🙃 OR, Here's Another Idea ...

Some People Are Very Mad that Saratoga Took 24 Hours to Put Up an Instagram Post, Plus — Business Headlines to Watch This Week

Author

Katie Perry
March 25, 2025

Welcome to Tuesday Thursday Saturday! I share a snapshot of trending stories across business, tech, and culture three times a week. Subscribe and tell me what you want to hear about next! - KP

The Big Story: When It Comes to Marketing, Is There Such a Thing as Being Too Thirsty?

Real-time marketing. Let’s talk about it.

This is an area that I have specific authority in as I was working at the agency that did the infamous Oreo “Dunk in the Dark” tweet back in 2012. Long story short, if you recall, there was a 34-minute power outage that temporarily halted the Super Bowl, and Oreo COOKIE — of all brands — tweeted the response that (temporarily) “broke the Internet.”

The ad world absolutely lost its mind over this — mostly because it was one of the first times that a brand was able to use social media to “hijack” a cultural moment. The stunt ended up garnering some 525 million earned media impressions, a metric I can reference from memory because my job at the time was to, quite literally, write case study submissions.

The Oreo tweet was quoted, featured, screenshot, praised, and profiled in basically every business and ad trade — and I can speak to this because I spent the second half of MY Super Bowl chugging coffee and drafting a media pitch that would be sent to reporters that night to secure coverage the following morning.

So fast-forward 13 years and we arrive at the events of this weekend. A prominent TikToker went viral for posting his morning routine, which was full of absolutely ridiculous rituals, one of which was dunking his face in ice-cold Saratoga spring water to begin his day.

Now for a quick side: Saratoga is a brand that was already top of mind for me. I’m an Upstate girl, my mom is from the Capital District, and you can imagine how excited I was to see a plethora of blue bottles strewn across the table when Zelensky was making his now-famous DC trip back in February. 

Saratoga! Everywhere! (February 28, 2025)

Like many of you, as I mindlessly scrolled X over the weekend, I noticed that Saratoga was quickly becoming the main character in the best way possible. The memes proliferated, and half of my feed became a commentary on those glorious blue bottles. Free advertising, baby!

PRMB stock surged for a bit on Monday before falling straight back to earth.

Everyone was talking about Saratoga, but Saratoga was silent. Which, to be honest, did not surprise me because they a) are not at all active on X, b) use their Instagram as a pretty canvas, and c) just don’t have the personality of a brand that hops online to screw around.

But some people in the marketing world were mad. “WHERE IS SARATOGA?” They asked. “MISSED OPPORTUNITY!” “ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL!” Someone then asked the question: if you were the CMO of Saratoga would you fire your social manager? I guess it’s a fair question if you want to spark a dialogue, although I fundamentally believe that as a society we have become waaaaaay too comfortable with questioning people’s livelihoods based on extremely limited information. But that’s a newsletter for another day.

And as I am scrolling all of these people critiquing Saratoga for not logging online on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to do their best RyanAir impression, all I could think of was: Personally, I couldn’t give a sh*t about Saratoga not responding to the viral TikTok.

Here’s why: What exactly would posting something immediately have accomplished for Saratoga?

Yes, there are moments when a brand should say something — and that’s when there’s a clear opportunity to insert themselves into a conversation with purpose. In the case of Oreo back in 2012, they spent zero dollars on Big Game ads yet found a way to make at least part of the game “about them.” 

Another example is the glitter freckle company Fazit. If you recall, Taylor Swift rolled up a Chiefs game wearing one of their products in October, which diverged from her usual classic makeup look. The fandom wanted (no, needed) to know what these fun glitter stickers were, and Fazit got LOUD. The small brand was smart enough to act quickly and take the credit they were due, leading to heaps of sales immediately and in the aftermath. It was a moment that put their brand on the map for good.

I bought them too, obviously.

But when a product is already going viral and everyone knows what it is, there’s no need to force it, is there? In the case of Saratoga, we’re talking about a century-old water brand with a fancy font that sells for $12/bottle at my Le Pain Quotidien on the Upper East Side (among other places). 

So, why would Saratoga alter its current approach at this moment? The blue bottles were already multiplying across every social media platform — and importantly, they were positioned in a generally positive light. You don’t need to hijack the moment when you ARE the moment. 

Also, for what it’s worth — and I can say this as a marketer — sometimes brands ruin things! Memes are hilarious until Walmart enters the chat. Humor tends to not have a very long half-life. By the time these responses go from edgy agency creative to brand manager to VP to CMO to legal … well, they’re just not very good.

This is all to say that the discourse around Saratoga gets to something deeper, which is the ease at which we tend to celebrate superficiality in the marketing world. Funny tweets, sassy OOH billboards, flashy creative. And look, I love a good viral marketing moment. I wrote the lyrics to a custom song that my previous employer paid Michael Bolton to sing in the middle of the Gamestop saga because my life is (sometimes) a complete joke.

I watched too much VH1 as a child and it eventually paid off.

Let’s go back to the Saratoga social media manager in question, though. Did they mess up?

