For a brief window of time, a game played between bottles of beer was almost more exciting than the big game itself.
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Hyatt’s New Brand Messaging Has Travelers Thinking Double
Is the company’s tagline telling travelers to “Be More HERE” or “Be MORE Here”?
Godzilla Minus One Subtracts Key Visual Element for Rerelease
The king of the monsters is following in the furious footsteps of Logan and Mad Max to change the way people see the movie.
Top 5 Movie Posters of 2023
Spoiler alert: Barbie and Oppenheimer didn’t make the list. But a movie about a menacing mammal consuming an illegal narcotic did.
Does Advertising on Streaming Services Have to Suck?
Here’s how streamers can transform the TV commercial experience from sour to sweet.
SiriusXM Forges a Holiday Sweater Wrapped in 125-Decibel Screams
Finally there’s a holiday sweater made with wool from the angriest sheep and spun with yarn dyed in blood.
Whamageddon Saves No One From Tears This Holiday Season
A viral holiday challenge proves no one is safe from the sonic destruction of “Last Christmas”.
15 Unforgettable Commercial Catchphrases
Play the game that’s sweeping the nation!
15 TV Shows in the GOAT Conversation
Here are the <1% of shows regularly mentioned in discussions about the best television series ever.
8 Insanely Great Halloween Horror Movie Party Picks
Not every horror movie works for the party atmosphere. Check out our curated picks to make your Halloween celebration a scream.
10 Biggest Summer Blockbusters of All Time
See the colossal hits from the past 50 years that made our summer movie all-star team.
What’s the Greatest Best Picture of the 21st Century?
20 movies have won the Best Picture Oscar since 2000. Which one is really the Best?
Headlines Help Propel ‘Black Panther’ to Phenomenal Success
It’s not just marketing fueling this Marvel movie at the box office. It’s conversation.
Anatomy of a Brand Email: Netflix Price Change
Breaking down a recent Netflix customer email to identify the marketing hits and misses.
The Reshuffling of NFL Playoff Brands After Round 2
Which teams’ stocks are most on the rise after Round 2 of the NFL Playoffs?
10 Tweets Showing Otherworldly Fan Excitement for ‘Stranger Things 2’
The buzziest TV show in this dimension is back. And Twitter is losing its mind.
Is the Force Strong with These #MayThe4th Brand Tweets?
Nothing brands love more than a little Star Wars in their social marketing.
Why March Madness Is “The Godfather” of American Sporting Events
Here’s why the NCAA Tournament is “The Godfather” of all athletic competitions.
10 Times the Oscars Got Best Picture Wrong
Star Wars, Goodfellas, and other times the Oscars blew it.
5 Examples of Awesome Poster Design from John Wick
Coolness and Keanu. Is there anything better?
8 Ways Amazon Changed The World
Top innovations from the brand that made us believe two-day shipping is a basic human right.
The Great Branding Takeaway From Wes Anderson’s H&M Holiday Commercial
A smart branding idea inspired by the director of “Rushmore”.
7 Most Essential NES Classic Games
These games will give you the best return on your NES Classic investment.
Answers To Your Questions About Snapchat Spectacles
Unraveling the mystery behind these snappy social sunglasses.
Unofficial Marketing Medalists of the Rio Olympics
They may not be official Olympic sponsors, but these brands came to play this summer.
Episode 194: Reddit Roulette
We spin the wheel of internet randomness to dissect the role of Reddit today and share wildcard Reddit threads to get you lost in the rabbit hole.
Episode 193: OK Still Going
We dance over treadmills and hop across phone screens to discuss two decades of mind-blowing music videos from the creative maniacs of OK Go.
Episode 192: Tagline Throwdown
We think different by testing our tagline knowledge in a death match to see who can just do it to prove they’re not just finger lickin’ good, they’re grrreat!
Episode 191: Hellmann’s Hoodwinks Harry
We slather our sentiments on Hellman’s “When Harry Met Sally” reunion and sink our teeth into other overlooked content ripe for the commercial requel treatment.
