Episodios
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Budgets will be wasted. Brands will be ruthlessly filtered out. The real game starts after full time.
James Kirkham, founder of Iconic and ex-head of Copa90, joins Contagious to unpack why the 2026 World Cup is fundamentally different to previous tournaments - and what brands need to do about it.
This episode explores the new playbook for World Cup marketing, where winning isn’t about owning the biggest moment, but creating the conversations, emotions and cultural ripples that keep spreading long after the final whistle. .
We’ll explain:
Why the best metric right now is goosebumps The reason creators are better value than athletes How Gen Z are different to previous generations of football fans Why group chats are the new stadiums The power of conversations that happen after the game Why the Village People were the canary in the cultural coalmineIf you work in marketing, you should almost definitely subscribe to Contagious IQ - an intelligence platform that helps brands and agencies supercharge their creativity by learning from the world's most impactful brands, campaigns and trends.
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In this episode, Contagious investigates what happens when content supply completely outstrips human attention, and how brands can win in a world dominated by infinite scroll, clip farms, AI slop and algorithmic overload.
Along the way, we’ll explore why Universe 25’s infamous rodent utopia experiments feel eerily relevant to modern media, why today’s attention panic may simply be history repeating itself, and why the real problem might not be shrinking attention spans but a zero tolerance reaction to boring content.
We’ll explain:
How brands cut through in a world of infinite noise The rise of workslop and clip-farm culture Why repetition, memes and cultural ad stock drive effectiveness How TV became a mood light for distracted audiences The difference between delivered abundance and accessible abundance Why choice paralysis is becoming a major media problem Why craftsmanship and human creativity still break through online How a TikTok witch helped create cultural impact for an underwear brandIf you work in marketing, you should almost definitely subscribe to Contagious IQ - an intelligence platform that helps brands and agencies supercharge their creativity by learning from the world's most impactful brands, campaigns and trends.
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Pokemon. Meatball lollipops. 17th Century silk traders. In this episode, Contagious explores weird and wonderful brand collabs, why they’re so effective, how to use them as a shortcut to cultural relevance and which brands are doing them well.
Discover the psychology behind ‘optimal incongruence’, how brands like Supreme and Crocs turned collaborations into a business model, and why technology has raised the cultural bar for collabs.
Along the way, we dive into:
The science behind why bizarre collaborations capture attention The rise of ‘luxury fan fiction’ and AI-generated fake collabs How music and fashion pioneered modern collaboration culture Why some collabs fail while others become cultural phenomena The most unlikely brand collabs, from logistics streetwear to cheese jewellery What are the hidden risks, failures and audience backlash brands often underestimate The connection between Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Betty Crocker and Rick RubinIf you work in marketing, you should almost definitely subscribe to Contagious IQ - an intelligence platform that helps brands and agencies supercharge their creativity by learning from the world's most impactful brands, campaigns and trends.
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Nostalgia. Cultural déjà vu. Kidulting. Why are so many people desperate to escape the present? In this episode, Contagious investigates everything from why adults are rebuilding their teenage bedrooms, to landlines for kids and the return of the iPod, and revealing why the past has become one of culture’s most powerful refuges.
Along the way, we unpack Happy Meals for adults, the psychology of anemoia, and why brands are increasingly selling comfort, tactility and emotional safety.
We’ll explain:
Why the past is haunting the present and how it stops us imagining the future The data and drivers behind the analogue tech comeback Why the nostalgia cycle is shortening How a sunscreen brand has created a sensory portal back to the 1980s Why Gen Z feels nostalgic for decades they never experienced How the Proust effect works and why it’s slightly more disgusting than you assumed Why the Prime Minister of Canada might be wrong about strategyIf you work in marketing, you should almost definitely subscribe to Contagious IQ - an intelligence platform that helps brands and agencies supercharge their creativity by learning from the world's most impactful brands, campaigns and trends.
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If you work in marketing, you should almost definitely subscribe to
Contagious IQ - an intelligence platform that helps brands and agencies
supercharge their creativity by learning from the world's most impactful
brands, campaigns and trends.
