Speci @speci.news · 06/08/2025The performance marketing era is over. What’s next? www.speci.news/a-new-market...speci.newsA new marketing era beginsThe sun rises on a changed discipline. 010
Reposted by SpeciJack Cully @cully.blog · 13/05/2025In a Stratechery interview a few weeks ago, Zuckerberg waxed lyrical about how Meta's basically going to replace marketing departments. It's sat with me since I listened to it because I think he's really wrong. #brand #marketing #meta #ai www.speci.news/meta-wants-t...speci.newsMeta wants to replace your marketing departmentZuckerberg's mystery box won't work. 001
Speci @speci.news · 13/05/2025Two years after OpenAI popularised generative AI with ChatGPT, AI is still a solution in search of a problem. But we’re getting there! AI’s product market fit is coming. www.speci.news/whats-the-po...speci.newsWhat's the point of AI?There won't be a breakthrough AI product that replaces the iPhone. But AI is still going to take over the world. 010
Speci @speci.news · 02/05/2025Is advertising an output or a process? @rorysutherland.bsky.social thinks it's a process. But Mark Zuckerberg thinks it's an outcome. Who's right? www.speci.news/meta-wants-t...speci.newsMeta wants to replace your marketing departmentZuckerberg's mystery box won't work. 011
Speci @speci.news · 18/03/2025Apple should restart its live event tradition, even if that means less polish. www.speci.news/apple-loses-...speci.newsApple loses its live events (and its way)How the pressure to deliver Apple's answer to AI collided with no more live demos. 010
Speci @speci.news · 14/03/2025The story of Apple, Meta and AI last year. www.speci.news/2024s-year-i...speci.news2024's Year in techThe year that augmented reality and artificial intelligence broke out. 010
Speci @speci.news · 08/03/2025Cultural commentators will tell you there isn’t a monoculture anymore. I don’t think that’s true - I think internet culture is monoculture. But maybe there are a few monocultures? www.speci.news/welcome-to-t...speci.newsWelcome to the emotional internetRemember the Jaguar rebrand fiasco? Yeah, that was only two weeks ago. But it feels like forever ago, right? I spotted the rebrand late, the Thursday night before the Friday that everyone jumped on ... 000
Speci @speci.news · 04/03/2025Okay, so Speci is a newsletter about how tech companies do brand… but back in November, I couldn’t resist writing this one. I adored the Waitrose Christmas ad. It absolutely nailed audience alignment and brand coding. So it’s one of the greats in my book. www.speci.news/sweet-suspic...speci.newsSweet suspicionA Waitrose masterclass (via murder mystery). 000
Speci @speci.news · 03/03/2025What can the history of machines tell us about the future of AI? www.speci.news/whats-the-po...speci.newsWhat's the point of AI?There won't be a breakthrough AI product that replaces the iPhone. But AI is still going to take over the world. 000
Reposted by SpeciJack Cully @cully.blog · 27/02/2025Where people see your creative is as important as the creative. Seeing a digital brand on a non-digital channel makes it feel way more legit (as the data in this post shows). mktg.substack.com/p/channel-mi...mktg.substack.comChannel mix matters more than you thinkIt's not just what they hear about you, it’s where they hear about you. 101
Speci @speci.news · 26/02/2025ChatGPT is a brand now. #tech #brand #branding #marketing #ai #chatgpt #openai #opinion 100
Speci @speci.news · 26/02/2025Meta showed off a prototype that isn’t going to ship for a long time. Why? It’s all about positioning. They showed a working demo to the world and they became the company to beat in AR. www.speci.news/metas-orion-...speci.newsMeta's Orion swaggerMeta held an event for a device that they’ll never ship. It was the right decision. 000
Speci @speci.news · 25/02/2025In November 2022, OpenAI, a research lab, released ChatGPT. This was the moment they became a consumer brand, but they didn’t know it yet. Here’s what they did over the last few years to grow ChatGPT, a research tool, into a consumer brand. www.speci.news/chatgpt-is-a...speci.newsChatGPT is a brand nowAnd so is OpenAI 000
Speci @speci.news · 12/02/2025Are dumb phones *really* taking off? I took one on a test drive (and ended up keeping it) 👇 www.speci.news/boox-palma/speci.newsIt’s iPhone season! So I bought a 'phone' with an e-ink screenHow I ended up with a Boox Palma. 000
Speci @speci.news · 11/02/2025THREE THINGS that the Ray Ban Meta smart glasses do, and what they tell us about how AI will actually drive augmented reality 👇 www.speci.news/two-weeks-wi...speci.newsTwo weeks with Ray Ban Meta smart glassesTwo weeks ago, I bought a pair of sunglasses from Ray Ban. They’re glossy black Wayfarers, exactly as you’d expect them. I bet you can picture them: they’re iconic in design. There are a few differen... 020
Speci @speci.news · 09/02/2025September is iPhone season. Every year, Apple produces a highly polished marketing pitch, the main event being a Special Event, followed by websites and billboards and PR. 2024’s iPhone party was crashed by the promise of AI. www.speci.news/apple-event-...speci.newsHow AI infiltrated the iPhone eventOn Monday, Apple held a special event called It’s Glowtime. Clocking in at 1 hour, 38 minutes and 50 seconds, it was a long one. At the event, they introduced to the world the Apple Watch Series 10, ... 011
Speci @speci.news · 20/01/2025In this week’s Speci, I pour one out for Meta’s brand managers. www.speci.news/meta-wrecks-...speci.newsMeta wrecks its brandMeta’s recent policy turnaround makes a wreck of its careful brand building efforts since 2021. 010
