How One Fish Sticker Turned a Gallery Wall Into the Most Honest Ad of the Year
Have you ever stood in front of a gallery wall and felt like the art was quietly judging you? Not because it was profound, but because it smelled faintly like clever branding. That was me two weeks ago at the dead-end hallway of a converted shipping container in Lower Hutt, staring into the glossy eyes of a fish.
It wasn’t an actual fish, mind you. It was a sticker. About the size of a playing card. Slapped on the frame of a painting of something irrelevant (maybe potatoes?). The fish had a smug little grin and a line underneath it that read, ‘Find Me Again.’ No handle, no QR code, no brand name. Just that cryptic call to action. I spent the rest of the night looking for a second fish. I didn’t find one. But I did start noticing how few ads ever trust us to participate like that anymore.
Here's the thing: mystery has muscle. And right now, marketers are obsessed with clarity, perfectly-controlled journeys, and trackable click-throughs. It’s the equivalent of those flat-pack bookshelves that come with 16 pages of instructions and still end up wobbly. ‘Find Me Again’ slapped me in the face with its confidence. It didn’t beg for attention, it whispered for intrigue. And that tiny whisper took up more space in my brain than any full-page ad in the Sunday paper ever could.
I don’t know who made the sticker. I still haven’t solved the ‘campaign.’ But it's brilliant. It stretched beyond design, beyond strategy, beyond platform. This wasn’t performance marketing, this was performance art. I’m calling it: 2026’s most underrated trend is non-linear branding. The glitch in the conventional funnel. Not a brand saying ‘Look at me’, but a fish daring you to chase it. And somehow, I’m still swimming.
It wasn’t an actual fish, mind you. It was a sticker. About the size of a playing card. Slapped on the frame of a painting of something irrelevant (maybe potatoes?). The fish had a smug little grin and a line underneath it that read, ‘Find Me Again.’ No handle, no QR code, no brand name. Just that cryptic call to action. I spent the rest of the night looking for a second fish. I didn’t find one. But I did start noticing how few ads ever trust us to participate like that anymore.
Here's the thing: mystery has muscle. And right now, marketers are obsessed with clarity, perfectly-controlled journeys, and trackable click-throughs. It’s the equivalent of those flat-pack bookshelves that come with 16 pages of instructions and still end up wobbly. ‘Find Me Again’ slapped me in the face with its confidence. It didn’t beg for attention, it whispered for intrigue. And that tiny whisper took up more space in my brain than any full-page ad in the Sunday paper ever could.
I don’t know who made the sticker. I still haven’t solved the ‘campaign.’ But it's brilliant. It stretched beyond design, beyond strategy, beyond platform. This wasn’t performance marketing, this was performance art. I’m calling it: 2026’s most underrated trend is non-linear branding. The glitch in the conventional funnel. Not a brand saying ‘Look at me’, but a fish daring you to chase it. And somehow, I’m still swimming.