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…

Netflix promoted Squid Game Season 2 with a real-life scavenger hunt. A textbook example of using mystery marketing.
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Using mystery to build curiosity in your marketing campaigns

ByJohanna

To promote Squid Game Season 2, Netflix turned the streets of Bucharest into a real-life treasure hunt, blending pop culture, puzzle-solving, and storytelling into a single campaign. Netflix hid 454 bloodstained green tracksuits, each marked with clues and details symbolizing a player’s fate from Season 1, across local thrift shops. Fans raced to crack puzzles,…