Trevor Wade

Marketing executive | Brand builder | Mom | Tennis fan

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

Three criteria for evaluating a #SuperBowl ad:

·     Is it on brand? Or could it belong to anyone?
·     Is it memorable? When you’re talking about it the next day, do you remember which brand?
·     Is it in tune with the times? Humor, drama, emotion — does it resonate today?

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

Really hoping to catch a glimpse of the #MostInterestingManInTheWorld. I'm thirsty @DosEquis #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercial #BrandBowl

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@Budweiser freedom spot hit well. Lovely new take on their core brand pillars. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercial #BrandBowl

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@ring on the SuperBowl puppy bandwagon, saving lost dogs for free. Great cause. Good demo of its tech and benefits. Brand win. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercials

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

Kicking the second half of the #BrandBowl with a series of misses: Pokeman, Poppi, VW. No positioning. Benefit message. Wasted opportunity. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercial

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

"No bueno. Bueno" hit the mark for name reinforcement plus the classic #PuppyMonkeyBaby formula for successful SuperBowl ads. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercials #BrandBowl

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@budlight scores a touchdown with its wedding ad 😆 1. Funny 2. focused on the product = a winning move. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #BrandBowl #SuperBowlCommercials

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@AlexaKaye3 @Copilot @msexcel @NFL @claudeai Agree. We've got Anthropic Claude, MSFT Copilot, and OpenAi ChatGPT all competing. Claude wins hands down. Especially with that pre-game cougar ad #SuperBowl #adbowl #BrandBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercials

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

Disappointed with the overly expensive and chaotic star-studded @dunkindonuts ad. Usually they nail it. Missed it. Incomplete #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowlCommercials

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@talkradiogold Claude / Anthropic

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@TheOneAboutTV @LAYS @MichelobULTRA @Redfin @pepsi Claude!! (Anthropic) Keep thinking.

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

Let's go @LEVIS. Behind every great original. Way to catch attention and reinforce that red tab and fine fit. #AllAboutThatBass #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@grahamstan Ad about domain names hits a nerve for anyone who has ever tried to get a name and can't -- particularly infuriating when it's your official name. They captured a pain point, but what that has to do with #SquareSpace, I can't fathom. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

Most emotional ad so far: @LAYS with the father-daughter potato farmers. Kudos to Lays for thanking farmers. #SuperBowl #SuperBowlAds

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@grahamstan Serena is a great brand ambassador. In her documentary she talked about her struggle to lose weight, plus she's known to be an incredibly hard worker and tennis champion! #SuperBowlAds #SuperBowl

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

The Most Interesting Man in the World is back!! After a 10 year stint of amnesia 🤣. Let’s go! #brandBowl2026 @DosEquis for the win!!

https://t.co/ioaSeynNUZ

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@lulumeservey You're spot on @lulumeservey. There isn't even a car featured in the ad. You would be forgiven for thinking they had expanded into fashion.

It reads as if Jaguar took four internal values and put them on screen, forgetting that the values go into making a car, not a campaign.

[Preston Rutherford @PrestonRuther10]

CMO: we need to do a brand reset

CEO: wtf does that mean? like a new logo?

CMO: no. that'd be a rebrand. not what i'm talking about

CEO: then what?

CMO: first, let's define terms: the strength of our brand is ultimately measured in two ways: first, the customer acquisition we get when we turn everything off (e.g., ads, discounts, etc). second, our ability to raise prices (or reduce discounts) faster than the rate of inflation and not lose customers

CEO: never thought about it that way. go on

CMO: the fundamentals of our business are weakening, even though we're growing revenue

CEO: well, we need growth

CMO: i know we don't like to talk about it, but if we turned off our facebook ads and our promos, our revenue would fall through the floor. it's been getting progressively worse over the last 6 years, and we're not acknowledging how big of an issue it is

CEO: i acknowledge that's an issue. i'm not as close to the marketing numbers, so what exactly do you mean?

CMO: over the last 6 years, the revenue coming from branded organic search traffic (removing spikes and short term influences) on our online store have actually been steadily declining

CEO: but we've been growing

CMO: yes, we've only been growing the revenue coming from paid channels. we've been spending ad dollars to fuel our growth. that's fine if the revenue coming from organic sources is also keeping up, but it's not

CEO: i don't follow

CMO: we've been chasing these topline revenue growth numbers that i've allocated all of our resources (ad spend, creative budgets, etc) to driving highly-measurable short term revenue growth. this became a red flag for me last week when our facebook ads stopped delivering for 2 days and we had the worst August week 3 in the history of the company

CEO: oh that's what happened?! i thought we had a bug blocking checkout or something. site was working fine?

CMO: site was fine

CEO: yikes. so do you now think our '24 revenue number is in jeopardy?

CMO: we can hit the revenue number

CEO: great!

CMO: but we'll just be kicking the can down the road

CEO: what do you mean?

CMO: you know how i've been doing those P&L deep dives with fred (CFO) to isolate why our contribution margin has been going down?

CEO: yes, but we've got big COGS improvements coming in '24 that will take that number up

CMO: unfortunately, my latest rev of the forecast has our marketing costs more than canceling out gains from COGS improvements. we can only lean on existing customers for so long. we've already been over-emailing and sms-ing our list, especially existing customers. i don't know how much longer that can last

CEO: so what do we do?

CMO: two words...brand reset. 4 parts: 1) data deep dive to understand the true state of our revenue, 2) right-size cost structure to match the reality, 3) build our content machine, 4) systematically hack away at ways to build that resilient revenue base

CEO: sounds horrible. it's gonna be the best worst thing ever

CMO: yup

[Alex Johnson @AlexH_Johnson]

The history of open banking data aggregation can be hung on a timeline of fintech founders continually rediscovering just how hard it is to build on top of bank transaction data.

Last week's @FintechTakes essay dives deep into this history.

Find it at FintechTakes .com

[Trevor Wade @TrevorWade]

@EMostaque Hands down: Gamma https://t.co/eTOJ6JgPRZ