Before I take the stage at the Tectonic conference tomorrow, I wanted to share this with you first: a sneak peek of my new keynote on the future of branding. It’s a look at how I see brands evolving in the age of generative AI, and the two very different futures we might be heading toward.

I hope it gives you a few sparks of inspiration before the world sees it on stage.

Would love to hear your thoughts: are we cooked? Or cooking?

Recently, I got caught in a bit of a storm. People on YouTube got angry about the use of AI footage in my recent documentary on brand mascots. “AI slop! I’m not watching this stuff!” It got me wondering (some great comments in that LinkedIn thread) about what the future for brands would be like. Enter: Joe Burns, who’s been dropping the most insightful and amazing flipbooks on LinkedIn.

Joe did not disappoint, we had a fascinating conversation about the impact AI has on brands, creative teams, the agency world, content creation, and the strategy behind it.

Joe brings a fresh perspective to the table, or as he likes to call them, ‘strategic cold cuts’. There is no playbook for the future, but Joe is giving us some handles to think about what’s coming, and I’m grateful for it.

What do you think? Is the sloppening upon us? Let me know by replying to the email or commenting on Substack.

In this episode, Dan Salkey is back on the show to talk about their latest research paper called ‘Entertain or Die’. This is the second round and this time Dan shares some new insights on how to actually build an entertainment brand.

Important links

* You can find the full report here.

* Find Dan on LinkedIn here