This Week in Strategy: My boss said, “I find it highly suspicious that you are only sick on weekdays.” I replied, “It must be my weekend immune system!”
Hi Strat Pack,
Look, I need to come clean with you. I did not watch the presidential debates last night. I did already vote. I hope you do too. If you did watch the debates, please let me know how they were. Or don’t!
Speaking of uncivilized, I found this absolutely fascinating collection of swear maps by Jack Grieve, lecturer in forensic linguistics at Aston University in Birmingham, UK. Grieve has created a detailed set of maps of the US showing strong regional patterns of swearing preferences. The maps are based on an 8.9-billion-word corpus of geo-coded tweets.
Hell, damn and bitch are especially popular in the south and southeast. Douche is relatively common in northern states. Bastard is beloved in Maine and New Hampshire, and those states – together with a band across southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas – are the areas of particular motherfucker favour. Crap is more popular inland, fuck along the coasts. Fuckboy – a rising star* – is also mainly a coastal thing, so far. [ED Note: this original data set is from 2014, I would imagine Fuckboy, and it's after-dark cousin Fuccboi have made significant progress since then]
A few of my choice maps (red is higher frequency, blue is lower):
Want more maps? Here's a link to the original data set: Mapping the United Swears of America
And here's the sequel: Sweary maps 2: Swear harder
Before we jump in, I just have to share this little tidbit I found online the other day: Kate Winslet Keeps Her Oscar in the Bathroom
Why? I'm glad you asked. She made a very compelling argument as to why that’s the best place for the award. “The whole point is for everybody to pick it up and go, ‘I’d like to thank my son and my dad’—and you can always tell when someone has, because they’re in there a little bit longer after they flushed,” Winslet said. “They’ll come out looking slightly pink-cheeked. It’s hysterical.” I love it. it's so human. It must be so much fun to be Kate Winslet.
This week I'm trying something a little different. There's a ton of Great Work platform updates this week, so I'm shortening the number of articles I'm including because I know that nobody really scrolls down that far when my emails get too long. What do you think? Do you prefer this? Want me to go back to the old version? Let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and hit the bell for notifications.
Alright, stop messing around trying to figure out if I'm starting my own YouTube channel. Let's jump right in.
1) Memos from the Department of Common Sense [Blokewriter]
If your Creative Brief won’t fit on one page, it isn’t brief enough.
How long does it take for a creative to come up with a great idea? 5 seconds? 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 days? Exactly. No one knows. So please stop obsessing over timesheets.
Clear direction and a little space to think is still the best way to get great work out of a creative team.
You will never hear of Blockchain again.
There is not a single ad person over 50 who doesn’t “get” social.
A banner ad is just an outdoor board at the top of a web page.
Let’s use radio more, damn it!
One day we’ll look back on the Influencer Marketing fad and have a good chuckle to ourselves.
Dig deep. It increases your chances of creating work that no one’s seen before by 100%.
Experiential is like VAR in football: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
If you don’t have the talent to put something back together again, please refrain from tearing it down.
The quality of an ad is inversely proportionate to the number of people needed to approve it.
“Cheap, good and fast – pick two” isn’t dead. It’s not even unwell.
Instead of letting legal find reasons why something can’t be said or done, how about we ask them to find reasons why it can?
No one ever saved themselves to success.
Brand Purpose will be dead in the water as soon as the adults get back from lunch.
If the client rejects the work 3 times, the problem’s not the work. It’s the brief.
The appeal of Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the great mysteries of modern marketing.
There is strong evidence to suggest that there just as many good creatives on outside looking in as there are on the inside looking out.
Agile training teaches managers how to run a project from start to finish. Shouldn’t they know this already?
No good ever came of focus groups.
Data may be able to deliver an ad in the right place at the right time, but without a good idea, it’s worth diddly squat.
An inclusive company culture goes wide and deep. Sadly, most are narrow and shallow.
In any downsizing or layoff, the people who really need to be canned are seldom the ones that are.
Car ads will start getting better any day now.
2) Companies worldwide commit to brand investment despite COVID-19 pandemic [IPA]
More than 60% of global companies remain committed to investing in their brand despite the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new IPA/Financial Times study, the Board-Brand Rift 2020.
Here are some interesting data points from the study:
68% of respondents say business resilience has become more important as a result of COVID-19. It now ranks as the top business priority; in 2019 it was 4th out of 8.
40% say commercial decision making is more short term and 36% say marketing decisions are more short term as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The data points to large differences between marketers and non-marketers when it comes to involvement in investment plans, suggesting marketers do not have a seat at the table when it comes to corporate financial decision-making.
Brand strength is becoming more important as product discovery moves online. 71% of respondents say it is key to online purchase decisions vs 61% who see it as a priority for offline sales.
3) Department of Great Work
adam&eve DDB Creates Horror Movie for Cats Inspired by Their Fear of Everyday Objects [Little Black Book] Guys. This is insane and I love it. Mars Petcare brand TEMPTATIONS along with creative agency adam&eveDDB, worked with the Waltham Petcare Science Institute, to enhance the movie with specific sound frequencies that would capture cats' attention. The result is a short film truly designed for cats – and it seems to have done the trick. "If you're a cat lover, there's a good chance you've gone down the rabbit hole of internet videos of cats jumping in fear at the sight of a cucumber," said Craig Neely, vice president of marketing at Mars Petcare. "Those very entertaining clips were the inspiration behind 'Scaredy Cat.' We expanded on that insight and turned cats' fear of these seemingly ordinary vegetables into a tongue-in-cheek horror movie for cats and their owners to enjoy together during the Halloween season."
