For years, marketers could assume that the best campaigns were the ones with the longest runway: months of research, strategy decks, consumer testing and approval cycles before a single ad reached the public. Alison Brod Marketing & Communications (ABMC) would often walk into the final round of a brand pitch with an idea we believed perfectly captured the brief and could quickly propel a product into the zeitgeist, only to be told the client wanted months of strategy and planning behind the concept before activating it.
Speed was often treated as the enemy of rigor, though we were never sure why they equated time—and endlessly revised decks—with success. Today, cultural moments emerge and disappear in hours. Brands that wait for the perfect plan often arrive after the conversation has already moved on. That shift has fundamentally changed the mechanics of modern virality. When we think back to those executives now, one line comes to mind, courtesy of Julia Roberts on Rodeo Drive in Pretty Woman: “Big mistake. Huge.”
Earlier this year, ABMC was featured in Observer’s 2026 PR Power List and named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies in PR and brand strategy. Those recognitions reflected something we’ve believed for years: winning isn’t just about speed. The strategy still has to live in the system beforehand, not get built after the fact. But the runway is gone. Brands sometimes have hours, not months, to decide whether to step into a moment, and the ones willing to move that fast are the ones who get the cultural credit—and often sales.
The shift runs deeper than shrinking attention spans. Media now moves through interconnected platforms where a single authentic moment can ripple across TikTok, Instagram, television, newsletters and podcasts within hours, reaching audiences that traditional advertising often struggles to buy. In that environment, cultural relevance depends on understanding how quickly those moments travel, and being ready to act before they pass.
Culture doesn’t wait
Consider Brooks Nader’s period. With Wimbledon now underway, it’s worth going back to 2025, when the courtside period mishap of a Sports Illustrated cover model and reality star went viral. ABMC moved: we partnered her with U by Kotex ahead of the ESPYs and put her back on a red carpet in all-white, this time armed and confident. The result was $12 million dollars in earned media, the unpaid placements and hits that are the holy grail of PR. It worked because it was real. Viewers said the content made them feel seen, and that authenticity didn’t just sell the product; it chipped away at stigma. This is the 15-Minute Celebrity in action: moving at the speed of culture, and feeling good doing it.
Of course 🎾 #wimbledon
♬ Cartoon Eye Blinking Sound – Anna
Not every viral moment deserves a brand partnership. Most disappear as quickly as they arrive. The challenge is distinguishing between attention and cultural resonance. Brooks’ moment was relatable, and millions of women immediately saw themselves in it, while millions more recognized that she refused to be embarrassed by something entirely ordinary. That emotional connection existed before any brand entered the conversation. The most memorable campaigns grow from authentic moments already in motion.
The formula isn’t just pouncing on the personality du jour before the window closes and throwing cash at them. It’s finding the way to make the audience for your collaboration feel seen—that “stars are just like us” authenticity, plus a certain someone with a pull that keeps us hooked on reality TV and our feeds. You don’t want the stunt to fade like champagne bubbles. You want the flavor to linger.
Preparing for the unplanned
The timeline itself changed at the 2013 Super Bowl. Moments after a stadium blackout, Oreo tweeted, “You can still dunk in the dark.” That single line became one of the defining case studies in modern marketing—a beloved brand simply being smart and fast. Budgets also shifted, and there was open money pulled from traditional media buys as long-term planning decreased.
We used to encourage brand clients to set aside a “slush fund” for jumping on viral moments, last-minute celebrity partnerships or buzzy event sponsorships that could emerge with little warning. Today, many brands intentionally reserve a portion of their marketing budgets—often 15 to 20 percent—for exactly those kinds of opportunistic activations rather than allocating every dollar months in advance. The planning happens long before the moment arrives, so the response can appear effortless and spontaneous when it does.
The Super Bowl is a perfect example. Brands know it will generate outsized cultural attention, even if they can’t predict exactly where that attention will land. Coors Light’s now-famous “Case of the Mondays” campaign began with a deliberately misspelled pre-Super Bowl billboard, continued with limited-edition Monday Light beer and extended into collaborations, including ABMC’s beauty-inspired de-puffer face roller designed to be chilled with a Coors Light. The campaign felt spontaneous because it responded to the conversation in real time, but the infrastructure to move that quickly was already in place. You can’t truly plan an authentic viral moment, but it is easier than ever to come closer if you can prepare your organization to recognize one—and be ready when it arrives.
