What's trending in every marketing Slack right now 📈
5 viral moments that'll make you smarter.
I'm trying something new.
There’s always some marketing stunt, crisis, or brilliant move that gets everyone’s attention - but it’s all so easy to miss while you’re focused on your own work.
🌈 I’m going to start collecting these weekly and sharing what made them stick (or backfire). Consider this your weekly dose of marketing inspiration to start the week right.
Drop a comment if you want me to keep sending these Monday updates (in addition to Friday’s idea). Let’s see how this goes.
Here are 5 viral moments that broke the internet this week 👇
#1
Astronomer hired Gwyneth Paltrow to convert cringe into cash
After the Coldplay scandal, Astronomer hired Chris Martin’s ex-wife as their “very temporary spokesperson”.
Gwyneth explained their product while casually mentioning she “consciously uncoupled” from Chris.
Twitter loved it.
My take: When you’re getting roasted anyway → lean into the joke. They guaranteed viral attention and turned it into product marketing. Brilliant. (Perfect example of my crisis management playbook - they used these exact secrets)
#2
Tea’s data breach was a masterclass in how NOT to respond
A new women’s dating app launched a few weeks ago and quickly became #1 on the App Store.
But… last week they leaked 72,000 images of users (including government IDs).
And their response statement was corporate disaster: ❌ No apology. ❌ Blamed “legacy systems”. ❌ Used corporate phrases like “robust and secure solution”.
My take: Perfect contrast with Astronomer. Tea did everything wrong - denied responsibility, used lawyer language, showed zero empathy.
#3
KitKat’s screen addiction campaign is genius
Their new “Have a Break” ads show people literally “scrolling” KitKat bars instead of phones:
This connects to something I’ve written about before - KitKat’s genius at owning specific “moments” in your day. Now they own screen time too.
KitKat is even partnering with screen-time apps to reward less phone usage with free chocolate!
My take: I love how they took a 50-year-old slogan and made it solve 2025’s newest problem for Gen Z. Look at what’s stressing your customers right now - how does your existing value prop solve their newest problem?
(Pure Leaf also went viral for fighting screen time addiction this week)
#4
This viral seagull video reveals exactly how to make AI videos look real
Last week, a video went viral showing a seagull breaking car glass:
It was created with AI.
But here’s the thing - there’s one specific trick that makes it look 100% real.
Here’s how they actually made this video