Episode 190: Rise of the Malls
We stroll through the ascension, decline, and revival of the shopping mall to see if these once-mighty retail giants can regain their former glory.
Episode 189: The Banana Effect
We peel open the $6 million banana to explore how brands have leveraged this provocative piece of art for their own content creation.
Episode 188: New Coke Versus Crystal Pepsi
We chug back in time to revisit the marketing campaigns of two legendary beverage busts to see how they go down a few decades later.
Episode 187: Brands In Space
We venture into deep space to explore how today’s brands are bringing their products, services, and marketing into the cosmos.
Episode 186: Feel the Vibrations
We sense the power of Mastercard’s new haptic logo and explore how other brands can engage touch, smell, and taste to create more immersive experiences.
Episode 185: Linguistic Lurkers and Outliers
We promulgate and elucidate ten arcane, recondite, and enigmatic lexemes we believe warrant greater attention in the marketing realm.
Episode 184: Bizarre Brand Collabs
We bring together the most unusual, unexpected, and unnatural brand bedfellows of the 2020s. Slap some caviar on your Pringles because worlds are about to collide!
Episode 183: Commercial Court
We convene in the courtroom to adjudicate the cases of two recent commercials from big tech brands that stirred up controversy and got yanked from the airwaves.
Episode 182: Oatly’s Outrage
We fight back against the powers of “big podcasting” by pouring out our thoughts about Oatly’s guerrilla marketing maneuver to protest the misleading mind control of big dairy.
Episode 181: Toasting 60 Years of Pop-Tarts
We salute six decades of America’s preeminent toaster pastry by serving up some notable pieces of Pop-Tarts marketing and ranking the most iconic Pop-Tarts flavors.
Episode 180: Renner Runs for Brooks
We unlace ideas about the new Brooks “Let’s Run There” campaign featuring Jeremy Renner and jog through our rankings of the buzziest running shoe brands of the current moment.
Episode 179: Has Prime’s Day Come and Gone?
We poke the potential bursting bubble of Logan Paul’s Prime drink brand to see if it pops and share a couple other products that consumers guzzled down in mass quantities then tossed aside.
Episode 178: People Who Hate Mayonnaise Love This Episode
We discourage everyone from listening to this episode and hearing our thoughts on the new ad for NotMayo. Just rip out your earbuds now, because you do not want to know what we have to say.
Episode 177: 40 Years of Lost Beef
We turn our TV dials back four decades to analyze an iconic fast-food commercial featuring big fluffy buns and a spunky senior citizen asking one of the most important questions of our time.
Episode 176: Punctuating Brands
We exclaim our questions about companies adding punctuation marks like apostrophes, periods, and exclamation points to their names and logos.
Episode 175: Super Bowl Celebrity Ad Fatigue
We head into overtime to huddle up on Schwarzenegger, Walken, and whether throwing famous faces into Super Bowl commercials still scores with viewers.
Episode 174: The Solo-Snoop Smoke Storm
We apply heat to Solo Stove’s decision to ax their CEO after a viral campaign failed to ignite sales and ask the essential question “what is successful marketing?”
Episode 173: The Timelessness of Tetris
We drop the pieces in place to unlock how the best-selling video game of all time continues to obsess players 40 years after its creation.
Episode 172: Wrangling the Marlboro Man
We smoke out the rough and rugged legacy of the iconic Marlboro Man marketing campaign that rode the trails of pop culture for over 40 years leaving many blackened lungs behind.
Episode 171: Best TV Title Sequences
We tune in to the TV show opening intros that keep our thumbs off the fast forward button and our eyeballs glued to the screen.
Episode 170: Famous Brand Voiceovers
We vocalize our picks for the most memorable, effective, and iconic uses of celebrity voices in commercials and marketing.
Episode 169: Best of Barbenheimer
We detonate our thoughts on the atomic pink meme machine that swallowed summer 2023 and share candidates for potential future Barbenheimers.
