This Week in Strategy: What did the left eye say to the right eye? "Between you and me, something smells."

Hi Strat Pack,

Oh what a week it has been. It snowed in New York! The FDA advisory panel gave a big ole thumbs up to approve the Pfizer vaccine! The SpaceX test launch ended in fiery explosion, but Elon Musk still considers it a win!

In sad aerospace news, Chuck Yeager died last week. The man was a bonafide national treasure. There are a lot of things to admire about the man, but my favorite comes from Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Wolfe makes the case that nearly every pilot in America, whether knowing it or not, is imitating Chuck Yeager, the test pilot who broke the speed of sound. The cool of that voice, twangy and calm amid catastrophe — “We’ve got a little ol’ red light up here on the control panel that’s tryin’ to tell us that the landin’ gears’re not … uh … lockin’ into position when we lower ‘em. …” — was imitated by pilots who imitated other pilots until it turned up on the P.A. of your turbulence-tossed flight to LAX.

That’s culture: people copying people they don’t even know they’re copying.

The other day, I went down a little wikipedia rabbit hole on the history of Bell Telephone, the erstwhile progenitor of my employer (and very possibly also your employer), Verizon. This rabbithole ended at www.bell.com which is, um, sad. It's definitely Space Jam vintage, and even includes a little Flash Game (which you should play before Adobe officially deprecates flash...checks notes...this month). It appears the site only exists to protect the Bell trademarks and copyrights. What a sad ending for a company that dominated every phone call in the United States for over 100 years. Then again, it's still doing better than the Lehman Brothers site....

Last thing before we jump into this week. PLEASE watch this RC Cola spot from the Philippines. It's entitled: Nyahahakbkxjbcjhishdishlsab@!!!! Basta RC Cola! (exclamation point theirs). This is a real ad that really exists, look at the account that posted it. It's....well it's absolutely something else. I'm not going to go so far as to lament why we don't make ads like this in the US anymore, but you've really got to hand it to creative agency Gigil for proposing such an outlandish concept, and for the RC brand managers to take the risk and produce it. (The internet tells me Gigil is a Tagalog word that’s hard to translate to English but one that they liken to “passion.”) I'm trying not to give anything away, but watch the ad. Then read this interview with the guys who created it. And then let's discuss next week.

Alright stop messing around trying to figure out the logistics behind that RC ad in real life. Let's jump right in.

The one thing to read this week

1) Six thinking hats [Sketchplanations]

If you aren't signed up for Sketchplanations, you should be! This is a great framework for ideation (when we're all allowed to be in a room together again)

From sketch-plainer extraordinaire Jono Hey: The classic thinking framework from Edward De Bono. Though I’m yet to be in a meeting where everyone’s familiar enough with it that it wouldn’t sound a bit nuts to propose it. Ah well.

2) Department of Year-End-and-2021-Trend-Forecasting Roundups

It's that time of Year! Spotify got an early start with Unwrapped but this week the floodgates really opened with both recaps and 2021 forecasts.

  • Reddit’s 2020 Year in Review [Reddit Blog] I saw one headline that said "If there's one year in review you watch this year, watch Reddit's" and I cannot agree more. The video is really really good. It's just really good. And there are a lot of really interesting stats beneath it as well.

  • The Year on TikTok: Top 100 [TikTok] A new entrant to the year in roundups, TikTok launched the epynomous TikTok 100, a collection of the creators, trends, tracks, effects and TikTok videos that have entertained, comforted, amazed and educated the TikTok community this year. TikTok has become known as a place where anything can go viral - and The TikTok 100 testifies to that.

  • Google's Year in Search [Google] This year, the world searched “why” more than ever. This film features the questions we asked this year, with words and narration by Kofi Lost.

  • Spending 2020 Together on Twitter [Twitter] I appreciate how honest Twitter was in the forward: "If you’re over 2020, we get it; if you’re curious to see how the world conversed, coped, and even celebrated this year, read on for a brief tour through the Tweets of 2020. "

  • Pinterest Predicts [Pinterest] Pinterest feels confident in predicting the future. They tell me "Pinterest Predicts isn’t your typical trend report. It’s a not-yet-trending report. A window into the future from the platform where people go to plan it." Pinterest feels confident enough to tell us how confident they feel. "In fact, 8 out of 10 of our predictions for 2020 came true.* " [ED Note: I could not find out what that asterisk means but I would assume it's something along the lines of maybe it was more like 2 out of ten? Who knows!" Anyway, there's a bunch of interesting information here. Worth checking out!

