NOW TRENDING: IF NETFLIX MADE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THIS, WIMBLEDON SPLIT SCREEN GAINS ATTENTION & META PULLS NEW AI FEATURE
WHAT’S ON THE FEED THIS WEEK?
IF NETFLIX MADE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT…
The Netflix documentary format has taken over TikTok and Reels: creators set up their camera like a talking-head interview, deliver hot takes or confessions about their niche, and cut it together like a true crime episode. The subject matter is deliberately mundane, examples include: "if Netflix documented my morning routine", "if Netflix covered what really happens in [insert job]." The joke is the gap between the dramatic format and the everyday topic, and it's landing across every industry. Netflix even responded on Facebook saying “How are we going to make all of these documentaries?”
Brand opportunities
The format hands brands a built-in script. Lean into the most chaotic, relatable, or misunderstood part of your business and play it completely straight. A café could document "the Sunday morning rush." An agency could cover "client revision round four." The more specific and insider the subject, the harder it lands with your actual audience.
WHAT THE COOL GIRLS ARE WEARING/DOING
Fashion brands are posting photo carousels under the framing of "what the cool girls are wearing." It’s less of a formal editorial and more of a curated scroll through new arrivals presented as aspirational insider knowledge. Princess Polly is doing this well, packaging product into the language of a friend sharing a tip, rather than a brand running a campaign. The format feels like a DM rather than an ad, which is exactly why it works.
Brand opportunities:
This works beyond fashion. The "what the cool girls are [doing/drinking/buying]" frame can be adapted to any lifestyle-adjacent product or service. Shoot it as a carousel, keep the captions casual and specific, and resist the urge to add price tags or product codes to every slide. Save the commercial detail for the caption.
BRANDS KILLING IT
WIMBLEDON SPLIT SCREEN
Wimbledon's official TikTok has been posting split-screen videos pairing match footage with live celebrity reactions from the crowd, and they're performing exceptionally well. The format is simple: player on one side, a famous face genuinely losing it in the stands on the other. With A-listers like Bad Bunny, David Beckham, and Zendaya all courtside this year, Wimbledon has essentially turned their audience into the content. The reaction cam captures moments you can't script: the gasps, the winces, the standing ovations, and puts them on equal footing with the actual tennis.
Brand opportunities
The lesson here isn't about Wimbledon specifically, it's about pointing the camera at your audience instead of always at your product. If you host events, run activations, or have any context where real people are genuinely reacting to something, that reaction is often more compelling than the thing they're reacting to. Split-screen formats also travel well on TikTok and Reels because they reward a second watch: viewers look at one side, then go back for the other.
META PULLS NEW AI FEATURE
On 7 July, Meta launched Muse Image: an AI image generator built by its new Meta Superintelligence Labs unit. The feature let anyone generate images by @-mentioning any public Instagram accounts that they wanted to "reference", without notifying the user that the image was used. Backlash was immediate, led by talent agencies CAA and SAG-AFTRA, and by 10 July Meta had pulled the feature entirely. Their statement: "We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark."
Brand opportunities:
If your brand has a public Instagram account, your content was fair game under this feature while it was live (and variations of this will keep coming back). Now is a good time to audit what opt-out controls Instagram currently offers for AI training, and to have a point of view on this internally before clients start asking. The broader takeaway is that the pressure on platforms around AI consent is building fast, and brands that get ahead of the conversation will be better positioned than those reacting to it.
