Cat&tonic

07/29/2026

Marketing teams spend a lot of time fixing what's broken.

Not nearly enough time recognizing what's working.

The wins you celebrate shape the work you create next. Here's why making space for both matters—and a few ways to start doing it.

Marketing teams have a strange relationship with success. When something goes wrong publicly—a campaign misses the mark, a social post creates controversy, a launch underperforms—marketing is often the first place people look. When something goes right, it rarely gets the same attention. The cam...

07/13/2026

Creative projects have a funny way of going sideways before anyone creates a new project file.

Usually, it starts with crossed wires. Different expectations. A goal everyone assumed was obvious. Then suddenly everyone is solving a different problem.

That's why we're such big fans of creative briefs. Not because paperwork is exciting (it isn't), but because a little upfront communication saves a lot of creative detective work later.

This article may have a few years on it, but good communication doesn't really expire.

Ah, the humble creative brief. It’s an important tool in every agency’s tool belt, but it can take many different forms. Having worked at several agencies over the course of my career, I’ve seen almost as many versions as there are colors in a PMS book. This, by the way,

06/24/2026

Not all brand risk comes from a crisis.
Sometimes it’s just… slow. Quiet. Sneaky.
Like a leaky pipe behind the wall.

No headlines. No alarms.
Just trust slipping, teams misfiring, and a brand that’s not quite right anymore.
This grows a gap that you cannot ignore, but there are ways to realign.

https://cat-tonic.com/the-quiet-costs-of-ignoring-brand-risk/

TL;DR: Ignoring brand risk doesn’t just lead to PR crises — it quietly erodes trust, differentiation, and long-term value. Addressing it early protects both reputation and results. Business as unusual In today's rapidly evolving landscape, "business as usual" is anything but. Economic fluctuatio...

06/18/2026

A collection of good news, glimmers, new music, color trends, art for causes, and other things that caught our attention recently. Not because they're marketing insights, but because they're the kinds of things that make us more curious, creative, and human.

Obsessing about humor in marketing has inspired us to think more intentionally about the kinds of things we share as a team—not just work that informs, but work that creates a little lightness along the way. With that in mind, we wanted to shake up our usual formula and share some of the things th...

06/10/2026

One of our favorite things to share is the stuff that sits right between fascinating and delightfully niche.

Case in point: Matchbook Book from CentreCentre—a collection of branded matchbooks that doubles as a tiny archive of culture, graphic design, bad jokes, good nights out, and everyday life. The kind of thing nobody thought to save until someone did.

A good reminder that alongside the things that make us laugh, there's always room for the things that make us look a little closer.

Once a mainstay of social life in Britain, the branded matchbook no longer accompanies a restaurant bill or sits on a pub’s bar. This new book presents a vast collection of these miniature windows into the graphic sensibilities of a former era.

06/03/2026

Scratching Post is our monthly dispatch for curious marketers. Part brand thinking, part behind-the-scenes look at what we're building, part collection of ideas we're still happily obsessing over. https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7201968815113474049

Follow it here on LinkedIn or sign-up for our email version: https://curious.cat-tonic.com/newsletter

05/21/2026

Wild Oats’ rebrand is a good example of how humor becomes more effective when it’s attached to a real point of view. https://www.wildoats.com/our-story

At the center of the brand is a pretty serious belief: industrialized food systems have made food worse. Less connected to where it comes from, less trustworthy, less human. Most brands would communicate that with earth tones, solemn photography, and a paragraph about sustainability written in the same tone as everyone else.

SUKLE's rebrand of Wild Oats goes another direction.

The new identity leans playful, chaotic, and a little irreverent. The typography bends, the illustrations feel intentionally imperfect, and the overall tone makes light of something the brand is actually deeply serious about.

That tension is what makes it work.

Because the humor isn’t there to undercut the message. It’s there to make the conviction behind it feel more human and approachable. You can feel the brand pushing against the overly polished language and aesthetics that dominate this category, and replacing them with something that feels more alive.

That’s usually where the best humor in branding comes from—not trying to be funny for its own sake, but expressing a perspective clearly enough that it creates a little friction.

Without that point of view, this would just be another “fun” food brand. With it, the humor feels connected to something real.

Also, that angry flower is rad.

05/13/2026

Gaptooth Soda is a good reminder that humor in branding doesn’t start with trying to be funny. It starts with deciding what you’re willing to stand behind. https://bpando.org/2026/04/23/gaptooth-soda-by-saint-urbain/

Most brands in this space follow a familiar formula—clean, minimal, polished to the point of feeling interchangeable. Gaptooth takes a different route. It builds itself around something that would typically be softened or corrected: a gap-toothed smile. And rather than treating that as a quirk to hide, it becomes the organizing idea behind the entire system.

That choice carries through everything. The name, the illustrations, the typography, even the visual structure all reinforce the same underlying belief: perfection isn’t all that interesting.

The humor emerges from that tension.

It’s easy to mistake this kind of work as simply “quirky.” But the difference here is that the design decisions are doing more than entertaining. They’re expressing a clear point of view about individuality and what’s worth celebrating.

And that’s what gives the humor staying power.

Brand identity, logo, typography and packaging designs for Gaptooth soda by Saint Urbain. Reviewed by Emily Gosling for BP&O.

05/13/2026

Finally a cat in the house.

04/30/2026

We had a hand in bringing Bigfoot and all his friends to life for YMCA's Bigfoot Hide & Sneak event 👀🐾

But what you don’t see? The YMCA team behind the scenes making the whole thing happen. We’ve got front row seats, and it’s a whole lot of care, creativity, and hustle.

Good news: there’s still time to volunteer or bring your kids to join the search.
May 2. Don’t miss it!

https://www.ymcanorth.org/adventure/events/bigfoot-hide-sneak