  • YouTube is canceling Rewind this year because 2020 has been too much [The Verge] Uh yeah. Item as described. This marks the first time Rewind won’t happen since YouTube started the annual celebration in 2010. Although Rewind has become somewhat of a joke to the creator community in recent years — it became the most disliked video of all time in 2018 — it’s still a staple of YouTube’s culture, even if people are just using it to dunk on their own videos.

  • Facebook Year in Review [Facebook] They definitely phoned this one in. Which, like, who can blame them. Facebook definitely has bigger things to worry about this week. But, they did remind me that Kobe died this year which, on top of everything else was so sad but also, holy shit I cant believe that was only this year.

3) Quick Hits
Some interesting stuff in Quick Hits this week!

  • A New Way to Track Consumer Demand [IPA] If you're part of #MarketingTwitter, you might have seen quite the kerfuffle about Share of Search over the last several weeks. Some people think it's a great metric. Some people think it's a another bullshit metric just begging to be misused by half-brained clients. Personally, I think this is similar to NPS - a bullshit metric if you treat it like The One be-all-and-end-all number, but a useful diagnostic metric to see how your brand stacks up.

    Byron Sharp called Share of Search another form of Physical Availability, which I think is a very interesting way of thinking about it. Anyway, decide for yourself.

    The link includes a three-hour webinar (hey - it's shorter than Titanic!), led by Les Binet, Group Head of Effectiveness, adam&eveDDB and James Hankins, Strategist, Analyst & Planner, will show how advertising affects search behaviour, how searches predict sales, and which search metrics marketers should use to track their brands and advertising. Is it worth watching? If you ask me, yes. Although Binet & Hankins doesn't have the same ring as Binet & Field, there's still a lot of interesting information in here. Watch over a few days. Or on the half day before Christmas.

    And here's a deep link to what we all really care about - the supporting documents

  • Personalized Marketing Can Be Ineffective—and Creepy. Here Are 3 Research-Backed Tips for Getting It Right. [KelloggInsight] (ED Note: This is Kellogg the business school at Northwestern, not the cereal brand)

    I have pretty strong opinions on targeted advertising. My old boss Julian Cole summed it up the best: Imagine the market opportunity as a pizza pie. You don't want to limit your target to just one slice, but what you do want to do is put the right topping on each. So you're still talking to the entire audience (the whole pie), with messaging that resonates (pepperoni for you, sausage and peppers for me), while still communicating the core brand message (it's delicious pizza!).

    Some highlights:

    • Look for unexpected ways to match, and choose the ones that are most important. Research shows there are lots of other, less expected ways to target customers, like the physical or temporal context in which you are reaching them.

      “One thing that surprised me was how matching qualities of the environment can influence you,” Teeny says. “If you’re a daytime person and you get an email during the day, you’re going to read it more carefully than if it came at night.”

      For instance, one study found that playing highly emotional music in a store increased purchases among impulsive shoppers. Even the virtual “setting” of an online retailer can influence purchasing intentions: utilitarian shoppers prefer simple, easy-to-navigate websites, while pleasure-focused hedonic shoppers prefer a more immersive experience. Understanding which type of customer you want to reach can help you decide what type of environment to create for them.There is also evidence that personalizing a message along multiple dimensions simultaneously can increase persuasion. For instance, one study on smoking cessation found that highly personalized messages were more effective than minimally personalized messages that just contained the participant’s name.

    • Don’t be creepy (or unethical). “If you’re scrolling and think, ‘Whoa, that ad is really tailored for me’—as soon as you have that metacognitive awareness, it starts to bring in a feeling of, ‘Oh, I think they’re trying to manipulate me.’” People also react poorly to being targeted on characteristics they feel are negative or rooted in stereotype. When consumers believed they had received an ad for a weight loss program based on their size, they perceived the ad and its messages more negatively.

4) Department of Great Work

Guys, I wanted to like that Helena Bonham Carter spot for Bumble. Maybe I'm not British enough. But it just didn't hit home for me.

