The Marketer’s Storybook: Credibility, Control & The Incentive Shift
This week, brands confronted a new reality. Emotion spreads faster than strategy. Discovery is migrating to AI platforms. Cultural narratives are written in real time by audiences, not companies.
Frida turned Mardi Gras spectacle into postpartum advocacy while measuring backlash against its brand personality. A baby monkey and his IKEA plushie revealed how quickly culture assigns meaning, and how smart brands amplify it. Agencies rushed into ChatGPT ads with limited measurement as AI trust continues to be debated among consumers and brands. Meanwhile, American Eagle redesigned its affiliate incentives to turn creators into a scalable sales engine, while Dove translated Reddit credibility into a robust online and offline campaign.
In 2026, brand advantage belongs to those who understand how perception scales, how emotion compounds, and how incentive design and narrative control shape growth.
Let’s dive in.
This Week’s Marketing Stories
A curated mix of breaking news, insights, and trends, each with actionable takeaways to inspire your brand storytelling.
1) Frida pushes cultural boundaries, and faces backlash
Frida turned Mardi Gras spectacle into postpartum advocacy. In a parade culture known for the chant “Show us your boobs,” the parenting brand unveiled a float celebrating breasts that feed, pump, leak, scar, and heal. The message read: SHOW US WHAT YOUR BOOBS CAN DO. A QR code directed revelers to an unfiltered digital Breast Gallery supporting its expanding breast care line launching in March.
Strategically, this is sharp. The global breast pump market is projected to surpass $1.5 billion by 2028. Frida is competing in a category long dominated by clinical messaging. Rather than lead with features, it is building cultural authority around postpartum reality.
However, this campaign landed amid controversy. The brand recently faced criticism for cheeky packaging lines such as “How about a quickie?” and “I’m a power sucker,” plus a now-deleted post joking that a baby thermometer was “the closest your husband’s gonna get to a threesome.” One viral X post condemning the language reached 4.8 million views and 95,000 likes. A Change.org petition urging Frida to apologize gathered more than 6,000 signatures. A Reddit boycott thread received over 1,200 upvotes. The brand temporarily disabled comments on its Mardi Gras Instagram post.
Frida responded by reinforcing its long-standing tone. It stated that it has always used humor to address the “real, raw, and messy” parts of parenting, and that its voice is written for adults, not babies. It also acknowledged that humor is personal and pledged to evaluate how its tone “meets the moment.”
Here is where the strategic lens matters.
Negative feedback online often feels seismic. Viral posts create the illusion of universal backlash but it’s critical to measure your overall customer sentiment and understand which percentage of it is negative. The 4.8 million views, 95,000 likes, 6,000 petition signatures, and 1,200 Reddit upvotes must be assessed in the context of Frida’s scale. The company distributes to 90 percent of the U.S. population. It operates in mass retail. The brand has a sizeable online following. Without evidence of material sales decline, outrage volume alone does not necessitate brand repositioning.
In The Laws of Brand Storytelling, we write that your vibe attracts your tribe. MoneySuperMarket’s #EpicStrut campaign generated 1,513 complaints to the UK Advertising Standards Authority in 2015. It was also recognized as the UK’s top campaign of the year. The ASA did not find it in breach of its code. The complaints represented a small fraction of total impressions. The campaign resonated with its intended audience and reinforced brand distinctiveness.
The same principle applies here, providing that the data stacks up. A polarizing brand voice is not automatically a flawed strategy. It becomes a problem only when it alienates the core revenue-driving audience or erodes long-term brand equity.
The real question for Frida is whether its target parents feel seen. If the humor strengthens loyalty among its tribe and drives conversion in a crowded breast care market, the controversy may function as a filtering mechanism rather than a liability.
Key Takeaway: Viral backlash must be measured, not feared. Assess complaint volume relative to reach, monitor sales impact, and evaluate resonance with your core audience. You cannot design a personality that offends no one. You can design one that unmistakably serves your tribe. Read more. Link to IG post one and post two as Instagram will not allow me to embed them.
2) Punch, viral empathy, and the brands that understood the moment
Punch, a seven-month-old macaque at Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, went viral after footage showed him clinging to a stuffed orangutan following maternal rejection. The visual was instantly legible. A baby animal holding a comfort toy needs no explanation. Audiences responded with overwhelming empathy, quickly constructing a resilience narrative around him.
When a second clip surfaced showing another monkey dragging Punch, concern escalated just as quickly. Comment threads shifted from tenderness to outrage within hours. The zoo responded with a translated statement explaining the behavior was normal primate socialization and that Punch was not injured, followed by footage of him being groomed and interacting normally. The clarification stabilized the story before speculation hardened into reputational damage.
What makes this significant is not the monkey. It is the speed at which audiences assign identity and meaning. Vulnerability became brandable. The stuffed toy became symbolic. A single ambiguous moment nearly rewrote the arc.
