Reload

Apologies in advance, but DWTS is officially taking over our personality (and possibly feed) for the foreseeable future 💀✨

Instagram has been getting a little confused about AI lately.

You can make a perfectly innocent edit, adjust the colouring on a photo, remove a rogue bin from the background and suddenly: ✨ AI info ✨

Meanwhile, genuinely AI-generated content can sometimes slip through without the same label. The bigger issue isn’t really the label itself. It’s that the line between AI-generated, AI-assisted and just... edited is getting increasingly fuzzy, and for brands, that distinction matters.

The more AI becomes part of the creative process, the more important transparency around that process becomes – because “made with AI” can mean a lot of different things. And right now, even Instagram isn’t always sure what it means.

Anyways, over to you Mosseri 👀

The most valuable UGC might be the stuff you never asked for 👀

If you missed the two Airlink jets flying very low over DHL Stadium before the Springboks vs All Blacks game last weekend, you probably didn’t miss the internet’s reaction to it.

The flyover has sparked plenty of debate, but from a marketing perspective, what’s particularly interesting is what happened next: people filmed it, shared it and turned it into memes – with someone even coding a Flappy Bird-style game based on the flyover, aptly named 'Flappy Link' ✈️

Airlink didn’t commission that game or brief the meme accounts. They created a moment, and the audience took it from there. Love it or hate it, the mark of a really successful activation is when it becomes bigger than branded content, letting the audience participate and effectively become the creative department.

• Traditional marketing is: brand → message → audience.
• Cultural marketing is a little messier: brand → moment → audience → remix → new audience → remix.

You can’t plan every step of that chain reaction. But you can create moments that are distinctive enough to give people something to play with, reinterpret and make their own.

We pride ourselves on hiring for pawsonality 🐾

So in honour of International Dog Day, we’re proud to introduce four of Reload’s most pawsonable employees and the team behind our Barketing department: Danny, Nutmeg, Spike and Yona.

Collectively, they bring decades of combined experience in yapping, disappearing, acquiring snacks and disrupting productivity. Their performance reviews remain mixed, but their contribution to company culture is undeniable 🤝🐕

Instagram has a new look – and naturally, the internet has thoughts 👀

After a decade of its iconic script wordmark, Instagram has introduced a refreshed identity designed to feel cleaner and more modern, while retaining the warmth and individuality at the heart of the brand. Alongside the new wordmark, the wider system introduces updated typography, motion and layouts, with a renewed focus on imperfect, human creativity – blurred images, light leaks and a little less pressure to make everything look perfect.

The timing feels particularly interesting. As AI-generated and hyper-polished content continues to fill our feeds, there’s growing appetite for things that feel a little more real, imperfect and human. Instagram itself describes the new direction as a “human-first, organic approach to sharing” – a nod to its roots as a place for ordinary people to share ordinary moments.

The redesign has already sparked debate among designers, with the new ‘r’ facing some serious “Instagzam” allegations. Whether you love it, hate it or can’t quite read it, one thing is certain: Instagram has got all 3 billion of its users talking.

What’s your verdict: a welcome return to something more human, or a step too far?

The creative industry didn't become what it is by standing still. It was shaped by people who questioned the norm, changed the conversation and redefined what creativity could be.

This South African Women’s Day, we’re celebrating some of the remarkable women whose ideas continue to shape advertising, marketing and design – while celebrating the women at Reload carrying that legacy forward.

This tribute was researched and compiled using publicly available sources, which are credited throughout. Cover artwork featured by Karin Luts 🎨

Sending warm wishes from the Southern Hemisphere... because that's all we've got 🥲

If you're still judging your content by likes and comments alone, you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg 👀

The loud stuff lives above the surface. The valuable stuff tends to happen behind the scenes: Saves, Shares, Dwell time, Video views, Link clicks, and Profile visits. These interactions rarely come with a notification, but often tell you far more about whether someone found your content genuinely useful.

Part of the reason is that most people aren't publicly engaging. The old 90-9-1 rule still largely holds true: 1% create, 9% visibly engage, and 90% quietly consume.

So what should you actually be looking at?
📥 Lots of saves → Your audience thinks it's worth coming back to
⏱️ High dwell time → People are actually reading instead of scrolling past
👀 Profile visits → Your content sparked curiosity

So next time a post doesn't rack up hundreds of likes, don't write it off just yet – it might just be doing its best work in silence 🤫

Fresh off the back of some collective emotional damage... here's this week's episode of things that almost happened 🥲

This week's lesson: if Bafana can silence the doubters, so can your unhinged idea 😌🇿🇦