Fuck woke! Politely, of course. Then, move on and live as if you’d only have one life! Dance freely, eat delicious food, love with all your mind and body, travel far, and make real friends. Cause you only have one life. Very precious. No encore.

Once upon a time, woke started as a grassroots movement for social justice, racial issues, systemic inequalities, and other plagues humanity suffers from. A promising movement towards a new paradigm and a better life.

That time is long gone! Now, woke is a label for mind frailty, surface-scratching thinking, a shield against anything real or profound, and a ridiculous lack of critical thinking and assertive conversation.

Woke is now about feelings, not facts. Woke is being asleep, almost dead. It’s about the makeup, not the skin deep. It’s about the live freak circus, not about the meaningful life. If anything, its lack of profoundness triggers the worst in human interactions. Woke embodies a dystopian, anti-intellectual society.

What would Plato have done if every dialogue had been abruptly killed in its inception by the other one being offended by his questions? No more guidance towards the truth. No, thank you. The truth is overrated.

Woke jokes are not funny either — they are cautious and greasy. They feel like funerals in slow motion, with humor being the deceased. Like a food without salt. Like clean sex. Better off, like no sex.

Imagine a woke, politically correct stand-up comedy night — a long, painful rehearsal for a slow death of spirit. We need to be awake, not woke. We need to be alive, not faking life. Vibrant and spectacular. Profoundly human. Gritty, but soft.

Woke talks are very short monologues, fed by stupidity and killed by fear, untouched by love or maturity. Like a low-life social media post with a clickbait title.

Last, but not least, fuck woke! Sleep well.

Wake up fresh and healthy. Re-start. Give life a new chance!

Why don’t we fast-track the rotation of the Earth? Just for fun. Just to see what happens.

Why have we never heard of someone fast-tracking her way through pregnancy? Or a plant fast-tracking its way through healthy sprouting? Or someone fast-tracking his way through sleeping? Arnold Schwarzenegger once advised us to “sleep faster” (6h instead of 8h) if we think we don’t have time to do it all 🙂. While this is a funny idea that can spread like a bad virus, actually sleeping well is the key to waking up ready for life. And this is what matters each morning, when we wake up. Although time is a very relative notion, our daily holy number is 1,440 no matter how we spend our daily pool of minutes.

Fast-tracking has transformed from horse racing in the mid 1800s into a business mindset in the early 1960s. The obsession with mass fast-tracking (aka: speeding up or rushing) our way through everything, from learning to living our lives through our experiences, is a mass, mindless, and highly destructive trend with the goal to produce more & faster results, without understanding whether faster is the right approach or not in each situation. Actually, faster is usually the enemy of progress, if not the antidote to it. It is reminiscent of the Orwellian 1984. The cookie-cutter approach to life. That spirit that Apple Computer positioned itself against in 1984 and won. Fast-tracking is the cookie-cutter obsession rejected by human nature itself.

While we are all the same in our most basic universal needs, biology, emotions, and cognitive processes, we share some common traits with some others as far as culture, family, and experiences are concerned, but we are quite unique as far as our personality, stories, and DNA go. Our peculiar and unique idiosyncrasies translate into a real need for bespoke solutions, as opposed to a universal panacea equally applicable to all things and all people.

The individual natural rhythm is not a poison that should be cured with increased speed, but a personal path to progress, very unique to each and every one of us. Speed has nothing to do with quality. If anything, increased speed leads to lower quality. In most car-related stories, speeding up is a shortcut to death. In education, as in medicine, the ideal for each human being is the Personalized Individual Approach, because each person is unique in a way that cannot be replicated or fast-tracked. Our brains tell this story, our actions, our perceptions, everywhere we look, we see things in highly unique ways. Live fast, feel nothing, die soon seems to be the signature of fast-tracking through our lives.

There are situations in which speed can be adjusted to optimize processes, but speed is not the universal panacea for everything life has to offer, nor is it a good solution for everybody. Each person and process has an optimal speed at any given moment and a max. speed for integral and sustainable results, that might change in time, but this process cannot be forced or fast-tracked on command. On the contrary, more often than not, faster is the enemy of good.