Speci @speci.news · 08/01/2025Say hello to the Stakes Spectrum. Every product sits on it somewhere and it’s your job as a marketer to figure out where your product sits on it. If your product is low-stakes, focus on how quick and easy it is to try it. If it’s high stakes, focus on overcoming barriers like trust and safety. 110
Speci @speci.news · 07/01/2025In August, I shared some thoughts about how AI was killing great product design. It’s because AI was such a bubble that everyone - including now Apple - has been smooshing it into their product experiences to show they’re not behind. www.speci.news/how-ai-is-ki...speci.newsHow AI is killing UX (for now)Generative AI is impressive, but it’s making our apps less useful right now. There’s an age old balancing act in the technology world. On the one side of the scales, there’s the technologists, the sc... 111
Speci @speci.news · 06/01/20252024 was the year tech got exciting again. As the mobile era saturates, new technologies like AI and spatial computing are starting to become mainstream. Here’s a look back at what happened in 2024, and what I’m excited about for 2025. www.speci.news/2024s-year-i...speci.news2024's Year in techThe year that augmented reality and artificial intelligence broke out. 010
Speci @speci.news · 08/12/2024Cultural commentators say that the monoculture is gone. I don’t think so. It’s just that internet culture is monoculture now. www.speci.news/welcome-to-t...speci.newsWelcome to the emotional internetRemember the Jaguar rebrand fiasco? Yeah, that was only two weeks ago. But it feels like forever ago, right? I spotted the rebrand late, the Thursday night before the Friday that everyone jumped on ... 000
Speci @speci.news · 28/11/2024For marketers, balancing budgets is hard. Performance marketing is addictive, because you can see the impact immediately. Brand marketing is hard, because it’s essential, yet very tough to measure. Disney and Nike can teach us a lot about this difficult dance. www.speci.news/what-running...speci.newsWhat running shoes and a hundred-year-old mouse have in commonHow Nike and Disney took their brands for granted 020
Speci @speci.news · 26/11/2024How Apple shifted “mixed reality” to “spatial computing”. www.speci.news/apples-marke...speci.newsApple's marketing visionLast week, I told you how I felt about Apple Vision Pro, Apple’s £3,499 headset it claims is the future of personal computing. It left me feeling weird – I felt amazed and overwhelmed, but also lonely... 000
Speci @speci.news · 23/11/2024Back in July, I tried the Apple Vision Pro. It was the best thing I've ever put on my head. I returned it. www.speci.news/a-week-with-...speci.newsA week with Apple Vision ProFrom Apple’s Newsroom last month: Apple today announced Apple Vision Pro will expand to new countries and regions, with pre-orders for China mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore beginning this T... 000
Speci @speci.news · 22/11/2024Today, the Apple Watch is known as a health and fitness device. But it didn’t start life that way. Ten years ago, Apple launched the Watch not as a fitness device… but as a fashion accessory. Here’s the story of how that changed. www.speci.news/apple-watch-...speci.newsApple Watch: from fashion fad to healthy successApple's product marketing masterclass 031
Speci @speci.news · 21/11/2024Just over a year ago, EE unveiled its new brand strategy. At the time, I thought it was obviously taking a page from the Apple playbook. Here’s what they did. www.speci.news/everything-e...speci.newsEverything Everywhere: EE’s brand new strategyThe mobile network is trying to be more things. Will it pay off? 010
Speci @speci.news · 19/11/2024Waitrose is winning Christmas. www.speci.news/sweet-suspic...speci.newsSweet suspicionA Waitrose masterclass (via murder mystery). 020
Speci @speci.news · 18/11/2024Brands can be worth billions. Twitter’s was its most valuable asset by far. They are also incredibly fragile. As Elon Musk demonstrated last year, they can be taken away in moments. www.speci.news/changing-twi...speci.newsChanging Twitter’s name was Xtremely recklessMusk had brand magic, and now he doesn't. 010
Speci @speci.news · 17/11/2024Last April, a song by The Weeknd went viral. Except… it wasn’t by The Weeknd. www.speci.news/if-it-aint-d...speci.newsIf it ain’t Drake, don’t fix itI have feelings about not-Drake 010
Reposted by SpeciJack Cully @cully.blog · 16/11/2024Lots of people have come over here recently, so let’s say hello again. Hello, I’m Jack 👋 I write things about how tech companies are building their brands. Also about how they’re destroying them. So this one from last year feels relevant today for some reason. www.speci.news/changing-twi...speci.newsChanging Twitter’s name was Xtremely recklessMusk had brand magic, and now he doesn't. 111
Speci @speci.news · 16/11/2024There’s never been a better time to becoming the “starting point” of your category: the place a customer first looks on the internet. In the 2010s this was Google, in the 2020s it will be lots of different brands for different purposes. www.speci.news/everythings-...speci.newsEverything’s changing. Again.We thought that everything had changed with the iPhone, cloud computing and a ubiquitous internet. And it had. Except, really, it hadn’t. 000
Speci @speci.news · 16/11/2024How an ad for the world’s most recognisable fast food chain is… perhaps the perfect ad. www.speci.news/sorry-the-ne...speci.newsSorry, the new McDonald’s ad is really good.And is that... Ronald McDonald? 000