BroadcastPR Expert – Getting Brands on TV & Radio | Broadcast Consultancy & Media Relations | Media Training | Speaker | bebroadcast.co.uk

👋 Why listen to me? Because I have built campaigns for leading organisations across almost every sector and delivered consistent award-winning work since 2010. I’m now taking the approach that has helped me to grow and putting into my own agency – Be Broadcast.
 
I love getting under the skin of issues and working out what makes people impacted tick to inspire change. I work back from that weaving in the role the brand plays in order to solve or make it better.

🤩Now it’s your turn…

You’ve seen me (and your peers) sharing their incredible broadcast results on LinkedIn, hitting key messages, and finding creative ways to reach their audiences. 

And that’s without mentioning the possibilities to bring in new customers and the limitless potential broadcastPR can have on the bottom line. 

But you’re either not sure where to start, or you’ve started and you seriously want to level up.

If you’re ready to see a real ROI through broadcast PR your operatives need to be doing it right, not handling it like a factory – churning out ‘hit and miss’ content. 

I can work with you to develop strategies that my clients use to increase their sales, grow their brands and 
take advantage of audio and visual media on behalf of the brand. 

I provide:
✅ Broadcast Consultancy 
✅ Broadcast Media Relations
✅ Help With Spokespeople
✅ Research
✅ Global Broadcast Media Relations
✅ Media Training
✅ Podcasting – Development, Planning & Creation
✅ Podcast Hosting
✅ Podcast Promotion
✅ Adhoc Broadcast Media Clippings
✅ Monitoring – Week-Long and Ongoing
✅ Broadcast analysis – To Build Competitive Advantage

All available on https://bebroadcast.co.uk/ 

What my clients say:

“We cannot emphasise enough how Be Broadcast evolved the story for us delivering results like we have never seen before”

“Be Broadcast were great at shouting about our news. We got tonnes of engagement with people getting in touch from seeing and hearing the news. On a subject that could be seen as sensitive, Be Broadcast were there all through the week, with suggestions and support. We can’t wait to work together again”

“Josh was able to guide us through the entire process, provide on-the-spot media training and help us articulate what we wanted to say in the best way”

“Dynamic, ambitious and very hard-working, Be Broadcast is eminently capable working at the most senior level with clients, delivering superb client service and terrific results.”

Drop me a DM, let’s do this. 
And if you’re not ready yet – you can find free advice and guidance here: 
https://bebroadcast.co.uk/case-studies/

Josh Wheeler

Update: Thankfully has been taken down now

In today’s episode of “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.

A school has publicly posted identifying information about a child: name, year group, and other details that make them easier to find.

The child’s mum has just won The Traitors.

A primetime show watched by millions - including unfortunately people who don't see things the way the rest of us do.

Which means the child is now part of the story too, whether they like it or not.

And for what?

To “join the conversation”. To ride the moment. To borrow a bit of relevance for the brand.

This is where comms forgets safeguarding.
If your content requires a child to be identifiable, it’s careless. And it should have been a hard no.

We need a hard reset on judgement: just because something will get likes doesn’t mean it’s worth the risk.

Can I be really honest? The world probably doesn't need your take on Brooklyn Beckham.

Entertainment TV didn’t lose people because humans changed. And PRs need to be wary.

Humans haven’t changed. I don’t even think our behaviour has shifted that much.

What changed is that entertainment TV started serving us more of the same, right as we all got devices designed to pull us apart.

And streamers didn’t “change” us either. With the odd exception, they are putting out content you can get anywhere else. The same shapes. The same safe bets. Just in a different app. We’ve all paid £4.99 on Amazon for something we later find on ITVX.

That’s why I think The Traitors matters.

Not because it’s “a clever format”.

Because it’s human emotion in HD. Suspicion. Loyalty. Shame. Relief. Vindication. The stuff that makes people watch together, message mid-episode, and argue about it the next day.

It’s landed in culture. And the ripple effect arrived fast. Including the inevitable “incredible” stunts. Meh. OMG A CLOAK.

Once The Traitors became the breakout hit, schedules filled up with more “smart competition” shows built on the same ingredients:
>> The Fortune Hotel (ITV)
>> The Inheritance (Channel 4)
>> Destination X (BBC)
>> Genius Game (ITV)
>> The Trust: A Game of Greed (Netflix)

Not heard of them? Quite a few didn’t land. Because “what worked once should work again” gets tired fast.

We’ve seen this before. The biggest shows that truly gathered us were emotional rituals.

Strictly. X Factor. Big Brother. Love Island. Soaps.

Then the industry got scared. Networks and platforms chased safer repetition. Same beats. Same casting types. Same twists. Then acted surprised when audiences drifted off.

PR has the same trap. The safe set pieces. The familiar templates. The “winning” angles on repeat.

When the world zigs, it’s tempting to zig harder. But that’s how you end up invisible.

