Meme Team: The Pop Culture Marketing Podcast

Why do AI companies keep pitching dinner reservations when people want an AI wife, and why are book publishers hiding their AI use? On Meme Team, the pop culture marketing podcast, Sonia Baschez and Christina Garnett (fractional chief customer officer, Pocket CCO) break down Sonia's viral "AI wife" post and what founders got wrong in the replies, why everyone has to be a creator now and why craft is the new luxury, WIRED's report that HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are quietly using AI, and why Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg lost control of their own stories to Nathan Fielder, Luca Guadagnino and Aaron Sorkin. Timestamps 0:00 Intro 1:27 "I want an AI wife": why AI marketing doesn't land with normal people 18:20 Be in the replies: fans sell better than founders 21:41 Everyone has to be a creator now 42:54 HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are quietly using AI 58:48 Tech founders lost control of their stories: Holmes, Altman, Zuckerberg 1:10:11 A 2026 Citizen Kane 1:13:56 Amazon shelved the Sam Altman movie, Neon bought it 1:17:26 You can open the door, but you don't control what walks out About Christina Christina Garnett is a fractional chief customer officer, founder of Pocket CCO and author of Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships. Find her on X @ThatChristinaG and at pocketcco.com. 📱 TikTok/Instagram/X: @memeteampod · Sonia: @SoniaBaschez · New episodes every Thursday.

Warner Bros. and Paramount are merging under the Skydance name, YouTube is done rewarding content farms, Amazon MGM turned a movie set into a creator activation, and Apple just quietly blocked half the ad tech industry from iOS 27. Sonia Baschez and fractional GTM advisor Gregory Kennedy break down what each of these moves actually means for brands, creators, and anyone paying attention to where the media industry is heading. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:40 Warner Bros. + Paramount become Skydance: rebrand or escape? 18:00 YouTube kills the content farm: what the algorithm update actually rewards 38:00 Amazon MGM's Verity creator press tour: 30 creators, 12 countries, a new playbook 55:00 Apple's iOS 27 ad block: Trade Desk, ad tech, and what brands missed About Gregory Gregory Kennedy is the founder of Vibe Your Sass, a fractional GTM advisor to startups, and a 3X CMO with 20+ years in Silicon Valley marketing. Find him on X: @gregorykennedy

Disney just announced John Watts for Star Wars Episode 10 and simultaneously undermined him by pairing him with Simon Kinberg — the writer behind X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, and a failed Twilight Zone reboot. Taylor Swift's bonus "encore" to Life of a Showgirl got dismissed by critics and hit number one anyway. Letterboxd is up for sale at $300M with A24, NYT, Netflix, Sony, and Paramount all circling. And on the same day Meta unveiled its Muse Charm AI wearable, news broke that Muse AI had been caught reading Apple messages after being explicitly told to stop. Timestamps 0:00 — Star Wars Episode 10: John Watts, Simon Kinberg, and why Disney keeps getting in its own way 21:00 — Taylor Swift's "The Encore": what happens when critics stop mattering to commercial success 33:00 — Letterboxd for $300M: who should buy it, who would ruin it, and the Goodreads warning 51:00 — Meta Muse Charm: Tamagotchi-style AI wearable and the iMessage scandal that hit on launch day About Kushaan Kushaan Shah leads marketing at Superhuman and writes about consumer behavior and growth. Find his newsletter at substack.com/@kushaan

Mbappe just walked away from a lifetime Nike deal for equity at On Running, and Thierry Henry has been quietly running the football strategy behind it since 2025. Meanwhile, Lily Reinhart built a viral press tour for The Love Hypothesis with basically no help from Amazon, then Amazon showed up after she hit 1.7M impressions on her own. Four stories this week about which brands are staying ahead and which are reacting too late. Timestamps 0:00 Intro 1:19 Mbappe, On Running, and Nike's brand crisis 19:03 Lily Reinhart's method dressing press tour 37:24 Netflix, A24, and the streaming wars 56:51 Xbox CEO Asha Sharma goes undercover in customer support 1:05:07 Takeaways 1:10:43 Wrap About Danielle Danielle Messler, head of marketing at Captivate Talent and content strategy practitioner. Fine her at https://www.daniellemessler.com/ and on X @danielleismessy

Prada is making films with Barry Jenkins and Zohran Mamdani has 69% approval for posting about potholes. Hilary Duff just sold out a tour that has nothing to do with nostalgia, and Americans are spending $350 a day in Europe while Portugal buys ads in Times Square. Sonia and brand strategist Gia Jasing get into all four stories on the Meme Team, the podcast where we discuss viral pop culture moments in movies, TV, music, and politics. Timestamps 0:00 Brands are the new Hollywood (Martin Scorsese/LavAza, Prada/Barry Jenkins, Ben Affleck/Dunkin, Ryan Reynolds/Maximum Effort, Gap + Running Point) 20:55 Zohran Mamdani's governance as content strategy 37:48 The rise of the American tourist in Europe 58:59 Hilary Duff's Lucky Me Tour 1:11:53 Takeaways About Jiya Jiya Jaisingh is a brand strategist and behavior change marketing specialist. Find her at www.jiyajaisingh.com/ and on X at @JaisinghJiya