Today’s ✨ free article ✨ is sponsored by TLDR.
If you’re trying to get in front of technical decision makers: TLDR is where they’re already paying attention.
6M+ tech professionals subscribe across 12 newsletters (AI, DevOps, InfoSec, Marketing and more) because they actually want to read them.
Open rates avg. 40-46%. They even handle the ad copy so you don’t have to.
Want to sponsor the Marketing Ideas newsletter? Apply here
Happy Monday!
Every week I send you the 5 smartest marketing moves I spotted in the wild. Quick real examples, the stuff you can steal tomorrow.
Let’s go ↓
#1
Anthropic is running ads on your error messages (and it’s genius)
Here’s a sneaky Google Ads move I loved:
When a developer hits a bug, they often copy-paste the error message straight into Google (hoping to find a solution). For most of these niche errors, there are barely any search results. And definitely no ads.
So… Anthropic started bidding on those exact searches:
Think about it: Someone is literally stuck, already googling for a fix, and Anthropic shows up saying “I can solve this for you right now”.
My take: you don’t need to be an AI company to do this. Just think about what your audience googles when something goes wrong and bid on that keyword. Even spicier: bid on the actual error messages your competitor’s product shows.
#2
Coinbase put Subway Surfers on their earnings call
Yes, really 😅
Earnings calls are the most boring content any company produces.
So Coinbase released their Q4 results video with a Subway Surfers game playing on the top half of the screen. Like a TikTok brainrot meme, but for financial reporting.
People loved it:
This is exactly what Slack does with their App Store release notes. No one actually reads them. So the marketing team of Slack stopped pretending anyone would:
My take: Every company has boring touchpoints - release notes, legal pages, earnings calls, etc. These are the BEST PLACES to inject personality, because everyone expects nothing there. When you surprise people in a space they’ve learned to ignore → it works 10x better than being creative where everyone is already trying to be creative.
The marketing idea is this:
Look at every touchpoint you control.
Find the boring ones.
Go be weird there. The bar for standing out is basically zero.
#3
Make your website playable
People don’t read websites. They scroll. Fast.
Unless there’s something to play with 🙃
That’s workers.cloudflare.com - one of my favorite finds this weekend. You can spin the globe, drag it, interact with it. Almost every strip is playable.
Even the footer SVGs are draggable:
We see this at Wiz too. We built a nutcracker strip that lets you click to crack security problems. On our heatmap - it’s the #1 most clicked element on the entire homepage. By far!
Why you should do it: interactive website = longer visits = stronger SEO = more organic traffic.
#4
Spotify is selling a $495 urn
An urn is what you put someone’s ashes in after they die.
Spotify and Liquid Death made one together… With a Bluetooth speaker in the lid.
You can actually buy it right now for $495.
The idea is that your family can play your favorite songs at your grave. Forever. Which is either beautiful or INSANE (depending on how you look at it). 🤣
They also made an Eternal Playlist Generator that builds a post-mortem playlist from your listening history.
It’s a super smart stunt:
❌ Will they sell many urns? Nah… a few dozen maybe.
✅ Will millions of people talk about it? Yes. Already happening!
The marketing trick is to manufacture a tiny batch of something crazy. The product IS the press release.
My take: The formula is simple. (1) Take your biggest fan. (2) Ask: what’s the most ridiculous way I could serve them? (3) Create a small-batch product that does it. Spotify’s answer was “let them listen to their playlist in their grave”. And boom. They got a fantastic headline.
#5
Google just killed the $2,000 product photoshoot
Google Labs dropped a tool called Photoshoot this week.
You upload one basic phone photo of your product → the AI turns it into clean studio shots or lifestyle images in under a minute. 🤯
Watch the full video because it’s actually insane:
My take: Go grab it while it’s free. Try it here.
Have an amazing week ✌️
