This Week in Strategy: My socially anxious friend just got a PhD in palindrome studies. I call him Dr. Awkward
Hi Strat Pack,
First of all, thank you very fucking much to everyone who voted for The Met Unframed in the Webbys. We won a People's Voice award and I seriously mean it when I say we wouldn't have gotten over the finish line without your support.
It's Memorial Day on Monday, which marks the unofficial start of summer in the United States and I am well aware that nobody cares about what happened This Week in Strategy (and last week too - whoops!) the day before a long weekend. So I'm going to try to keep it short and sweet this week. But knowing me it will probably be the same as always.
I need to share with you the coolest professional website on the internet: Yamauchi no.10 Family Office. Created by the heirs of the Nintendo founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, the goal is to be involved in projects that give back to society, propose new choices that help make changes in Japan and allow people to challenge themselves, he said, declining to give details of specific investments. It also intends to be involved in philanthropy. (Family offices for those unaware--including me--are privately held companies that handle investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family, generally one with over $100 million in investable assets. If you have a Family Office and need any advertising strategy advice, please let me know in the comments below!) The site is mostly in Japanese but click through and play around because it shows what web design could be. Would you rather learn about 5G from Yamauchi no.10 Family Office or from the Verizon site? For me, it's Yamauchi all the way.
Interesting tidbit from It's Nice That: Mind the Gap: why Hockney’s Piccadilly Line roundel uproar signifies a deepening disconnect between art and the public. Enter one of the most successful living painters, David Hockney, with a commission to redesign the Piccadilly Circus roundel. Armed with just an iPad, Hockney whipped up a cheeky little logo that must have taken him all of ten minutes, if that. It’s childish, playfully naive, and full of intentional mistakes and digital smudgery. It follows on from a similar slapdash logo he whipped up for The Sun a couple of years back, all MS Paint aesthetics brought crashing into 2021.
But there’s a deeper malaise that’s being laid bare by the ire Hockney is engendering. Because to anyone with any kind of love of modern art, this slapdash little logo is totally inoffensive. It’s just some colourful public art by a big name. There’s nothing revolutionary or life-changing about it. If anything, as the writer Elise Bell pointed out in her article about the roundel, it’s a nice little up yours to the endlessly dull and totally ignorable kind of public art our cities are absolutely full of.
Check out the piece, read about the depressing state of arts education in the world, and then maybe check out The Art Assignment, a PBS Digital Studios series that has really helped me bootstrap my arts education.
NON-SPON CON(tent) ALERT!: The Group Think Festival is happening in one week - on Thursday June 3rd! Theme is "Practising strategy in a changing world" which feels.....timely It's got an awesome line up of strategy experts and a full day (UK Time) of content and talks.
I'm trying to wake my ass up at 3am Eastern to go, and you should too. Check it out and get tickets here: https://www.group-think.co.uk/festival (Pro tip: ask if you can expense it. Depending on where you work....probably!)
Why should you go?
Knowledge. First of all, the chance to learn about a bunch of stuff. The future of strategy skills, strategy departments, client-agency relationships, challenger brand thinking, how to go upstream, creativity and tech… and plenty more to be announced soon.
Connections. Access to top conversations with some of the top of their field. But also access to a global community of 3,000 other strategy peers.
Resources. They'll even write up the festival findings for us! Here's what last year's write up looked like. Pretty sick, right?
(I don't get any compensation to share any non-spon con, no commissions, no kickbacks. I do this because I think the material is great and I hope it adds value to your life)
Alright stop messing around trying to figure out what my Family Office website would look like. Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week:
1) A photo, an ad and the overview effect [I Write When I'm Sad]
What's the last thing you'd love to see before you permanently close your eyes? For Voyager 1, it was a series of photos but the most iconic and undoubtedly the most significant one was this photo below.
That small dot is our planet and this photo has been since called the "Pale Blue Dot" and is one of the most searched and coveted photographs in our spacial history.
This was the dream shot of Carl Sagan who was an advisor for Nasa at that time. He had to pitch this idea several times since Voyager left earth and he was always denied since the photo would have no real scientific value or relevance. Thankfully - this wasn't done for any scientific pursuit but for a more emotional one.
