Bull Market
For anyone worried artificial intelligence is making it too easy to create polished, professional-looking content, we have some good news:
One of the hottest movies in China looks terrible.
Like…really terrible.
Niu Lai (The Bull Comes) is an animated film created by an amateur animator and his mother over several years, reportedly for less than $5,000.
The dialogue is…slow. The animation style is…rough. The marketing campaign was…non-existent.
When the film arrived in theaters earlier this month, audiences responded accordingly:
They ignored it.
Like, “earned barely $1,000 during its first week”-ignored it.
But the 100ish people who saw the film must have felt like they were witnessing something special. And before you could say “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA! ,” word of just how bad Niu Lai was started to spread.
People began paying full price, in theaters, in 2026, to see whether Niu Lai could possibly be as strange as everyone claimed.
As of Thursday, it had earned more than $4 million
, placing immediately behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day in China’s daily box-office rankings.
There are now toys. Costumes. Fan art. Some theaters that didn’t have official promotional materials simply drew their own posters.
The general takeaway? Polish and connection are not the same thing. And that matters.
We talk a lot about authenticity being the new currency, especially in the AI-era.
Creating something that looks professional has never been easier.
AI can write the blog post. Generate the image. Produce the video. Clean up the website copy.
Which means the things underneath the polish matter even more.
Your specific perspective matters. Your taste matters. Your weird story about your obsession with Obsession matters.
The fact that you coach softball, hate people who don’t return shopping carts, make the same chili every September, or once completely misread what a witness was going to say matters.
Because those are the things that reveal your authenticity; they’re the maker’s mark human work leaves behind
Too often, businesses begin creating content and immediately sand those pieces away. They want to sound more professional. More polished. And (inevitably) more like everyone else.
Niu Lai is almost certainly an aberration. It’s rare to spend the equivalent of $200 and rake in $4 million.
But you can create something recognizably yours.
As polished content becomes increasingly cheap, the imperfect little details that make you sound human will become increasingly valuable.
Don’t be afraid to draw your own poster, or make something you love with your mom.
Four Quick Email Ideas: Coyote vs. ACME Edition
Here are four emails you can write ahead of the August 28, release of Coyote vs. ACME, where Wile E. Coyote finally gets his day in court.
Product Liability
Everyone’s favorite coyote has spent decades purchasing products that explode, collapse, reverse direction, or otherwise fail spectacularly. It’s usually played for laughs, but most cases involving faulty products aren’t funny at all. What’s a memorable case you’ve handled involving a defective or unexpectedly dangerous product? Where’s the line between a defective product and a customer who has ignored every conceivable safety precaution because he’s determined to murder a bird?
Wile E. Coyote, Genius
That’s actually how he once introduced himself.
Sometimes a little confidence is all you need (you won’t fall over a cliff if you just keep running and don’t look down, right?). Credentials and expertise matter, but neither makes anyone infallible. When did being “the expert” fail to prevent you from making a mistake? What’s something your younger self thought you understood completely that experience eventually taught you otherwise?
The Billboard Lawyer
In the movie (at least if the trailer is to be believed), Wile E. Coyote finds his attorney (a clearly game Will Forte) on a billboard, which may be the most realistic part of the movie. But what are the pitfalls (cliff falls?) associated with selecting representation by choosing whoever you see staring down at you from a sign on the road? Have you ever asked a client why they hired you and received an answer that surprised you? What part of your marketing do you think matters most—and what do clients actually remember?
The Movie That Wouldn’t Die
The journey this movie took to theaters is actually a pretty interesting story in and of itself. Warner Bros. finished Coyote vs. Acme, shelved it, and at one point appeared ready to ensure nobody ever saw it. Now it’s finally reaching theaters. What’s a case, opportunity, or idea everyone had given up on that you managed to revive? When has persistence paid off long after something was written off?
Why We Go Live
We’re gonna level with you here: We could just record it.
Plan everything. Record a few takes. Do it podcast style where we edit out the awkward pauses. Remove anything stupid. Make sure nobody’s child wanders in during an important discussion.
And yet, this Wednesday, August 26, we’re doing another Red Kraken Creative Live Webinar.
The operative word is live.
Because if all we wanted to do was tell you what we think about email marketing, content development, and how to convert your contact list into a powerful referral source, the conversation probably could have been an email.
You’re reading one right now.
The reason we do these sessions live is because your questions make them better.
“Email your list every week” is useful advice.
But what if your list hasn’t heard from you in three years?
What if half the names came from a lead magnet and a personal relationship isn’t baked in?
What if you’re a criminal defense attorney whose former clients would prefer to forget why they know you?
What if you hate talking about yourself?
What if you love talking about yourself so much that someone really needs to stop you?
RKC co-founder Charley Mann and Creative Director Jeff Ashworth will be together Wednesday at 2pm EST for another free-wheeling conversation about legal marketing, content ideation, and the work of staying connected to the people who (mostly) already know who you are.
We’ll bring some ideas.
But you should bring a problem.
Maybe we’ll have a solution to it. Maybe someone else attending will. Maybe one of our kids will burst into the room mid-sentence with an idea of their own.
And even if we don’t have an immediate answer to your question, the act of hearing it can send the whole conversation careening somewhere far more interesting than whatever we planned.
That’s the whole point!
If you’d like to join us Wednesday, at 2pm EST. Save your seat here.
And if you come, don’t just lurk in the shallow end. Bring us something we can dive into.