John Long- ECD and Author of Zombie Brands
Thu Jan 22 2026
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John is an ECD at Digitas and the author of a new book, "Zombie Brands."
In our conversation, we talked about his book and the why, what, and how behind the rise of the Zombie Brand.
Some of John's quotes from our chat.
On the state of advertising:
"No one went to, no one got into advertising to make a banner ad. No one got into advertising to make a Facebook ad."
On the shift from craft to quantity:
"The bragging rights have been we're working with Ridley Scott on this 60-second Super Bowl spot. Now it was we're spending five cents."
On viral marketing's false lessons:
"We spent zero in paid media and just gamed the system to draw lots of attention to this stunt that doesn't really have much to do with the brand itself... I think it was actually terrible for the industry in terms of the lessons taken away."On performance marketing:
"I think a lot of this is hamsters on a wheel. I don't see the evidence that all this activity is leading to growth."
On the attention span myth:
"If people really did have no attention span, like every planes would be crashing all over the place... You just said no one pays attention anymore and then you watched like 37 hours of TV."
On the zombie brand concept:
"Zombies are not quite human, right? They kind of seem human, but they're not. They're hollowed out. They all kind of look alike. They all sound alike. They all grunt kind of the same few phrases. And yeah, they sort of maniacally roam the earth like looking for clicks."
On Starbucks destroying its brand:
"The whole brand, when I worked on Starbucks at Ogilvy, find the brand as fostering connections between human beings. It wasn't about coffee at all... they've completely killed the goose."
On the data-driven optimization problem:
"They had beta tested their way into basically a big subscribe button. That's all it was. It was a button for people who already had made up their mind to subscribe."
On short-term thinking and performance marketing:
"You're robbing future Peter to pay present Paul. I might not want you now, but maybe I do in a year, maybe I do in years."
https://zombie-brands.com/books/zombie-brands
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Send us a text John is an ECD at Digitas and the author of a new book, "Zombie Brands." In our conversation, we talked about his book and the why, what, and how behind the rise of the Zombie Brand. Some of John's quotes from our chat. On the state of advertising: "No one went to, no one got into advertising to make a banner ad. No one got into advertising to make a Facebook ad." On the shift from craft to quantity: "The bragging rights have been we're working with Ridley Scott on this 60-second Super Bowl spot. Now it was we're spending five cents." On viral marketing's false lessons: "We spent zero in paid media and just gamed the system to draw lots of attention to this stunt that doesn't really have much to do with the brand itself... I think it was actually terrible for the industry in terms of the lessons taken away."On performance marketing: "I think a lot of this is hamsters on a wheel. I don't see the evidence that all this activity is leading to growth." On the attention span myth: "If people really did have no attention span, like every planes would be crashing all over the place... You just said no one pays attention anymore and then you watched like 37 hours of TV." On the zombie brand concept: "Zombies are not quite human, right? They kind of seem human, but they're not. They're hollowed out. They all kind of look alike. They all sound alike. They all grunt kind of the same few phrases. And yeah, they sort of maniacally roam the earth like looking for clicks." On Starbucks destroying its brand: "The whole brand, when I worked on Starbucks at Ogilvy, find the brand as fostering connections between human beings. It wasn't about coffee at all... they've completely killed the goose." On the data-driven optimization problem: "They had beta tested their way into basically a big subscribe button. That's all it was. It was a button for people who already had made up their mind to subscribe." On short-term thinking and performance marketing: "You're robbing future Peter to pay present Paul. I might not want you now, but maybe I do in a year, maybe I do in years." https://zombie-brands.com/books/zombie-brands