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Made it to Friday.
You probably have a campaign calendar on a wall somewhere. Twelve months, a few big launches.
Clorox's CMO thinks that wall is the problem.
"The approaches and intuitions that came along with growing up in a world that was about big-bang campaigns actually can work against us all now," Eric Schwartz said at the ANA Masters of Marketing last week, per Marketing Dive. Clorox has replaced campaigns with what he calls "systems of continuous relevance."
Those systems are powered by people, Clorox calls them "brand lions," enabled by AI automation and amplified by agency partners. AI lets those marketers move faster and make small bets.
The numbers are the fun part. Pine-Sol, which was nearly dark on social, now averages more than 150 organic posts a month, tests content with more than 80 cohorts and averages a 13% engagement rate. Brita's Gen Z program produces more than 100 assets a month.
For CMOs, his proof is marketing mix analytics, which he says showed social getting dramatically more effective and efficient.
Even big launches changed. Clorox used in-market signals and AI to rework creative for a new allergen spray line without a reshoot. "The content is no longer finished at launch," he said.
The part I'd steal is his list of three: move from campaign calendars to learning loops, remove friction between signal and action, and act before certainty exists.
The second one is where most teams stall. Schwartz described the old way as "taking months to frame a brief and get a dozen decision-makers aligned." If a meme needs a dozen approvals, it's dead by the time it ships.
That one's an org chart problem.
So how many sign-offs does a social post need at your company?
Today’s sponsor:
Your meetings, inside Claude and ChatGPT
Last week's customer call has the details your proposal needs. Right now they're buried in notes nobody can find.
Wispr Flow Notetaker captures your meetings with names, numbers, and product terms spelled right, then brings them into Claude or ChatGPT through a built-in connector. Ask Claude to draft the proposal from your last three calls with a prospect, or pull together what the deal team said about pricing this quarter.
Need something from a call in March? Ask one question across every meeting you've had and get the answer with citations. Get Wispr Flow Notetaker, free to try on Mac and Windows.
TALK ON THE MARKET
Ross Simmonds, founder of Foundation, with the first of six takeaways from Ahrefs' EVOLVE:
Swap SEO for social and it's Clorox's point from the agency side. Your agency has to be worth more than the checklist.
Want to see case studies of AI-powered campaigns? We publish a daily edition on the most creative use cases of AI in advertising.
Interested in AI innovation across Europe? We publish a weekly round-up on AI-Ready Europe:
NUMBERS MATTER
99.5%. The share of spending on AI model serving and inference that comes from the top 10% of firms, in Ramp data cited by Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok, per PPC Land.
Slok's note says AI has delivered "zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech," TechCrunch reports. Ramp's data covers its own customers. Your CFO will have read the headline anyway.
DAILY PROMPT
Our Content Repurposing Strategy Generator, for getting ten pieces out of one:
I need a content repurposing strategy that maximizes return on an existing asset.
The source asset is a [CONTENT_TYPE] titled "[CONTENT_TITLE]", originally created for [ORIGINAL_CHANNEL/AUDIENCE]. It performed [PERFORMANCE_METRICS] and covers [MAIN_TOPIC]. I am attaching the full asset plus [ATTACHED_PERFORMANCE_DATA] (analytics exports, channel benchmarks, brand voice guide). Read all of it before you plan. Where you need outside context, such as current format norms on a channel or what competitors are publishing on this topic, research the web and cite what you used.
## Your Task
Generate a comprehensive content repurposing strategy that transforms this single asset into 8-10 derivative pieces across different formats and channels. For each repurposed piece, provide:
1. **Format & Channel**: What format (e.g., social clips, infographic, email series, podcast segment, webinar slide deck) and which channel it should live on
2. **Target Audience Shift**: How the messaging should adapt for this new audience
3. **Key Angle**: The specific hook or unique angle for this version
4. **Estimated Effort**: Low/Medium/High effort to create
5. **Expected Performance Lift**: Estimated reach/engagement improvement vs. original, grounded in my attached data where it exists and labeled as an assumption where it does not
## Strategic Constraints
- Prioritize formats that reach [TARGET_AUDIENCE_DESCRIPTION]
- Focus on channels where we have [CURRENT_CHANNEL_PRESENCE]
- Assume a team of [TEAM_SIZE] with [AVAILABLE_TOOLS]
- Timeline for execution: [TIMEFRAME]
## Output Format
Present as a prioritized roadmap, starting with quick wins (low effort, high impact) and building toward more ambitious repurposing. Include specific content angles and messaging adjustments for each piece. Suggest which pieces can be batched together for efficiency. Close with the two assumptions most likely to break the plan and what evidence would settle them. Then draft the first quick win in full so I can judge the voice.Feed it your best post from last quarter, not the hero film. Run the quick wins next week and keep what works.
CMO CORNER
Replace workflows that depend on energy with ones that run on structure.
Clorox doesn't get 150 posts a month out of heroics. Somebody designed a system where the next post is the easy thing to do.
We provide consulting services for CMOs on AI strategy for marketing teams through our Teamless offering.
TOOL UPGRADE
Three tools for a content system that runs every week, not every quarter:
Hootsuite — best for teams running many social channels that need consistent publishing, with audit trails for compliance. Try Hootsuite here →
Pictory — best for content teams turning long-form assets into short branded video clips without a video team. Try Pictory here →
Runable — best for small teams that want one AI agent making sites, slides, videos and documents from a prompt, with free daily credits to test it. Try Runable here →
→ We have 300+ curated, filtered, and categorized AI tools in our directory. Browse to find the best ones that help your marketing team.
LEARN THIS
To find the friction between signal and action: the AI Workflow Automation Framework for Marketing. It starts with a two-week time audit of your team's workflows, then scores which to automate first and lays out a 90-day rollout.
→ We publish workshops, courses, guides, manuals, and more on AI marketing for free. Browse our learning resources for free.
BRAND SLOP
Fox Nation, Fox News' streaming service, debuted "Houdini: Back from the Dead" on October 14, with an AI-generated Houdini answering questions like a documentary subject. Its president, Lauren Petterson, said it broke "new creative ground by using emerging technology to bring one of history’s most fascinating figures to life for a modern audience."
Viewers weren't sold. "What would the real Houdini think of this clap-trap necromancy I'm seeing on Fox right now?" one asked, per the Hindustan Times.
Then, minutes into World Series Game 1 on Fox, a "Mirror Images" graphic of the two managers drew instant "AI slop" complaints, the Mirror US reports. Nothing in the coverage says Fox confirmed it was AI. Viewers assumed anyway.
Once you're known for AI, every glossy graphic gets read as AI. Would your customers assume it about your next ad?
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