Episode 168: Liquid Death
We assassinate assumptions of what bottled water should be by spotlighting a darker, canned brand disrupting the industry with some killer marketing efforts.
Episode 167: Where Have All the Wieners Gone?
We think long and hard about Oscar Meyers’ decision to change the name of the Wienermobile and shake out a few other meat-based mobile marketing ideas.
Episode 166: To The Max
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
Episode 165: Shamrock Shakin’
We go green and toast the top o’ the morning by dipping into our pot of marketing gold to share a notable St. Paddy’s Day creative concoction.
Episode 164: Kia Logo Chaos
We rack our brains trying to google the “KN car” before turning our attention to Kia’s controversial logo redesign.
Human Interview: Caitlyn Gow
We talk with Caitlyn Gow, a student at the University of Akron, about her social media marketing class assignment and the choice to write about Discord.
Episode 163: Burning Holiday Questions (Fireplace Edition)
We roast more than chestnuts as we answer a sackful of burning holiday questions about time-honored traditions, classic Christmas characters, and merry memorable marketing campaigns.
Episode 162: The Passion of the Pickleball
We whack around a few ideas on why pickleball has become the fastest growing sport in America and if it has what it takes to make it as a major league.
Episode 161: Twitter’s New Musk
We get a whiff of what the Twitterverse will look like under Elon Musk, and weigh in on whether that’s a good or bad thing for the social network’s future.
Episode 160: Patagonia Goes Purpose
We take stock of Patagonia’s bold move for future ownership and ponder if other corporations might start to consider similar unorthodox succession plans.
Episode 159: Brand Resurrections
We reanimate a selection of brands, startups, platforms, and apps that have gone belly up over the past 10 years.
Episode 158: Craziest Car Commercials
We hazard a second look at the AutoTrader spot that put the Duke boys back behind the wheel and burn rubber with our picks for the wildest auto ads ever to hit the airwaves.
Episode 157: A Decade of Brand Debacles
We navigate back to the year 2012 to re-examine the Mapplegate scandal and map out the most memorable brand controversies of the past 10 years.
Episode 156: Top 5 Commercial Catchphrases
We release our personal picks for the most memorable and repeatable catchphrases in modern advertising history.
Episode 155: Undead Advertising
We rise from the grave to relive the long-forgotten marketing war between DISH network and AMC, and feast on the flesh of other notable zombie-themed ads.
Episode 154: Ride and Fall of Peloton
We peddle our thoughts on Peloton’s fork-in-the-road moment, and share a list of past fitness trends we’ve left in the dust.
Episode 153: Snack to the Future
We take another bite out of the campaign that we talked 10 years ago on the very first episode of this podcast and munch on a couple other more recent snack-related marketing morsels.
Episode 152: 2021 Awesome Awards
We salute the bold, creative, and amusing marketing efforts that awed us with their awesomeness this year and made us think about something other than viruses… if only for a few sweet fleeting moments.
Episode 151: It’s the End of Facebook as We Know It
We metabolize our thoughts on the metamorphosis of Facebook by answering a series of metaphorical questions about the life and times of the world’s largest social network.
Episode 150: Man Eating Plants
We harvest our thoughts on the wild growth of plant-based foods and grill up some marketing efforts aimed at selling people on meatless meats.
Episode 149: The Best Audio Logos in the Entire Universe
We sound off on some pitch-perfect examples of “sonic branding” that are sure to be stuck inside your head long after this episode goes quiet.
Episode 148: I Want My MTV!
We tune in to the iconic marketing campaign and subsequent promo spots that helped make MTV a pop-culture juggernaut in the 80s and 90s.
Episode 147: We All Scream For…
We cool down by scooping out marketing musings on current trends, classic slogans, and captivating flavors from the ice cream world.
Episode 146: Guardians of the Pro Sports Rebranding Galaxy
We field some big questions about the brand changeup coming to Cleveland and rank the recent history of pro sports teams that changed their names without switching cities.
