Super Bowl LX: Cultural Flex, Commercial Miss
Every year, the ListenFirst strategy team puts together a monster report on the Super Bowl, distilling what actually broke through across platforms, moments, and brand plays — not just what aired between downs. Here is a deep dive into the report, with some extra spice on the controversy that dominated the news cycle before and […]
Fall in the House of Labubu
Labubu: What happens when the fandom cools, and the brand scrambles to keep the wheel turning? This article is a follow-up to our “The Rise of Labubu” deep dive from July 2025. You can read it here. In 2025, Labubu wasn’t just a toy. It was a flex. The bug-eyed gremlin from Pop Mart’s The […]
Taylor Swift’s Marketing Playbook: The Life of a Showgirl
How social strategy, storytelling, and merch made “The Life of a Showgirl” a masterclass in modern marketing When Taylor Swift announced her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, via a surprise appearance on the New Heights podcast, she didn’t just drop news—she set off a cross-platform ripple that lasted all week. With just […]
How Dexter: Resurrection Rewrote the Social Playbook for Legacy Franchises
Early investment, fan-first thinking, and real-time strategy turned a sequel into a streaming standout When Dexter: Resurrection premiered in 2025, it wasn’t just a revival. It was a reinvention, designed to reconnect longtime fans while onboarding a new generation of viewers in a completely different digital landscape. The stakes were high. Dexter’s original run helped […]
Cannibalization vs. Expansion: When Brand & Social Growth Eats Itself
Why unchecked growth can backfire and how smarter segmentation, rollout, and social strategy help brands scale without self-disruption. In the race to grow—more stores, more content, more formats—brands often overlook a critical risk: internal cannibalization. Expansion promises reach and relevance, but without a cohesive structure, it can displace revenue, confuse audiences, and erode brand equity. […]
Sydney Sweeney’s Good Jeans
Sydney Sweeney’s Good Jeans or Good Genes? The Sydney Sweeney x American Eagle Ad That Blew Up the Internet What do you get when you mix a blue‑eyed bombshell, a pun about genetics, and a denim ad with the subtlety of a 2000s perfume commercial? Apparently: a social media firestorm, a retail stock surge, and […]