So here’s what we keep close at Be Broadcast.

When they zig, we jag.

Not zag. Someone else is already zagging.

Jag means sharper. More human. More specific. More emotionally true.

Attention is fragile.

But emotion still brings people together.

Yesterday, I wrote about entertainment TV and what we as PRs can genuinely take from it. 

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: attention isn’t the problem. Emotion is.

That’s why I keep coming back to The Golden Girls. Not because it was “ahead of its time” in a naff, Pinterest-quote way. But because it did things PR still bottles, even with bigger budgets, better data, and far more channels.

This wasn’t a calm “progress is inevitable” era. This is Reagan into early Bush: culture wars hardening, “family values” politics everywhere, AIDS stigma, abortion battles, disability rights still being fought for (the ADA wasn’t signed until 1990), and women’s rights at boiling point. Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony, then the “Year of the Woman”.

Sounds familiar?

That’s the America The Golden Girls lands in. So when I say it was “bold”, it isn't just a compliment.

Against that backdrop, it did this:

> It told America (and the world) that women didn't disappear at a certain age.
> It dragged HIV stigma to the kitchen table. In 1990, Rose faces possible HIV exposure from a blood transfusion. Fear, shame, ignorance from the people closest to her.
> It didn’t give you one racist villain. It made the room complicit to make us all face our prejudices.
> It made elder care and cognitive decline personal. Sophia realises a friend has Alzheimer’s. Denial, recognition, grief.
> It normalised later-life financial precarity. Rose loses her pension and has to start again.
> It took domestic emotional abuse seriously inside a sitcom. Blanche misses the warning signs: power, manipulation, humiliation.

And it did all of this without sounding pious. It earned the right to go there by being funny, warm, messy, and human first. Humour wasn’t a safety net to get away from something - it was the way in.

Entertainment-education works. A 2025 systematic review found story-led content can improve knowledge, confidence, and even behaviour. When people are carried by narrative, they lower their guard. They listen. They reconsider.

So here’s the uncomfortable question for brands:

If four fictional women in Miami can do all of this in the 80s, what exactly is stopping your brand from telling a story with a backbone?

I’m not even talking about “purpose comms”. Just light, shade, and emotion that actually lands.

Because “safe” doesn’t mean “responsible”. Safe usually means forgettable.

Don’t waffle like a St Olaf storyline. Be a friend. Tell the truth. Make it land.

Here's some inspo of what they took on...

And if you’ve got this far, you might recognise Blanche’s bedroom wallpaper in the Be Broadcast office. Everything we do is intentional.

Resharing this from 6 months ago because it’s happened again. This week, crime scene photos from the Idaho murders were released, then pulled.

And what’s horrific is what came after.

The families had to put out statements begging people not to turn their loved ones’ deaths into content. Begging strangers not to zoom in, screenshot, “analyse”, repost, and pick it apart for clicks.

The families of kids murdered had to say “Murder is not entertainment”.  Imagine writing those words about your loved ones?

That is the bit I cannot shake. Yes, crime scene photos can/should/are be released in some cases. But we are not in that world anymore. We are in a world where the moment something is public, it is fed into an attention machine. A machine that rewards outrage, speculation, and the most graphic angle. A machine that makes grief searchable. A machine that can spill into real life and, in some cases, risk the integrity of legal proceedings.

Social media is having a “change moment” around under 16s. Good. But let’s be honest – they reflect us and we are not behaving like adults either.

So, I still think social media platforms must be accountable. Legally and ethically. Like media.

That means:
 -Removing defamatory content once notified
 -Disabling comments on sensitive and live cases, and doing more than that
 -De-ranking speculative crime content until legal proceedings are over
 -Blocking monetisation of harmful content
 -Suspending accounts that harass survivors or families
 -Real legal recourse against perpetrators

This isn’t about PR. But PR helps explain it.

Earlier this week I watched a documentary on the Idaho college murders.

Four young people killed. Brutally.

What stuck with me wasn’t just the horror of the crime. It was what happened next.

Not by the killer. By us. By people online, convinced they were part of the story. Solving it. Avenging it. Getting clicks from it.

Two young kids survived the attack. They were in the basement. One thought she heard something, checked in with her housemate, and they went back to sleep.

That’s the level of detail people obsessed over. Not out of compassion. But to accuse. They became suspects. Received death threats. Were doxxed. Hounded on every platform.

All while going through a trauma we can barely imagine. And as bits of blummin kids.

Another victim’s best friend was sent messages like “I hope you fry.”

His address. His parents’ workplace. His car. All posted online. All because people were “just asking questions”.

And here’s where the PR lens matters.

The Police Dept weren’t equipped to handle a quadruple homicide. Press conferences were delayed. Clarification took too long.

And as any comms professional knows, a vacuum like that doesn’t stay empty. It fills with speculation. Assumptions. Rage. Fame-chasers. Grief-baiters. TikTok theories.

