Posts in Marketing Industry/Trends
Atlanta Has the Ball + Entertainment Is the Assignment

Atlanta’s World Cup moment is here, and arriving at a time when sports, entertainment, tourism, and brand storytelling are increasingly overlapping. This is a significant marketing opportunity for everyone ranging from official brand sponsorships to local venues, neighborhoods, and cultural institutions to shape the visitor experience. How are marketers showing up and how should they?

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AIMS Speaker Feature | Khalilah Cooper - Chick-fil-A

The Atlanta Integrated Marketing Summit (AIMS) is a half-day event that brings Atlanta’s vibrant marketing community together to turn inspiration into action, build meaningful connections, and spotlight incredible industry leaders. We are excited to announce our first speaker of our growing lineup, Khalilah Cooper at Chick-fil-A. In this blog, she shares a sneak peek about her topic and conversation she will have with us at AIMS on October 8th at SCADshow.

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Entertainment Is the New Marketing Frontier

Marketing is no longer just competing with other marketing, marketing is competing to stay relevant amongst entertainment itself and to become more integrated instead of disruptive. Audiences are comparing campaigns to more than just another commercial, they are comparing your ad to everything else — what they watched, played, streamed, attended, or shared this week. How can marketers become entertainers?

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The Client Red Flags Nobody Wants to Talk About

At Setup, we sit in the middle of these relationships every day. We see what happens when a client sets an agency partnership up to win and what happens when they accidentally set it up to fail. So if you want better work, better chemistry, and better results, here are the most common “client behaviors” that signal trouble, plus what to do instead.

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Designing for Real Life: Operationalizing Authenticity Across Product, Service, and Story

Designing for real life means embedding authenticity across the entire customer journey — from product to service to story — in ways that remove friction and deliver measurable and meaningful results.

Marti Walsh, the VP of Customer Experience and Marketing at Kimberly-Clark Professional, shares what it means to be an authentic leader and how to optimize operations honorably.

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The Client Checklist: Why “Dating” in Marketing Is So Hard

In the last six years, we’ve surveyed thousands of brands and agencies about their relationships. Each year, the data tells the story that brands want a partner they can rely on, but finding that partner often is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. 

Read what brands are looking for in the perfect agency partner.

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Red Flags vs. Green Flags in Brand–Agency Relationships

Setup’s 2025 Marketing Relationship Survey gives marketers a rare, honest look into what brands and agencies say is working and what quietly destroys partnerships.

The truth is that relationships fail because of patterns, mistakes that pile up over time, even after multiple warnings. So here are the most common red flags and green flags in the agency-client relationship based on what real marketers are telling us.

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Super Bowl LX Ads: Storytelling, Human Connection + Strategic Risks

Super Bowl LX showcased brands pushing weight loss drugs, AI, and utilizing celebrities to an absurd amount (what’s new?), as well as another “Minions" movie in theaters (surprised but not shocked). Every marketer weighs in on who won their hearts…and this year, for us, it came down to brands that leaned into storytelling that included nostalgia and emotion, specifically with a human lens.

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