Happy Tuesday, y’all 👋. I hope you’re easing into Thanksgiving week and getting a little space to slow down before the holiday rush fully kicks in.

The focus of today’s deep dive is the rise of provocative advertising in public spaces and the shift it reflects in how brands pursue attention. The story centers on a set of New York City subway ads from emerging companies in sensitive categories and the reaction those ads were engineered to create.

It is a window into how attention economics are evolving and why some brands are trading persuasion for volatility. Let’s get into it.

Driving the news: Brands are turning to provocation as a deliberate marketing tool, using physical spaces like the New York City subway to spark outrage and convert it into attention. Startups in sensitive categories including AI companionship and consumer genetics are embracing messaging that is intentionally confrontational, relying on public reaction to drive awareness. Why So Many Brands Want to Piss You Off by Grace Snelling for Fast Company captures how this shift is accelerating, highlighting subway ads from Friend and Nucleus Genomics that use sharp, declarative claims to generate friction. Link

The stakes: Brands today operate in a market where attention is scarce and increasingly expensive. By leaning into provocation, companies are testing whether emotional disruption can outperform traditional persuasion. For early stage startups this strategy offers a shortcut to visibility and a chance to differentiate before competitors can react.

• This moment matters because it reflects a shift in how consumers interpret authenticity. When provocation becomes a standard tactic, the line between intentional disruption and manufactured manipulation becomes thinner. The brands that succeed will be the ones that understand how to create tension without compromising trust.

The friction: Snelling’s reporting highlights the gap between what generates attention and what builds lasting equity. Outrage driven ads move quickly and invite conversation, but they also risk alienating audiences when messages feel insensitive or irresponsible. Genetic claims in particular heighten that tension because they speak to identity, ability and social signaling.

• The approach contains an inherent contradiction. These campaigns work when they feel transgressive or unusual. As more companies adopt the strategy, the effect loses power and backlash becomes predictable. The margin between meaningful cultural tension and empty noise narrows, raising the stakes for every subsequent campaign.

What this signals: The rise of these campaigns signals a shift in the economics of attention. As the cost of buying predictable reach continues to climb, startups are turning to physical spaces like the subway not for their impressions but for their volatility. A single provocative line can generate more value through online amplification than a fully funded digital campaign. The subway becomes the spark and the internet becomes the distribution.

• This is a form of attention arbitrage. Brands are exploiting the gap between the relatively low cost of out of home media and the high value of earned conversation when backlash travels across social platforms. The strategy reframes physical ads as catalysts rather than endpoints. In this model, the true audience is not the commuter who sees the ad but the network that reacts to it. The incentive shifts from persuasion to ignition because amplification is where the economics make sense.

The bigger picture: The rise of outrage oriented campaigns mirrors broader dynamics in digital culture. Polarized content spreads faster and conflict drives engagement. As brands behave more like publishers, advertising begins to resemble the media ecosystem itself. It becomes louder, sharper and more dependent on emotional intensity.

For everything else, see below 👇:

AI

1. What Is Agentic A.I., and Would You Trust It to Book a Flight? — (Gabe Castro-Root for The New York Times) — Link

2. Consumers Are Open to Letting AI Manage Their Brand Relationships — (Joe Mandese for MediaPost) — Link

3. OpenAI Launches Shopping Assistant — (Rachyl Jones for Semafor) — Link

4. Warner Music Signs Deal With AI Music Startup Suno, Settles Lawsuit — (Aisha Malik for TechCrunch) — Link

Consumers

5. Starbucks’ “Third Place” Strategy Was Built for a Different Era — (Chris Walton for Branding Strategy Insider) — Link

6. Why Shoppers May Spend Less This Holiday Week, Even With More Deals — (Taylor Hatchmaker for Fast Company) — Link

Culture

6. Make Culture Weird Again — (W. David Marx for The Atlantic) — Link

7. America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle — (Jason Koebler for 404 Media) — Link

Podcasts

8. Spotify to Raise US Prices in First Quarter of Next Year — (Aisha Malik for TechCrunch) — Link

Sports

9. NBA, MLB TV Deals Show Sports-Rights Spending Is Stabilizing — (Tony Maglio for The Hollywood Reporter) — Link

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