Episode 145: Mystery Box
We unwrap the enigma behind a puzzling new trend more brands are adopting—but we can’t tell you what it is, you have to listen to unlock the secret.
Episode 144: Are Buy Buttons a Lie?
We buy into the idea that maybe “buy” is the wrong word for digital items like movies, TV shows, and music that customers may not actually own.
Episode 143: Brutally Honest Brand Slogans
We consider what an alternative universe would look like if brands advertised what people really think about their products.
Episode 142: Selling this Podcast as an NFT
We invest everything we’ve got in non-fungible tokens and then try to figure out if what we own actually has any real value.
Episode 141: Mind Thundering the Future of Social
We storm our brains for ideas on what the next phase of social media might look (and sound) like.
Episode 140: Clubhouse Crashers
We crash the Clubhouse to share our thoughts on the new invitation-only, voice-based social network.
Episode 139: Smoking Fetus Ad
We cough through a cloud of cigarette smoke as we revisit one of the most memorable anti-smoking campaigns ever made.
Episode 138: Paramount Plus
We scale the epic marketing campaign around the release of another major streaming service looking to join the ranks of Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus at the top of the mountain.
Episode 137: A-List Advertising
We assemble an all-star cast of top-level talent including Bruce Willis, Hugh Jackman, and Brie Larson to talk about the increasing appeal of ad campaigns for big-name actors.
Episode 136: Best Board Game Commercials
We do not pass GO as we spin, roll, and pop our thoughts on the best board game advertising of all time.
Episode 135: Highest Scoring Video Game Covers
We pick players in the burgeoning marketing battle between Series X and PS5 consoles, and unlock our personal picks for the best game covers of the Xbox/Playstation era.
Episode 134: Would You Buy or Sell These Brand Efforts
We riff on a range of recent marketing and branding efforts—from the unleashing of the Seattle Kraken to breakfast Mac & Cheese to Planters’ rapidly aging Baby Nut.
Episode 133: Questions About Quibi
We quibble over whether all the quacks and quips about the failure of Quibi are well-deserved, and provide some quick reviews of the streaming platform’s bite-size content offerings.
Episode 132: Worst Sneakers Ever
We kick around some thoughts on Nike’s new Ben & Jerry’s-inspired footwear and share our personal picks for the ugliest sneaker designs of all time.
Episode 131: Rebranding Aunt Jemima & Uncle Ben’s
We reflect on recent brand announcements from Aunt Jemima & Uncle Ben’s in light of widespread protests against racism and calls for change across the USA.
Episode 130: WFH Forever
We spitball—with face masks, of course—some creative ideas to take working from home to the next level now that it could be the forever future for many employees.
Episode 129: Quarantine-Themed Ads
We zoom in on the different ways brands have incorporated social distancing and quarantine life into their advertising.
Episode 128: Brands Making Quarantine Better
We isolate some of the brands and products rising up to make life a little easier during this strange stretch living in lockdown.
Episode 127: Going Viral
We pull down our protective masks to spread a few thoughts on how brands are responding to the coronavirus and the massive impact COVID-19 is having on marketing and events.
Episode 126: TikTok Bytes Social
We sound off on the current state of old-school social media and loop our thoughts on a pair of modern social apps looking to make some noise.
Episode 125: Killing Mr. Peanut
We focus our monocles on the untimely death of Mr. Peanut and tip our top hats to the ads that made us laugh, cry, and want to buy during Super Bowl 54.
Episode 124: Visions of the Future
We recall how brands from the past envisioned the future, and share a couple of our own marketing visions for the 2020s.
Episode 123: Jingle All the Way
We deck the halls with our thoughts on the enduring appeal of Christmas music and chime in on this year’s crop of holiday ads.
Episode 122: Mighty Mustaches of Modern Marketing
We let our follicles run wild as we discuss the growth and evolution of Movember and brush up on some of the most memorable mustaches in ad history.
Episode 121: The Peacock Effect
We fan out our thoughts on the name of NBC Universal’s new streaming platform and strut out our official ranking of streaming service names.