National Griddle Week

Watching soccer and a halftime commercial comes on ... it's Blackstone ... and they're promoting NATIONAL GRIDDLE WEEK. Whaaa?

I visit their website ... sure enough.

AI knows all about it.

It's apparently an event they made up out of thin air.

I gave a presentation back in 2016, talking about how "brands" (as the pundits say) would ultimately have events that they can promote everywhere ... that "brands" would become similar to sporting leagues in that a sporting league might have the Final Four or the FA Cup or Opening Day (baseball) or the NFL Draft ... events that build excitement and lead to free advertising (even if paid advertising is used to create free advertising ... remember, Glenn Glieber once said "I love free advertising").

I gave variants of that talk at conferences from 2016 - 2019. Attendees HATED IT! The idea of having to use your brain to create events that might not work was not embraced. The idea of doing virtually no work and paying Facebook for names ... that idea, dear readers, was embraced.

It's 2026 (I realize you already know that). My inbox is filled with feedback and commentary about doing the absolute easiest tasks that involve a bare minimum of work ... paired with comments like "show me a best practice that you see working across your client base". That sentence is the essence of empty, vapid nonsense.

We all have to take risks, creating reasons for customers to do something. If you're not willing to make up your own "National Griddle Week", you're not willing to go to bat for your "brand".

What is your version of "National Griddle Week"?