Hiya friends,

Alright…you got me. 😅

I’ve been quietly testing ChatGPT as a content tool this year (behind the scenes, in little corners of strategy, copy, and creation.) And I have to admit…the output has been pretty incredible.

Chat can crank out more in 10 minutes than I sometimes generate in 3 hours. It’s fast, crazy efficient, and weirdly insightful at times.

But here’s the part I can’t shake…

For all the time it saves, I’m noticing that most marketers hate what it produces. Not because it’s bad, but because it just doesn’t feel right. 🫣

We’re entering a new chapter where “fast and good enough” is quickly replacing “slow but deeply meaningful”, and I’m starting to think that’s gonna become a BIG problem for brands. Especially those that choose to use AI as their main source of inspiration, creativity, and production.

This hit me last week, when a few of you reached out after I delivered a few AI generated newsletters and said, “Eww, stop that. Can’t we just be human again?” 😅

I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then. Not because I don’t want to use the tools (I still use ChatGPT as a second brain), but because my whole mantra in life and in marketing is: be human…as often as you can.

Being human is the last real competitive advantage we’ve got, and no matter how brilliant AI gets, we have to remember we’re living in one of the most disconnected time periods in human history. A time where people crave something real, something tangible…

And something human.

So, with that in mind, I’m bringing back the newsletter in it’s original format, with an additional insights section to help you guys snag the secret trends before your competitors do.

And we’re kicking it off with a story that’s been stuck in my brain for weeks:

In 1980, a Vietnamese refugee made a hot sauce in California with no funding, no ad budget, and absolutely zero plans to market it.

The guy literally had no go-to-market deck. No brand book. No strategy plan. And seeing as this was 1980, he definitely had no AI prompt library. 😅

What he did have was a sauce that added life to the dishes his customers were creating (his primary audience was restaurant-level chefs and avid at-home cooks). His creation was a smooth chili sauce packaged in a clear, minimalistic bottle with a green cap, and labeled with a funky rooster icon.

Fast forward 40+ years…and that rooster is one of the most iconic food symbols of one of the biggest brands in America today: Sriracha 🐓

This story has me shook because while modern brands are out here switching fonts, split-testing taglines, and praying the algorithm throws them a bone…Sriracha became a giant an entirely different way.

It scaled fast because it never stopped being different.

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• Why your ads aren’t emotionally converting

• What messaging is actually resonating with your customers

• How to cut CAC without guessing or praying to the algorithm gods

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Originally, Sriracha founder David Tran didn’t launch Huy Fong Foods to dominate a category. He just wanted to make chili sauce that tasted like home.

He named the company after the freighter that brought him to the U.S., stamped a rooster on the label (he was born in the year of the rooster), and sold it out of a van in Chinatown.

He ran no ads. Didn’t talk to any PR agencies. He didn’t even have a social media presence. What he did have was the scrappy hunger of an entrepreneur. So he went one customer at a time, converting them on the product’s differentiated flavors, texture, and consistency.

Soon he had a product people couldn’t stop putting on everything, and the business grew and grew.

Today, Sriracha makes over $120 million in annual sales, and represents a whopping 10% of the overall hot sauce market in America.

Now obviously, times have changed. Most brands aren’t operating in social media free spaces where consumers have lots of time on their hands to try new products and get hooked on the physical experience before they buy (I miss when free samples in grocery stores were a thing…😅)

Yet even with the crowded spaces we’re marketing in today, I think it’s important to realize: you don’t have to optimize everything to grow.

But you do have to mean something.

And Sriracha means something…to a lot of people. You can see it in their behavior:

• It made national news…for not being available during the pandemic.

• Chefs sneak it into Michelin kitchens regardless of policy.

• TikTok creators treat it like culinary currency.

This kind of behavior from the larger market has nothing to do with “brand awareness” or even “ad performance”.

You only get that kind of behavior from people when they have an emotional attachment to what you’re selling.

(And if we’re being honest, not many brands have that these days. 😅)

But there is hope for brands who want to differentiate past “good brand, good product” and become something more…

So how did Sriracha go from a chili sauce in a van to a non-negotiable in half the kitchens/homes in America?

