AFL memes. Snoop Dogg. $1,000 rocks. Taylor Swift mysteriously doing… almost nothing. Meta hinting at a world where ads aren’t everywhere. September gave us a lot. Here’s what’s been rattling around in my head this month.
the sass of footy teams has hit an all time high
September in Aus means footy finals, and I have to say… the AFL socials this year have been on another level. And not just in finals season – literally all year. The sass, the banter, the unpolished (in the best way) behind-the-scenes stuff… it’s been a goldmine of fan-first content.
Big shout out to GWS in particular. Their feed has been so bang on, funny, and perfectly tuned to what their community actually wants to see. No overthinking. No polishing it within an inch of its life. Just a team that clearly knows their fans and serves them content they’ll actually share, laugh at, and rally behind.
And it’s not just memes. Look at Brisbane Lions as an example – they’ll clip together edits of the best inspirational moments, or Lachie Neale’s cleanest kicks, or the plays everyone’s still buzzing about (I should know, I watch them all at least 20 times each). I know me and Dad came home from the pub after the grandy and went straight into watching the replays. Fans don’t just want highlights; they want to re-live their favourite moments, over and over. Clubs are finally giving that to them in formats they enjoy,
It’s actually been really cool seeing clubs across AFL and other sports lean into this new tone of voice and not take themselves so seriously. For years, sports content in Aus was pretty bloody boring tbh – game recaps, player profiles, sponsor shoutouts. Now? It feels like sitting next to your funniest mate on the couch while the game’s on.
PS – As a very passionate Brisbane fan, watching them take the grand final win was obviously the best part of this entire month. YOU’LL HEARRRRR OUR MIGHTY ROARRRRR.
But I think the biggest “thought” here is that the best brand content doesn’t feel like brand content. It feels like you’re part of the moment with your audience. Sometimes that’s a cheeky meme. Sometimes it’s an inside joke. Sometimes it’s unedited behind-the-scenes. And sometimes it’s just giving fans the goosebump-worthy replay they’ll watch ten times over. But it’s never sterile.
PS: On the topic of giving people what they want… the Snoop Dogg halftime show had plenty of “not for the AFL audience” comments online. Yet I sat there with my parents and grandparents and all three generations thought it was epic. A reminder that audiences aren’t as predictable as we think (what do you mean? AFL fans aren’t only into Aussie country rock?!?!) – and sometimes the unexpected thing is what unites everyone.
the $1000 rock
God I really loved this whole saga. What started as a TikTok prank – women wrapping up a backyard rock and convincing their partners they’d dropped $1000 on it from Anthropologie – blew up because it was just believable enough. Anthropologie has that reputation for overpriced “aesthetic objects,” so people didn’t even question it. Of course Anthropologie would sell a $1000 rock (if you haven’t been there, trust me – some of their stuff is actually laughable soz not soz).
But the reason it’s showing up in this month’s marketing thoughts is not because of the original piece of content – it’s how Anthropology got involved.
They didn’t ignore it, or worse, issue some corporate statement clarifying “we don’t actually sell rocks.” They went the other way. They leaned in. The brand posted its own TikTok featuring a full “Rock Collection” display – complete with foraged stones, rock-shaped candles, and a giant $1000 price tag. And then they took it a step further: they invited Phoebe, the creator of the original viral video, into one of their stores to prank her boyfriend again… this time showing him the real Anthropologie Rock Collection. GENIUS. Whoever came up with this – give them a damn raise right this instant.
That’s not just responding – that’s listening, joining, and amplifying the moment in a way that felt totally natural to the internet. It’s the same instinct Airbnb had when Alix Earle had a bad experience with a fake booking.com booking, posted on TikTok and they sorted her out… resulting in a HUUUUUGE amount of brand cred and coverage.
You don’t always have to create the cultural moment yourself. But if you’re paying attention and you have the guts to get involved, you can flip the narrative, win the internet for a day, and maybe even make a lifelong fan out of someone who was roasting you yesterday.
why do we forget how we buy?
This one’s less of a September thought and more of an ongoing thought that’s permanently stuck in my brain – but lately it’s been coming up everywhere. I’ve been running a bunch of workshops on conversion journeys, and every single time, the same thing happens: people forget how they buy when they’re looking at their own marketing.
We sit in a room and someone says: “Why aren’t people clicking and buying right away?” And I alwaaaaays ask the same question back: Do you buy that way? Probably not. None of us do.
