What’s Up THIS WEEK: Email Fails, Taylor Swift Wedding News? Email TIP! 🎁 What's Up This Week | Ep. 461

Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

GURU Media Hub

Growth, Education, Email, Business, Revenue, How To, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Profit, B2b, B2c

5 • 715 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Holiday gift snooping, F-bomb subject lines, and an AI country hit somehow all end up in the same conversation, and Jay Schwedelson has opinions. From Lowe's genius decoy gift boxes to a wildly misjudged suit sale email to a simple subject line trick that quietly spikes opens, this week is part marketing therapy, part pop culture catch-up. If you've ever wondered where the line is between clever and cringe, or how targeted your targeting should really be, this one will get you rethinking your next send.

Best Moments:

(00:20) Lowe's leans into holiday chaos with free decoy boxes so parents can hide gifts in plain sight from snooping kids.

(01:25) A suit brand fires off a Black Friday email with a "grow the f**k up and buy a suit" subject line that explodes into a full-blown PR apology tour.

(03:02) Double personalization in subject lines like "pet parents of anxious dogs" or "mid-market CMOs Q1 pipeline fix" quietly crushes with big open rate lifts and way better qualified clicks.

(04:18) Jay breaks down why narrowing your audience with ultra-specific segments may lower volume but massively upgrade intent and sales potential.

(06:05) An AI-generated country song hits number one on the Billboard charts, and Jay questions whether machine-made music should even be allowed on human charts.

(05:12) Streaming recs get personal as Jay walks back his early take on Netflix's The Beast in Me and admits he still cannot bring himself to care about Stranger Things or the Taylor and Travis wedding frenzy.

Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers.
0:05.6	We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode.
0:11.7	We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out.
0:14.9	We are back for what's up this week from the Do This Not That podcast.
0:20.2	This is the short episode. We'll break down What's going on business and marketing and pop culture? Let's jump into it. So are you one of those people that when someone buys you a gift, you try to snoop around and see and try to find the gift and open it secretly to see what it is? Well, if it is, if you are, you stink. But Lowe's, the home improvement
0:39.1	store, they did a survey and they found that 57% of kids found or opened the presence that
0:45.5	somebody got for them early that are in their home. So what they did, which is kind of a cool
0:49.4	marketing tactic, they went ahead and they made these giant boxes for loyalty members only, where the boxes have like things on the outside that say like coffee maker or whatever and you go and pick them up for free and then you shove your presence that you got for your family in these boxes so nobody wants to open those.
1:05.5	Part of their survey also found how many times on average do you think gen alpha humans young people ask about
1:14.9	presents during the holiday season it's 51 times what type of surveys that how do they find out
1:20.5	that data that's weird um there was an email marketing fail oh my my goodness. This was ridiculous. So this suit company sent out this
1:33.1	email. They were trying to promote these suits that you wear, you know, like men's suits that you would
1:38.3	wear or whatever. And they decided that they were going to really be edgy. This is the problem sometimes
1:44.1	when people try to be edgy.
1:45.9	They go too far and they don't understand what funny is.
1:48.8	So they were trying to do this big suit sale and they were trying to give 45% off.
1:54.2	So when they sent it out, they put in the subject line.
1:58.2	This is not a joke.
1:59.1	This was the subject line to this really large email they
2:01.8	sent out. Grow the and then F dash dash k up. Grow the F dash dash K up and buy a suit. That was their
2:12.0	subject line. And then you open it up and there was no context whatsoever. And it said said here's the 45% of black Friday suit deal
2:20.2	well this blew up sideways the New York Polks picked it up it got picked up everywhere and then by
	...

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