Justin Taylor

Hot take. Calling yourself a "Fractional CMO" is a mistake. You're limiting your opportunities, and potential earn by branding yourself as such. In this weeks newsletter I dive in, and ruffle some feathers along the way. Thoughts? https://lnkd.in/gVdanx2v

New work! I did the product and packaging concept, naming, and design for TONE's new 2 pack of pocket cologne's! 🔥 They're available nationally in Target and online on Tiktok! If you need product design or development help. Shoot me a DM or check out my website just below my name 👆

Beefeater just remade Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" 30 years later, and finally revealed what he was reaching for across that sliding floor the whole time: a bottle of their alcohol free gin. Rare nostalgia play that actually works. Here's why it's smart, and it's not the celebrity. "Virtual Insanity" is one of the most famous music videos ever made. The moving room, the sliding furniture, Jay Kay gliding across a floor that shouldn't be possible, all done in camera in 1996 with zero CGI. It's is a huge cultural asset just sitting there, and Beefeater bought the right to finish the story. The commercial honors it. Nine physical sets. Real moving floors. Choreographed camera work. No visual effects shortcut. They rebuilt the analog magic instead of faking it, which is the only way a 30 year callback lands as a love letter and not a cash grab. Jamiroquai has always been about groove, movement, and having a brilliant night out. That's the exact feeling a spirits brand wants to own. But Beefeater is selling the alcohol free version, so pairing it with an artist synonymous with pure, uncut fun quietly makes the argument for them: you can still have the whole night, the whole vibe, without the booze. The band sells the energy so the product doesn't have to. And that ties straight to the strategy. Most alcohol free marketing sells subtraction. All the taste, none of the booze. It leads with what's missing. Beefeater flipped it. Their platform is literally "Get More With 0.0," so the product isn't a compromise you settle for. It's the thing that keeps you in the night instead of tapping out of it. Great campaign and well done by Beefeater!

Hailey Bieber's Gap jeans sold out in days. But if you read this as a one-off celebrity moment, you're missing the smartest run in retail right now. Because Hailey isn't the story. She's the latest chapter. Troye Sivan for Gap. Then Tyla. Then KATSEYE dancing to "Milkshake" in low-rise denim. The campaign your entire feed reposted last fall. Now Hailey Bieber and the "Hailey Jean," $89, gone in days. That's not luck landing four times in a row. That's a machine. And Gap's CEO has actually said the quiet part out loud. Every partnership runs through one test: is it new, is it unexpected, and is it cool? A group-chat litmus test for a 55-year-old company. If the collab wouldn't make you text a friend, it doesn't happen. Look at what that discipline produces. Gap went from roughly 24 collaborations in 40 years to three a year now, and they're pushing for six to eight. They stopped treating partnerships as a campaign line item and started treating them as the product roadmap itself. Every one of these names comes with a built in audience that doesn't think about Gap. Troye's fans, KATSEYE's stans, Hailey's 77 million followers. Gap isn't renting their fame. It's borrowing their relevance and pointing it at denim it already knows how to sell. Nearly a third of the people who buy into these collabs are brand new to Gap. And the Hailey drop is the pattern at its sharpest. "1996" her birth year stitched into the hardware. Her signature on the pocket lining. A film recreating Gap's actual '90s ads. It hits the test perfectly: nostalgic enough to be unmistakably Gap, current enough to feel brand new, and cool enough that you're seeing it everywhere without a single ad feeling like an ad. The lesson isn't "get a celebrity." It's that Gap built a repeatable system for staying culturally relevant. A filter, a cadence, and a clear reason each partner fits, and now they get to be the brand people talk about on purpose, not by accident. Most legacy brands chase one viral moment and pray it repeats. Gap engineered a way to manufacture them. Hailey's just the newest proof it works.

Every founder doesn’t need a CMO and CMO skills arent “email, newsletter and landing page”. What i dislike about posts like this is they’re written and created by people that aren’t marketers, so how can the develop skills and tools for you?