Back in November, we interviewed StretchLab president Verdine Baker. This week, he’s back on our builders podcast to share his personal journey from athlete to wellness leader, the challenges of scaling StretchLab to over 500 locations worldwide, and the launch of their new loyalty program, ClassPoints.

Watch the episode on YouTube or listen on your favorite audio platform.

Cookies: Digital marketing hasn’t crumbled

Documentaries: Lisa Frank and WWE

Valentine’s Day: Will AI find your next match?

(Source: Shutterstock)

Third-party cookies, once a core ingredient of digital marketing campaigns, were put on a strict diet by Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Edge to protect user data. Google Chrome indefinitely delayed its cookie phase-out, but the trend is clear: Tracking and profiling left a bad taste in users’ mouths.

There’s never been a better time for businesses to build trust with consumers by reformulating their recipes with a heaping cup of privacy. Here are some ways forward:

Contextual advertising

Place ads based on the content users are enjoying, not who they are. Think Nike’s fun spots during live NBA games or Spotify promoting concerts to users based on their listening. (Which subreddits are your target demo most likely to read?) It’s a classic approach that serves relevant ads to users without overstepping privacy boundaries.

Geotargeted ads for local relevance

Engaging audiences based purely on location doesn’t require troves of mined personal data; you can boost foot traffic without needing to know who’s wearing the shoes. McDonald’s used this strategy with its After-Dinner Dinner campaign, targeting diners leaving high-end restaurants and offering a late-night snack option nearby.

Keyword targeting

What’s old is new again. For a real-time, needs-based approach, identify popular keywords related to your product using tools like Moz or Google Trends. Your ads or SEO content will then appear in relevant searches.

Direct relationships

Nothing builds loyalty like connecting directly with your customers. Brands can gather ethical first-party data by encouraging users to create accounts or join loyalty programs. Try offering points or discounts for completing surveys; it’s a proven way to gain insights into product preferences, shopping habits and customer satisfaction.

(Or, like Doubletree by Hilton, you could build direct customer loyalty with actual cookies.)

Whether you’re running a small business or a vast enterprise, you need a full-featured CRM software. Hubspot offers the core omnichanel tools you need to generate leads and move them through your sales funnel, closing deals and earning repeat business. 

With Hubspot’s free plan, you can even get started without any overhead. As your business grows, the platform scales along with you, adding custom branding, expanding contact lists, and a wide range of templates. 

Empower your sales, marketing, and customer service teams like never before. Give Hubspot CRM a spin with a free trial and see how it’s right for your business.

(Source: Prime Video / Netflix)

Lisa Frank, designer of trendy ‘90s merch bursting with whimsical animals and neon colors, didn’t market themselves to the same audience as former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahon. But both led generation-defining pop-culture juggernauts, hid dark secrets behind their brands, and are the subjects of recent tea-sipping documentary series: Prime Video’s Glitter & Greed and Netflix’s Mr. McMahon.

Both titles dish on allegations of management by fear, employee exploitation, cover-ups with bribery and hush money, and a lack of internal reporting processes. At WWE, there was a very real side to the “fake” sport (McMahon recently settled with the SEC for $1.7 million). At Lisa Frank, not everything was rainbows and unicorns.

Watching the documentaries together is a yin and yang of hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine bombast, and how similarly bad leadership can arise in different environments.

(Source: business.com)

Online dating is going from OkCupid to AI Cupid.

Anyone who’s dabbled with online dating — specifically, 1 in 3 American adults — knows finding love is more complicated than swiping left or right. You need the perfect chemistry, which can’t be predicted without meeting up IRL … or can it?

Last year, the startup Volar launched a chatbot that allowed users to see an AI-simulated conversation between their own avatar and a potential date’s. If you liked how the demo went, you could try a real exchange.

Volar shuttered in November 2024 due to funding issues, but more established apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble are incorporating AI. Using algorithms, the apps select compatible profiles, identify users’ best pics, and even tweak their responses to sound “a little deeper.” (Is that, uh, shallow? Who are we to judge?)

Now if only AI could find a way to make garlic good for your breath.

Written by Antonio Ferme, Dan Ketchum and Tess Barker.