Hey ho, back to school 🏫 for everyone. Hope you’re all surviving it.
“A mind is like a parachute, it doesn’t work unless it’s open”
Frank Zappa
culture // rewiring
It began in March 2020, almost a year and a half ago. Feels like a weird dream now, right? As we wake up, have we been rewired by it? Has 18 months of staring at our mangled faces on video calls, rewired our perceptions of self? Zoom dysmorphia might suggest so. It’s driving a boom in cosmetic surgery. Or, has our lockdown indulgent treating created a pandemic treat brain? Are we rewired to crave indulgence now? And how difficult will that be to shake? Or maybe you’ve reaccessed, re-evaluated or reinvented yourself and how you work? Have you joined the great resignation? It’s happening and now 40% of workers are thinking of quitting their jobs. 4 million people quit in April (highest on record) in the US, double the previous year and an additional 3.9 million quit in June. We still don’t know what the long term effects of the virus are yet. But clearly, it’s had a psychological impact.
brands // funnels & soup
This piece by Tom Roach on reimagining the traditional marketing funnel, was great. The traditional 100 year old AIDA model plots Awareness > Interest > Desire > Action, which is basically Awareness > Consideration > Conversion. Tom suggests a more nuanced (Erhenberg’esque) approach. It changes Awareness to Mental Availability, Consideration to Nudging and Conversion to Connecting. All models are wrong, as they say, but some are useful. This one, seems useful. Chimes well with James Hankin's non-linear hexagon funnel too. That mental availability Tom has at the top of his funnel is tough to get. Especially if you’re swimming in the homogenous brand soup, which many brands are by falling into the trap of following design trends. They seem magnetic, until everything starts to look the same. Soup should be avoided. Unless it’s, you know, 🍅 soup. In which case… 🥣 😋 .
technology // metacryptonftverse
The whole Crypto, NFT, Metaverse thing is getting an annoyingly large amount of airtime, isn’t it? Still though, it is interesting. Ben Thompson from Stratechery wrote a typically smart piece on it here. And BBH Labs also wrote a great piece on Brand Coins, a primer on Crypto, NFT’s and the role they might play in the metaverse. Crypto, they say, is currently at the same inflection point that the internet was in 1997 by user growth. But it’s growing at twice the rate. It’s the fastest growing technology humanity’s ever seen in fact. And yet, new things are still tricky. Partly because we’re scared shitless of change. And partly because, by default, we compare new things, to old things. Is it like that? Does it do it better than that. When sometimes, it's an entirely new thing, and new way. Which is well explained by a16z here. Facebook, see the Metaverse as some weird (mostly shit by the looks of things) version of the future of work. Others see it as another wake up call for the ad industry, who could get left behind by the the business of the Metaverse. But despite the hype, Crypto is laying the foundations for a new Web3. So, ignore it at your peril. Vans aren’t ignoring it, they’re building a skateboarding world in Robolox. BMW aren’t ignoring it, they’re creating their own virtual world JOYTOPIA. It’s happening people. Keep up.
creativity // traditional decline
If a TV ad airs on a traditional station and no ones there to watch it, does it make a sound? Traditional TV continues to decline (in Ireland, in the UK and in the US), as a shift to streaming transforms the face of media. Not great for the traditional TV ad. So, some brands are looking at different options. Fashion house Balmain are partnering with C4 for a short form drama series designed for on demand. Meanwhile, Warnermedia have launched a studio called 'House Of Max' which will allow brands to make content with HBO Max show characters to make ads that 'don't feel like advertising. While others like Salesforce are entering the streaming world themselves with a new service aimed at business professionals, called Salesforce +. The service is part of a greater effort to transition Salesforce's marketing approach from paid customer acquisition to owned and operated media. Things are evolving. Are you keeping up?
five random (ish) things:
The greatest game ever witnessed 🎈.
Zillow turn their lovely ad, into a children’s book book 📖.. Lovely.
AR packaging here and turning a cereal box into an AR synthesiser 😲 .
The Fevertree growth 📈 story is really amazing.
Sometimes, it’s the small things. 😍 this from Cineworld.
watching // real time reality sharing:
This is far out. Varjo have launched a new platform which they say “enables virtual teleportation”. The headset 3D scans the users surroundings in real time and shares that exact physical reality with whoever you’re collaborating with. Real-time reality sharing they say “will usher in a new era in universal collaboration and pave the way for a metaverse of the future, transforming the way people work, interact, and play”. Plenty of potential.