2025 All Stars & Naur Stars

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First Half All-Stars (And Naur Stars)

I’ve decided that we are going to talk about 2025’s first half All Stars and Naur Stars (shoutout to Chloe Fineman’s Nicole Kidman impression). 2025 has been nuts since day 1. But let’s get right into it!

2025 All-Stars

There was no voting, no campaigns, no secret back room deals - just the stuff that really stood out to me. If you are hoping that you can be part of the end of year all stars, please feel free to bribe to you heart’s content.

Artificial Intelligence That Is Useful: (1st All Star selection) Every single AI frontier model is just doing amazing, crazy things. From ChatGPT’s image-maker moment (Check out Agency Inner Circle #50 for our thoughts), to the rise of the Model Context Protocol that extends AI to everywhere, AI has changed from an interesting tool into a FORCE of ARTIFICIAL NATURE. (The rumors about GPT5 are cray. And this blockbuster about AI in medicine is just astounding.)

The US Consumer: (17th Consecutive All Star appearance) In a world that is topsy-turvy, full of strife, crazy political divides, economic inequality, ICE raids, huge protests, and so much more, the US consumer is still buying stuff. More stuff - cars, clothes, gadgets, travel - there, apparently, isn’t anything in the world that will stop us from whipping out our credit cards to buy stuff. Our desire to spend has basically helped the entire global economy. Good job, guys.

Brands: (1st All Star appearance since 1995) Since the internet started (and all of that fancy measurement stuff kicked in) many digital marketers have doubted the power of brand advertising. In 2025, it’s suddenly back in fashion in a big way. The increasing popularity of YouTube & TikTok & Connected TV has basically given brandvertising a boost. (And I suspect that the concept of “brand” plays a role in Generative SEO (or whatever the term of art is))

Newsletters: (1st All Star appearance) I am not new to the newsletter game (been writing a newsletter since 2019 or so), but boy have newsletters EXPLODED in popularity. Platforms like beehiiv (follow that affiliate link for 1 month free and 20% off your 1st 3 months) and Substack have made newsletter creation and monetization much easier. Newsletters have become a huge industry and I think every agency ought to be doing a newsletter as part of their social authority efforts. I suddenly subscribe to a bazillion newsletters (mostly based on vibes, TBH) and I really enjoy reading them.

Founder Brands: (1st All-Star appearance) OK - founder brands are nothing new - they’ve been around forever. But I think 2025 has been a tipping point where they’ve become something that is useful rather than just promotional. Adam Robinson from RB2B pumps out useful & insightful stuff every day. Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot gives a masterclass in transparency and insight every time he hits the keyboard. While I don’t think that every founder needs a brand (in fact few should), it has become an accelerant for growth when the founder can create their own marketing gravity that is separate from their product. (Check out the founder brand mention in The Naur Stars for the downside of this approach.)

There are plenty more cool things that have happened in the 1st half of 2025 - but you know y’all have lives to live…so I won’t blather on forever.

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Now For The Naur Stars

I’ve been pretty much a downer on 2025 so far. There is a lot of stuff that is off the rails and needs some serious fixing. Cue SNL’s Kenan Thompson & Fix It.

The US Political Machine: Seriously, I do not care which side you love or hate - this whole thing is broken and only serves those inside the machine. Naur - very bad.

Wars, Conflicts & Special Operations: This is really stupid. We need to just stop shooting guns, missiles, drones, and other weaponry at each other because of stupid political issues. It just doesn’t work. Naur - very, very bad.

Consumer Privacy: 16 billion passwords got leaked (though I have seen some places suggesting that it isn’t true - I dunno) but sensitive data is such an attractive and enticing thing that we can’t keep the bad guys away from it. We gotta find better ways to keep our stuff safe. Naur - very bad.

CEOs Who Fire People Because of AI: Business leaders - take a freakin’ minute before you move so rashly. Efficiency is awesome…but before you toss away your dev team, or your customer service org, make sure that tossing aside thousands of employees is your only move, not just one that make shareholders think you are cool. Naur - very bad.

Automation/AI/GTM Slingers Who Don’t Understand Business: AI is cool. GTM tech is cool. Automation is cool. BUT if your whole biz is based around sharing a workflow diagram and incessantly following up with “Just checking in…” or “Did you see my last message…” and then not being able to understand any workflow outside of the one you diagrammed…. Naur - very bad.

Founder Branding Gone Wrong: Elon Musk, enough said. He 100% trashed Tesla’s brand equity. Naur - very bad.

There’s a bunch more to complain about - but that’s enough for now

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How Has Your 1st Half Been?

In the agency world, I am hearing two VERY different stories:

1. This year is brutal - just can’t break through. (Naur Star)

2. We just had our best month ever. (All Star)

If you are having your best months ever - rock on. Just remember to keep track of your profits & don’t hire too far ahead of your revenues. Growing fast is STRESSFUL.

If you are living in the world of “Naur” - a few things:

1. No leads: This just means you aren’t saying the right things to the right people. Switch it up, be creative and they will come.

2. Can’t close: Either, you need to brush up on your sales skills, OR (and this is 100% the case) you need to recalibrate your value. You might need to sell smaller deals, or perhaps find a new way to express the benefits of working with you.

3. Can’t keep clients: Usually this is a communication issue - you aren’t showing all the value that you are bringing in a way that is relevant to the client or you weren’t clear what they were buying during the sales process.

If you need some help - I’m here:

• GTM OS: Create a machine that keeps conversations happening via cold outreach (Email & LinkedIn)

• GEN+: Generate social authority & market visibility through content mining and AI-powered repurposing.

• Fire Yourself From Sales: OK - you don’t have to fire yourself from sales, but we can make your sales machine work WAY better than it is today - so you will close more clients.

• Book A Call To Discuss: Most agencies I work with need at least 2, and many times all three of these working in conjunction. If you see 2-3 needs, we can mix & mush programs together so they run in parallel (and we are pretty generous with multi-program discounts, too.)

Some Content That I’ve Enjoyed So Far This Year

Marketing Against The Grain (Podcast): Kipp & Kieran (CMO & VP Marketing) of Hubspot jump into AI marketing tactics and share great insights on how to use AI - but also give amazing modern marketing advice.

The Marketing AI Show: Paul & Mike from SmarterX nerd out on AI stuff. They aren’t flashy or funny, but compelling somehow.

The Startup Ideas Podcast: Greg Isenberg from Late Checkout just lights an entrepreneurial spark in every episode (he does them 2-3 times a week - great guests & insights)

Pivot (Podcast): Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher with amazing, hard takes on politics, tech, advertising & the economy. My favorite listen at the moment.

Quick Programming Note

Our usual Friday newsletter send date falls on the 4th of July. I’ll be busy with some sort of all-American stuff (cutting taxes on the rich, or making sure that it is as hard as possible for poor kids to get free lunch or something), so the Agency Inner Circle will show up 1 day early on July 3rd.

Love this newsletter - seriously. I look forward to reading it

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