TWIS: To the person who invented 0, thanks for nothing

Hi Strat Pack,

I got back from L.A. this weekend and maybe I'm still in a travel mood, which would explain why I'm so obsessed with the Conde Nast Traveller article, "How Color Affects You When You Travel". It breaks down how each color can enhance your sensory experience, and where to seek it out.

Lots of stuff to cover this week, but before we get down to business...this 30 second Clickhole Instagram video is the most honest assessment of the publishing industry I may have ever seen.

Alright, stop messing around on Google Flights. Let's jump right in.

The one thing to read this week
1) Strategy needs good words [Martin Weigel - Canalside View]
¡¡¡Hot Take Alert!!! I love this article so much.

Strategy is narrative. At the end of the day, strategy is the art of getting other people to do something. Whether expressed as conversation, brief, or presentation, strategy is meaningless and powerless without words.

If you can’t put your strategy into words others cannot follow.

Giving you a Reader's Digest version of this wouldn't do it justice. If you work in advertising (and you do), this is a must read. Do not open this as a tab in your browser to read later. Read it now.

Here's the opening paragraph which I hope will pique your interest enough to read the whole thing:

This isn’t about storytelling in advertising. I fucking hate the lazy, self-regarding industry rhetoric about storytelling. I fucking hate all that waffle about storytellers and their caves and campfires, the invocation of unnamed ‘ancient storytellers’, and being told that to arouse emotions and change behaviours advertising ‘must’ tell stories. A gorilla limbers up and starts playing drums. Coloured balls roll down a hill. A man tells us we could smell like him. Gerbils are shot out of a cannon. A fat kid runs down an empty road. A puppy steals a toilet roll. A bronzed man walks down a beach in Speedos. Martians laugh at humans. A man hurtles through the air in a wing suit. Things get distorted when seen through a bottle. A meerkat talks to camera. Young people gather on a hill and sing. Sofas, kitchens, and carpets are offered at low, low prices. An offer must end. If you think that any of this is a story, you need to think, as Andy Nairn has suggested, very long and very hard about the basic ingredients of a good yarn, before telling the world that we spin them for a living. No, this isn’t about fucking storytelling in advertising. It’s about something much more important.

2) The stupidity of sameness and the value of difference [BBH Labs]
Why should you click through to this one? Two reasons: 1. A great leave-behind deck (an article with a leave behind? Incredible!) 2. Like 15 great stats that will help you sell this argument in to your clients.

The case for distinctiveness AND differentiation. Very smart article written by Tom Roach, Head of Effectiveness at BBH London. As you might remember, I wrote a much less smart article about the importance of distinctiveness only a few weeks ago...

There’s a growing ‘sea of sameness’ out there, and the sea levels seem to be rising.

Seeing differentiation and distinctiveness as unrelated, alternative strategies rather than potentially complementary ones means we may be missing out on deploying the full power of difference at a crucial time: a time when both differentiation and distinctiveness have never been less evident in actual marketing practice.

Whatever the reasons for the decline in the pursuit of difference, rather than arguing about the relative importance of differentiation vs distinctiveness, let’s aim our fire at an enemy that should unite us all: sameness.

BONUS ARTICLE: Mark Ritson: Distinctiveness doesn’t need to come at the cost of differentiation [Marketing Week] Look, I generally am a huge fan of Ritson but I'm including this because it proves Tom Roach's contention that we're all becoming a sea of sameness basically by only regurgitating his article.

3) The 2019 Drunk Shopping Census [The Hustle]
Sure you've probably seen the headlines, but did you read the article? There are some real gems in here.

Drunk shopping is an estimated $45B per year industry in the US alone. A few key findings:

79% of alcohol consumers have made at least one drunk purchase
$444: Average annual spend per drunk shopper
Clothing and shoes are the most common drunk purchase
Amazon is the drunk shopping platform of choice

There are so many great charts in this article. Please click through!

