Symbolic image of joy as a guiding compass in strategy.
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Joy is directional, not decorative. The rise of joy-driven marketing strategy

ByJohanna

This isn’t a trend piece. This is a call to arms. We don’t need another mood board. We don’t need one more carousel of whispery mantras in lowercase serif. We need to stop treating joy as an afterthought and start treating it like what it truly is: a compass. This post isn’t here to sprinkle…

Conceptual image representing joy as a marketing strategy—bright, warm, and inviting.
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The 2026 marketing trend no one saw coming: Joy as strategy

ByJohanna

While everyone else is optimizing for clicks and conversions, the marketers paying real attention in 2026 are doing something radical: they’re choosing joy. Not gimmicks. Not gamified dopamine traps. Not emotional simulacra assembles by AI. Joy. Real joy. As strategy. You might not find it in the usual trend reports. Those are still busy predicting…

Charles, Mabel and Oliver from Only Murders in the Building by a laptop. Image copyright: Disney+.
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Only Stories in the Building. Turning your content into a mystery worth solving

ByJohanna

You don’t need a murder to build mystery, but it helps if something feels hidden. Some of the most compelling marketing today borrows from Only Murders in the Building. From true crime podcasts. From TikTok rabbit holes and subreddits where users obsess over fictional characters as if they were forensic evidence. I mean, let’s face…

Milk splash on white surface. Visual metaphor of plot vs character: motion contrasted with internal change.
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Character arc ≠ plot arc. Brands need both

ByJohanna

What’s the plot? That’s the question every marketer is trained to answer. The timeline. The launch. The announcement. The metric to hit. The feature to unveil. The call to action to place like a flag at the summit. And that’s how brand storytelling becomes a sequence of events. Structured, yes, but strangely empty. We know…

Mighty god Zeus. The power of king of Olympic gods is the ability to throw lightning bolts. Fragment of an ancient statue symbolizing mythic marketing.
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Mythic marketing. What story-driven marketing misses when it forgets the Gods

ByJohanna

Zeus had lightning. You have… a PDF lead magnet. It’s not that practical offers don’t work, but they tend to forget where they came from. Somewhere along the path from oracle bones to Google Slides, we turned stories into strategies and prophecies into KPIs. Marketing became a spreadsheet. The gods fell silent under the weight…

Contrast of light and shadow representing story-driven branding.
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Dark stories for light brands. Why soft aesthetic needs tension, not just tranquility

ByJohanna

There’s a particular silence that lives on Instagram. It smells faintly of linen and lemon balm. Everywhere you scroll, a soft pink carousel murmurs, “You are enough”. Pastel backgrounds. Sans-serif typography. Gentle imperatives wrapped in whisper tones: pause, breathe, slow down. It’s the visual vocabulary of modern serenity, and it’s everywhere. Wellness brands sell peace….

Zombies coming for a runner in the woods. A visual metaphor for story-driven marketing.
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Run for your brand. What Zombies, Run! can teach us about motivating action through story

ByJohanna

What if your call-to-action chased your audience into literal motion instead of just inviting clicks? The best stories don’t wait. They run toward you. Welcome to the apocalypse (It’s branded) You’re running. Your legs ache, your breath is uneven. In your ears: Static. Crackle. Panic. “Runner 5, they’re behind you. Faster. NOW.” It’s the Zombies,…

A whimsical image of a woman making the fool's leap of faith, embodying the untamed energy of The Fool's Journey in brand storytelling.
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What if your brand isn’t a Hero but a Fool? Rethinking the arc with Tarot’s wild card

ByJohanna

Not all journeys are about conquest. Some are about surrender. Some begin at zero. Opening the gate. The Fool, not the Hero Marketing loves a mountain. The Hero’s Journey with its cinematic arcs, tidy trials, and triumphant returns, has ruled brand storytelling for decades. From Silicon Valley pitch decks to solopreneur origin stories, we’ve been…

Iron Man costumes at the Tony Stark base at the Avengers experience in Las Vegas.
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You are not the hero. Why brands need to step out of the spotlight

ByJohanna

Most brands write themselves into the story like they’re Iron Man. But no one likes a hero who won’t stop monologuing about their own brilliance. Especially when what your customer actually needs is a J.A.R.V.I.S. Brand storytelling has become a strange kind of theatre. Everyone wants to be the protagonist, the visionary, the world-changer. And…