It became a sick game.

The accused even seemingly joining dedicated Facebook groups about the case. He dropped cryptic posts. Played along. 

***This is the part I can’t stop thinking about***

We regulate press (to a degree)
We regulate courtrooms.
We regulate who can shout with a megaphone in public.

But anyone can build audiences and profit off trauma in real time.
No duty of care. No checks. No protection for those left behind.

One survivor talked about trying to move on. But their name lives online - tied to conspiracy and hate. Did they really conspire to murder their friends?

Imagine being about to graduate, trying to get a job and THAT is your name online.  

And when the consequence is lives shattered again and again by we say: “Oh well, that’s the internet.”

Social platforms are not neutral. They are publishing engines. Recommendation engines. Outrage engines. They shape public opinion faster than any newsroom ever could.

And yet, we still hold journalism to higher standards than TikTok or X.

That needs to change.

So what’s the ask?

Social media platforms must be accountable. Legally and ethically - like media.

That means:
 • Removing defamatory content once notified
 • Disabling comments on sensitive and live cases (and going further)
 • De-ranking speculative crime content until legal proceedings are over
 • Preventing monetisation of harmful content
 • Suspending accounts that harass survivors or families
 • Genuine legal recourse against perpetrators

This isn’t censorship. It’s protection. Of real people. In real pain.

If we wouldn’t let someone scream abuse outside a murder trial, why let thousands do it from their phones?

This is genuinely bleak to read.

I’ve followed Jack Murley’s work for a while, and whatever you think about the wider case, it takes a lot to stand up, challenge a culture, and keep going when the easiest option is to stay quiet. 

Not everyone has that in them.

What struck me most is how rarely we talk about the everyday stuff. The microaggressions. The “just banter”. The throwaway comments that slowly teach someone to shrink themselves at work. 

I guarantee you it happens.

And I don’t think we measure it properly. We don’t really explore it. We rarely spotlight LGBTQ+ leadership in our industry either.

I did a quick straw poll of my LGBTQ+ pals in comms and media. Every single one had a story that felt uncomfortably familiar.

Every. Single. One.
So where’s the line?

At what point is a joke not a joke?
At what point are you “too sensitive”?
At what point are you labelled “too woke” - as if basic respect is a trend?

And in a world where LGBTQ+ rights are being pushed back (and if we’re honest, they’ve often been pretty light-touch protections anyway), we need to be stronger and louder.

The people with broad enough shoulders to take the heat have to speak up - not just for ourselves, but for the ones who don’t feel able to yet.

Truth to power. A bit harder. A bit more often.

Episode 9 of Be Broadcast's Accidentally Brilliant is out.

I’m joined by Darryl Sparey (Chart.PR, FPRCA, FCIPR), co-founder and MD of Hard Numbers 📈.

This conversation is basically about confidence. Not the loud kind. The practical kind. Where it comes from. How to get it type stuff.

The confidence to say what you will deliver.
The confidence to measure it properly.
The confidence to commit to it in writing.

We also get into the nitty gritty on #GEO and the uncomfortable truth that PR needs to own what happens next, or somebody else will.

Link in comments

Joe Marston 🚀

Co-Founder

Scaling e-commerce brands to 7 and 8 figures 🚀 | LU Entrepreneur of The Year Award Winner | Founder of The Leading TikTok Marketing Agency and an Award Winning Full Service Ecom Growth Agency.

3x Agency Founder.

We scale brands to 7 and 8 figures with creative, paid traffic, retention and funnel optimisation.

In 2024, having a great product is one thing…

But scaling a brand to £10M is a another.

You need a simple roadmap for profitably attracting and converting customers, at scale.

Because when you get that right…

- You stand out from competitors in the market
- You build a community around your brand
- You acquire customers at will (profitably)
- You turn customers into raving fans 

Giving you complete control over your growth.

We help our clients do exactly that with our proven system that guarantees growth.

1. Initial diagnostic to identify bottlenecks in your business
2. Developing a bespoke growth strategy for your brand
3. Creative ideation and production 
4. Unique UGC collaborations
5. Targeted advertising (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat)
6. Email marketing 

And having generated over £100M+ in sales across 200+ brands, we’ve know the ecommerce game inside out.

🚀 Mystery Shirt In A Box grew from £5K to £2.6M in just one year with our help
🚀 The Essence Vault is hitting 7 figure months in its second year since launch
🚀 Vintage Threads tripled their revenue working with us with a 6x ROAS
🚀 AIRfreshh went from 0% to 52% of revenue from email in 2 months!
🚀 Bene Culture saw their revenue grow 6x in 6 months with our help
🚀 The Oodie generated £2M on TikTok alone in their first year
🚀 UN:IK’s first quarter of 2023 was up 88% on 2022
🚀Grew Liam and Co. 500% year on year

Don’t put up with unpredictable, unsustainable or underwhelming growth any more.