4) True Detective: How Bullshit Becomes A Fact [Ad Contrarian]

There is so much bullshit in our business that sometimes you have to wonder where it all comes from. The Ad Contrarian decided to "peel back the bullshit" and see if he could reconstruct how something that was completely wrong wound up being represented as a fact in reputable publications like Forbes and The Drum.

BONUS ARTICLE: You might have heard a stat from a few years ago that we now have attention spans shorter than goldfish. There were dozens of articles in well-respected publications like Time, Huff Post, etc. I tried to use that stat in a white paper, until the global CEO my agency saw it, circled it and asked me if I was a lunatic for believing that. The BBC has a really good article on the goldfish myth and getting to the bottom of it

5) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.

ANA: brand trust in agencies continues to erode [Warc] A study conducted by the Association of National Advertisers revealed that only 29% of marketers ranked the current level of trust with advertising agencies as “high.”
Dentsu Aegis Network CEO Calls Ad Industry ‘a Bit of a Mess’ at 4A’s Event [Adweek] Related.
Mastercard's Raja Rajamannar on what being a 'global' marketer really means [The Drum]
Experian's two-year-old in-house agency helps launch major credit-building tool [Campaign Live]
What's In Forever 21's USPS Fashion Line? It’s Postal Service Athleisure [Bustle] This article is here and not in the great work section because, while it is certainly not great work, it is interesting.

6) Department of Great Work
Another week of great work! Keep it up, guys!

These Dunkin’ donut-inspired Saucony sneakers might be the best-ever fast food-footwear collaboration [FastCompany] Made for the Boston Marathon, this latest collaboration is a near perfect match between a city and one of its hometown brands. Take that, USPS!
OkCupid badges help 'Game of Thrones' fans find a date [Mobile Marketer] It's getting easier to keep track of the brands that aren't doing a Game of Thrones partnership...
McDonald’s Items Are So Iconic That It Put Blurry Images of Them on Billboards [Little Black Book] Smart. From TBWA\San Juan
This Condom Pack Only Opens When Both People Consent to Sex [Little Black Book] BBDO Argentina promoting respect & consent in sexual relationships.
Dove & Getty Images debut inclusive photo library to help industry depict women as they really are [Creativity-Online] Project #ShowUs Initiative alongside Girlgaze calls on media and advertising to portray females with authenticity. Getty doing some really smart work recently.

7) Platform updates
Until Apple tells me how much that new streaming service is going to cost, I'm not writing about it. Let's see what else is happening

Pinterest Seasonal Insights Planner 2019 [Pinterest] I don't know how I haven't sent this out yet. Super functional snapshot of major moments on Pinterest.
YouTube Makes Up 37% of Mobile Web Traffic Worldwide [Search Engine Journal] Facebook is #2 with 8.4% of traffic
Unilever adds 'more rigour' to online ad buying with strictly vetted publisher network [Marketing Dive]
Facebook Announces New Ban on White Nationalist Discussion on its Platforms [Social Media Today] Finally? Better late than never? or maybe it's too late because...
Facebook’s US user base declined by 15 million since 2017, according to survey [The Verge] At least Instagram is booming...
Snapchat’s US Ad Business Will Soldier on, Growing 24.3% This Year [eMarketer] Snapchat! Remaining relevant!
Reddit to Cross $100 Million in Ad Revenues in 2019 [eMarketer] That's a 55% increase over last year.
Facebook's privacy move: major pivot or headfake? [Digital Journal]
Related: Why Is Facebook’s Encrypted Messaging Plan Roiling the Company? [The Information] Among the issues with encryption are engineering headaches and the challenge of monitoring the content of messages for illegal conduct.
Apple’s New Credit Card Reminds People Of Fyre Festival’s ‘Magnises’ Card [DesignTaxi] lol.
Netflix's Next Interactive Series ‘You vs. Wild’ Starring Bear Grylls [Variety]

Now that's a full email. Thanks for sticking around as always. Have a great weekend!