👉🏻 SUM NEWS: 4.30.25

April 30, 2025

Whether you're sweating it out at POSSIBLE or grinding away at your desk, we’ve got your mid-week marketing fix. This week: a quick survey, why taking a pause could spark your best ideas, and how to finally connect with Gen Z. Plus, get the latest scoop on BDRs, media usage, and video ad spend. Grab your coffee, roll up your sleeves, and let’s dive in!

IN THIS ISSUE

  • ✍️ Startup Marketing Survey

  • 🔥 From The Ink Well

  • 🌎 Around the Web: Media Usage, Instagram Edits & “Creepy” Ads

  • 📌 SUM Community Events

  • 💬 ICYMI: Bite-Sized Insights

  • 😂 In the Meme Time

Take Our Startup Marketing Survey!

We know you’re busy, but we need your brain for 2 minutes. This survey is quick, painless, and will help us understand where marketing is headed at startups.

FROM THE INK WELL

Marketer Spotlight

Not all marketing journeys are created equal. Adam Hua’s career started with door-to-door ad sales and grew into leading strategy for Condé Nast’s Data and Social Lab, supporting over half a billion in digital revenue. Snag the lessons he’s learned along the way. Meet Adam.

Interested in sharing your POV? Submit your pitch to get published in The Ink Well.

SUM PODCAST NETWORK

In this week’s episode of Brilliantly Wrong, Nathalie Pramanik, CEO of Little Champions, reveals how she built a successful startup from the ground up—self-funding, focusing on customer education, and solving a real problem for parents. Get key insights on bootstrapping, product-market fit, and the power of a purpose-driven brand.

AROUND THE WEB

  • Across both digital and traditional channels, media usage is expected to drop 0.3% in 2025, the first dip since the Great Recession in 2009. In 2024, the average consumer spent 8.17 hours a day with media. [Marketing Dive]

  • CapCut rival Instagram Edits was downloaded over 700,000 times on iOS devices during its first two days on the market. That’s about 37x more downloads than CapCut had its first two days. [TechCrunch]

  • More than half (55%) of consumers say location-based ads from brands they don’t recognize are “creepy.” [Marketing Charts]

  • Digital video ad spend is projected to hit $72.4B in 2025, up 14% from 2024 and outpacing linear TV for a second consecutive year, according to the IAB. [Marketing Dive]

SUM POLL

Are marketing generalists becoming more or less common at startups?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

SUM COMMUNITY EVENTS

Block off every Thursday at 1 pm ET for SUM events—consider it your weekly power hour for growth, insights, and community. These events are exclusively available to SUM members. Not a member? 👉 Join now 👈

Expert Session: Top 5 Takeaways From POSSIBLE

Tea Time: Future-Proof for the End of the Year

Expert Session: Rank Smarter, Not Harder—Your Blueprint for SEO Success

ICYMI: A BITE OF INSIGHT

ENTERTAINMENT OVER PROMOTION

“Gen Z are constantly being served ads, but how do you grab their attention? Don’t try to sell something—get them entertained, bring them into an experience. Focus on the connection.”

THE POWER OF CREATIVE PAUSES

“We're drowning in data. We have more tools, metrics, and frameworks than ever before. Yet many marketing campaigns still fall flat. They fail to connect, to move, to inspire action. Why? Because we don’t give ourselves time to think. We don’t build in a pause, a dedicated period where we can analyze, iterate, and improve.”

BDRS: THE VOICE OF THE PROSPECT

“BDRs are the voice of the prospect. They're dialing and getting all this feedback. They know what messaging works. They know what messaging gets them hung up on. And so it's really important that that feedback loop exists with BDRs because they’re a crucial part of the go-to-market motion.”

IN THE MEME TIME