by Dave Hayward | Mar 9, 2026 | AI, AI Transformation, B2B Content Strategy, B2B Marketing, Brand, Brand Building, Business, Content strategy, Creativity, Dave Hayward, Europa Creative Partners, Founder-led marketing, Life and work, Marketing, Marketing as a service, Media, Performance marketing, Productivity, Psychology, Revenue, Sales
I used to worry that my career seemed accidental. Then I realised that the detours are a feature, not a bug. Still buzzing from speaking at (and experiencing) the fantastic The Marketing Club AU/NZ careers in marketing event last night. It was a privilege to join a...
by Dave Hayward | Feb 26, 2026 | AI, Business, Marketing, Productivity, Strategy
Something big is happening There’s a viral essay going around called “Something Big Is Happening.” The gist is: an AI startup founder (Matt Shumer) has stopped being polite about what’s coming for white-collar work, and the picture he paints is...
by Dave Hayward | Feb 16, 2026 | AI, AI Transformation, B2B Content Strategy, B2B Marketing, Brand, Brand Building, Business, Content strategy, Creativity, Dave Hayward, Europa Creative Partners, Founder-led marketing, Life and work, Marketing, Marketing as a service, Media, Performance marketing, Productivity, Psychology, Revenue, Sales
Brand building in the wild Here’s proof of brand-building working. Revved Events, one of New Zealand’s leading business event organisers, just launched its first-ever LinkedIn profile series. Their first profile? Europa and me! We are bloody stoked, even...
by Dave Hayward | Feb 15, 2026 | AI, B2B Marketing, Brand, Brand Building, Brand campaign, Bright Objects, Bright Objects newsletter, Business, Content strategy, Fractional cmo, Marketing, Personal stories, Sales Activation
This is an article about marketing, I promise. I’m going to talk to you about how to get out of the “sales activation” trap. But first, I’m going to take you back to 1979. I’ve got to show the world all that I wanna be Writing “I’m Coming Out” for Diana Ross had...
by Dave Hayward | Jan 25, 2026 | AI, AI agents, AI literacy, AI Transformation, AI workflow automation, B2B Marketing, Communications, Customer experience (CX), Europa Creative Partners, Life and work, Marketing, Psychology
Prologue: Our agency vs the universe One thing I’ve observed about humans is that we generally overestimate our agency in the world. What we can control is vanishingly small, not even being in full control of ourselves. The trick, and I say this as a world-class...
by Dave Hayward | Dec 19, 2025 | AI, AI literacy, AI Transformation, AI workflow automation, Bright Objects, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google, Strategy
The “Lazy War”: Why the “default” AI is going to win There is an old saying in technology: “Friction is the enemy of adoption.” We are seeing this play out in real-time in the AI wars. OpenAI recently released ChatGPT 5.2....