While this photo is a powerful imagery of our fragility, our vulnerability and our insignificance in the cosmic ocean - there was an ad that had a brilliant take of this photo that moved me emotionally like nothing else before.
Watch it:
When I first saw this ad, I had goosebumps all over my body. I have even now and every time I watch it. And I yet get teary eyed and have that awkward lump in my throat that takes me to just a word away from crying.
The ad is for Clark Street Bridge School of Writing and was started as a in-house workshop by the creative director John Claxton who also wrote and narrated the story in the film.
He is a self-described "outer space freak" which explains how he managed to pen this story with so much passion and finding a wonderful life insight.
The brief, was to take a moment that was experienced by all and relate it to a moment that everyone can relate to. The analogy is a fitting description of the driving principle of the Clark Street Bridge School of Writing Claxton had quoted: "The process of distilling the experience of life on earth into a singular expression of a single person, is not unlike the process of writing"
The experience was the photo of the earth, the mundane moment was a kid going to school. It's a brilliant film and no words could do justice to the overflow of emotions it can trigger.
By far, according to me [ED Note: not me but I do like it a lot], one of the finest pieces of writing, insight, and ad.
2) Without Shared Meaning There Is No Brand [Brand Strategy Insider]
The simple thing is, the concept of a brand can only exist through ‘shared meaning’. For a brand to exist, there must be some degree of agreement as to what it means and represents – between the business and people, but also between people themselves. If there is no agreement then there is no brand.
It doesn’t matter how many times you say that your business means a certain thing, if people don’t believe you then that’s not what your brand means. You could spend millions and millions communicating a meaning of your brand, but if no-one’s experience matches up to what you’re saying then you’re wasting every penny.
I could tell everyone that I’m the greatest soccer player the world has ever seen. I could spend millions pushing this message everywhere, constantly. But if I never did anything to show that I’m the greatest soccer player in the world, I will very much remain not the greatest soccer player in the world.
This point is, the business can define what the brand means, but it only really means that once people agree. The brand only exists once there is shared meaning.
I’ll say this again, just in case I haven’t been clear enough previously – the value of a brand is in its shared meaning.
The only way to create shared meaning is mass marketing – defining and communicating a central value proposition for the brand that is delivered over and over again. Delivered in attention-grabbing, memorable, and creative ways. Delivered in ways that people sit up and notice, and that they might even share on with their friends or networks. Delivered in ways that might be different each time – from channels to content type to messaging. But delivered to the point where everyone you’re aiming at (when I say mass-marketing this doesn’t mean you couldn’t aim at specific audience segments) comes to a general agreement on what your brand means.
3) Three pieces on human behavior
Understanding people as feeling machines that think, not thinking machines that feel (thank you António Damásio) is core to making advertising that works. Here's a few anecdotes that might not help with your next brief. But will help with how you approach advertising.
24% remaining [Carolyn Barclay - LinkedIn] A light and powerful read by Ms. Barclay who spent 6 hours in the ER with a separated shoulder and a near dead cell phone. 6 hours. Just sitting. And I survived. Wasn’t even that hard – even for a phone addict, like [Carolyn]. Turns out, this hive of activity was plenty entertaining. [She] hardly ever gets this kind of opportunity anymore; to closely observe a bunch of people whose only shared attribute is being stuck in a plastic seat for the foreseeable future. Which, incidentally, brings to mind the word “sonder”, on which [Carolyn has] mused before. Everyone is living their own complex story. These characters weren’t extras in my soap opera, we were each starring in our own. And I could surf channels at will.
Moving in Sync Creates Surprising Social Bonds among People [Scientific American] Interesting to think about this from an advertising perspective. How can we play into group dynamics in our work. Is this why the T-Mobile flash mobs were so successful?
Psychologists and neuroscientists explain the way synchrony draws people together with a dry term: self-other blurring. “It's a weakening of boundaries between self and other. As we become attuned to other people's actions, whether we do it consciously or not, we integrate them with our own.”
