Culture Travels Faster Than Ads

Howdy readers 🥰

In this newsletter, you’ll find:

⚡️Culture Travels Faster Than Ads

🎯 Google Ads + YouTube 2026 Plays

🏆 Ad of the Day

If you’re new to ScaleUP, then a hearty welcome! You and 50k+ CEOs, CMOS, and marketers have reached the right place. Let’s get into it, shall we? Oh! Before you forget, if someone forwarded this newsletter to you, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss out!

Together with Athyna

The AI Talent Bottleneck Ends Here

AI teams need PhD-level experts for post-training, evaluation, and reasoning data. But the U.S. pipeline can't keep up.

Meet Athyna Intelligence: a vetted Latin American PhD & Masters network for post-training, evaluation, and red-teaming.

Access vetted PhD experts, deep STEM knowledge, 40–60% savings, and U.S.-aligned collaboration.

⚡️Culture Travels Faster Than Ads

If your next launch needs a media plan to make it interesting, the objective is to do none of the work.

The better play is designing a trophy drop that people want to pull into a ritual they already do, because rituals come with built-in timing and social behavior. 

When the object upgrades the ritual, sharing stops feeling like promotion and starts feeling like a flex or a useful tip. That is when paid spend shifts from forcing attention to amplifying momentum.

Build an object that behaves like media, not inventory.

A trophy drop is a camera magnet first and a SKU second. The mechanism is speed, it collapses the gap between seeing and sharing, which is why it can outperform ads even before you optimize creative.

Pick the ritual before you design the object.

Rituals give you repeatability. Watch parties, gifting moments, travel prep, gym routines, desk setups, weekend reset habits, these already happen on schedule, and they already get documented.

Pointer three: Pressure test legibility fast.

Show a single image of the concept to five people and ask what it is for in one sentence. If anyone needs explanation, creators will struggle to make it land in the first two seconds, and you will end up paying CPMs to teach context.

Pointer four: The engineer spread through trusted handles.

Even a great object can stall if it relies only on your brand account. Seeding through creator and publisher whitelisting makes the same idea feel like culture instead of a campaign, 

and Grapevine can run this end-to-end by sourcing and negotiating with verified creators for whitelisted ads, plus placing your story on niche publisher handles with advertorial landing pages that bridge discovery to conversion. You can book a strategy call by February 27th for $500 off your first campaign.

Pick the ritual, build the trophy, then route distribution before you touch paid. That sequence is the difference between a one-week spike and a repeatable growth system.

Here are some good examples you can start from: Stanley limited edition Quenchers, e.l.f. x Liquid Death drops, and the Stanley x Starbucks Quencher run. 

🎯 Google Ads + YouTube 2026 Plays

Two platform shifts are changing how performance marketers should plan video and automation in 2026. Google is opening up Performance Max reporting, while YouTube is outlining a creator-led, commerce-driven strategy built for measurable outcomes.

The Breakdown:

1. PMax Channel Reporting - Google Ads API v23 now breaks Performance Max performance by channel like Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, removing the old blended view and makes budget optimization far more precise.

2. Creative Optimization Layer - Marketers can now track channel impact at campaign, asset group, and creative level through the API, enabling clearer decisions on which formats win on YouTube versus Shopping or Search.

3. Shorts Discovery System - YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says Shorts drive discovery at 200 billion daily views. Brands should cluster Shorts around one topic, use them as the entry point, and push viewers into long-form videos for deeper engagement.

4. Creator + Commerce Strategy - Creators now operate like studios, so brands should shift from one-off sponsorships to co-produced multi-episode content. Tag videos with product links, integrate feeds, and use AI for drafts while humans protect brand voice.

The advantage in 2026 will come from building connected systems, not isolated ads. Channel-level transparency and creator-led commerce make video a direct growth lever when strategy, content, and conversion are planned together.

🏆 Ad of the Day

What Works:

This Is Dessert Disguised as Protein - They’re not selling macros, they’re selling craving. The bar looks like a pastry stack first, and the word “protein” just makes it feel guilt-free after.

Price Incentive Is a Simple Closer - “Click to save $8” is clean and immediate. No complicated promo logic, just a quick reward for acting now.

This Ad Sells a Treat Moment - It’s positioned as a snack you want, not a supplement you force. That’s how you win in a category full of discipline and blandness.

If your functional product tastes good, lead with indulgence. Make it feel like a cheat code, then let the health benefit justify the purchase.

Advertise with Us

Wanna put out your message in front of over 50,000 best marketers and decision makers?

Find our Partner Kit here🤝

We are concerned about everything DTC and its winning strategies. If you liked what you read, why not join the 50k+ marketers from 13k+ DTC brands who have already subscribed? Just follow this.

At ScaleUP, we care about our readers and want to provide the best possible experience. That's why we always look for ways to improve our content and connect with our audience. If you'd like to stay in touch, be sure to follow us EVERYWHERE🥰

Thanks for your support :) We'll be back again with more such content 🥳