If you want to see how we could help scale your brand, send me a DM saying ‘SOAR’

If you're not ready yet, I post daily educational content to give you all the secrets.

Founder

E-commerce growth agency offering bespoke services to online businesses looking to increase their sales and scale their brand.

2026 is a new game entirely - so we’ve distilled what’s actually working for 8–9 figure DTC brands into one huge resource...

📖 THE 2026 D2C PLAYBOOK: The New Rules of Meta, TikTok, AI & Performance Creative

The scroll is now personal.

Every feed is a unique journey and most brands aren’t building for it.

In 2026, you’re not just running ads. You’re feeding machine learning systems with creative, copy, and context, at speed.

The brands winning are the ones who’ve built signal-rich creative systems and message frameworks that adapt to intent.

We’ve pulled together the exact strategies, formats, and frameworks we’re using right now.

- What’s working
- What’s out
- What’s next

Want the download?

→ Like this post
→ Comment “2026” and we’ll send it your way

Building DTC brands to 8 and 9 figures | Founder of Soar With Us & For You Advertising | Triple Whale's "Agency of The Year" Winner

For one last time, we’re releasing our most requested resource of 2025: a folder of the top-performing brand funnel breakdowns of the year.

Their full stack: Paid strategy > Organic > Landing pages > Google ads > Email > Offers

8 of the best brands of 2025.

Here’s who’s inside:
– rhode skin
– MESHKI
– Loop Earplugs
– ALO
– IM8 Health
– REFY
– BRĒZ
– WONDERSKIN

If you want the folder, you know what to do.

Like the post.
Drop “FUNNEL” below.
We’ll send it your way.

Make sure we're connected so I can DM you

TikTok Shop went from an “experiment” to a $15bn GMV channel in the US in under two years, while UK revenue grew 180% YoY.

The question isn’t whether it works anymore. It’s whether your brand is actually set up to capture it.

We’ve seen enough TikTok Shop launches now to spot a clear pattern:

- a strong first week
- inconsistent creator output
- messy LIVE execution
- offers that spike once, then fade
- no repeatable way to scale GMV

That gap is exactly what this resource is designed to close.

We’ve put together a practical, start-to-finish TikTok Shop guide for established e-commerce brands that want to treat the channel as a growth engine, not a side experiment.

It’s built for teams doing £5M+, where execution, structure, and control actually matter.

Inside the guide, we break down:

- How to set up TikTok Shop foundations that support scale (not short-term spikes)
- The LIVE structures and technical setup brands use to keep viewers engaged and buying
- How to choose hero products and offers that drive consistent GMV
- The affiliate playbook: recruiting, incentivising, and sustaining creator output
- How to use LIVE coupons and flash deals without eroding brand value
- What top-performing TikTok Shop content has in common (hooks, proof, CTAs)
- How to train hosts that can actually sell on camera
- The metrics that matter during LIVE — and what to do when performance drops
- How TikTok Shop can double as a creative engine for paid and organic growth

It’s a plug-and-play blueprint based on what’s working in real accounts right now.

If you’re responsible for growth, ecom, or creative, this guide is designed to save you months of trial and error.

Want it?
Like this post
Comment “tiktok shop” and I’ll send it your way
(Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you)

The most productive thing I did this week was stare at a wall for 30 minutes.

Dr Andrew Huberman explains that your ability to focus is driven by the inputs you received in the hours before you sit down to work.

If you scroll Twitter, watch YouTube, or listen to podcasts between work blocks, your brain is still processing that stimulation when you try to focus.

He calls it "dopamine residue."

The fix is simple: boring breaks.

No phone. No music. No input.

Just silence.

I tested it for 3 days. The clarity was immediate.

I now build 10-30 mins of nothing before any writing, strategy, or deep work.

It sounds lazy. It's the opposite.

The less stimulated your break, the sharper your next work block.

This is one of many systems that helped me scale past 8 figures before 28.

(Yes, that's me staring at a wall. I don't actually do this - I normally meditate or sit in silence away from my desk. But I did sit there for 4 minutes just to get this shot, which might be worse so you should give this a like for effort) 

Want the full list of protocols that I’ve tested to 3x my productivity? 

Comment "productivity" and I'll send you 10 protocols that actually moved the needle.

This is what it looks like when persona-led growth is baked into the product, not just the marketing.

Kind patches are selling solutions to 10+ highly specific problems and doing it through 3,000+ live ads at once.

Each product?
→ Positioned to a different pain point.

Each creative?
→ Tailored to a specific outcome.

Each angle?
→ Built for a defined persona.

We’re talking:
• “Sunday scaries” sleep anxiety
• “Skin and hair” glow-ups
• “On-the-go” energy boosts
• “Late-night scrolling” focus drops
• Even “support with weight goals” and “hormonal balance” for women

They’re building mini-funnels that slot into people’s lives. It’s why their paid system scales without fatiguing.

