📰 Your Weekly Marketing Fix (4/1/2025)

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What Marketers Can Learn from Severance (Yes, the Apple TV Show) 🎬

Hey Nerds! 🎉 Welcome back to The Ad Nerd—where marketing feels less like rocket science and more like your cool friend spilling the secrets.

Let’s dive into this week’s treasure chest of marketing wisdom

In The News 🗞️

Apple’s Terminal Pro Campaign is Wildly Good

In case you missed it, Apple just dropped a new promo for Severance: the Lumon Terminal Pro, a fake (but real?) 1980s-style office computer listed as an actual product in the Apple Store. It’s dry. It’s dystopian. And it’s genius-level marketing that blurs the line between fiction and reality.

We’re talking about an entertainment brand selling vibes instead of features — and doing it flawlessly.

Read more →

Global Markets React to Upcoming U.S. Tariffs

This week, global stock markets are experiencing significant declines as President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff deadline approaches. The tariffs, set to take effect on April 2, aim to address a $1.2 trillion global goods trade deficit.Major indices like the FTSE 100 and Japan's Nikkei have seen notable drops, reflecting widespread market concerns.Investors are seeking refuge in "safe-haven" assets like gold and government bonds amid the uncertainty

Read more →

Nerd Tip of the Week 🎯

If you haven’t seen Severance, it’s time. Not just because it’s one of the smartest shows on Apple TV, but because its marketing is straight-up brilliant.

Creepy, minimal, mysterious — just like the show itself. But here's where it gets nerdy-good for marketers like us.

Let’s unpack why the marketing behind Severance deserves a raise at Lumon Industries:

🧠 1. World-Building > Advertising

Apple didn’t just drop trailers and call it a day. They built a universe.

There were fake corporate websites for Lumon Industries, job listings that mirrored the show’s weird vibe, and even interactive online experiences that made fans feel like they were “in” the world of Severance.

Lesson: Don’t just market a product. Create an experience. Let people explore your brand like they’re discovering a secret.

🕵️ 2. Mystery Sells

The trailers gave you nothing. And yet — you couldn’t look away. The campaign was full of eerie visuals, cryptic one-liners, and scenes that raised 100 questions. They trusted viewers to lean in, not tune out.

Lesson: Tease. Don’t tell. Intrigue makes people curious. Curious people click.

📎 3. Commit to the Aesthetic

Every poster, teaser, and promo screamed Severance. The sterile office lighting, old-school computers, muted colors — it was all so perfectly unsettling. Even the fonts looked like they were pulled from a dusty HR handbook.

Lesson: Design consistency isn’t just “nice” — it’s strategic. Your aesthetic should whisper your brand’s message even when there's no copy.

💬 4. Let the Community Drive the Hype

Apple knew this show would get people talking, so they let the internet do its thing. Fans made theories.

YouTubers made breakdowns. Reddit made timelines. Apple just gave them enough weird breadcrumbs to keep going.

Lesson: Leave room for conversation. Let your audience become your marketers.

⏳ 5. Drip It, Don’t Dump It

Apple dropped a few episodes at launch, then moved to a weekly release.

This gave fans time to digest, speculate, and obsess — which made the show feel big. Like an event.

Lesson: Hype takes time. Whether it’s a product launch or content campaign, don’t rush. Let people sit with it.

Real-World Example 🔎

Severance’s Terminal Pro Launch

The “Terminal Pro” promo is a textbook case of “leaning in.” It’s fake corporate satire at its finest — a product that doesn’t exist, listed with full specs, dry language, and no context. It doesn’t sell you the show, it drops you inside it.

Key Takeaway: When your marketing feels like the product, you’ve won. Don’t sell from the outside — pull people in.

Tool of the Week 🛠️

ElevenLabs

Want your brand universe to sound as good as it looks? ElevenLabs lets you create ultra-realistic AI voiceovers that feel human, not robotic.

Whether you're building a fictional world like Lumon Industries or just want to add a polished narrator to your video content, ElevenLabs helps you add vibe through voice.

Bonus: You can clone your own voice too (creepy-cool, right?).

Perfect for:

Trailers
Brand characters
Podcast intros
Internal training with style

🎧 Go full Severance-mode and make your brand sound like a story.

Check it Out →

Recommendation of the Week

Alt Marketing School

Alt Marketing School is a newsletter and podcast teaching marketers how to market to hearts, not brains. Using psychology, impact and the latest frameworks to help you make a bigger impact online.

Marketing Mythbuster 🧠

“ If people don’t get it right away, you’ve failed.”

Not always. Sometimes, confusion is the point. Severance thrived on making viewers uncomfortable and curious. That’s what kept them coming back.

So no — clarity isn’t always king. Intrigue can be even more powerful.

Just for Fun 😂

“Please identify which of these shapes best represents your orientation to your work-life balance.”

(Yes, that’s a real Lumon onboarding question.)

And if that made you snort-laugh, welcome to the Severance fan club.

That’s all for this week, Nerds! 🤓

Keep building, experimenting, and having fun with your marketing. Got questions or tips to share? Hit reply and let me know—I might feature you next week!

PS: Don’t forget to share The Ad Nerd with a friend who needs some quick marketing magic!

Keep learning and growing,