  • Forget Travis Scott. Now McDonald’s has Xmas meals for the Grinch, Rudolph, and John McClane [Fast Company] The spot follows a premise similar to the one that ran in February before the Super Bowl featuring trays with McDonald’s meals favored by Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Patrick Mahomes and others, including Dracula. In the latest spot, details from multiple holiday stories pop up. Rudolph’s tray of fries, including one dipped in ketchup, is shown on top of a roof. The Griswolds’ food is next to a Christmas tree with flickering lights. Scrooge gets only a cup of black coffee. Gizmo from “Gremlins” is shown snagging a Chicken McNugget while tucked in a red backpack. And perhaps this ad finally ends the debate around whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie: a tray for John McClane—this one has a meal and a walkie talkie—is one of those shown. From Wieden+Kennedy, Alma, IW and Burrell

  • Heineken taps Awkwafina, creates bestie cardboard cutouts for Holiday Campaign [AdAge] Heineken is encouraging people to use cardboard cutouts as a stand-in for themselves in the time of social distancingIn a U.S. promotion, the brand is giving people the chance to win a cardboard cutout that looks just like them that can be sent to their "bestie". Each cutout is delivered with a six-pack of Heineken. People can enter to win at BestieGiftEver.com, where they can upload their photo and adorn it with festive cheer for a chance to selected, up until Dec.13. I like this. It's cute. And I love Awkwafina. From Publicis

  • Colonel Sanders’ Next KFC Commercial Is Also a Steamy Lifetime Drama [Variety] Fucking shitfuck how does Wieden + Kennedy consistently make such good ideas. Nobody wants to watch a :30 TVC anymore? How about 30 minutes? I think its very smart going back to the old-style of sponsoring entire TV shows. (Ever wonder why they are called "SOAP operas" Mario Lopez will star as the nation’s best-known fried-chicken spokesman in a steamy Lifetime “mini-movie” that hinges less on the chain’s “secret recipe” of 11 herbs and spices and more on dysfunctional family dynamics and forbidden love. And while the Lifetime program, “A Recipe for Seduction,” has all the hallmarks of one of the A+E-owned cable outlet’s high-drama potboilers, it is in essence a 15-minute commercial for the Yum Brands restaurant. Friends of the newsletter know I'm a big fan of Hallmark movies. Lifetime sells a slightly different animal. It seems like they pushed this a bit in the direction of a telenovela which I am major league in favor of. Yes, I will be tuning in on December 13th to watch the full series. Check out the trailer here. Talk about reinforcing brand imagery, amirite folks?!

  • A pro soccer team has been dubbed the 'Burger Queens' after Burger King vowed to invest equally in the men's and women's sides of the club [Business Insider] The American burger chain has backed Stevenage FC Women — a soccer club in FA Women's National League Division One, the fourth tier of women's professional soccer in England. To celebrate its sponsorship of the women's side of the club "under the same terms and conditions, and at the same level, as the men's team," Burger King has rebranded as "Burger Queen" at its local franchise in Hertfordshire, England, and on the front of the team's jerseys for the 2020-2021 season. To celebrate its unique partnership with the club, the brand released a moving video which proclaims, "Playing for Stevenage FC is hard. Playing for the women's team shouldn't be harder." The video is great and you should check it out. From David-Madrid

  • Ogilvy Made 7 Films in 7 Days in Wild Creative Sprint for Instagram [Muse by Clio] The campaign, themed "We Make Today," showcases the diversity and scope of creativity that define Instagram's global community and "represents the platform's role of uniting people to push culture forward into new and uncharted territory," Ogilvy New York co-chief creative officer Marcos Kotlhar tells Muse. (Kothlar and the shop's other CCO, Danilo Boer, joined from BBDO in September, and this push represents their first big initiative for Ogilvy.) Marcos and Danilo! These guys are just fucking good at their jobs. These spots are great. They're celebratory and real. Watch all of them. From Ogilvy New York

  • Protect Baby Yoda With Your Own Mandalorian Amban Phase-Pulse Blaster from NERF [HypeBeast] Talk about capitalizing on a moment. Whether you’re looking to cosplay your favorite bounty hunter or have a personal Baby Yoda you’d like to protect, NERF is here to help with its upcoming Amban Pulse-Phase Blaster from The Mandalorian. For those interested, the NERF The Mandalorian Amban Pulse-Phase Blaster is now taking pre-orders for $120 USD, and will ship in in the second half of 2021. I would love one for Hanukkah next year, please and thank you.

As always, the full archive is available here. Was this email forwarded to you? Want to start getting this on a weekly basis? All I need is your email, everything else is optional. Thanks for sticking around as always. See you next week

Jordan Weil