I cannot help but wonder: Faster than what? Faster than before? Faster than the sound? Faster than the speed of light? Faster than the competition? Faster for the price of sameness? Algorithmically faster, as in computational? What does fast-tracking have to do with being human? We certainly don’t have to waste our time, which is limited, but fast-tracking through life is not a good solution for optimizing life or making it more meaningful. Maybe building habits and rituals that serve a good life, with the help of discipline, might be one way to optimize time? Maybe discernment can also reduce time-wasting? Maybe a good education can achieve that too?

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More often than not, faster leads to underperformance. Poor results generally translate into a waste of resources, from time to energy, to making our dream chasing a pure nightime activity which ends when we wake up in the morning. Yet fast-tracking is still a frequent word combo in our Pavlovian approach to business and life. While speed is important, one cannot speed up a car safely before learning how to drive it properly, or fast-track through learning. The learning process is a step-by-step, consistent effort that takes time, not a quick, fast-track process. The obsession with fast is pandemic. Widespread and blindly applied to everything, with a mindless tendency to dislocate fast from its righteous place, where it produces good results, up into the initial phase of learning, in which fast only yields incomplete results, that are not going to pass the test of time. Fast is a rotten foundation.

In learning, developing fully-fledged competences, which consist of a triad of theoretical skills + guiding values + practical skills, might be a lot more meaningful and important than fast-tracking through learning one-dimensional surface-level skills, which lack not only key guiding principles, but also the time needed to plant and grow the seed of learning a new competence. Nothing is a race in life (except for … races 🙂), although 1,440 is the one key daily number for us all. Rhythm is not the key, although it is not of no importance, but the daily perseverance (aka: the dripping water) produces in time, meaningful and long-lasting results.

Learning fast and furious in bursts is not the key; rather, daily, consistent learning produces long-lasting results. Not speed, but consistency. Doing stupid things faster or smart things slower? Neither is best, but we’ve seen this matter being polarized in this fashion so many times. All competences need to be learned first (theory + value + practice) and further exercised in order to be optimized. The fast-tracking comes in later on, not early on. Then, and only then, time can be compressed. Optimized. Essentialized to increase performance with optimal results.

Let’s see what science has to say about fast-tracking.

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The studies on concurrent engineering and schedule compressing show that fast-tracking not only fails to improve but also frequently harms long-term productivity and project success. Why? One poor idea has not one, but many destructive ramifications throughout the process. While intended to speed up delivery, the fast-tracking approach leads to poor quality, error and burnout. A trio of failure born out of a blind chase for More.

1 | F.T. reduces quality and increases costs: fast-track projects are riskier, with a higher likelihood of construction errors, design changes, and poor productivity, often leading to reduced sales and lower operating profits.

2 | F.T. leads to burnout by increasing stress: fast-tracking often implies excessive multitasking and corner-cutting, which are always bad ideas; it also reduces morale and increases turnover. Studies show that multitasking is the equivalent of doing multiple things in parallel, in the worst possible way, as opposed to doing one thing well at a time.

3 | F.T. productivity theater: rushed, monitored environments lead to people performing superficial tasks just to appear busy and productive (e.g., staying “green” on Social Media, etc.), rather than focusing on high-value, meaningful creative work. If they also happen to speak faster than the average, they might pass as very interesting and valuable workers and gain fast access to management positions, which in turn becomes a massive threat to real intelligence and productivity.

4 | A.I. intensity: while A.I. tools can intensify work, leading to faster paces, they can also lead to more hours worked without increasing the productive output. Brain rot and shorter attention spans are the offspring of TikTok and its Skibidi Toilet-like brainless content. Parkinson’s law proves that we will consume all the resources we have at hand to produce the aimed result, and sometimes we’ll take time for granted when we have time-wasting toys at hand. Tail chasing is an energy-consuming activity too, which weakens our brain activity and reduces our neural density, which is a long and polite definition for getting stupid.

5 | The paradox of pace (aka: faster is better): Slowing down for thoughtful, deliberate action, rather than rushing, can actually increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve long-term sustainability.