We just broke the funnel down.

Mapped the personas, analysed the creative, and pulled the patterns.

Want the full teardown?
Like this post
Drop “persona” below and I’ll send you the link
(Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you)

Meta just rebuilt the algorithm. And if you're uploading the same 6 statics… you're invisible.

In 2026, scale doesn’t come from more budget.

It comes from creative variety that matches algorithm complexity.

Here’s what’s powering Meta’s backend now:

🔹 Andromeda – learns preference patterns from creative complexity → +8% ad quality

🔹 GEM – ingests billions of data points to personalise delivery → +5% conversions on Reels

🔹 Lattice – connects outcomes across placements + formats → +6% in ad conversions

🔹 Sequence Learning – understands what happens before the click → +3% conversion lift

None of this matters if you're still uploading templated UGC with 3 hooks and a voiceover.

Meta’s system doesn’t need more content. It needs more context.

That means:
- Persona-led narratives, not just “creators”
- Varied format logic (statics, scripts, carousels, reviews)
- Diverse outcomes (AOV, pLTV, incrementality, not just ROAS)

We call this Soulmate Theory: The right creative, for the right user, at the right moment.

The algo can find the match. But only if you give it something worth matching with.

Our process in 2026:
- Creative trees by persona → not linear iterations
- Weekly contextual inputs to train the algo
- Measured by incremental reach and hit rate, not CTR

This is what makes every part of the system work harder.

So if your Meta performance is flat, it’s not fatigue. It’s signal starvation.

Your next growth unlock isn't more budget. It's creative intelligence.

“We could’ve raised at £100million. We didn’t and I’m glad” - Dan Murray🧠

🔥 Just dropped a monster episode with Dan, co-founder of Heights, one of the UK’s most trusted wellness brands (and a brand we’ve been proud to partner with on creative).

Dan gets brutally honest on:

- How insomnia, gut issues and startup burnout led to Heights
- Why he turned down a £100M valuation and raised at £60M instead
- The real impact of celebrity collabs (every one of them a paying customer first)
- How they broke through 2 years of flat growth to hit £25M
- Why he believes in building the best product in the category, not the trendiest
- And how “The Smart Supplement” became Vitals with messaging that finally converts

If you’re building through the mud, chasing profitable scale, or trying to unlock a better narrative for your brand…

This one’s a masterclass in founder clarity, creative strategy, and performance at scale.

🎧 Listen here: https://lnkd.in/eWii754p

We helped Mindful Chef lift conversions by 39% and reduce blended CPA by 26% in 90 days - while maintaining spend

Mindful Chef came to us on a mission to scale efficient new customer acquisition and modernise its paid channel strategy. We needed to ensure that rising platform competition didn’t translate into rising acquisition costs.

The brief was clear: refresh channel strategy, bring AI-assisted optimisation into the mix, and allow creative strategy to do more of the legwork.

‍
👉 Meta
On Meta, we moved from manually stacked interests to letting creative drive discovery, integrating Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) as the backbone of the strategy. A tightly run testing pipeline meant that each new concept had a fast path: validate in a dedicated test environment, then promote winners into core campaigns.

We layered in whitelisting to introduce fresh audiences and add trust signals, expanding reach while maintaining quality.


👉 Google
We streamlined Brand to remove cross-competition between Performance Max and Branded Search. Our bid strategy moved from target impression share to a Max Conversions test (versus manual CPC), unlocking volume and efficiency.

With stronger signal density established, we shifted to a focused target CPA approach, reducing acquisition costs on Google by 49% within the first 4 months of our partnership.


👉 Creative execution
Our first wave of creative translated Mindful Chef’s values into native-feel storytelling, mapped to key personas. We balanced high-production, “sceptic-to-convert” formats to tackle common objections around recipe boxes with UGC-led concepts that play into everyday tension points like back-to-school routine resets.

The result is a modular foundation spanning Problem-Aware to Product-Aware messaging, anchored in Mindful Chef’s USPs: health, convenience, and premium quality.

The Results:
✅ 67% META CONVERSIONS UP
✅ 26% BLENDED CPA DOWN
✅ 49% GOOGLE CPA DOWN

It feels like we're just getting started here, and we're incredibly excited at what's next for our partnership.

In under a year, IM8 Health crossed a $100M+ annualised run-rate and the underlying metrics actually improved as they grew.

