Marketing You Have to Find

The story of brands building community is a tale as old as time. What’s new is how creatively they’re inviting people in. Decoding an Easter egg, finding a hidden menu or tracking down a password before a drop requires a little extra effort — and audiences love it. That extra step turns a promotion into a discovery, making customers feel like they’re in on something others might have missed.

Easter eggs and password-protected drops aren’t reserved for brands of a certain size. Established brands use them to reward fandom. Emerging brands use them to build it. Either way, discovery gives people a reason to pay attention and talk.

Early access has long made audiences feel like insiders. Ticketmaster, for example, has used exclusive credit card presale codes for years. Now, younger brands are applying the same idea to product drops. Dairy Boy, Sweet Hat Co. and Set Active build exclusivity and camaraderie through community channels, giving members a passcode to shop before the general public. Beyond first access, members get a behind-the-scenes look at what’s happening with the brand — and who doesn’t want the inside scoop on a brand they’re a fan of?

Other industries are taking a different approach to subtle community engagement. Taylor Swift may not have invented Easter eggs, but she helped bring it into the marketing mainstream — planting clues in outfits, music videos and lyrics that turn each release into a fan investigation. Alex Cooper uses a similar playbook, teasing upcoming podcast guests through clue-filled Instagram Reels, giving fans just enough substance to guess — and flood the comments before the official announcement. And since 1997, Jeep has embedded tiny illustrations throughout its vehicles, turning discovery into a recognizable part of the ownership experience. Easter eggs may have started as playful additions, but for some brands, they’ve become part of the culture.

Marketing can take many forms, especially today. But at its core, it’s about giving people something worth talking about. And sometimes, the best way to start that conversation is to leave something for them to find.

🎨 REFY | Paris Art Kiosk

To mark their launch into Sephora Europe, REFY set up an art kiosk on the banks of the Seine where artist Jess Rose Bird created custom portraits of passersby. Centering art and community over a traditional campaign launch feels very on brand for a beauty brand that has always been rooted in aesthetics.

👱🏻 Colorwow | A Real Salon Blowout

When a clip of QVC host and businesswoman Toni Brattin accidentally mixing up the word "blowout" on live TV went viral, Colorwow and Chris Appleton moved fast, creating a post giving Brattin an actual salon blowout and a playful lesson on the term. The turnaround is what makes it work — the moment was already everywhere, and the brand found the most on-brand way possible to jump in.

🥤Panera | Loyalty with Kiki Palmer

Panera tapped Keke Palmer to front a MyPanera rewards promotion offering a free energy refresher, leaning into her very public relationship woes to make the case that Panera's loyalty program is the most reliable relationship in her life right now. The casting does a lot of the work because the joke lands because everyone already knows the context.

🔮 Flamingo Estate | Practical Magic Box

Ahead of the release of Practical Magic 2, Flamingo Estate enlisted herbalists, perfumers, astrologers, and more to launch a seasonal box inspired by plant magic and apothecary heritage, including items like a mandrake candle, mugwort clearing wands, and oracle cards featuring ancient herbs. The execution feels thoughtful and true to the brand, which is the difference between a collaboration that resonates and one that feels like a gift shop display.

✈️ Lufthansa | Travel Etiquette

Lufthansa released a merch collection printed with the unwritten rules of air travel — "Text your mom after landing," "Recline responsibly," "Middle seat gets the armrest." Plane etiquette is one of the internet's favorite things to argue about, and by putting their opinions on a sweatshirt, Lufthansa found a way to enter that conversation while making something people actually want to wear.

🎧 How Chime Built a Social-First Banking Brand (Brand New World): Chime CMO Vineet Mehra on how the fintech brand has built cultural relevance in a category not exactly known for it, through athlete partnerships with Cooper Flagg and Deion Sanders, episodic social content series, MLS sponsorships, and an in-house branded entertainment studio.

📄 Gen Z Pulse Report (Ogilvy): Ogilvy's latest research across 2,100 global respondents makes the case that Gen Z isn't contradictory; modern life is. The report maps four core tensions driving Gen Z decision-making today, from balancing energy optimization with indulgence to toggling between digital fluency and a real hunger for IRL connection, with practical implications for how brands should design for this generation rather than just market to them.

🎧 e.l.f. Beauty's Kory Marchisotto on Acquiring Rhode and Building a Billion-Dollar Brand (Social Currency): e.l.f. CMO Kory Marchisotto on how she brought luxury brand-building rigor to an affordable beauty company, growing it from $200M in revenue to $1.8B, and what the Rhode acquisition actually looked like from the inside. She also gets into how the brand turns community signals into campaigns and how they approach campaigns that don't land.

📄 Inside TikTok and Starbuck’s Employee Creator Program (ICYMI): A look inside TikTok's new Custom Creator Network, piloted with Starbucks, which lets brands identify employee-generated content and put paid spend behind it, compensating employees the same way any creator would be. As the line between employee and creator continues to blur, the brands that figure out this infrastructure first will have a real advantage.

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