Internet users identified the plush as IKEA’s DJUNGELSKOG orangutan, retailing for $19.99. IKEA did not create the moment, yet it was positioned at the emotional center of it. The brand responded with warmth rather than promotion, reinforcing themes of comfort and belonging. The President of IKEA Japan personally delivered additional toys to the zoo.
This worked because IKEA already owns emotional territory around home, accessibility, and everyday comfort. The product was not inserted into culture. It was already there. When attention arrived, the brand’s long-standing positioning allowed it to inherit meaning rather than chase it.
Other brands and personalities extended the narrative in ways aligned with their voices. Duolingo localized the story through language and affection. Gary Vaynerchuk reframed Punch as a metaphor for resilience and environment. Visit Italy created a cinematic storyline imagining Punch finding family in a piazza. None attempted to redirect the story. They amplified it.
Real-time marketing succeeds when participation reinforces brand meaning. It fails when brands borrow attention without alignment. Before entering a viral moment, leaders should ask whether the topic strengthens their positioning, matches the emotional tone of their voice, and contributes meaning rather than noise.
Punch demonstrates how quickly culture can elevate a symbol. It also demonstrates that brands with strong emotional equity are rewarded when they participate with fluency rather than force.
Key Takeaway: Viral moments do not create brand meaning. They reveal it. Invest in emotional positioning before attention arrives so that when culture hands you a narrative, your brand naturally belongs inside it. Read more.
3) AI backlash widens the executive-consumer trust gap
Recent research from IAB and Sonata Insights reveals a widening perception gap. Eighty-two percent of advertising executives believe Gen Z and millennials feel positively about AI-generated ads. Only 45 percent of those consumers report feeling positive. That delta has widened since 2024.
At the same time, performance data complicates the narrative. A Taboola study conducted with researchers from Columbia, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and the Technical University of Munich found AI-generated ads achieved a 0.76 percent average click-through rate compared to 0.65 percent for human-created ads.
Performance does not equal trust. Consumers are not rejecting AI outputs outright. They are reacting to what AI signals about cost cutting, job displacement, and authenticity.
Brands such as He Gets Us intentionally shot their Super Bowl ad on film to signal humanity. Others are quietly reducing overt AI messaging while still using AI operationally.
Key Takeaway: The AI debate is not binary. Avoid performative anti-AI positioning, but clarify your intent. Disclosure increases purchase likelihood or has no impact for 73 percent of Gen Z and millennials. Transparency reduces friction. Read more.
4) Agencies rush into ChatGPT ads despite limited measurement
OpenAI opened advertising inside ChatGPT earlier this month. The platform reports 800 million weekly users. Agencies including Omnicom and WPP quickly moved clients into pilot programs despite limited performance metrics and evolving brand safety standards.
Industry estimates suggest 20 to 30 percent of product discovery behavior has migrated from traditional search into AI platforms. That shift alone justifies experimentation.
However, measurement remains embryonic. OpenAI has promised aggregate impression data but little else. Agencies are relying on incrementality modeling and media mix adjustments to approximate impact.
The sentiment among proponents of OpenAI advertising say that it resembles early Google search advertising where early movers gained durable advantage by accumulating expertise and scale before the ecosystem matured. However, will this be the case? Time will tell.
Key Takeaway: When discovery migrates, media strategy must follow. Pilot aggressively, but build independent measurement frameworks. While platform reporting is incomplete, OpenAI has a short window of time before pilots give way to more robust insights to justify the spend. Read more.
5) American Eagle builds its own affiliate engine to scale sales
American Eagle is not just expanding its creator program. It is redesigning the economics behind it.
Its new AE Creator Community builds on last year’s affiliate model by gamifying participation. Creators earn commission on sales and accumulate points redeemable for products and gift cards. Monthly challenges reward specific content, such as haul videos or styling denim for Valentine’s Day. The entry bar is intentionally low at 1,000 followers, allowing the brand to scale through a large base of micro-creators.
The real shift is structural. Instead of relying solely on third-party affiliate platforms like LTK, where brands often pay 10 to 25 percent commission plus platform fees, American Eagle built the program in house. That gives it direct access to creator relationships, performance data, and content rights while reducing dependency on external intermediaries.
This is about incentive alignment. When creators earn commission directly from sales, recommending American Eagle becomes economically rational. The brand is not paying for exposure. It is paying for performance. Content becomes commerce, and advocacy becomes measurable revenue.
Key Takeaway: Affiliate marketing is evolving into owned growth infrastructure. When you control the platform and align creator income with product sales, scale becomes efficient, trackable, and margin-conscious. Read more.
6) Dove turns Reddit reviews into national media
Dove built a national campaign for its Intensive Repair 10-in-1 Serum Mask using unfiltered Reddit reviews. The first 50 comments, both positive and negative, were published verbatim with user permission across film, out-of-home, social, and streaming. The campaign name, “r/eal reviews,” mirrors Reddit’s structure, and users were anonymized using Snoo-style avatars.
