What Stranger Things Can Teach Marketers About Staying Relevant

As you start thinking about your resolutions for the new year, here's one for you: tell your friends and colleagues about this newsletter. Each month, we dig into marketing's biggest topics to help you think differently before your next strategy meeting or campaign planning session. Thank you for subscribing — we're glad you're here and look forward to connecting more in the year ahead. Before we dive in, let's warm up with a little trivia: Nereid, Naiad, and Thalassa are the second, third, and fourth largest moons of what planet?

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One Big Thing

Over the past two months, it's been nearly impossible to escape it. And no, not the flood of "let's circle back next year" messages — but the final season of Netflix's hit Stranger Things.

From its segmented holiday episode drop schedule to a wave of brand partnerships, fan theories, and speculation about the fate of fan-favorite characters (fingers crossed for Steve Harrington), the show has dominated the cultural conversation.

It's hard to believe these kids from Hawkins have been part of our lives for nearly a decade, but the show's influence on TV, streaming, and audience expectations is undeniable. Even as viewing habits continue to evolve, Stranger Things has created a lasting impact — something marketers are constantly striving to replicate.

what caught our eye

What Caught Our Eye

With the event calendar slowing down as we head into the new year, we thought this was the perfect time to revisit some of our favorite marketing moments and stories from 2025. After all, it's easy to forget just how much can happen in a single year.

Case in point: the Coldplay–Astronomer "affair" fiasco. While many probably wish they could forget it, the episode is a reminder of a familiar rule — never waste a good crisis. Astronomer's cheeky response, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (ex-wife of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin), quickly went viral.
Merriam-Webster hit us with a tough truth this month — and let's just say, we're still recovering.
A behind the scenes look at how a seemingly random May day is the Super Bowl for these social media pros.
According to a Bain survey, about 80% of consumers rely on these "zero-click" results in at least 40% of their searches.
Zohran Mamdani's upstart campaign for NYC mayor turned heads across the country.

There are plenty of marketing lessons to be learned from how a relative unknown became a national name. One unexpected standout? The campaign's logo.
Rarely does a day go by that this writer hasn't thought about Season 2 of Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal. Devouring all six episodes of The Rehearsal made me think plenty about how I go about my day, be a marketer and storyteller. We also enjoyed the conversation Mina Kimes and Pablo Torre had about the show on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast.