Ready Set

Most brands shut off spend after Christmas. Smart ones scale. Inside this edition of Funnel Vision: - The Omnicom shakeup and what it signals - Why Q5 is the year's most overlooked arbitrage - The "Treat Yourself" ad that nails the January psychology Get the vision below 👀

I watched a gaming company disappear because they called mobile a fad. 2012. Crushing it on Facebook desktop. Millions of users. Strong revenue. Legendary parties. Two years later—gone. They mistook the hype cycle for the underlying shift. Mobile wasn't overhyped. It was early. I'm seeing the exact same pattern with AI. Every billboard on Highway 101 says "AI." I get the fatigue. But Meta and Google already rebuilt their platforms around AI decision engines. Andromeda+Advantage+, Gemini+PMax. The platforms are collapsing the consumer journey into agent-to-agent conversations. If you're still running media and creative separately, testing 5–10 concepts a month, you're building for a world that's quickly disappearing. Early mobile winners didn't just have better apps. They understood the shift before it became standard. Supercell. King. Instagram. The window is open again. Move now, and you'll look back at 2025 the way early adopters look back at 2011.

Iconic creative agency DDB won Cannes network of the year in 2025. Now it's being shut down. The reason why could reshape advertising as we know it. In finalizing their $13B acquisition of IPG, Omnicom made their strategic bet clear: efficiency over creativity. The folding of three longstanding creative shops (FCB, MullenLowe, and DDB) and 4,000 jobs cut proves it. Now, I’m all for efficiency. But the logic here is flawed. Meta's Andromeda update positioned creative as the primary performance lever. Platforms reward variety and distinctiveness, not sameness. And when giant holding companies optimize for efficiency, the output trends toward sameness. Not every ad channel works this way. Not yet. But the algorithmic model is spreading. And for brands whose growth comes from paid social, the tension is already real. Omnicom is optimizing for efficiency at the exact moment ad platforms are optimizing for variety. Could this be the opening independent agencies need to take the lead?

I've been rereading "Building a StoryBrand" by Donald Miller, and 1 framework completely shifted how I think about Ready Set’s positioning. Donald talks about how every great story has 2 main characters: the hero and the guide. The hero wants to achieve something. The guide helps them get there. Think Luke Skywalker and Yoda. As a service provider, you want to be Yoda, helping your clients navigate their transformation. Reading the book got me thinking about how that applies to Ready Set's positioning. So I asked the team: What are we actually guiding our clients through? What we’re really doing is helping clients navigate an increasingly confusing and complex digital marketing landscape. In 2019, we helped clients adopt UGC. Then it was building compliant creative that drove performance. Now we're navigating Andromeda and understanding rapid shifts in targeting strategies. These changes are happening faster than ever. And many of our clients have been with us for 5 or 6 years because we help them stay ahead of it all. That's the real value we provide. If you want a long-term partner who’s constantly learning, experimenting, and turning those insights into practical solutions, that’s who we are. We'll always be students of marketing. And we'll keep evolving our story to reflect that.

#BFCM drives CPMs up 60% and can tank efficiency. Here's how to survive the ad-pocalypse if you're not running a promotion. Inside this edition of Funnel Vision: - Meta's GEM model breakdown - BFCM survival tactics (no promo needed) - An ASMR ad that converts without shouting Get the vision below 👀

Meta spent $15.9B and the stock tanked 10%. But buried in the earnings? A $60B signal every performance marketer needs to see. Inside this edition of Funnel Vision: - Meta & Alphabet Q3 earnings breakdown - The 10K Rule for scaling on Meta - A spooky-good seasonal ad teardown Get the vision below 👀