A series of experiments in Hungary, published in 2019, suggests that walking in sync with a person from an ethnic minority can reduce prejudice. Synchronous finger tapping can prompt people to be more generous when donating money. Athletes who exercised in sync with others were much more resistant to pain afterwards, and scientists calculated their endorphin output basically doubled. A similar series of experiments showed that when it comes to dancing, synchrony boosts endorphin effects far more than do dissonant moves around the floor.
We believe that during synchronized drumming, the caudate activity (a reward-related area in the brain) reflects the rewarding nature of the experience,” says Christian Keysers, a neuroscientist at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and the study's lead author. “Participants will then be more likely to engage in joint actions with that person in the future.” People synchronize, our reward areas of the brain activate, and that pushes us to do more to help our partners.Many Americans struggle with debt. Social media doesn’t help. [Vox] 2021’s social media marketing isn’t just savvy; it’s practically omniscient. Couple that with the increasing integration of direct shopping capabilities into apps, as Vox’s Terry Nguyen recently wrote, and social media is a booby trap for those struggling with credit card debt. In fact, studies by Andrew T. Stephen, L’Oréal professor of marketing at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, have indicated a direct correlation between social media use, credit card debt, and low credit scores.
In a paper he co-authored in the Journal of Marketing in 2017, for instance, he told Vox he found “that time spent using social media can lead to future online shopping and also some evidence that social media use puts people into a ‘consumerist’ mindset,” adding that the result was stronger for purchases defined as “impulse” or “unplanned” ones. There’s evidence that scrolling turns off our sense of self-control, leading to “poorer decision-making with financial consequences.”
4) Department of Great Work
Droga5 NY, RESET Director Yann Mounir Demange Full of Surprises For Pinterest [Shoot Online] Pinterest enlisted agency Droga5 NY to create a campaign that explores how Pinterest can expand people’s interests in ways they never saw coming. This spot in the “You Just Might Surprise Yourself” campaign was directed by Yann Mounir Demange via production house RESET. Nicely done.
Orange - The Disconnection Guide [Ads of the World] After an unusual year during which Orange enabled French people to stay connected with their relatives and their work places, and in order to celebrate the arrival of summer, the Lonely Planet and Orange experts have selected 100 new and diverse experiences which allow us to experience a new form of disconnection with our families or friends. This original partnership between Orange and Lonely Planet gave birth to a guide, which features 100 places and experiences to disconnect in France, available from May 3, 2021 in Orange shops and online. Such a good insight. Such balls for a telecom company to say "hey maybe its ok to use us less" Love it. From FCB.
Pepsi trolls Coca-Cola in provocative new ads [Creative Bloq] The ads feature packaging from fast food joints including Burger King, McDonald’s and Wendy’s – all places where Coke is served. But with some clever photography (and perhaps a touch of Photoshop), the Pepsi logo appears hidden in each. Like all of the best print ads, the campaign is delightfully playful and self-aware. Please don't @ me saying that but will anyone really go out and buy a Pepsi after leaving McDonalds? No. That's not the point. It's about building salience and associating themselves with fast food. Which is pretty fucking smart IMO. From Alma and VaynerMedia
Test Drive a Samsung on your iPhone [Ads of the World] It’s one of the most divisive choices faced by consumers today – Apple or Android? In a bold move to get Apple fans around the world to experience the Samsung interface, DDB group’s Tribal Aotearoa New Zealand has created iTest. Designed to replicate Samsung’s intuitive ‘OneUI’ user experience for Android, “iTest essentially gives Apple users the chance to test-drive a Samsung from the comfort of their iPhones. It’s also a commitment-free proposition, which we believe makes consumers more open to genuine comparison between the two operating systems.” Very smart. From DDB Tribal Aotearoa
DiGiorno Concocts Pizza Donut Mashup, DiGiornuts [HypeBeast] Do I love hate or hate hate this? Unclear. “At DiGiorno we like to push the boundaries of what’s possible for pizza, and the DiGiornut is something we’ve been dreaming about for a while,” said DiGiorno’s brand manager Kimberly Holowiak. “At the same time, we’ve seen out-of-the-box thinking from our fans on social media – connecting pizza with donuts. So we thought, why not have some fun and make this mashup a reality to celebrate National Donut Day.” Do they come frozen? Anyway, good way to insert yourself into culture.
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