I don’t have all the context or information, but based on everything I do know, my answer would be: absolutely not. Rapid response is not in this company’s DNA — and the fact that it isn’t is either a strategic decision (just not in the ethos), or because the team doesn’t have the aptitude or muscle to act all that quickly. In the second scenario, as CMO in this situation, you really have nobody to blame but yourself.

If I were running this team, instead of coming up with a witty reply, I would instead be asking a lot of questions:

  • Are the people in charge of distribution and supply chain aware of what’s happening early so they can get ahead of potential product availability issues?

  • Is my paid media team aware and activated? Are they creatively thinking about ways to drive short-term sales based on demand? Are there ways to juice some ad dollars into the places where these conversations are already happening to drive sales and acquire new customers?

  • Are we making a checklist of all of the super-obvious things we could be doing at this moment? Ramping up brand spend on Google Ads, revising search creative to reflect what’s going on, alerting the corporate comms team so executives can be made available to offer commentary, etc.

  • If I have a creative agency, are they thinking about ways to extend the life of this moment, either in the short- or mid-term? Is there a cheeky Uber Eats promo that could be struck through a priority retailer to push my product in front of people while the conversation is still active?

  • Finally, what am I doing with all of this amazing data? Thousands of social media posts across nearly every platform. Commentary from influential people beyond the individual creator. All of this is gold and could be used to strengthen the digital program in the future. Who’s in charge of capturing it and making sense of it?

These are the pieces of marketing that people don’t see but make the most impact. Something nobody talks about with the Public.com Michael Bolton ad was that in addition to producing a hilarious and flashy commercial — that yes, got like a billion earned media impressions in a week — we also had a Google Sheets doc with a list of about 50+ different ways we were going to force this thing to go viral so help us G-d. This included DM-ing influential friendlies to immediately re-post, promoting with paid media to strategic audiences (including yes, reporters!), and a ton of other stuff that nobody likes to talk about because it’s not all that exciting. But it works.

And that’s the entire point of marketing right — it works? It sells things in the short-term or builds the brand over time, sustaining and growing customers in the long-term. This industry can be insular at times, revolving around who’s featured in Adweek, and who picked up the Cannes Lion, but honestly, who cares? 

Truly great marketing is in the execution. You don’t always need to dunk. Saratoga eventually caved and posted a response, but IMO it would have been a lot cooler if they hadn’t.

Daily Rip Live Recap: Tariff Liberation Day or JK? Plus, Sports Betting is (Still) Outta Control

Every weekday, Shay Boloor and I run down the biggest market news and events LIVE on Stocktwits’ morning show, The Daily Rip Live. Here’s what we recently covered on the show (or, watch the full episode):

  • More tariff whiplash. Trump walked back some of his aggro claims surrounding an April 2 “pay-day” for the U.S. (JK, y’all!), which the markets generally liked! Tech stocks like Nvidia and Tesla surged in particular. $NVDA ( ▲ 3.62% )  $TSLA ( ▲ 3.5% )  $QQQ ( ▲ 2.81% )  

  • Speaking of Tesla … This company continues to be a political lightning rod, which Shay and I discuss at length. Our takeaway: These are profit-seeking entities trying to make money; companies don’t have a moral compass and their bias is towards profits. (At least we got past people shooting rounds at cases of Bud Light, though?)

  • Sports betting is so big they made a PSA to remind grown adults to not verbally harass student-athletes online. Welcome to 2025. We chatted about Robinhood’s foray into sports betting, potential impact on DraftKings, and what Howard Lindzon calls “the degen economy.” $HOOD ( ▲ 7.82% )  $DKNG ( ▲ 0.38% )  

  • Launching into the space economy, Shay shares a breakdown of ASTS Spacemobile, how its rabid retail investor base comes to life online, and why the company is different than Starlink. $ASTS ( ▲ 7.36% )  

  • Drama at The Trade Desk. The stock is hurting after a failed product roll-out, and we discuss why the advertising ecosystem in particular is full of so many frenemies. $TTD ( ▲ 6.37% )  

  • BREAKING! Global brokerage platform eToro is setting its sights on an IPO. The F1 dropped, revealing 30M customers in 140 countries.

Hear Shay and I yap about the markets every weekday at 9 a.m. ET on X (@stocktwits), YouTube, LinkedIn, or in your Stocktwits app. Follow me there — I’m @stocktwitsKP!

Now Here’s a Chart

Via Barchart on X: “Retail traders have been a net buyer in all but 7 trading days so far in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs.”

Reading List

Tuesday Thursday Saturday is written by Katie Perry, owner of Ursa Major Media, which provides fractional marketing services and strategy in software, tech, consumer products, professional services, and other industries. She is also the co-host of Stocktwits’ Daily Rip Live show.

Disclaimer: The contents here reflect recaps and summaries of pre-reported or published data, news, and trends. I have cited sources and context for the information provided to the best of my ability. The purpose of the newsletter is to inform and educate on larger trends shaping business and culture — this is NOT investment advice. As an investor, you should always do your own research before making any decisions about your money or your portfolio.