Conversely, sustainable and high-performing teams often thrive on a culture of trust and autonomy, which allows for, and often even demands, a slower, more considered approach to complex tasks. Stop tail-chasing, say sayonara to fast-tracking, and hello to life.

The spark that lit the fire.

Artesana’s endorsement partnership with Selly, a high-profile Romanian influencer, triggered a storm of reactions - some positive, but many negative. This move visibly split Artesana’s consumer base into two camps: those who “smiled and waved” at the initiative, and those who felt deeply misrepresented and vowed to stop buying the brand.

The backlash wasn’t about Selly as a person, but about what he represents. He’s the founder of 5Gang — a music band known for lyrics that don’t exactly reflect the Artesana’s positioning and lifestyle promise, and the founder of the Beach Please Trap Music Festival, a youth-centric festival previously sponsored by the gambling company Superbet. All this while positioning himself publicly as a champion of children’s safety and education. The profound dissonance didn’t go unnoticed.

Brand partnerships are not just a numbers game.

Every strong alliance begins with shared foundational values. The premise of a successful collaboration is value alignment between the brand, its consumers, and its partners. In Artesana’s case, this alignment didn’t exist.

Yes, Selly has a massive reach. Yes, he commands attention, and we’re not going here into the qualitative details of this attention, the who and the how. His facts speak about numbers and money, not meaning, values, and trust. But facts matter. Value matters. Perception matters as well, as they construct our realities. His actions and history tell a different story than Artesana’s story, which is built on premium, natural dairy products, slow life values, and a clean, purpose-driven image. Consumers felt the disconnect, and they reacted.

A quick detour into 5Gang lyrics (for context).

SOS! În cantități industriale / (Yeah) Boss! Femeia ta îmi dă târcoale (Yeah) / Tos! Aduc zahăr, clubu’ sare / Eu și echipa mea am ieșit la vânătoare.

[…] Ăștia dau cu hate, aseară am încasat un cec.

No comment. 😶

Freud, fans, and the psychology of pain.

According to Freud’s pleasure-pain principle, people instinctively seek pleasure and avoid pain. When a beloved brand aligns with something that feels off or inauthentic, pain kicks in. In this case, some blamed Selly. Others blamed Artesana. But most importantly, the reaction didn’t stem from hate. It stemmed from disappointment — a pain rooted in brand preference (aka: choice/love) and loyalty (aka: repeated purchases).

Pain leaves a much deeper mark than joy. While joy is fleeting and subtle, pain is persistent and visceral. That’s why bad news travels faster and farther. Brand managers should be aware of the danger of partnerships that ignore the emotional bond between core fans and the brand, which backfires fast.

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Brand collabs: a science and an art.

A good brand alliance isn’t just a numbers game. It’s a triangle of trust between:

1. The brand

2. The consumers

3. The endorser

When one point of the triangle is weak, the whole structure collapses. That’s what happened here.

Foundational values — past and future — must be protected. Brands are not just logos or product lines; they’re stories of connections, built up step by step, over time. Poor partnership decisions create brand noise, not brand growth. While good decisions whisper long-term trust, bad ones scream short-term loss.

Why Artesana × Selly felt off.

Most likely, as it frequently happens, the choice to work with Selly was made based on numbers and potential for over-night brand preference through the transfer of power by association: 4 million followers + Artesana’s loyal base = instant growth, aka: success. The math is right, but people aren’t equations; they’re a lot more than that, and that cannot be learned from analytics, but it can be reflected afterwards in the analytics. All existing data provides a picture of the past. Without understanding the human psychology in social contexts and the behavioral economics, the future is just an extension of the past pattern and nothing more. But human history unveils a story that is more than linear. Daniel Kahneman was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2002 for understanding how people judge and make decisions.

Artesana’s core audience doesn’t just buy yogurt — they buy into the brand’s ethos: authenticity, slow life, quality, tradition, family values, etc. Selly, on the other hand, has built a very different brand — fast-paced, commercial, and pretty much contradictory to Artesana’s vibe and aspirations. While Selly gained credibility from the partnership with Artesana (a big step up from Superbet), Artesana lost some of its core fans and raised some serious questions about its character and friends, given the known fact that birds of a feather flock together.

