All it takes is one moment—or video—for a small business to make it big.

Rewind: In November 2020, Hayden Rankin and Mason Manning posted a TikTok about their business idea: Customers write a prompt for a shirt design and pay to have it made and sent to them, sight unseen. The video got more than 1.5 million views and almost 370,000 likes.

Results: Nearly two years later, Nice Shirt. Thanks! has more than 440,000 TikTok followers, 400 contracted designers, and a backlog of 6,500 requested designs, which could range from ghosts eating mac ‘n’ cheese to cats as instruments. Rankin said they plan to sell at least 50,000 shirts by the end of the year.

• “It’s just continued to grow,” Rankin told us, adding that “at its infancy, we were hoping to sell maybe one or two shirts a day. This was just something to do on the side when I was at school, and it ended up being my entire job.”

According to Rankin, revenue generated by Nice Shirt. Thanks! has a “pretty direct correlation to views on TikTok.” And it’s not the only one seeing returns. According to a report by small-business support platform Hello Alice, 59% of established SMBs surveyed said TikTok has helped them grow revenue.

​​Free publicity: Becca Sawyer, TikTok’s global head of small business solutions, told us that the low barrier to entry, the ability to reach non-followers on the For You page, and the growing popularity of the app have contributed to small businesses’ success on the platform.

Nice Shirt. Thanks! as well as other small businesses like clothing brand Sani and coffee shop The Nitro Bar, told us that to date, their marketing, both on the platform and off, has been entirely organic. Keep reading here.—KH

Some brands (like a certain fast-food chain) have jingles so enduring we hear them in our sleep. Others, like Tostitos, have more recently turned their attention to creating sonic identities. Add Panera to that list.

Zoom in: The fast-casual chain has a new look under Drayton Martin, VP of brand building, who joined Panera from Dunkin’ just over a year ago. The company’s new aesthetic is all about “vibrancy,” Martin told Marketing Brew, complete with a “much more vibrant color palette.”

• Martin, who worked with sonic branding agency Made Music Studio in a previous role, recognized an opportunity to make Panera not only look more vibrant, but sound more vibrant, too.
• “We have this visual effect where you see our logo and then these bursts come off of it, and so the music actually choreographs perfectly with that bursting moment so that you have the audio and the visual stimulation,” Martin told us.
• Though the sonic logo will serve as just one element of larger campaigns, Martin bets it’ll help Panera stand out.

Brands spend lots of money on ads. But sometimes (advertiser trigger warning), audiences don’t pay attention. Even for those who do vaguely remember the commercial they saw while they were checking their phone, they could easily misremember a Coke ad for a Pepsi one.

That’s a “painful reality,” Martin said, and one she’s hoping the new visuals, coupled with new audio assets, will help Panera avoid. It’ll “give us our best chance that, when we’re running an ad, if nothing else, you realize it’s Panera,” she said.

Read more about how Panera crafted a sound for itself here.—AM

Red or white? Cats or dogs? Friends or Seinfeld? WFH or office?

More than two years after the shift to remote work, we’re still debating that last one. Some of us get to choose, while others are at the whims of policies that are (maybe, maybe not) enforced.

Last week, we asked you what your current situation is. More than 1,700 Marketing Brew readers responded, and the majority said that they’re working from home in some capacity:

• 25% work from the office full-time
• 39% are living the hybrid life ‍
• 35% do their jobs remotely

Recent headlines suggest that lots of workers don’t really want any formal return to the office, even if there’s flexibility involved or if it is just for a few days a week.

If you are working from the office, hit Reply and let us know what you like and don’t like.

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

The ads are coming from inside the store: Retail media networks are the next big thing. Check out 12 executives driving it.

SEO: Use these four metrics next time you do a content audit.

Cookies: Because they aren’t dead yet. Here’s our guide to everything you need to know about the third-party cookie.

A+ marketing: After a quick study sesh with Sailthru’s latest guide, back-to-school marketers can build meaningful relationships and win the back-to-school marketing szn. Learn how to enhance consumer relationship marketing strategies right here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Consumer behaviors are rapidly changing. Join us for a can’t-miss discussion about how you should be navigating these major shifts in the digital landscape.

Watch the free on-demand webinar now.

Been holding out for your next marketing role? Now’s the time to go for it. Check out the Marketing Brew Job Board for new postings!

Today’s featured openings:

• Associate Branded Content Writer, Tech at Morning Brew
• Marketing Associate at Stout
• Senior Account Executive at Caliber Corporate Advisers

We are looking to chat with hiring managers and job posters—let us know if we can contact you here! You can also see more jobs or post your job opportunities here.

Stat: “Traffic to Twitter’s ad-buying portal dropped 10.5% year over year in June and 2% overall for Q2,” according to Similarweb.

Another stat: In a recent Meta internal employee survey, only 39% said they felt “optimistic about the company’s future.” and only “42% expressed ‘confidence in leadership.’” (The Verge)

Quote: “Coinbase does not list securities on its platform. Period,” wrote Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer. The SEC appears to disagree.

Watch: You probably saw Instagram’s Adam Mosseri responding to criticism that the app is changing too much. Here’s Morning Brew’s version.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• When an influencer couple breaks up, what happens to their brand deals?
• How a password-sharing crackdown might help boost ads on Netflix
• How General Mills used online clamor to fuel a Dunkaroos return.