With Danny Yeung making an appearance on the podcast this week, it felt like the right time to reshare our funnel breakdown to show what’s actually driving the numbers:

A few numbers worth paying attention to:

- $100M+ ARR pace in ~11 months
- 76% QoQ growth in the latest quarter
- 80%+ of first-time buyers convert to subscription
- $150 AOV, up materially post product expansion
- EBITDA losses now ~$2M per quarter, with breakeven in sight

We mapped IM8’s entire growth system end-to-end in a teardown a few months back, covering:

- Performance media across Meta + Google
- High-converting lander architecture
- Subscription-first funnel design
- Email + retention doing real revenue work
- Ambassador-led distribution
- Strong organic + owned community
- Bundled offers that lift AOV
- Clear, science-backed positioning (without killing brand)

If you want the full breakdown:

1️⃣ Like the post
2️⃣ Comment “IM8”
3️⃣ Make sure we’re connected so I can send it over

Here’s why most entrepreneurs never build anything that lasts:

They chase what’s easy, cheap, and fast, which means it’s easy to copy, and impossible to protect.

From day one at Soar, we asked ourselves:

“What would the best agency in the UK look like in 5 years and what do we need to do today to build that?”

At the time, it was just me and Olly.

Fewer than 5 staff.

No office.

No profit.

But that one mindset shift shaped everything.

We:
- Reinvested every penny instead of paying ourselves
- Hired top-tier people before we could “afford” them
- Built IP, frameworks, and internal systems from scratch
- Never cut corners, even when no one was watching

That’s what built the moat.

We weren’t trying to grow fast.

We were trying to become undeniable in one of the most competitive agency markets in the world.

And we’ve been scaling like that ever since.

Because while most people play the same game, we learned to play asymmetric warfare:

Win by doing what others can’t… or won’t.

If you’re building a DTC brand or service company, make decisions your future self will thank you for.

Short-term advantage is sugar. Moats take longer, but they’re the only way to win long-term.

I consumed 10+ hours of neuroscience-backed productivity content so you don't have to.

Here's the one thing that actually moved the needle:

Boring breaks.

Dr. Huberman explains that your focus isn't decided when you sit down to work. 
It's decided by what you consumed in the hours before.

He calls it "dopamine residue."

If you scroll Twitter, watch YouTube, or listen to podcasts between work blocks, your brain is still processing that stimulation when you try to focus.

The fix: No phone. No music. No input. Just silence before deep work.

I tested it for 7 days. The clarity was immediate.

This is 1 of 10 protocols I pulled from the research.

I put all 10 into a free PDF with step-by-step actions for each.

Comment "focus" and I'll send it to you.

In 2026, the most expensive mistake in paid media is making ads that look familiar.

If your ad account is full of:

– The same UGC setup
– The same pacing
– The same “hook → proof → CTA” flow

Meta doesn’t see 30 assets. It sees one idea, repeated. And that’s why scale stalls.

Because format and vehicle determine how Meta classifies your ads, not how many versions you upload.

Quick example (supplement brand):

UGC video
Creator talking to camera
“Nothing worked for my bloating until this”
Raw, selfie-style
Problem → Solution → Transformation

Static carousel
Clean, Reddit-style slides
“4 reasons your gut health is killing your energy”
Pain points, proof, soft product CTA

Same product.
Same promise.
Different format.
Different vehicle.

Which means:
– Different entity IDs
– Fresh reach
– New audiences unlocked

Format = the structure (UGC, static, high-prod, etc.)

Vehicle = the lens the story travels through (testimonial, expert, founder, education)

We recently changed just two things (format and vehicle) and Meta delivered the ad to a completely new audience overnight.

Nothing else moved.

If you want to win now, you need to mix formats and vehicles intentionally, not accidentally.

That’s how you unlock:
– New demand
– Better CPMs
– Scale that compounds instead of decays

Most brands don’t have a media problem.

They have a creative sameness problem.

We’ve audited hundreds of 8-9 figure ad accounts and the same problem shows up every single time.

Most DTC ad accounts we audit are built backwards are ignoring 3 key stages of the buyer journey:
- Problem unaware
- Problem aware
- Solution aware

All the budget is pointed at people who are already ready to buy.
- Offer overlays
- Product carousels
- Feature dumps
- “X% off today only”

And sure, it works, until it doesn’t.

You can’t scale if you only sell to people who already know you.

What we’re seeing in 7–8 figure audits:
- No context-setting
- No objection handling
- No storytelling or teaching
- No emotional runway

What to build instead:

You need creative that earns attention before it asks for action:
- Explainers: “Why most X don’t work”
- Sceptical UGC: “I didn’t think this would work because…”
- Founder POVs and breakdowns
- Category education or side-by-sides
- Hooks that sell the problem before the product

When you focus only on the most aware, you’re just pitching.
When you build for all 5 stages, you’re telling a story and scaling with depth.

The fastest way to kill Meta performance in 2026? Treat organic and paid as separate systems.

2026 is shaping up to be the year organic makes a comeback, not as a brand nice-to-have, but as an input into how Meta decides which paid ads deserve scale.

Meta’s GEM update (Meta’s new paid ads foundation model) quietly flips the question.

It’s not: “How do we make better ads?”

It’s: “How do we create better signals for paid delivery?”

