The Cynical Marketers

HubSpot laid off hundreds of employees. Then its billionaire co-founder took to LinkedIn to thank them for their contributions.

Because apparently, "thanks for everything" is supposed to make losing your job feel better.

In Episode 104 of The Cynical Marketers Podcast, Mike and Nada break down HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah's LinkedIn post following company layoffs, the backlash it received, and the apology that somehow man...

Black Friday Cyber Monday isn't the time to suddenly remember you have an email list.

In this episode of The Cynical Marketers, Mike puts Nada in the hot seat to talk about the three things brands need to be doing NOW if they want email and SMS to actually perform during the holiday season.

We're talking:

• Why suddenly going from one email a week to multiple emails a day can wreck your deliverability  

• Why blasting your entire ...

Vaseline might have figured out something most brands still don’t understand: **the person who made an idea famous isn’t always the person who created it.**Instead of chasing the biggest influencers, Vaseline went back and found the original creators behind beauty hacks using its products — some dating back years — and brought them into the brand story.Which got us talking about the much bigger problem with ...

Gen Z brought iced coffee to a job interview, and apparently, we've got a workplace crisis on our hands.In Episode 101 of The Cynical Marketers, Mike and Nada get into the viral coffee controversy, why millennials suddenly care so much about interview etiquette, and whether bringing a drink to an interview is actually unprofessional.Mike thinks it's a little too casual. Nada thinks there are much bigger things to worry about. And b...

100 episodes. More episodes than subscribers. Zero paid promotion. And somehow, we're still here.For our 100th episode of The Cynical Marketers, Gary Vee gave us the perfect topic.In a recent clip, Gary tells a struggling podcaster that his content sucks, the algorithm IS the customer, and if he's not growing, he's simply not providing enough value.Yeah. We have some thoughts.We're talking about why good content doesn't always get ...

The people building AI are suddenly warning us about AI.That seems… convenient.Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is sounding the alarm. Sam Altman has raised concerns about where AI is headed. And after years of an industry racing to build faster, bigger, more powerful models, we're apparently supposed to believe everyone suddenly wants to slow down.So naturally, we have questions.Is AI actually getting too dangerous? Is regulation...

A $4 cake pop. An Amazon driver. A Ring camera.And one small business that somehow turned a simple misunderstanding into a full-blown social media disaster.Homemade Heaven thought they had a viral moment when they posted an Amazon driver taking a cake pop from outside their home. He thought it was free. He apologized. He PAID for it.That should've been the end of the story.Instead, the business doubled down.In Episode 98 of The Cyn...

The Callaway x Good Good controversy somehow keeps getting messier.Callaway’s CEO released a statement. Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark posted an eight-minute explanation. And we finally learned what the original ad was supposed to be: a parody of the horror movie “Obsession.”There was just one major problem—almost nobody understood the reference.In Episode 97 of The Cynical Marketers, we break down:• Why...

Good Good Golf wanted to make a funny ad for its new Callaway driver.Instead, they made an ad that left us asking one question:**How the hell did this get approved?**A golfer shoves a female professional golfer to the ground. The internet reacts. Good Good and Callaway apologize. Then people get mad about the apology.But beyond the controversy itself, there’s a bigger marketing question here.How many people saw this concept b...

LinkedIn is cracking down on “AI slop.”Cool. But - THAT’S the problem we’re fixing?Ghost jobs. Engagement pods. Stolen content. Performative thought leadership. Hustle bros. A feed that shows you posts from three weeks ago.But sure. Let’s hunt down the em dash.This week on The Cynical Marketers, we’re talking AI-generated content, LinkedIn’s obsession with “authenticity,” the ri...

ChatGPT is becoming an ad platform.And apparently, people are surprised.OpenAI is expanding its advertising program into more countries, major brands are starting to put real budget behind AI advertising, and marketers are already shifting from SEO to AEO in an attempt to influence what AI tools recommend.But haven't we seen this movie before?Facebook started without ads. So did Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and just about every othe...

Liberty Mutual introduced yet another character into its already confusing lineup and the internet absolutely hates it.So does that mean the marketing failed?In this episode of The Cynical Marketers, Mike and Nada break down why billion-dollar brands like Liberty Mutual can get away with marketing that would absolutely destroy a small business.We talk about:- Why Liberty Mutual keeps leaning into annoying commercials- Rage bait mar...

Everyone seems to have an opinion about AI-generated content.One day it's AI flyers. The next day it's AI images. Then someone gets called out for using ChatGPT because they used an em dash.In this episode, Mike and Nada unpack a recent study claiming consumers are becoming more accepting of AI-generated imagery—and why they think marketers are focusing on the wrong battle.If 85% of consumers can't reliably tell the differenc...

Everyone keeps telling small businesses the same thing:"Use AI or get left behind."But what if that's exactly backwards?In this episode, we're breaking down a Fiverr ad that accidentally exposes one of the biggest problems in marketing today. When everyone has access to the same AI tools, the same prompts, and the same outputs… nobody stands out.We talk about:Why AI is creating a sea of identical marketingThe dangerous promi...

Everyone loves to talk about AI replacing marketers.Nobody talks about what it's actually like to be one.Every 18 months, the rules change. Platforms change. Algorithms change. AI changes everything. Clients expect strategy and execution. Designers suddenly have to code. Strategists have to build Shopify stores. Consultants somehow end up with eleven bosses instead of one.In this episode of The Cynical Marketers, we're reacting to ...

Gary Vee says if you're making **$57,000 a year**, have work-life balance, and you're happy, you've already won.We disagree.In this episode, we break down why that take feels incredibly out of touch with today's reality, what happens when influencers become disconnected from the people they're giving advice to, and why so many marketing "gurus" seem stuck giving the same advice they were giving a decade ago.We also dive into:• Why ...

For over a decade, Mike has been saying, "Build a brand people remember."For over a decade, people have pushed back."What's the ROI?""Can you attribute it?""Let's just spend more on ads."Then Google publishes a study saying - brand awareness drives search, traffic, and sales.Same message.Different messenger.Funny how it suddenly became believable.If you're relying on ads, SEO, or AI to save your business while ignoring your brand, ...

One emotional TikTok.That's all it took.A baking influencer threatened legal action over a recipe... and within days she lost followers, brand deals, and years of credibility.This episode isn't really about cake.It's about ego.It's about what happens when business owners forget the internet loves an underdog—and absolutely loves watching powerful people implode.If you're running a business, managing social media, or building ...

Everyone says the economy is terrible.

Everyone says they're boycotting Amazon.

Everyone says billionaires are the problem.

Then Prime Day happens...

Amazon pulls in $26.4 BILLION in just a few days.

Average order values dropped.

Households placed multiple orders.

Social media said one thing.

Consumer behavior said something completely different.

In this episode we break down the numbers, why online outrage rarely matches reality, why Amazo...