I spent my evening analyzing Met Gala outfits and somehow cracked your personality crisis

Every Friday, we share strategies to help you level up your sales, marketing, and lead gen.

This week, Maddie walks through her favorite marketing lessons from analyzing this year’s Met Gala.

Enjoy 👇

Everyone's talking about the Met Gala this week, and not just because of the clothes.

This year's theme, "Fashion is Art," basically turned the red carpet into a live referendum on the limits of human confidence. Less "what are you wearing" and more "explain this textile decision to God and also Vogue."

Some looks were clearly conceptual. The kind where there was a fully formed idea, a mood board, probably a Greek philosophy minor involved. And the rest of us are just standing there like "ok… I think I get it… in the same way I get death… theoretically."

Some looks felt like the idea arrived late but loud. Like it showed up last minute and everyone just decided backing out would somehow be worse.

And some were just raw, uncut conviction. No explanation. No subtext. No attempt to make it easier for you. Just walking in like "if you don't understand this, that's a you problem and also maybe a failure of the public school system" and somehow it works better that way.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home watching it in a fit that only Adam Sandler could pull off, acting like I have the room to judge these fits.

And this is where B2B marketing has a full emotional breakdown.

We treat storytelling like it's a risk. Like it's the thing you might try if legal approves it, and also if Mercury's not in retrograde.

So we default to: clear, professional, vaguely corporate.

Which is perfect if your goal is to be understood... and devastating if your goal is to be remembered past the scroll.

Because somewhere along the way, B2B decided personality was dangerous. Like having a take might summon someone from legal with a very concerned email.

But buyers are still people. Unfortunately for everyone involved.

And people do not remember "clear."

They remember feeling weirdly called out and forwarding it anyway.

The brands that stick aren't just explaining what they do.

They're building narratives that feel slightly unhinged in a way that makes you more interested. Like a take so specific it makes you pause, laugh once under your breath, and then start defending it in your head like it just insulted your mom's casserole.

A point of view.

A little chaos.

The Met Gala works because it's full commitment or full disaster, and somehow both get remembered.

B2B should work the same way.

Your product is not the story. Your brand is not the story.

The story is the lens you're aggressively forcing onto reality, and how confidently you hold it there until other people rethink their entire framework for something they weren't even thinking about six seconds ago.

And while we're here, my favorite looks:

That's the bar.

If your marketing isn't making people pause, smirk, and briefly question whether they've been doing their job wrong this whole time... it's already being ignored by someone in a meeting pretending to take notes.

And if you know one thing about me, you know I have opinions about people who don't commit to the bit.

—Maddie