Pinpoint's Red Flag, Green Flag series is a great example of why creative content formats are the new brand moat

Hey friends,

With more and more brands using AI to write those same generic top-of-funnel "What is X?" or “How to Y” blogs, it’s getting pretty pointless to do the same. Now more than ever, real value lies in the content that can’t be easily replicated – deep research, expert insights, and creative series.

This month's example from Pinpoint shows exactly how this can work in practice.

Plus, I also came across a book that went from selling 2-3 copies per year to 100,000 copies in 2024 – proving a nice reminder of how scarcity and mystery can be powerful in promotion.

Let's dive in.

This Month in Content Examples: Pinpoint's Red Flag, Green Flag LinkedIn video series

What they did:

Creative content series are having a moment – they're becoming one of the few ways to build a defensible brand moat in an era where AI can churn out generic ‘educational’ content at lightning speed.

Pinpoint’s Red Flag, Green Flag is a great example of this creative series thinking. It’s a distinctive, audience-aligned, ownable content format that's impossible to replicate without looking like a copy.

The Pinpoint team filmed talent acquisition professionals giving their ‘red flag or green flag’ reaction to common candidate scenarios – like "asks about salary in the first 5 minutes" for Lewis Wilson (TA Lead at Telefónica) or "refers to their team as 'work fam'" for Sam Sharmay (Head of Recruitment & Employer Brand at Penguin).

The result is a set of videos containing genuine and unscripted responses to common hiring scenarios – ranging from thoughtful analysis to visceral "big red flag" reactions.

They’re situations that Pinpoint’s audience can instantly relate to, and the comments make it clear that the discussions are resonating.

Why it works:

1. Audience-first edutainment that actually serves. This series hits the sweet spot of being offering educational insights into how others approach these challenges, whilst also being genuinely entertaining. It addresses daily frustrations, validates experiences, and provides tribal knowledge that only industry insiders would fully appreciate. It's the content equivalent of overhearing colleagues discussing work problems – immediately engaging because it's so relatable.

2. Human voices in an AI-saturated world. Whilst competitors churn out generic "5 Tips for Better Hiring" blog posts, Pinpoint is showcasing real practitioners sharing nuanced opinions, with authentic reactions that no AI tool could generate.

3. Smart distribution and relationship building. The videos were filmed at RecFest UK (a large-scale event for TAs) which means the Pinpoint team were able to leverage their audience already being in-person, build relationships through a fun activity rather than a sales-focused stall, and create natural content momentum through linking to the event. Plus, it’s an efficient use of time for a team that were already at a large, likely costly, event.

4. Earned brand integration. By demonstrating deep understanding of hiring complexities through the content, their tagline "the ATS that simplifies complex hiring" which shows at the end of every video starts to feel less like marketing speak, and more like the answer to those frustrating day-to-day scenarios that the video speaks to.

5. Strategic positioning beyond product features. This content does something most B2B marketing fails to achieve – it positions Pinpoint not as "another ATS with good features" but as the brand that genuinely understands the human reality of hiring. They're competing on empathy and industry insight, which builds a lot more brand warmth than functionality.

Hats off to the Pinpoint team for this one 👏 🎩

Looking for more inspiration? Head to the full library of content marketing examples we’ve explored through this newsletter.

This Month in My Content Swipe File

1. The new T-shaped marketer is independent and autonomous

Superpath's recent piece on how AI is evolving the T-shaped marketer highlights how marketers are about to become weirdly self-sufficient.

"Just a few years ago, getting time from a developer to make a small website change was a hassle. Now we each have a shop full of power tools."

The breadth axis now includes skills we were never expected to have – basic coding, design, data analysis. That doesn’t mean we all need to ditch content specialisms and become generalist marketers, but it does mean that we have the chance to finally be able to bring those half-formed creative ideas to life without waiting for other teams to make them a priority.

Read the full article →

2. Building content for wildly different expertise levels

I wrote a piece on climate tech marketing this month, and one frustration that kept coming up was the need to create content for both technical buyers with PhD-level knowledge on climate science, and stakeholders who don’t know the difference between ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘net zero’ and just want the business impact explained in two minutes.

This isn’t just true in climate tech – any product that has a sales cycle that includes multiple stakeholders has likely felt this pain of varying levels of subject knowledge.

Do you create the 101 content? Or head straight for the expert-level?

It’s tempting to go for "Goldilocks content" that's detailed enough for experts but simple enough for executives. But that satisfies nobody.

