Polyester’s Ione Gamble on why your opportunistic marketing doesn't work

Ione Gamble is the founding editor-in-chief of Polyester zine - an independent publication she launched at age 20, and host of The Polyester Podcast. Her writing has appeared in Dazed, Vice, i-D and she’s the author of two books - a non-fiction essay collection, Poor Little Sick Girls (2022) and The Polyester Book of (Bad) Taste (2026), which was published by 4th Estate. Here, Gamble examines what captures audience attention when everyone is chronically online.

We live in an attention economy: our attention is a finite resource, but one that has become the central battleground for campaign and brand success. Not only is what we see, and why we see it, fuelled by algorithms, but the ability to apply numerical values to everything posted online has warped our metrics of success. Our social feeds no longer feel like our own, or reflective of our interests - with everyone viewing so much content on a near constant basis, the opportunity to be truly relevant is becoming rarer and rarer for brands. Instead, we’re overwhelmed with viral stunts, text over image templates, microtrends, and a whole subsection of content that is teaching the masses how to create content that gets attention. In short: it feels like everything is marketing. Album cycles, film releases and even work from individual artists is all fed through the intangible force that is our ability to capture attention through mysterious algorithms whose method for success is constantly changing. Not only do brands have these algorithms to contend with, but they are also competing with individuals, influencers and cultural figures who all market themselves as commodities to survive the attention economy.

With everyone not only becoming chronically online, but also using social media to build careers for themselves, brands have had to speed up to avoid missing out on huge cultural moments. The old adage of corporations having social media interns pitching meme-formats that then go through weeks of sign off and render the idea irrelevant is dead. Since Brat Summer in 2024, brands have become infinitely quicker at jumping on viral trends. This summer we witnessed beauty behemoths such as Rhode adorning their products with diamantes in the name of ‘whimsy-maxxing’, Verizon enlisting overnight internet sensation Chanty Beluga to sell phone plans, and Plan International posting “Kinda chic to care about girls’ rights” on their Instagram feed. But if everyone is literate in the language of being chronically online, a brand’s ability to post on-theme no longer cuts through the noise. With viral trends reaching their apex at whiplash speed, and going from cute to cringe in a matter of days, audiences have become fatigued by what can be perceived as opportunistic marketing strategies.

Considering the never ending churn of virality, it's unsurprising that those who have cut through the noise in 2026 are the people that have rejected the wash, rinse, repeat model of creation online. While brand participation in internet discourse may be at an all time high, the creatives cutting through the noise are those who reject the trend cycle and are instead burrowing into niche interests, academic thought, and genuine community building.

With memes no longer a novelty, audiences are instead seeking out creators, campaigns and artistic bodies of work that enrich their lives from beyond the screen. Video essayists like Zara McIntosh (@whatzaraloves), who has gained a hugely dedicated following of over 130,000 for her commitment to thoughtfully analysing societal taboos and her love of physical zine making. Similarly, Zoe Nobileau (@zoenobileau) interrogates the concept of cuteness through rigorous research that combines aesthetics with academia. Writers such as Rayne Fisher-Quann (@rayneincorporated) and Maia Wyman (known online as Broey Deschanel) have similarly grown huge communities on Substack and Youtube not for their inspired selfies or throwaway content, but for long form written and video essays discussing culture in a way young women care about.

The smart brands are not simply parroting techniques of individual creators that are cutting through: instead, they’re pairing up with them. The campaigns that are really resonating are not the ones that are either already jumping on an existing trend or trying to manufacture their own, but instead partner with truly culturally resonant individuals and communities to help enrich their worlds. Whether highlighting an individual that’s cornered a niche to help them create their work, or partnering with a publication like my own, Polyester, that has spent over a decade building a truly engaged community. My favourite moments of 2026 have felt entirely unexpected but equally did not rely on novelty - like cult-perfumer Marissa Zappas collaboration with comedian auteur John Early to celebrate the release of his debut feature film with a limited edition perfume that enchanted both cinephiles and the perfume obsessives.

I founded my independent magazine in 2014. Instagram was in its infancy, Tumblr was all but a ghost town, and every industry professional was proclaiming print media to be dead. Over twelve years into my career, I’ve witnessed thousands of trends, flash in the pan influencers, brand collaborations, partnerships, and once-beloved platforms become obsolete. I’ve learned that attention is not the only metric worth paying attention to - especially as the internet becomes increasingly crowded with bots that are artificially inflating statistics anyway. Looking to a future where our lives become further polluted by AI slop and it's impossible to decipher if a view even comes from a real person, brands need to shift focus from attention metrics as a key indicator of success. Culture is moving away from surface-level interactions.

The times I feel most fulfilled by the work we do at Polyester is not from a post on socials, but getting our community into the same room to connect with one another. Taking the time to really understand what people are engaging with deeply, uplifting the voices that audiences care about, and finding a way to help them build community has helped Polyester cut through the noise and survive ten years in a hostile media landscape. We might be inundated with starter packs, trending sounds and the pressure to constantly perform online, but ultimately virality is fleeting: finding your people is forever.

Download the D&AD Trend Report 2026 to discover six trends shaping the creative industry, including The New Attention Grabbers, which analysis how emotional stakes, calibrated surprise and specificity over generic appeal win attention.