PR people often say that “any PR is good PR”, but for brands pursuing a long-term sustainable vision, this is a highly misleading, myopic trap: a dangerous shortcut to failure, that shakes up the tree, which shortly loses some of its most ripe fruits, instead of growing more fruits. The partnership between Artesana and Shelly felt transactional, unnatural. The result for Artesana? Disappointment. Disconnection. Mistrust.

Labeling it as “hate” misses the point.

Some tried to brush off the negative feedback as mere hate. But that’s a surface-level take for those who want to remain blind to the facts. In truth, it’s not about hate; it’s about misalignment. The most vocal critics were likely the most loyal customers. They didn’t leave because they hated the brand. They left because they loved it and felt betrayed by its unnatural and forced choice. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. You can’t be deeply hurt by something you don’t care about.

The anatomy of a healthy brand partnership.

A good endorsement is a three-way relationship — a smooth tango between the brand, its endorsers (associations / alliances), and its fans. When a brand disregards its existing heritage and core supporters to chase and ally with very different low-hanging fruits, it risks alienating the very people who embraced it.

Before launching any collaboration, a brand must ask:

• Do we share the same values?

• Do our audiences overlap in spirit, not just in statistics?

• Can this partnership enhance both brand stories, instead of damage or dilute them?

If the answer is no, then short-term visibility isn’t worth long-term damage. Brand collabs stem from a well-thought-out brand strategy and positioning.

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The real risk: losing core fans.

Losing customers is easier and cheaper than acquiring new ones. Once people feel disconnected, they don’t just stop buying. They start talking. Online. Loudly. To everyone. That’s how a brand’s perception can shift in a matter of hours.

Let’s be clear: There are no good or bad brands. Only satisfied and dissatisfied customers. Unaligned partnerships create churn. Loyalists become ex-loyalists. And in today’s hyper-connected world, only 2% who usually speak up their mind are enough to generate a ripple effect that shapes the narrative moving forward.

How can Artesana fix this?

It’s not too late. But damage control requires authenticity and action. Here’s a recipe for what can become a brand kintsugi intervention:

1. Acknowledge the feedback. Don’t deflect it.

2. Engage with core consumers and listen to their concerns.

3. Apologize for the unintended consequence, even if the intention was good.

4. Reflect on what went wrong and revise the partnership strategy accordingly.

5. Rebuild trust with meaningful, value-driven collabs and campaigns.

Vulnerability is a good start; honesty is a proper action builder. People forgive mistakes. They don’t forgive arrogance.

A final thought: real growth isn’t about reach alone.

Strong brands are built on:

• Imagination

• Consistency

• Authenticity

• Long-term vision

• And the courage to say “no” to partnerships that don’t feel right.

If a brand wants loyalty, it must earn it first, then protect it. Partnerships should amplify a brand’s soul, not just its visibility and numbers. Otherwise, better might just become the enemy of good.

This story is part of The Buyology Journal of Marcomms Wisdom, which includes diverse experiences of working globally on brands that wrote history, while pursuing science, ethics, and wellbeing.

The tiny elephant in the room

This is one of the elephants floating through the air in the corporate meeting rooms, whether the question is directly asked by the marketers or inferred through a mix of cold, sweaty fear and anxiety. The short answer is: it depends. The difference between black and white is highly nuanced, but if a marketer follows the right process, guided by the right principles while employing the right expertise, this path may lead to legendary outcomes.

The key is not only to get the money back, but to generate sustainable brand growth through marketing & advertising. Marcomms must make economic sense and produce ROI. Marketers must employ wisdom and competence, understand game theory, be at peace with volatility, Black Swan events, and unpredictability. It’s (not) that simple. They must be intuitively good gamblers! However, this question typically marks a significant fork in the road, between two distinctive and opposite outcomes, both surreal at the moment when this question arises.

