Writing.
Essays on advocacy, community, and brand growth. Written by Zac Froud, Billboard 2025 Global Power Player, Founder of Advcy.
The Internet Built Bigger Rooms. It Forgot How People Meet.
We solved reach a decade ago — we still have not solved belonging.
30 June 2026→
Superfandom Is the Music Industry's Coping Mechanism
Before you can extract value from your biggest fans, you have to understand the quiet architecture of how they got there.
22 June 2026→
Build Relationships Before You Build Marketing
Before marketing can scale a company, its first customers have to teach it what to say.
15 June 2026→
The Best Ideas Don't Make Sense Yet
In a world optimised around what already exists, the rarest skill is becoming the willingness to follow an idea before it can explain itself.
8 June 2026→
The Relationship Layer
Why the next event platform won't look like a platform at all.
14 May 2026→
20 Years in Marketing Has Taught Me Five Things
Five lessons from twenty years in marketing — none of them are new, all of them are still underbuilt.
20 April 2026→
The Marketing Mix Is Evolving
Less hacky. Less algorithm-chasing. More intentional.
13 April 2026→
SaaS Is Dead as a Moat. Welcome to Belonging as a Service.
Why your product's best features are no longer a competitive advantage — and what to build instead.
26 March 2026→
Event Apps Are Dead. Start Building Conversations.
Your $50k event app has a 15% adoption rate. It's time to meet your audience where they actually live.
11 March 2026→
The Music That Changed Me
The chapters of my own soundtrack. Not just music, but moments where an artist offered up something that changed how I saw the world.
6 March 2026→
We Built God-Level AI… and Put It in a Text Box
Why the future of AI isn't another app — it's a world. We are interacting with the future through a screen as flat as a piece of paper.
16 February 2026→
The ADVCY Model: Architecture of Belief
While 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations over advertising, most marketing infrastructure is still built for the broadcast, not the believer.
4 February 2026→
The Layer Beneath Brand Influence
Success in building a brand isn't just about the product. It's about the invisible layer beneath it all: storytelling.
19 January 2026→
Everything Must Scale… Or Should It?
Why depth beats reach in a world obsessed with more.
12 January 2026→
What the $250B Creator Economy Can Teach Musicians About Scaling Revenue, Fandom, and Freedom
A million Spotify streams gets an artist about $4,000. Meanwhile, Emma Chamberlain earns $10,000 for a single Instagram post. It's time to rethink the model.
7 January 2026→
How Iconic Brands Are Forged
Great brands, like great artists, are forged in three fires: Courage. Commitment. Consistency.
30 December 2025→
The Real Reason Some Artists Last and Most Don't
In 2026, with 5 billion people fighting for attention, music alone isn't enough. You need a platform.
22 December 2025→
When the World Zigs Toward AI, Zag Toward Being Human
When the world automates everything, the most powerful thing you can be is human.
16 December 2025→
The Attention Economy Is Broken. What's Your Advocacy Strategy?
CMOs are burning cash on cold traffic while ignoring the 10% of believers who drive 90% of their organic growth. It's time to build the Advocacy Flywheel.
1 December 2025→
A&R and the Future of Artist Discovery: From Gut Feel to Cultural Intelligence
The signing window has collapsed from months to days. Data was meant to make A&R faster — instead, it's made us slower, paralysed by abundance.
24 November 2025→
Change: Forget Safety Nets. Build Trampolines.
The biggest companies in the world aren't being killed by competitors or AI. They're being killed by comfort and the absence of vision.
18 August 2025→
The Community Era: From Broadcast to Belonging
In 2025, artists and brands aren't built on what they say — but on what fans and customers feel and share, unprompted, because it matters to them.
28 July 2025→
No Playground, No Breakthroughs
Work that matters feels like play. We didn't stop playing because we got older — we stopped because it no longer felt safe.
16 July 2025→
Go Short to Win Big
Why the fastest way to create deep work is a sprint, not a grind.
7 July 2025→
The Hidden Work: Storytelling as the Real Engine of Artist Growth
Success isn't just about talent or hustle. It's about the invisible strategy of storytelling — the work behind the work.
30 June 2025→
Brands, Not Streams, Pay the Bills
What the $250B creator economy can teach musicians about scaling revenue, fandom, and freedom.
23 June 2025→
The Most Valuable Music Marketing Strategy Nobody's Talking About
Why advocacy, not algorithms, will define the next decade of artist growth.
19 May 2025→
Want to collaborate on a piece?
We work with partners on essays, reports, and editorial content around advocacy, community, and brand growth. If you have an idea, get in touch.