Bruce Willis Reprises John McClane Role in Epic DieHard Battery Commercial [Hollywood Reporter] Yippee-ki-yay #$@%. He's back. Some internet commenters have actually said Advance Auto Parts' ad surpasses the last Die Hard movie in terms of quality, but let's be very clear, this is A Good Day to Die Hard John McClane, not Die Hard 1 John McClane. I love it because it's full of nostalgia (the limo driver and bad guy tech guru reprise their role) and because of the balls of the creative team to actually sell this in: "Guys! let's do Die Hard the movie for DieHard the battery. Get it?! Bruce Wills would be so great in this commercial OMG" Because that's 100% the pitch to the ECD. Bravo. From The Marketing Arm
Families Dress Up as Music Stars in Spotify's Fun New Campaign [Muse by Clio] With Halloween creeping in, Spotify has dressed up fictional family members as iconic musicians in a series of adorable adverts to promote its Premium Family Plan and children’s app. The campaign stemmed from Spotify research that showed 90 percent of families listen to music together weekly, while 77 percent of parents believe tunes help them connect more than ever with their kids and other close relations. Single minded, and really effective, these ads really stick the landing in :06s and :15s as well as a :60 anthem spot. From 72andSunny
New Ad Supporting USPS Addresses Election Chicanery by Revising Iconic Motto [AdWeek] Reimagining the postal workers’ creed (neither rain nor sleep, nor dark of night, et al.) for 2020, the original words are vastly expanded in an ad from Ogilvy Chicago supporting The People’s Postal Rescue Campaign, an organization dedicated to saving and evolving the services of the USPS. “We wanted to encourage Americans to support the USPS and the men and women who work tirelessly to deliver our mail, no matter the conditions. Its future truly depends on us,” said Samantha Gorelik, creative director at Ogilvy Chicago. Nice.
Is this the bleakest McDonald's Ad Ever? [B&T Australia] Commenting on the work, McDonald’s UK marketing and food director Steven Howells said: “In a challenging year, little treats and acts of kindness have increased sentimental value. McDonald’s remains a dependable anchor for food quality and value, as well as providing feel good moments for our customers. We wanted to show that at McDonald’s you don’t need to spend much to get something that means a lot.” Called ‘The gift”, the ad’s the work of incumbent creative agency Leo Burnett and shows a young man inheriting a crappy car from his mother for his birthday. It’s quite gritty, kinda bleak, but for some reason it works and the message certainly resonates. My only complaint is that it's a :60 and very narratively driven and who is going to watch that beside advertising people. But alas I digress...
Rolls-Royce Asked Children to Design Their Dream Cars. Then It Turned The Results Into Real Renderings. [Robb Report] At the peak of pandemic anguish in April, Rolls-Royce launched a Young Designer Competition to give children a chance to escape into the deep recesses of their imagination and draw their dream car. Now, the marque has announced the winning designs and turned them into digitally rendered illustrations that are nothing short of remarkable.Each winning design was transformed into render form by the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Design Team, using the same software and processes as they would with a ‘real’ Rolls. The four category winners, who hail from China, Japan, France and Hungary, will also enjoy a chauffeured trip to school with their bestie in a Rolls-Royce, of course. Check out the winning designs. They are incredible.
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit’s multiplayer is expensive and chaotic [The Verge] Nintendo is about to release a new Mario Kart game for the Switch, featuring AR and your living room as the race track. Check out this Bloomberg Quick Take video and get as excited as me for this game. Mario Kart has always been a game about mayhem. Throw together two remote-controlled cars in a pile of plastic and cardboard, and that’s amplified even more; I can only imagine how wild things get with three or four karts. (It also makes a great spectator experience, as those not playing can watch the tiny cars zipping around and help repair the track mid-race.) I want this so bad.
4) Platform Updates
Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg 'told employees to listen to song from kids movie Trolls to lift their spirits' while telling them the $1.75B short-video startup would shutter and put them out of work [Daily Mail] Ugh I know the Daily Mail. But this headline just nails it. What a bunch of absolute fucking idiots in management. Fuck Katzenberg and his kabal--it's not the 90s anymore! They took two billion of other people's dollars and made every dumb decision possible with it. A content company failing in a pandemic where we are so desperate for new content. And what a fucking asshole telling people to play a song to feel better as you're firing them. Good riddance to an ill-conceived product dreamed up by over-the-hill "masters of the universe" who could not have misread the market more. They didn't last much longer than a Quibi themselves. Decent ads though...
Google, You Can’t Buy Your Way Out of This [New York Times] (Ed note: An earlier version of this article had the much pithier headline: The Long Antitrust Winter Is Over. A/B testing is very alive and well in publishing and it's sad to see they still sacrifice cleverness for clickbait) The antitrust suit against Google marks the return of the U.S. government to a role that many of us long feared it had abandoned: disciplining the country’s largest and most powerful monopolies. President Theodore Roosevelt best explained the role played by antitrust law after his Justice Department filed suit in 1902 against the Northern Securities Company, formed by J.P. Morgan and others. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that “the absolutely vital question” was whether “the government has the power to control the trusts.” As he had said earlier in a speech, the “immense power” of aggregated wealth “can be met only by the still greater power of the people as a whole.”
Snap shares jump 23% as Snapchat user growth and revenue beat estimates [VentureBeat] Yeah, Snap is having a pretty good year. But they're still losing money! Snap’s net loss narrowed to $199.8 million, or 14 cents per share, from $227.37 million, or 16 cents per share, a year earlier.
Oh yeah and Instagram updated their Messenger but I haven't actually done that yet--or googled it, so if you could explain what that's about I'd really appreciate it.
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