🧠 Let’s break down the brain science behind what they did right:

1. They made themselves familiar (because familiarity breeds fluency).
   
   Our brains are lazy (sorry, efficient) which means they love repetition. That’s why we reach for the same cereal, the same coffee mug, the same hot sauce every time we cook. The brain says, “if it worked before, it’ll probably work again.” Sriracha didn’t need to scream for attention. It just needed to show up consistently in the places people expected it to be. That’s the first thing they did right…next:
   

2. They created symbolic meaning transfers.
   
   The green cap Tran chose wasn’t just creative packaging. It was badge of honor. In psychology, this is called associative symbolism and it’s incredibly powerful. We don’t just see the product, we see what it represents. Over time, Sriracha came to mean flavor, risk, edge, and authenticity. The kind of stuff people want to signal when they pull it out of their fridge and put it on their latest creation. Last, Sriracha did something incredibly smart:
   

3. They made their distinctiveness trigger memory.
   
   In reality, the rooster has basically nothing to do with the sauce itself. Sriracha has no chicken-derived ingredients in it, and unless you’re using on chicken wings, you probably wouldn’t associate it with chickens at all. But that’s what makes the rooster icon a fantastic choice for this brand. It’s a recall device.
   
   You can thank the Von Restorff effect for this one: things that stand out get remembered. That red bottle. The green cap. The weird, loud bird. It’s branding with a bite, literally and psychologically. And since hot sauce was already a saturated market (a sea of sameness) Sriracha was incredibly smart to lock in a memory slot and never let go.

None of this happened because of a perfectly optimized funnel. It happened because the brand became a shortcut in people’s minds. When something is fluent, symbolic, and distinctive—your brain stops asking “do I want this?” and just grabs it, uses it, and tells people about it (and then hoards it during supply chain meltdowns.)

That’s the power of building brand equity that lives in the emotional brain, not just the logical one. Because at the end of the day…algorithms optimize, mimic, and produce…but only humans embed.

The brands that become household staples don’t just show up in feeds. They live in people’s fridges, routines, and heads.

Quick recap before we go:
If you want to build a brand that sticks (like, Sriracha-level sticks):

1. Make one thing unmistakably yours.
   Your green cap. Your rooster. Your cue for recall.
   At Tether, we have a genius red dinosaur intern named Dex.

2. Say something people can repeat.
   Not polished. Not perfect. Just memorable.
   At Tether, we say, “your brand is what it eats,” because quality data is our thing.

3. Commit to it.
   No tweaking every 3 weeks. Own it. Let it grow roots.
   We’re still working on this part at Tether…time to double down.

That’s how you stop being seen—and start being remembered.

Until next week,

🦕 Sarah

P.S. If you’re tired of second-guessing your ads and want real answers, fast—book a $500 Office Hour with me. One hour, deep dive, no vague advice. Just clear next steps to help you cut CAC and finally get momentum. 👉 Lock in your session before my calendar fills up!

🚨 Dex’s Trend Alert: 10,000% YOY spike - Everyone’s shopping for their personality in purse form.

“Your it bag” just blew up on Pinterest—like 10,000%+ increase blew up. And no, this isn’t your classic Birkin-core moment. This is something much, much weirder…

📈 The Signal:
Searches for “your it bag” went from background noise on Pinterest to full-blown fashion emergency within the 24-45 female consumer group. I’m seeing a quick rise, sharp fall currently, but this is the kind of trend that will leave a mark on the industry as a whole.

So, what happened?

🧠 The Diagnosis:
This trend isn’t really about bags. It’s 100% about identity and signaling. The phrase “your it bag” is Millennial/GenX language for:

→ “I want to be seen.”
→ “I want something that fits my aesthetic.”
→ “I don’t want a trend—I want my version of it.”
→ “I’m redefining myself and want to show others who I am.”

Consumers aren’t just shopping for accessories anymore. They’re shopping for proof of personality.

📌 Here’s how to capitalize on this:

👜 Fashion & DTC
You’re not selling products. You’re assigning archetypes to the people you’re bringing in the door, so make sure your marketing makes your customer feel like they just unlocked a new character skin.

📸 Creators
Drop the “top 5 bags for spring” vids. Instead, make content around “The bag your Pinterest board would pick,” and double down on the identity your bag aligns with (match backgrounds to models to voiceovers).

💡 Bonus move for brands looking to capitalize on the “it” trend: build a quiz. Let people self-sort into their bag destiny, then sell that identity back to them.

Until next time—stay alert, stay aesthetic, and for the love of all things growth and brand…personalize your product positioning, people.

—Dex 🦖