What actually works is accepting you need completely separate content streams – in climate tech that might look like technical deep-dives that build trust in your methodologies for Sustainability Leads, and executive summaries in a handy slide deck for CEO budget holders.

Read the full article →

3. HubSpot's creator podcast partnership strategy: co-creation and exclusive, long-term sponsorships

I finally cleared my podcast backlog this month and caught up on an April episode of Content Briefly featuring Carly Baker on HubSpot's podcast and YouTube network

HubSpot's Media Network does something clever – instead of fighting for ad slots, they partner with creators for exclusive, long-term podcast sponsorships on topics the creator actually cares about.

The bit that made me think "why isn't everyone doing this?" – instead of fighting for ad slots, they find creators who have a relevant audience, co-create a podcast with them that fits their niche, and have Hubspot as the exclusive, long-term sponsor (purely for positive brand association, the product is barely mentioned).

Creators get reliable income without losing creative control, whilst HubSpot gets airtime with no other brands mentioned. Rather than competing in crowded ad spaces, they're building their own creator ecosystem.

Listen to the full episode →

4. Elena Verna's framework for starting new roles: protect, optimise, bet, strategise

Elena Verna's recent newsletter on her first 90 days as Growth Lead at Lovable focuses on how to balance learning with delivering from day one. She breaks it down into four phases: protect what's working, find quick wins, tackle one big bet, then shape strategy.

At Lovable, this meant first figuring out why they were growing organically and protecting that, then fixing obvious issues with key pages and flows, (like making collaboration free so users could invite teammates without hitting paywalls) and finally planning bigger strategic moves (like building community or building a founder ecosystem).

Read the full post →

5. The AI writing structure that's now completely ruined: "It's not just X, it's Y"

Content strategist Bani Kaur made me go "oh god, YES" with a recent post on her view that AI tools have now completely killed the "it's not just X, it's Y" structure for her.

I've started noticing this everywhere, and those opening hooks that used to feel punchy now scream ChatGPT from the rooftops.

If your writing sounds like it could've come from an AI tool, it probably won't cut through anymore – so it’s time to reflect on those go-to structures we all lean on, use them sparingly, and find fresher ways to make our points.

Read the original LinkedIn post →

6. Exit Five's virtual event production insights: make it feel like an experience, not a meeting

I've sat through enough terrible virtual events in my time, so when Exit Five wrote about their approach to running virtual events this month, I clicked instantly.

Their philosophy: "Most meetings aren't special. And your event needs to be."

They treat virtual events like an experience, not another meeting – branded intros, smooth transitions, coffee break codes for the first 50 people, strategic giveaways tied to specific content rather than random swag.

Read the full article →

This Month in Off-the-clock Content: lessons on scarcity from the novel 'I Who Have Never Known Men'

I read "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman this month after my partner was recommended it via Kindle store, and raved about how much he loved it and how weird it was that it wasn’t a better-known book.

The book is a dystopian novel about 40 women imprisoned underground in cages, watched by silent guards who never explain why they're there. The narrator is the youngest woman who has never known life outside, unlike the others who remember the "before times." It's haunting and beautiful, but what makes it particularly fascinating is that it never explains anything – we learn a few more tit bits of information as the women escape their bunker after the guards flee, but the fundamental questions like why were they imprisoned? Where are they? What was the purpose of it all? are never answered.

All those unanswered questions are exactly what made the perfect foundations for the book to go viral on ‘BookTok’ in 2024. The content was all about theories, interpretations, and people trying to figure out what it all meant. That mystery became the marketing, as viewers became intrigued and bought 100,000 copies in 2024 alone.

Originally published in 1995, it barely sold for decades. Wrong timing, small press, and back then the ambiguous, unexplained elements might have worked against it – readers wanted to know what they were getting into. But those same mysterious qualities are precisely what made it irresistible in the context of social media 25 years later.

The lesson for content marketers? There's something interesting about how 25 years of scarcity made it feel more valuable when it finally reappeared. And how content that leaves questions unanswered often travels further than content that explains everything upfront.

That's a wrap for this edition!

What content has caught your attention this month? Hit reply and let me know – I'm perpetually adding to my swipe file and I’d love to hear what you’re adding to yours.

Speak soon, Tabitha

P.S. If you found this useful, please share it with a fellow content marketer. Word of mouth is how we grow this little community 🫶.