The campaign launched with a pop-up takeover in New York’s Flatiron Plaza, where oversized reviews sat alongside product sampling. In certain placements, reviews appeared in real time to encourage open dialogue.
This is a calculated move. Reddit’s beauty content views are up 30 percent year over year, and the platform has become a trusted source for product discovery because it feels less curated and less brand-controlled. However, it’s worth calling out that Reddit users are sensitive to brands mining community spaces for promotion. Dove mitigated this risk by securing permission, preserving anonymity, and resisting over-polishing.
The campaign reinforces Dove’s Real Beauty platform while signaling product confidence. Featuring critique alongside praise reframes transparency as strength, not vulnerability.
Key Takeaway: Authenticity is no longer about polished storytelling. It is about visible confidence. When you are willing to surface real feedback, including critique, you signal trust in your product. The strategic question is not whether to embrace unfiltered voices, but how to translate platform credibility into brand-controlled environments without losing its edge. Read more.
My Stories
Why Brand Storytelling Is Critical for eCommerce Growth
At Savant Retail Congress London, I joined CMO and Growth Advisor Nadine Killoran to unpack a question many leadership teams are quietly asking: if we are investing more in traffic, automation, and AI-generated content, why are conversion rates flattening and loyalty becoming more fragile?
My core argument was simple. In an environment of infinite content and accelerating AI production, scale is becoming table stakes. Narrative clarity is the differentiator. Strong macro stories define what you stand for. Micro stories reduce friction at the point of purchase. When expectations match experience, returns decline, repeat purchase rises, and dependency on discounting softens. Storytelling is not a creative add-on. It is a commercial lever that protects margin and strengthens revenue quality.
I also explored where AI helps and where it quietly erodes trust, why disclosure matters, and whether brands can reduce Black Friday reliance through disciplined positioning. In a world where production is automated, story becomes the strategic layer that cannot be easily replicated. Read more.
Macdonald Bath Spa Hotel Review: Why This Luxury Spa Weekend in Bath Is Worth It
If you picture a spa weekend in Bath as sweeping lawns, a grand Georgian building, fluffy robes, and the promise of doing very little, the Macdonald Bath Spa Hotel delivers exactly that. I stayed for a girls’ spa weekend and found the balance surprisingly perfect. It feels tucked away and restorative, yet sits just a ten to fifteen minute walk from Bath’s city centre, giving you the option to toggle between thermal pools and the Royal Crescent without overcommitting to either.
The spa facilities are the anchor. Outdoor hydrotherapy pool, saunas, steam room, salt room, plus well-executed treatments that make you wish you had booked longer. Breakfast is menu-led rather than buffet, which elevates the experience, and dinner in the hotel restaurant made the entire stay feel cohesive and indulgent without being excessive. It strikes that accessible luxury note that works beautifully for a celebratory weekend or restorative escape from London. Read more
Sevilla Travel Guide: The 10 Best Places to See, Eat, and Drink
I wrapped my six-part Sevilla YouTube series with a full roundup of the best places to see, eat, and drink after spending four days exploring the city. Think Real Alcázar’s layered Moorish and Christian architecture, Plaza de España’s cinematic grandeur, the jaw-dropping Gothic cathedral, golden hour at Las Setas, hidden palacios, leafy parks, and long walks along the Guadalquivir River through Triana. Sevilla is a masterclass in cultural layering, where Islamic, Renaissance, and modern design coexist in a way that feels both historic and alive.
I also shared the restaurants and rooftop spots that genuinely stood out, from tuna tartare and Spanish rosé at El Pintón to sunset views near the cathedral and a brilliant Devour food and wine tour that introduced me to hyper-local gems I would never have found alone. If you’re planning a trip, this video pulls everything together in one place, plus practical tips like when to book ahead and how to avoid peak crowds.
Unlock More of My Stories
Website: JessicaGioglio.com Your one-stop shop for all my books, speaking engagements, and blog posts on marketing and storytelling.
Books:
- The Power of Visual Storytelling: Learn how to shape a visual story around your brand using images, videos, GIFs, infographics, and more. Get your copy here.
- The Laws of Brand Storytelling: The definitive guide to using storytelling to win over customers’ hearts, minds, and loyalty. Grab it here.
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Until Next Time
Thank you for being part of this journey. Whether you’re here for marketing trends, storytelling inspiration, or both, I’m so grateful to have you along for the ride.
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Jessica Gioglio is the co-author of The Laws of Brand Storytelling and The Power of Visual Storytelling. Professionally, Jessica has led innovative marketing and public relations programs for Dunkin’, TripAdvisor, Sprinklr, and more. Today, Jessica is a keynote speaker (book her here) and founder of With Savvy Media & Marketing, a strategic branding, storytelling, and content strategy consultancy.