GEM is Meta’s most advanced ads recommendation model, built at LLM scale to rank and sequence ads across Facebook and Instagram. Instead of judging ads in isolation, it evaluates entire user journeys and decides whether a brand’s creative is worth expanding to new people.

GEM is designed to make sense of:

- what people do over time (their sequence of actions, not just one click)
- the context of those actions (format, placement, device, surface)
- signals coming from across Meta’s ecosystem, not just Ads Manager

So if you’re still treating creative as “new angles” inside Ads Manager only, you’re training GEM (paid) with half the picture.

👉 The practical shift: organic shapes the interest signals GEM uses to decide whether your ads scale.

If people engage with your organic content (views, comments, saves, profile taps), you’re creating clearer interest patterns. GEM learns from those patterns when it decides:

- who to show your ads to next
- how aggressively to expand reach
- and whether your brand deserves cheaper, broader delivery

That’s why organic performance now compounds paid performance.

What to do this week

1. Run one creative strategy across paid + organic.
Same personas. Same objections. Same “why now?” triggers.
   
2. Build signal-saturated assets, not endless ad variations.
  Your goal isn’t 30 ads.
  Your goal is 5–10 distinct concepts that clearly signal who the product is for.
   
3. Make your creative org chart more important than your campaign structure.
   
  If you don’t have:
  - someone briefing
  - someone producing
  - someone tagging + learning
you’re not a performance team anymore. You’re just buying impressions.
  
The winners won’t be the best media buyers.

They’ll be the teams who can produce distinct, high-quality signals at speed across organic and paid and let GEM (paid) do what it’s designed to do.

Curious: are you still treating organic as a brand channel or are you using it as an acquisition input that determines whether paid can scale?

Olly Hudson unpacks the mechanics behind this shift, including GEM and UTIS, in a longer piece for anyone wanting the full picture https://lnkd.in/ej7TqbDF

Meta’s 2025 Andromeda update made one thing clear:

Creative and creator identity are now the targeting.

Meta isn’t relying on interests or lookalikes anymore. It’s matching ads to individual-level preferences in the moment.

Two implications matter:

1️⃣ Meta can support far more creative volume and match assets more precisely.

2️⃣ The brands that win are the ones engineering the strongest signals: relevance, engagement, and clean conversion journeys.

For brands spending multi-6 figures/month, growth rarely stalls because CPAs spike.

It stalls because first-time impression ratio (FTI) drifts down.

You spend more.
You hit the same people.
Top-of-funnel quietly dries up.

As a benchmark, we aim for 10–20% of impressions to be truly incremental each month.

So why do partnership ads win under Andromeda?

Across our accounts, partnership ads are taking a larger share of spend because they:

✅ Drive stronger engagement signals

✅ Feel more human and credible than brand-only ads

✅ Unlock new reach via identity, not just new angles

Same angle. Same format.

Run it through a creator, founder, or third-party identity and you open new pockets of reach without rebuilding the concept.

But, Partnership ads don’t fail at the ad level. They fail post-click.

If the landing page, pre-sell, or CRM doesn’t continue the same voice and story, the signal collapses.

Consistency is the multiplier.

If you’re scaling on Meta and not tracking FTI or incremental reach, you’re flying blind.

And if partnership ads aren’t a default part of your system yet, you'll get lost in the algorithm.

My 2026 strategy is boring... and it's working ridiculously well.

As you grow, life gets louder. More opportunities. More "quick calls." More ops. More side hustles. More people wanting a piece of your time. And suddenly you're thinking about 20 things but moving none of them forward.

What's been refreshing lately? Less to think about. Less switching. More focus.

My new rule is simple: one core task a day, one goal a week. That's it.

Because being known comes with a hidden tax, you can spend all day being available and never actually build anything.

So I'm protecting my calendar like it's revenue. No jumping on calls just because it's easier. No filling gaps with meetings. No "quick chats" that kill momentum. More no-call days.

Example: Mondays and Wednesdays are zero calls. Deep work only. Not because I'm busy, but because I'm serious.

The real flex isn't doing more. It's creating space to hit flow state and do the work that actually moves the needle.

Protect your time. Schedule your focus. Build your week around output, not noise.

Because if you don't guard your calendar, someone else will happily fill it for you.

We tore up our entire creative process and rebuilt it for AI-first performance.

These 7 changes are now non-negotiable for scaling 8-figure brands.

2024–25 was about testing with AI.
2026 is about building with it.

Here’s what we’re shifting in our creative ops to scale real reach and win Meta’s AI game:

1. Creative diversity becomes non-negotiable
Meta’s new entity grouping system means if your ads look the same, they deliver the same. No matter how different the copy is.

💡70% of brands we audit are flooding their accounts with 100+ iterations...
But Meta sees them as 5 unique ads.