But this is, in fact, not the key question to ask. The key question should point out the problems that constitute the barriers to brand progress and unveil how to overcome them. While change may be deeply annoying, burying one’s head in the sand is a shortcut to a dead-end road, hence the high percentage of companies that disappear and the low percentage of companies that can add “Since ...” to their name tag.

Fear vs. courage: the decision pendulum

Fear of failure or loss, aversion to change, lack of experience, bad experiences, anxiety, and the instinct of preservation all translate into staying still, as well as other sabotage tactics that paralyze decision-making. Stagnation is more dangerous than moving forward. Risky, but rewarding moves make life possible. Static things are dead ends. Moving forward is the only option when everything around us changes. If the only constant is change, how can one afford to stay still?

While growth always happens outside the comfort zone, fear is natural, and sometimes it’s an old ‘friend’. But courage is action despite fear, not in the absence of fear. Kodak and Nokia didn’t lose because they ran out of money or possibilities; they ran out of imagination, innovation, vision, courage, and will to keep moving in the only direction that would have granted them access to survival and success: forward, heading beyond their horizon line.

Courage is rewarded, whether with added value or just wisdom: while fear blocks growth, well-orchestrated moves make the future possible. Brand building is not a choice, but a survival & growth engine for any business. When courage isn’t handy, a leap of faith in your trusted Agency partner is recommended.

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The vision beyond the horizon line

Brands can remain relevant if they evaluate and fine-tune their journeys every year, perform complete brand checks every five years, and dare to ask themselves the most uncomfortable questions that fuel and inform the next chapter of their journeys. Why are we still relevant? What could ruin the game for us? What are we not seeing yet? What if ...?, Why not ...?, What next?, What does it take to ...?, etc. Through highly introspective and brutally honest Q&A strategy sessions, brands can adapt and grow intentionally and purposefully. At each pit stop, a brand must see 10 years beyond its horizon line in order to continue to move in a direction that ensures continuity, survival, and growth. A brand should reinvent itself as often as needed in order to ensure its survival. Each brand must learn smart, preferably from the mistakes of other brands (The Collective Wisdom), in order to master how to overcome and surpass the Barriers of the Impossible. Learning from their own mistakes is also valuable, but more costly and painful, and sometimes lethal. The golden rule: once a brand eliminates what’s impossible, the only thing left is what’s possible.

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Frequent brand pigeonholes

More often than not, when a brand gets stuck, marketers try to unstuck it by lowering its price and/or advertising it beyond its true potential, into the realm of surreal fantasy and untrusted territory. This is where many brands either fail and/or give marketing & advertising a bad name. Cheating a brand’s way through its lifecycle is not a long-term strategy, but a long nail in the coffin.

A tricky pigeonhole is when the brand’s main differentiator is the price. At this point, the marketer might be inclined to believe that the price is the only brand differentiator, since no other symptoms are being recognized. At this point, the brand is in a dangerous race to the bottom. A price battle for survival is a dangerous high-pressure zone brand managers must avoid at all cost. There are many strategies for staying distinctively different, relevant, and purposeful. True brand value is perceived and experienced, not priced. Theory alone is never enough, although the best practice always starts with a solid theory, driven by foundational values and implemented rigorously.

When growth is the ultimate target (when isn’t?), marketers need to reignite their drive that got them going fearlessly when things moved in the right direction. Staying still always costs a brand more than moving and thus creating its future, beyond its actual horizon. A brand leader who thinks that good marketing is expensive should contemplate how expensive bad marketing can be and how frequent it is.

Smart, strategic marcomm is not just an investment: it’s future made possible, an insurance against oblivion. Strategic marcomm applied well builds up brand grit and legacy, while giving the brand a chance to transcend time.

Buyology

“Marketing beats science”, as Prof. Daniel David PhD. well pointed out, but when marcom is rooted in science, guided by strong values and ethics, and presented as an art form, buyology happens.

This story is part of The Buyology Journal of Marcomms Wisdom, which includes diverse experiences of working internationally on brands that wrote history, while pursuing science, ethics, and wellbeing.

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