When shared attention becomes opportunity
When the Knicks reached the NBA Finals for the first time in a generation, ABMC had two activations ready to go. Herman Miller was launching its iconic Aeron chair in a new midnight-blue colorway, so we enlisted Spike Lee—whose courtside seat is as much a part of Knicks lore as the game itself—to debut it on the Brooklyn Bridge. And while Madison Square Garden roared, Frida, the brand known for rethinking the realities of new parenthood, turned the spotlight home with a full-page New York Post ad crowning Ali Brunson and Shannon Hart, the wives of Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, who’d spent the season chasing toddlers while their husbands chased a championship, the “Queens of New York.”
The common thread was concentrated attention. When millions of people are focused on the same cultural moment, brands that authentically fit the conversation can reach audiences with a level of engagement that traditional media buying often struggles to replicate.
We often say that if you can’t go big or bold during a moment of concentrated attention, go super niche—or simply save your budget for a less crowded moment and make a bigger splash. Agencies are measured against clear KPIs, and as brands shift more dollars toward earned media, PR and marketing firms are beginning to command budgets that once flowed almost exclusively to traditional advertising. Done well—with a little luck thrown in—earned media can outperform even the biggest traditional paid campaigns.
Working with the right emerging personality can be just as effective. When Love Island fan favorite TJ Palma went viral, ABMC cast him as Garnier’s fictional social media manager, who hilariously misunderstood the brief and built a campaign around an actual moose instead of hair mousse. Within 24 hours, Garnier’s mousse climbed from tenth to sixth in Amazon’s product rankings. The campaign joined the cultural conversations audiences were already having, rather than trying to interrupt them.
first project at @GARNIER they asked me to lead the new moose campaign… I think I nailed it?? #GarnierEmployee
We’ve seen this play out across categories that share nothing but timing. When a BYU basketball star turned out to be descended from the family that founded Ore-Ida and gave the world the tater tot, we flew out to Denver, where he was playing, to capture the moment because it was the kind of opportunity that goes cold in minutes, not weeks. Traditional campaign calendars rarely anticipate stories like these, yet they often outperform carefully manufactured marketing precisely because they emerge organically from culture.
As long as it is tasteful, there’s almost no cultural moment or personality a brand can’t thoughtfully tap into, and that’s part of the fun. But winning the game is about finding a way for a campaign to connect with how people think, feel or live. That’s also why not every trending moment is worth pursuing. Every brand has an April Fools’ Day post, for example. The real challenge is rising above the noise and creating something more memorable than another Instagram post.
Brands have also begun creating cultural moments of their own through unofficial holidays and recurring social rituals. National Pickle Day, for example, has evolved into an opportunity for food and beverage brands to experiment with collaborations that audiences now expect and actively seek out. Even manufactured moments, however, still have to feel surprising to earn attention.
And because ABMC is trained to spot talent—a few of us are Tulane alumni—when the Green Wave made its improbable run to the Cotton Bowl and a green-eyed superfan went viral for anxiously, yet elegantly, chewing her nails through the final minutes, we sent her a care package of Essie polish and a note that read, “Call us when you graduate.” We’re proud to say #TulaneGirl is one of us today.
The next competitive advantage
The future of marketing, PR and brand strategy requires executives who are trained to spot cultural moments and move before anyone else. Many agencies describe this environment as a “jump ball”: multiple firms receive the same brief, knowing the strongest idea wins. Success depends less on controlling every aspect of a campaign than on recognizing an opportunity before competitors do and executing it well. Increasingly, agencies also amplify one another’s work, creating campaigns that build on shared cultural momentum.
The lesson isn’t that brands should chase every headline. If anything, they should become more selective. But when a moment aligns with a brand’s identity and resonates with its audience, speed matters. Cultural conversations move quickly, and the opportunity to participate meaningfully rarely waits for a lengthy approval process. The competitive advantage lies less in predicting virality than in being prepared when authentic opportunities emerge.
