Last Week in Strategy: Finland has just closed their borders. Looks like nobody will be crossing the Finish Line!
Hi Strat Pack,
First things first: Sorry that we couldn't get This Week in Strategy to you in a timely manner last week. It's been an adjustment transitioning to remote work and honestly given the option of waking up at 5am last Friday to write this or sleep in and deal with it later, we chose to sleep in. The Strategy Editorial team regrets the inconvenience. We will also get back on schedule this Friday, March something, at 8am.
But part of me is glad that we waited until today, so I could share this with you: John Lithgow reads "Taste" by Roald Dahl The story of a betting game with a vintage of a bottle of wine and a twist from beloved storyteller Roald Dahl. I'm a huge Lithgow-head and thoroughly enjoyed listening to this. Courtesy of Symphony space on 96th and Broadway; they'll be releasing new selected shorts every Sunday on Soundcloud. Tune in! I will be.
Good news, bad news: Bidet sales are soaring as the coronavirus causes toilet paper panic-buying frenzies around the world. Good news because Bidets are the best. Bad news because what an absolutely insane reason to start adoption. First of all, there is no shortage of toilet paper in the US. Just because Karen panic-purchased a 39 year supply of toilet paper from Stop & Shop doesn't mean that the warehouses are running low. We're going to be fine! But also get a bidet because, as I mentioned, Bidets are great.
And remember, we are not far from a world where Sandra Bullock and that guy who's in every Adam Sandler movie laugh at Sylvester Stallone for still wanting to wipe his butt with wadded paper even though he lives in the future.
As a friendly reminder, I do the New York Times Mini Crossword every day. And I love competing against friends. So if you want to play along (no subscription needed) please join my leaderboard by clicking here. Invite your friends and create your own leaderboard. Never takes more than 2 minutes. Always fun!
Alright guys, stop messing around trying to get John Lithgow to explain how to use the three seashells. But seriously. I hope you are healthy and safe. If you need anything at all, even if you don't live near me, please reach out. We'll get you help and we will get through this together. Alright, Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) Sweatheads 10 Minute Mental Workout [Mark Pollard - Linkedin]
Stay home. Get Strong.
From Mark: Here's a ten-minute workout for your brain to keep you active (and possibly distracted) while you're at home this week.
Exercises include Linear Thinking, Opposites, Alternative Uses (my favorite), Samesies, Explain It, The Come Up, and that's it.
Click through, keep your mind sharp for 10 minutes, then return to watching Love Island or Love is Blind or whatever it is to help numb your brain to
2) Top Ad Leaders on How to Stay Creative While Working From Home [Muse by Clio]
There's so much great content in here from dozens of creatives, I highly recommend reading the entire thing. Here are some choice quotes:
Jon Wolanske - Creative Director, Goodby Silverstein & Partners: I think it's always a good idea to put on real clothes before sitting down to work. Actual pants produce actual results.
[Editor's Note: multiple people have indicated that it is important to get dressed. I personally think that quarantining in jeans is ostentatious but what do I know, you know?]
Johan Dahlqvist - Group Executive Creative Director, B-Reel: Create random in-betweens. You can't "think" your way into something creative. Creativity "happens." In between high-pressure tasks, in the invisible moment when the swinging pendulum stands completely still.
In the office, it can be walking up the stairs, flushing the toilet, waiting for a halloumi burger. So you have to create those, and you can only shower so many times in a day. Chop up the day into segments, force yourself to switch, surprise the brain with moments of micro in-betweens.
John Caruso - Co-Founder, Partner and Chief Creative Officer, MCD Partners: Restrictions and limitations drive creativity. If anything, we all have to be creative thinkers to adapt to our new situations working from home. At MCD Partners, we created a daily email series called "MCD Cribs." It's a play on the old MTV show where we ask MCD team members to share a quick tour of their home-office setups. It's been a fun, lighthearted break from the news, but we're really hoping it doesn't need to go two seasons!
