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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

Every Wednesday at 9:36 AM EST, I break down the blueprint for basketball culture, covering industry insights, marketing strategies, and creator tools and resources.

Let’s get started…

MARKETING BLUEPRINT

These brands are fighting online but honestly it’s brilliant marketing.

Nothing’s toxic, just calculated creative and fun social banter.

It works because everyone knows conflict and controversy sells.

As the saying goes:

So the smartest brands are leaning into competition, not running from it.

Just look at your social media scroll from this past month alone:

🪽 Chime recreated Michael Jordan’s iconic Wings photo with Cooper Flagg but Flagg is a New Balance athlete so Jordan Brand commented: Insufficient Funds. That single comment from @jumpman23 gave more awareness and engagement to Chime’s campaign than their original post did.

👟 Then there’s adidas and Anthony Edwards vs Converse and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. These two sneaker brands have been firing back and forth since last season’s playoffs.

🍻 Outside of sports, Heineken is trolling the AI company FRIEND with their new billboards.

🍔 Even in the suburbs, Chilis and TGI Friday’s are beefing over the Triple Dipper.

Each of these moments gives fans a side to rally behind their favorite brands.

Then marketers get to debate the creative and everyone else gets an LOL from the memes and subtle jabs.

In today’s culture, attention is the top prize, and the brands that succeed are not those playing nice but those brave enough to start a social media fight.

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FREE THROWS

Sharing the tools and resources that I’m using this week:

🎨 MyMind Colors - A collection of unique color combinations for your next design projects, decks, or product moodboards.

🎥 Artlist - All the leading generative AI models and tools in one place, built for today’s modern video creators.

📋 Viral Content Formats - An in-depth module made by the team at Virality to breakdown proven content formats and creator researching.

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POST-GAME

Thanks for reading—I’ll see you back here later this week!

And if you enjoyed reading today’s newsletter, please share it with one friend.

- Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