Meme Team: The Pop Culture Marketing Podcast

Sonia Baschez
  • 5.0 (21)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Meme Team is the pop culture marketing podcast where host Sonia Baschez and guests break down the marketing and PR behind viral moments in movies, TV, music, tech, sports, and politics Every Thursday, Sonia (founder of Yapping as a Service) sits down with marketers, founders, and creators to unpack the campaigns, rebrands, press tours, and platform shifts shaping culture, from Taylor Swift and Warner Bros. to YouTube, TikTok, and AI. You'll hear what worked, what flopped, and the takeaways you can use for your own brand. If you care about brand strategy, storytelling, creator marketing, or why the algorithm is acting weird again, this one's for you. New episodes every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts..

  1. Oct 15

    Craft Is the New Luxury: Sam Altman's Movie, HarperCollins' Secret AI & the AI Wife Nobody's Buildin

    Why do AI companies keep pitching dinner reservations when people want an AI wife, and why are book publishers hiding their AI use? On Meme Team, the pop culture marketing podcast, Sonia Baschez and Christina Garnett (fractional chief customer officer, Pocket CCO) break down Sonia's viral "AI wife" post and what founders got wrong in the replies, why everyone has to be a creator now and why craft is the new luxury, WIRED's report that HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are quietly using AI, and why Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg lost control of their own stories to Nathan Fielder, Luca Guadagnino and Aaron Sorkin. Timestamps 0:00 Intro 1:27 "I want an AI wife": why AI marketing doesn't land with normal people 18:20 Be in the replies: fans sell better than founders 21:41 Everyone has to be a creator now 42:54 HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are quietly using AI 58:48 Tech founders lost control of their stories: Holmes, Altman, Zuckerberg 1:10:11 A 2026 Citizen Kane 1:13:56 Amazon shelved the Sam Altman movie, Neon bought it 1:17:26 You can open the door, but you don't control what walks out About Christina Christina Garnett is a fractional chief customer officer, founder of Pocket CCO and author of Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships. Find her on X @ThatChristinaG and at pocketcco.com. 📱 TikTok/Instagram/X: @memeteampod · Sonia: @SoniaBaschez · New episodes every Thursday.

    Craft Is the New Luxury: Sam Altman's Movie, HarperCollins' Secret AI & the AI Wife Nobody's Buildin

  2. Oct 8

    Winners and Losers: Warner Bros, Paramount, YouTube, Amazon, Apple

    Warner Bros. and Paramount are merging under the Skydance name, YouTube is done rewarding content farms, Amazon MGM turned a movie set into a creator activation, and Apple just quietly blocked half the ad tech industry from iOS 27. Sonia Baschez and fractional GTM advisor Gregory Kennedy break down what each of these moves actually means for brands, creators, and anyone paying attention to where the media industry is heading. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:40 Warner Bros. + Paramount become Skydance: rebrand or escape? 18:00 YouTube kills the content farm: what the algorithm update actually rewards 38:00 Amazon MGM's Verity creator press tour: 30 creators, 12 countries, a new playbook 55:00 Apple's iOS 27 ad block: Trade Desk, ad tech, and what brands missed About Gregory Gregory Kennedy is the founder of Vibe Your Sass, a fractional GTM advisor to startups, and a 3X CMO with 20+ years in Silicon Valley marketing. Find him on X: @gregorykennedy

    Winners and Losers: Warner Bros, Paramount, YouTube, Amazon, Apple

  3. Oct 1

    Disney, Taylor Swift, Letterboxd, and Meta Are All Living on Borrowed Trust

    Disney just announced John Watts for Star Wars Episode 10 and simultaneously undermined him by pairing him with Simon Kinberg — the writer behind X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, and a failed Twilight Zone reboot. Taylor Swift's bonus "encore" to Life of a Showgirl got dismissed by critics and hit number one anyway. Letterboxd is up for sale at $300M with A24, NYT, Netflix, Sony, and Paramount all circling. And on the same day Meta unveiled its Muse Charm AI wearable, news broke that Muse AI had been caught reading Apple messages after being explicitly told to stop. Timestamps 0:00 — Star Wars Episode 10: John Watts, Simon Kinberg, and why Disney keeps getting in its own way 21:00 — Taylor Swift's "The Encore": what happens when critics stop mattering to commercial success 33:00 — Letterboxd for $300M: who should buy it, who would ruin it, and the Goodreads warning 51:00 — Meta Muse Charm: Tamagotchi-style AI wearable and the iMessage scandal that hit on launch day About Kushaan Kushaan Shah leads marketing at Superhuman and writes about consumer behavior and growth. Find his newsletter at substack.com/@kushaan

    Disney, Taylor Swift, Letterboxd, and Meta Are All Living on Borrowed Trust

  4. Sep 24

    Choose Equity: Mbappe, Lili Reinhart, Netflix, & Xbox

    Mbappe just walked away from a lifetime Nike deal for equity at On Running, and Thierry Henry has been quietly running the football strategy behind it since 2025. Meanwhile, Lily Reinhart built a viral press tour for The Love Hypothesis with basically no help from Amazon, then Amazon showed up after she hit 1.7M impressions on her own. Four stories this week about which brands are staying ahead and which are reacting too late. Timestamps 0:00 Intro 1:19 Mbappe, On Running, and Nike's brand crisis 19:03 Lily Reinhart's method dressing press tour 37:24 Netflix, A24, and the streaming wars 56:51 Xbox CEO Asha Sharma goes undercover in customer support 1:05:07 Takeaways 1:10:43 Wrap About Danielle Danielle Messler, head of marketing at Captivate Talent and content strategy practitioner. Fine her at https://www.daniellemessler.com/ and on X @danielleismessy