Think about the last thing you bought. You probably waited until your pay went in. Or you read 10 reviews to make sure it wasn’t a dud. Maybe you checked three different sites to compare prices. Sometimes you leave it in your cart, wander off for a week, then finally hit buy when you’re bored on a Sunday night. That’s real behaviour. That’s how humans actually shop. And then there’s services. Heck I’ve been considering some services for months and months before I finally go yeah okay I should book in that tile regrouting (true story – still on my list to book in).
Yet when it’s our own business, we forget all of that. We expect strangers to see an ad or a post, fall instantly in love, and smash the “buy now” button within 30 seconds. Book in for TOMORROW. And when they don’t? We panic. We assume the campaign’s a flop, the funnel’s broken, the product’s wrong. (Spoiler: most of the time, it’s not.)
One of my favourite moments in these all my workshops is when the penny drops. You can see people pause and go: ohhh… my customers are just behaving like me. It’s almost funny – like we give ourselves permission to act like normal, cautious, skeptical buyers, but we forget that everyone else does the same.
And this isn’t just about buying. It’s the same with socials. You want people to follow you? Cool. But would you follow your own account? Would you actually enjoy your content, or does it feel like being sold to 24/7? If the answer’s “ugh, no thanks,” then why would anyone else?
So I guess this is really just a reminder for you to stop expecting your customers to behave differently than you do. Give people time. Make the journey human. Because conversion is rarely instant – it’s usually a series of small nudges, reminders, and reassurances that eventually add up to action. And that action can take a loooooong time.
the swifty silence
Taylor Swift’s new album drops in two days and this week I realised I had not seen a single thing about it. Where’s the hype??!?! For someone who’s turned Easter eggs into an Olympic sport, this rollout feels strangely muted. No cryptic hints. No breadcrumb trails. No “did you spot this tiny detail in the corner of the video?” frenzy. Just three posts in all of September, a podcast interview with Travis, and a last-minute Target collab tease. That’s it. (Unless there’s a whole campaign I just haven’t been privy to??).
Part of me wonders if it’s just where she’s at personally. Newly engaged, blissed out, maybe she doesn’t feel the need to feed the machine like she once did. Or maybe she’s rewriting the rules of her own hype cycle altogether.
What I find kinda interesting though is the comparison to movies. With something like Barbie, the marketing storm happens before release: trailers, collabs, pink everything for months. Studios front-load the buzz because box office depends on opening weekend. Music is almost the opposite. The real mania kicks in after release. Once the album drops, the fandom becomes the engine – dissecting lyrics, hunting for clues, spreading theories, sharing edits, fuelling streams and charts.
So maybe silence is the hype. Maybe when your fandom is this obsessed, you don’t need to spend six months teasing – you just drop the work and let them do what they do best. I think back to my Spotify days: the biggest spikes always came once singles hit New Music Friday, not before. The frenzy was created after the music existed.
But it still catches me off guard – because in my head, hype = before. But maybe in music, hype = after. And maybe writing this out has just answered my own thoughts and questions.
an ad-free meta?!
Meta announced it’s rolling out paid, ad-free subscriptions for Instagram and Facebook (in the UK only at the moment!). And at first I was like ehhh I don’t think this will be too massive but thinking about it more – it could really be a game changer… and not in a good way. Think about who will pay for the premium tier: higher-income users. The ones who are more likely to shop online. The big spenders. Aka, the exact audience we want as advertisers. URGH.
The last stat I saw had Spotify sitting around 40% of their users on premium (e.g paying to not have ads). If Meta sees similar adoption, that’s almost half of our dream audience who might vanish from our ad pool. And what’s kinda interesting to think about is that this isn’t about privacy (which seems to be the biggest concern for many) – Meta will still track you, they’re just removing the ads.
I’m super interested to see how this plays out. Will enough people think ads are annoying enough to pay to skip? On Spotify, stopping your music for an ad is painful. But on Meta? You just scroll past. I’m not convinced the appetite is there, but if it is, it changes the landscape in a big way.
If Meta does this right, we’ll need to rethink audience segmentation, addressable markets, and what “reach” really means in a world where part of your dream audience can opt out. If it comes to Aus, it might just be the day I retire from paid social.
Anddddd with that, somehow we’re in October (Q4?!?!?! WHAT?!?!??!). Can’t wait for end of year madness to take over my thoughts – let us all pray for a nice, calm lead up to Black Friday. A gal can dream.
See you next month!
