Expand Demand based on Category
The category shift that expands demand, Reddit’s culture playbook for brands, and more!

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Together with Thesys
Build conversational analytics agents without code

Build AI analytics agents that return charts, tables, slides, and reports instead of text. No workflows, no code.
Most analytics tools force you to set up data pipelines or build dashboards manually.
But with Thesys Agent Builder, you can build a conversational analytics agent in just 3 easy steps:
1. Upload a file or connect a database
2. Ask questions in natural language
3. Get rich visual insights in the form of charts, tables, slides, and reports instantly
Share the link with your team so anyone can explore, follow up, and generate reports on their own.

🧴 The Category Shift That Expands Demand
Some brands compete inside categories. Others redefine them.
There’s a big difference between selling a “post-shave oil” and owning “body skincare.” One lives in a low-frequency, problem-solving aisle. The other lives in a daily ritual.
The product can stay the same. The mental shelf changes.
That’s where the leverage is.
Why Category Framing Changes Economics
When a product sits inside a “fix this issue” category, it’s episodic. It gets purchased when there’s pain. Once the problem is solved, usage drops.
Move that same product into a routine-based frame, and three things shift:
• Frequency increases because it’s tied to habit, not reaction.
• Perceived necessity rises because routines feel essential.
• Emotional positioning upgrades from chore to care.
You haven’t added a SKU. You’ve expanded the use case.
That’s demand expansion without operational sprawl.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
When you change category framing, search language changes too.
Problem-driven queries look like:
“ingrown hair treatment”
“razor bumps remedy”
Routine-driven queries look like:
“post shave skincare routine”
“body skincare routine”
“daily exfoliation routine”
That shift expands your keyword surface area and often introduces higher-intent, higher-frequency terms.
If you don’t monitor that migration, you’re reframing in ads but losing visibility in search.
With SEMrush One, you can track visibility across both legacy problem keywords and emerging routine-based queries. You can monitor competitive movement, AI search mentions, and see whether your brand is actually capturing the new narrative in Google and LLM-driven results. You can try free for 7 days.
Category reframing only works if the search layer follows.
So, instead of asking, “What new product should we launch?” ask:
Can we reposition this product into a higher-frequency mental category?
Can we shift from episodic demand to ritual demand?
Can we expand the search territory without expanding inventory?
The brands that win long-term don’t just optimize inside categories. They quietly change which category they belong to.

🧡 Reddit’s Culture Playbook for Brands
Reddit has outlined four powerful trends shaping brand engagement on the platform, all rooted in culture, credibility, and community participation. These insights reveal how brands can move from being outsiders to becoming part of the conversation.

The Breakdown:
1. Nostalgia-Driven Storytelling - Reddit’s early-internet energy makes it a natural home for nostalgia, where brands can revive ’90s and 2000s cues through authentic cultural research, low-fi creative, and references that let communities connect the dots themselves.
2. UGC Social Proof - Reddit’s credibility comes from open debate and real opinions, so brands can win by highlighting genuine community “receipts,” embracing imperfect human language, and engaging transparently through formats like AMAs.
3. Niche-Inspired Campaigns - Reddit thrives on passion-driven subcultures, meaning brands perform best when they deeply understand subreddit-specific humor, references, and debates, creating assets that feel native rather than designed for mass appeal.
4. Campaigns That Unfold - The strongest Reddit activations evolve publicly, rewarding participation, responding creatively to comments, and knowing when to step back so the community can naturally shape the story around the brand.
Meanwhile, Reddit is piloting AI-powered shopping carousels with a small group of U.S. users, placing them at the bottom of search results where the AI detects purchase-intent queries, scans Reddit conversations for product mentions, builds structured shoppable cards, and lets users tap through to retailer links and details.

Together with Motion
AI Made Ads Easier. It Also Made Them Harder to Win.

The advantage has shifted. It no longer belongs to teams that can produce more ads. It belongs to those who can design systems that consistently produce winners.
As AI accelerates output and competition intensifies, creative without structure becomes noise. The brands pulling ahead are the ones operating with clear frameworks, disciplined testing models, and repeatable decision-making processes.
Motion’s free 8-week Creative Strategy Bootcamp shows you how to build exactly that.
You will move through Foundations → Sprints → Masters, so progress feels practical
- In Foundations, you learn how to identify high-leverage angles, craft intentional hooks, and use performance signals to guide creative direction before production begins.
- In Sprints, you execute full testing cycles, launch campaigns, and refine ideas through disciplined iteration.
- In Masters, you develop advanced frameworks used by top Creative Strategists to scale results across brands and platforms.
It’s 100% free, fully live, and registration closes March 17th.
If you want the skill that actually moves paid social in 2026, this is your moment.

🚀Quick Hits
📊 Google Analytics is adding AI-generated insights to its Home page and launching cross-channel budgeting in beta, helping marketers quickly spot performance shifts and allocate paid budgets more strategically across channels.
💬 ChatGPT ads have been spotted for U.S. users, appearing on the very first prompt with clear “Sponsored” labels, signaling a more aggressive monetization approach than previously expected.
🎓 Google has launched an AI Professional Certificate with seven self-paced modules and three months of free AI Pro access, offering eligible U.S. small businesses the program at no cost.
📉 Paid search click share doubled across key verticals as classic organic fell 11–23 points year over year, with text ads and PLAs now capturing up to one-third of clicks, according to Similarweb data.

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