    Choose Equity: Mbappe, Lili Reinhart, Netflix, & Xbox

  5. Aug 20

    Document for Content: Hollywood, Mamdani, American Tourists, and Hilary Duff

    Prada is making films with Barry Jenkins and Zohran Mamdani has 69% approval for posting about potholes. Hilary Duff just sold out a tour that has nothing to do with nostalgia, and Americans are spending $350 a day in Europe while Portugal buys ads in Times Square. Sonia and brand strategist Gia Jasing get into all four stories on the Meme Team, the podcast where we discuss viral pop culture moments in movies, TV, music, and politics. Timestamps 0:00 Brands are the new Hollywood (Martin Scorsese/LavAza, Prada/Barry Jenkins, Ben Affleck/Dunkin, Ryan Reynolds/Maximum Effort, Gap + Running Point) 20:55 Zohran Mamdani's governance as content strategy 37:48 The rise of the American tourist in Europe 58:59 Hilary Duff's Lucky Me Tour 1:11:53 Takeaways About Jiya Jiya Jaisingh is a brand strategist and behavior change marketing specialist. Find her at www.jiyajaisingh.com/ and on X at @JaisinghJiya

    Document for Content: Hollywood, Mamdani, American Tourists, and Hilary Duff

  6. Aug 13

    When Your Differentiator Stops Working: Meta, Bumble, Obama & the FAA

    Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto calling for open, democratized AI the same week Meta was defending itself in six active monopoly lawsuits. Bumble scrapped the women-message-first rule, which was literally the brand. Obama launched a book podcast on an audio platform and somehow it's one of the smarter marketing moves of the year. Jonathan K. Lowe joined me to talk through all of it, plus the FAA quietly solving a hiring crisis by recruiting video gamers. Timestamps  0:00 Zuckerberg's AI manifesto vs. Meta's monopoly problem 23:48 Bumble drops women-message-first (and what the Southwest comparison reveals about brand strategy) 42:00 Obama's Audible book podcast and why celebrity co-signs beat institutions now 54:00 The FAA is hiring gamers as air traffic controllers 1:03:00 Key takeaways About Jonathan K. Lowe Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Salt Foundry, a fractional CMO collective, and author of "Keeping People Interested: How Leaders Use Marketing to Capture and Sustain Attention."

    When Your Differentiator Stops Working: Meta, Bumble, Obama & the FAA

  7. Aug 10

    Fans deserve better: Disney, Vinyl, Flock, BTS

    Spider-Man Brand New Day just hit $1 billion, and Disney's CEO is already publicly attaching Avengers Doomsday to that momentum. That's a bold bet with a lot riding on it. Sonia Baschez and journalist Shannon Miller look at the gap between brands that genuinely show up for fans and brands that just extract from them, from Disney's new TikTok creator deal to vinyl labels charging $40 for incomplete pressings to Flock Safety's police camera cover-up. Timestamps  00:00 Disney, Josh DeMaro, and the TikTok IP deal 24:00 The Vinyl Trap: why your record probably has missing tracks 41:55 Flock Safety and the police surveillance scandal 55:47 BTS Ari Dang World Tour and how K-pop does fan activations right About Shannon Miller Shannon is a journalist and former managing editor at AdWeek covering the creator economy. She co-authored "A Miscellany of Weird and Wonderful Facts" with Jess Severis and writes her own newsletter. Follow her on Threads and Instagram @ShannonL_Miller.

    Fans deserve better: Disney, Vinyl, Flock, BTS

  8. Jul 30

    The End of Mid: Zendaya, Nolan, + Marvel

    Zendaya's press tour for The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is generating more coverage than either studio's marketing budget combined. Christopher Nolan crossed $650M without a traditional campaign, the IMAX CEO is sitting on the biggest missed opportunity in entertainment, and Marvel Doomsday is locked into a same-day release against Dune 3, which is a position nobody should want to be in. This week Sonia Baschez is joined by Christina Garnett for her seventh appearance on the show. Timestamps  0:00 Intro 0:48 Zendaya's fashion campaign: Law Roach, Schiaparelli, Mathieu Mirano wings look, and the plot Easter eggs 18:24 The Odyssey vs. Moana 2, Christopher Nolan at $650M, and the IMAX CEO fumbling in real time 29:55 Marvel Doomsday vs. Dune 3: same release date, missing female characters, why Doomsday deserves to lose 34:38 Fan conventions as marketing real estate: Hall H, Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider, Fanatics Fest, Coachella as the influencer Olympics 47:00 Hades Town beats Hamilton's opening pro-shot record, Apple TV acquisition, and making theater accessible 1:00:00 World Cup lessons: monocultural moments, Scottish fans in Boston, Cape Verde's goalkeeper to MLS, FIFA leaving money on the table 1:10:00 Brand identity: Coca-Cola's successful rebrand addition vs. Cracker Barrel and Red Lobster alienating their base About Christina Garnett Christina is the author of Transforming Customer Brand Relationships and Pocket CCO. She's a fractional chief community officer who helps brands turn customer loyalty into a real business asset. This is her seventh time on the show.

    The End of Mid: Zendaya, Nolan, + Marvel
See All (71)

5
out of 5
21 Ratings

About

Meme Team is the pop culture marketing podcast where host Sonia Baschez and guests break down the marketing and PR behind viral moments in movies, TV, music, tech, sports, and politics Every Thursday, Sonia (founder of Yapping as a Service) sits down with marketers, founders, and creators to unpack the campaigns, rebrands, press tours, and platform shifts shaping culture, from Taylor Swift and Warner Bros. to YouTube, TikTok, and AI. You'll hear what worked, what flopped, and the takeaways you can use for your own brand. If you care about brand strategy, storytelling, creator marketing, or why the algorithm is acting weird again, this one's for you. New episodes every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts..

Information

You Might Also Like