đȘThe hook is overrated
Issue #408
Surely the hook is still important, I mean how else do you get someone to continue watching? Itâs true you need to grab peopleâs attention, yes, but as our old friends at Daivid have found in their recent report, Creator Instinct, getting an emotional connection is the differentiator. That emotional connection is the âfuelâ of storytelling and it is where audience engagement truly lies. And fascinatingly but also perhaps not surprisingly raw emotions outperform âsafeâ every day of the week. We all know this instinctively, conflict drives a story. And the ending? Getting to a satisfying pay off, especially the last three seconds, drives shares, saves, follows and all the other actions brands love, like buying something. Happy Thursday, Simon.
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The three seconds that really count
Creators and the advertising industry has spent years obsessing over the opening hook. New research analysing 5,000 creator-led posts across Instagram and TikTok suggests the industry has been looking the wrong way. Content that builds to a satisfying payoff generates 110% more organic views, an effect that triples on TikTok, where a strong ending drives a 318% lift in views and 83% more engagement. Audiences donât remember the hook. They remember how it ended (and hopefully the story that gets them there). Brands have been trained to win the first three seconds. Creators discovered the last three are what matters in the long game.
Brands want their MTV
Gap, Cheetos, KFC, Hollister and Hawaiian Tropic have all released branded music videos. The logic is solid: people hate ads and will scroll past anything that looks like one. A music video at least has a chance of being viewed. Cheetos paired Nickelback with Megan Thee Stallion (who knows why) to announce the return of a Flaminâ Hot Dill Pickle flavour. Hawaiian Tropic tapped influencer Alix Earle to lip-sync to a Divinyls track from 1990, with a dance tutorial and creator campaign to follow. The goal in each case isnât views, itâs UGC. Get the choreography right and the audience makes the ad for you. Whether it works consistently is another question but the fact that this many brands are trying it at once is the ultimate complement to the creator trend.
The Washington Post is hiring creators
After significant newsroom cuts earlier this year, The Washington Post has launched a creator network and debuted its first series, Letâs Talk Numbers, a street interview show about personal finance with creator JC Rodriguez. Creators retain ownership of their IP, which keeps costs down for the Post and makes the deal more attractive to creators. About half a dozen new series are set to follow. The broader context is worth noting. 70% of publishers in the Reuters Instituteâs 2026 report said they were worried creators were taking attention away from their content. The Washington Postâs response is to stop competing and start collaborating.
AI for Creators by Erik Magelssen
If you've been watching the AI music space, the new ElevenLabs Music v2 release is interesting. Mid-track genre switching is the headline but it also allows for section-by-section editing and prices are down by up to 50%, and there are fully cleared commercial rights on every export, which will help clear a lot of hurdles. Suno still has the edge on vocals. But for anything with an invoice attached, ElevenLabs probably just became the default.
Cool Tools
Affordable, weird, well-made gear is reshaping what creators can use to do good work. This vintage-look lens going for under USD 100 is producing imagery that punches well above its price, with corner softness that some might say is a flaw and others would call a feature. And this micro-sized lens has become the smallest we've ever featured and is being adapted by filmmakers onto cinema cameras with surprisingly good results. Plus the long-awaited Insta360 Mic Pros have finally landed, told you they were inevitable.
Hot Tips
For all the talk about creators needing to be more visible, more personal and more present, an interesting trend going the other way might be more telling. Anonymous creators are doing increasingly well. Privacy is starting to look fashionable. The trust in this kind of content comes from the work itself, not the lifestyle. If you're a new creator who'd rather keep your face off the internet, all is not lost.
Viral Hits
You can tell a lot about someone in four short readings of the same phrase, which is probably why this trend is doing the numbers it is. The challenge is to deliver one line in four emotional tones, supportive, disappointed, sarcastic and flirty. People are using it to call each other out on having one mode. The genuinely good ones reveal range you didn't know was there. The bad ones reveal something else entirely.
Stuff from us
Storytelling in fintech is one of the harder briefs in marketing right now. There's a lot to explain, very little room for error and an audience that expects to be informed without being talked down to. Our Senior Account Director Erik just put out a new reel breaking down how brands in the category can tell a sharper, clearer story.