What we’re doing:
- Visual first, not copy first
- Distinct scenes, styles, formats
- Strategic volume > cosmetic tweaks

2. The AI Videographer becomes essential
We’ve added a Visual Prompt Engineer to every pod. A production multiplier.

🎯 Their remit:
- 10–30 ad variants per brief
- VO hooks, metaphors, transitions, environments
- Studio-level output without studio-level cost
It’s how we hit Meta’s volume bar without burning creative teams out.

3. AI = a second studio
We now run parallel briefs for human and AI production.
Same input, different output.

💡Where AI is outperforming:
- Product in environment
- Visual metaphors
- Explainers and low-prod demos
- Fast iterations on hooks + B-roll

4. Systems > tools
AI makes asset generation cheap.
So your edge isn’t generation, it’s organisation.

What we’re building:
✅ Centralised creative warehouse (transcribed, tagged, promptable)
✅ Context libraries for every format
✅ Performance data piped into feedback models
✅ Automated creative routing to avoid the graveyard problem

5. Feedback loops go automated
AI’s not just replacing creators, it’s coaching them.

We’re using tools that:
- Auto-critique sales calls and 1:1s
- Coach UGC creators on delivery
- QA edits before they hit the ad account
- Provide VO tone, clarity, and brevity suggestions in real-time

6. Video Gen hits mass market
Sora 2, Gemini V3.1, Nano Banana, Runway, they’re levelling up fast.

We’re already seeing:
- Seamless B-roll
- Abstract metaphors (balloons for stress, fire for urgency)
- “AI but not obvious” animations
- Scripted face swaps and founder clones

7. New workflows = new risks
Expect legal firewalls around:
- Creator likeness + consent
- Deepfake disclosures
- Brand safety for AI assets
- Authenticity disclaimers in ATL creative

We’re helping clients pre-empt with consent protocols, asset tagging, and workflow rules.

Bottom line for DTC brands in 2026

The brands that win will:
✅ Build an AI-native production function
✅ Invest in strategic visual diversity
✅ Systemise asset tagging, routing, and prompts
✅ Use AI for creation and performance coaching
✅ Blend AI + human storytelling at scale

The brands that lose will:
❌ Rely on text swaps and tired recuts
❌ Let GenAI files rot in Google Drive
❌ Skip strategic iteration
❌ Ignore how fast video is changing

I spent years thinking I had to figure everything out alone.

That’s what founders do, right?

Then I read Ray Dalio’s approach.

He didn’t build Bridgewater by being the smartest.
He built it by being the most willing to be wrong.

Here’s what he did differently:

He worked for what he wanted.
Not for what others wanted him to do.

He came up with independent opinions.
Then found the smartest people to destroy them.

He stress-tested everything.
Not to prove he was right.
To improve his odds of being right.

He stayed wary about overconfidence.
Because in markets, bad opinions cost everything.

He wrestled with his realities.
Reflected on consequences.
Learned and improved from the process.

Most founders confuse independence with isolation.

They think if they’re truly leading,
they should trust their gut and move alone.

But the best founders I know
don’t just think independently.

They think independently, then test brutally.

They create systems to challenge their own logic.
They seek out people who will prove them wrong.
They remain paranoid about blind spots.

Because you can do a huge amount of work
and still be wrong.

The market doesn’t care how hard you worked.

Independent thinking isn’t about being alone.
It’s about being right when everyone else is wrong.

And the only way to get there
is to test your assumptions with people
smart enough to prove you’re not.

Founder lesson:
Work for yourself.
Come up with independent opinions.
Stress-test them with people who will destroy them if they’re weak.
Be wary about being overconfident.
Reflect on consequences and constantly improve.

That’s how you win.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Q5 is the most important quarter (that isn’t a quarter) and this is how not to waste it.

Most brands go too seasonal or default to evergreen messaging that totally ignores how people actually feel post-Christmas.

The sharpest operators?

They lead with problem-aware creative that taps into the “reset” mindset and they build it to last beyond Q5 with smart hook variation.

- 50% goes to problem-aware + unaware top-of-funnel content
→ Tap into the “reset” mindset but build in hook variations so these ads outlive Q5.

- 20–30% goes to mid-funnel trust-builders
→ Objection handling. Social proof. Clear transformations. Especially important in health & wellness, where everyone’s shouting at once.

We break this all down in the 2026 Ecommerce Playbook: why now’s the best time to reach your hardest to reach customers and the biggest mistakes brands make post-Christmas.

Catch up now: https://lnkd.in/eTdgnNRH

$0 to $120M run rate in 11 months. The fastest-growing supplement brand in the world.

Backed by David Beckham.

Built on science.

IM8 Health is setting the pace for a new wave of consumer health brands, and Olly sat down with CEO Danny Yeung to unpack exactly how they’ve done it.

One of the sharpest operators we’ve ever spoken to.

Watch the full episode → https://lnkd.in/ewauU5yT

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