused makeup | Thingtesting
Netflix profits up 24% | Financial Times
Starting Up
Startups hit record funding in Q1, but 2025 outlook is awful | TechCrunch
XOXO Soda seals £4m funding ahead of retail push | LinkedIn
UK startup Marshmallow raises $90m at a $2bn valuation | TechCrunch
New report: The market for resale and second-hand brands | ThredUp
London startups bag £2.69bn in VC in 2025 so far | CityAM
Strava acquires rival fitness app Runna | Sifted
Tech Tidbits
OpenAI is building a social media network | The Verge
The U.S. wants to break up Google and Meta. That could be hard. | New York Times
FTC versus Meta trial - future of IG and WhatsApp at stake | Wired
Airwallex to seek UK and US banking licences | Financial Times
This is what a digital coup looks like | Ted Talks
How to talk to machines, inside Google’s viral prompts | Carly Ayres
Venture Vibes
Former Y Combinator president announces AI safety fund | TechCrunch
A peek inside General Catalyst | Sifted
LPs slow their pace | Venture Capital Journal
Design Driven
Why ‘Creative Director’ is fashion’s favourite job title | WWD
Krea, Adobe for the AI era discusses its $500m mission | Fast Company
Meanwhile, Adobe takes stake in Synthesia AI | CNBC
Why custom fonts are a brand’s future | Frontify
Happiness
Make America think again, imagination over obedience | Kyla Scanlon
Neuroscientist's guide to fixing your mind in 15 minutes | Big Think
Bill Murray’s one message if you’re struggling with happiness | Are You Happy
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