Mister Rogers marketing

As feeds get more hostile, users will crave kind content.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a social media post memorable. Why do some posts leave me the second I scroll away? While others stay lodged in my brain to be referenced in a conversation years later?

To play out the exercise, I wrote down a brain dump of brand posts that have stayed with me.

There was this powerful Nurses Week video from FIGS. I somehow recalled a 2023 video from influencer Mikayla Nogueira, where Rare Beauty gifted her a video of her friends and family saying why she’s a positive light. From left field came a post from Duolingo and Scrub Daddy where they have a “baby”. Elmo tweeting “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?”. A 92-year-old grandpa named Norman getting gifting from V8 in 2024. Denny’s tweeting “the trough is open piggies”. This beautiful post that Willy Chavarria was shared yesterday but already feels permanent.

Of course, I’m not a perfect test subject. I write a newsletter about social media, which means I think about the posts I see more than the average consumer. Still, there was a clear pattern. Most posts that stuck made me really feel something. Sometimes it was shock (looking at you, Denny’s tweet), but more often than not it was because the post struck an emotional chord through joy or beauty or hope.

“Emotion acts like a highlighter that emphasizes certain aspects of experiences to make them more memorable,” writes Psychology Today. The thing is, there are a wide range of emotions the average human feels—and brands get to choose which ones they tap into. Shock is a popular choice. We see a certain gym do it every January. This administration daily. Brands gift over-the-top trips and products. The algorithms are even programmed to favor it. Social listening tools can detect “negative sentiment”, but have a harder time picking up on eye rolls and loud groans.

The real, and sometimes harder, opportunity is for your post or campaign to simply make people feel good. As feeds get more hostile and confusing to navigate, consumers will have a lower tolerance for rage bait and trickery. In response, brands should optimize for kindness.

In today’s newsletter I am exploring what I am calling “Mister Rogers marketing”. Posts that sink in, make you wonder, leave you hopeful. Here is what’s inside:

• I talked to Topgolf about turning a customer comment into a campaign

• How I define Mister Rogers marketing

• Brand examples across industries

• @worldbycharlie on why slow stands out

• Five feel-good post ideas

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How Topgolf turned a comment into a campaign

On December 27th, user @810ladyboss posted a TikTok of the net falling at the Topgolf’s Auburn Hills location. Someone named Logan Phillips commented “They better have that fixed by January 9th my work Christmas party is there”. That comment currently sits at over 300K likes. Nili Kamolidinova, Social Media Manager at Topgolf, tells me over email, “As we saw the comment garner more and more likes, we knew this was something the internet had collectively decided to care about and an opportunity for us to join in on the fun.” The brand then turned the inside joke into various viral posts, tracking the progress of the net and ultimately throwing an epic Christmas party for Logan.

It feels important to say that most brands would have likely responded to the comment and moved on. Instead, Topgolf saw it as an opportunity to show just how much they value their customers, who they call “players”. Nili says, “We made the conscious decision to make it about the player, Logan, and not about us. We chose to lean into the collective energy the internet was creating around his party to ensure Logan and his company party felt genuinely special, which is what we strive for with every event in our venues.”

As part of this impromptu campaign, they released a promotional code “4LOGAN” for half-off golf all day at all venues on the day of Logan’s party. Nili tells me it was their most successful promo code redemption campaign to date leveraging organic social media as the only channel. She says, “Venues displayed ‘4Logan’ signage in the lobbies to greet Players, creating a shareable photo opportunity. It really showed how a local story at Auburn Hills could become a national celebration.” The joy of making one player’s day is contagious.

Finally, when I asked Nili what advice she’d give to other brands that might find themselves in a similar situation, she gave me what I’d consider a playbook. I’m publishing her response in full below:

The biggest lesson is that authenticity can’t be manufactured, but it can absolutely be amplified when you recognize it. We didn’t create Logan’s moment, the internet did, but we took the opportunity to show up genuinely and add value to the story that was already being written. Sometimes the internet hands you the idea and your job as a social media manager is to make sure you don’t fumble it.

For other brands looking to capitalize in a similar way, I recommend having the systems in place that allow you to move quickly. This campaign worked because we could make decisions fast and execute immediately. Second, make it about your community, not about you. We could have easily made this about Topgolf being the hero, but instead we made Logan and the internet community the heroes of the story.

Third, commit fully. This allowed us to really lean into the viral moment. We posted multiple videos, created promotions, documented the entire journey, and even included side characters like Tony. That level of commitment is what turned a single comment into a weeks-long campaign.

Through this process, we saw a lot of success. We gained over 40K new TikTok followers, achieved a 20.19% engagement rate with 4.1M+ engagements, reached an average of 1.38M people, and generated over 27.83M impressions. We even had other brands like AT&T, Oreo, Slim Jim, and Sweetgreen joining the conversation on social, and even garnered 19M press coverage impressions on the story.

And most importantly, it provided an authentic moment to remind people why they love coming to Topgolf. Our brand ethos is about making their moments special through genuine care. The internet is looking for brands that feel human. When you show up authentically in these unscripted moments, people respond because they can feel the difference.

What is Mister Rogers marketing

I tell that Topgolf story as an illustration of what kindness in marketing can look like in practice. When I published my 2026 social media ins and outs list, I wrote that Mister Rogers-style content was “in”. I got a lot of comments agreeing—and a few that made me feel old by asking “Who is Mister Rogers?” The children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood hosted by Fred Rogers aired for over 30 years. Each episode, gently guiding the audience through a life lesson. Mister Rogers approached his viewers with an assumption of intelligence and depth, even if they were five years old.

In the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Fred Rogers talks about the powerful new medium of the television and his frustration that it was being used for “people throwing pies at one another”. He saw it as his responsibility to use that power for good. The parallels to social media today are clear.

Mister Rogers marketing takes the values of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and applies them to the work we do online. Here’s how I define it.