Alastair Green - Executive Creative Director, Team One: Basic tenets of working from home are the same—dedicate a regular space, be disciplined with attention and time, but also try to be connected to fellow creative team members. We've been successful by sharing more work in progress as casual drop-ins, in addition to having official reviews.
Making use of props helps as well ... like this light saber. All jokes aside, there's a method to the madness there—by having fun, we can encourage more outrageous ideas and solutions, and give people the excuse to take risks themselves, no matter where they're working from.
Karen Costello - Chief Creative Officer, The Martin Agency: Because creativity and impact blossom where problems live. Even when it doesn't feel like it at first. Because at its heart, creativity is a dynamic and adaptable force that's often made more potent with challenges, limitation and obstacles. And we've got plenty of those going on right now.
While I might be distracted more regularly during the day by my kids, I'm also inspired by entirely new things: How our teams are collaborating in inventive and supportive ways. How companies are stepping up to help. How creative people are reacting, responding and creating in this weird new world. And yes, I'm also totally and completely inspired by my kids, whom I now see all day every day. And even though they are teenagers in every sense of the word, they also happen to be pretty evolved creative beings. And that makes me and my work better.
3) Moderating effects of prior brand usage on visual attention to video advertising and recall: An eye-tracking investigation [ScienceDirect]
I read this study last week and thought it was really interesting and TBH very technical. It is free to read for 50 days from March 14th, but if it’s behind a paywall but if you want access LMK I have a copy of the study!
For advertisers, attracting attention to video marketing stimuli is paramount to building and refreshing consumers' brand memories and increasing their propensity to purchase.
Research has demonstrated brand users are more likely to recall advertising, possibly suggesting a brand's commercials draw more attention from current users than potential new customers. Testing whether prior brand usage moderates the effect of visual attention on recall, infrared eye-tracking collected fixation data from nearly 700 participants across 64 video advertising executions.
The results indicate that brand users and non-users can give similar levels of visual attention: what matters is how the effectiveness of this attention differs across the two groups. Prior brand usage moderates the effect of visual attention on recall; light and non-users giving more attention have better recall. However, this effect does not exist for heavier users. These findings highlight the importance of developing advertising to gain visual attention from potential customers.
4) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
The Fewer Words You Use [Dave Dye] the more impact they have. A collection of old-but-not-that-old print ads that are highly impactful
How to Create Campaign Ecosystems [Julian Cole - LinkedIn] For strategists looking to improve their skills during this downtime, Julian is releasing a number of free strategy courses over on Planning Dirty Academy. Here is one on how to create campaign ecosystems.
5) Department of Great Work
Wondering About Social Distancing By New York Times [The Inspiration] Really brilliant design from the Times' layout team in print. Form supporting function
Penguins openly explore Chicago aquarium closed due to Covid-19 – video [The Guardian] The Shedd aquarium in Chicago has let its penguins wander around freely after closing to visitors indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Shedd Aquarium said on social media: 'While this may be a strange time for us, these days feel normal for animals at Shedd'
Once SUE heard about the @shedd_aquarium penguins, we really didn't have a choice. 🤷♀️[Field Museum on Twitter] The Field Museum would not be outdone. You've probably seen the Shedd activation but the Field one really made me chuckle. (Spoiler alert: Sue is a T-Rex apparently)
A 17-year-old high schooler built the viral website that's generating handwashing infographics to your favorite songs [Business Insider] William Gibson wanted to make handwashing memes using his favorite songs so he built a website to do it for him. The site, washyourlyrics, has since gone viral. More than 200,000 people have made handwashing posters on his site since Sunday. I love this. Putting your talent to good use
Inside the factory: how LVMH met France’s call for hand sanitiser in 72 hours [Financial Times] Really really interesting read. While I personally think they could have given the labels a little more love, this is a great story about a very commendable effort by the perfume giant. Allure reports they've already donate 15 metric tons as of last Thursday.. Anheuser Busch is going to start doing that too I guess but who knows how long that's going to take.
Platform Updates is on hiatus and will return next week.
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