Find the Breakthrough
Industry trends, insights, and updates from ASTER.
Turn Fans Into Paid Advertising: The "Walking Billboard Job"
With no ad budget we tend to give up on the move entirely. But if you can mobilise passionate fans or staff as paid advertising, reach is buildable on very little.
2 min read
Put the Meaning in the Name Itself: WPBL's Trailblazer Naming
A new company or service has no track record and no history. Which is exactly why the way you name it can give it meaning from day one.
2 min read
Ride Your Own Popularity: Amazon's "It's on Prime"
To make a new service known, we build new advertising. But if you can ride something people are already obsessed with inside your own house, you borrow the heat without paying for reach.
3 min read
Translate a Feature Into a Belief: Polymarket's "Questions Are Everything"
Describing a service, we default to listing features. Fast, cheap, convenient. But feature descriptions drown among competitors saying the same thing. Polymarket translated a plain mechanic one level up, into a belief.
3 min read
Name the Cause of the Discomfort — The "Fake Sponsor Credit" Greenpeace Stuck on Station Names
Say "it's hot" about a heatwave and no one turns. Greenpeace renamed London Tube stations after the heat and added a fake credit—"Heatwave, brought to you by Shell"—linking a discomfort everyone felt to a name, for the price of stickers. Here is why it worked, and how a low-budget business can copy it.
3 min read
Turn a Number into a Mass — The "5-Meter Mountain of Waste" Dr. Beckmann Piled Up
"440 million white garments are thrown away in the UK each year"—read as text, it moves no one. Dr. Beckmann piled it into a 5-meter mountain beside Wimbledon's "Murray Mound." You can doubt a number, not a mass. Here is why it worked, and how any business with invisible losses can copy it.
3 min read
Spill Out of the Billboard and Make It an Incident — The "3D Cats" Dreamies Sent Crawling Through the City
"Cats go crazy for this treat"—any pet brand could write that. Instead, Dreamies sculpted life-sized cats climbing London's buildings toward its billboards, turning an ad into an "incident" passers-by photographed. Here is why it worked, and how a small business with a real worksite can copy it.
3 min read
Make Customers Hunt for the Stolen Chocolate — The Reversal Behind KitKat's "Crisis Response"
Twelve tons of limited-edition KitKat were stolen. Instead of hiding it, the brand turned every customer into a "stolen-goods hunter"—and turned a crisis into roughly ¥22.4 billion of earned media. Here is the reversal structure, and how a small business can copy it.
4 min read