Finance is a really odd section for me to have. I don’t come from a finance background, I have no interest in fin-tech. Yet it makes its appearance here on this blog.
When thinking about this category, I decided to reflect on why its here. It’s usually where curated content sits, rather than my own ideas.
The reality of life in the west is that everything has become financialised. As I write this as people think about web 3.0, they are thinking about payment systems first and working about utility later. This implies that the open web we know won’t be part of the metaverse in terms of ideas or ethos.
Instead of economic growth consumer spending depends on different ways of creating credit. Its no accident that delayed payments finance company Klarna is the biggest thing in European e-commerce at the time of writing this page.
Back when I started writing we were heading into the financial crisis of 2008, the knock on effects of that could still be felt a dozen years later and was a contributing factor to Brexit and Trump victories. The ‘occupy’ movement was catalysed by the financial crisis and then turned into something else. For instance it became a pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
We had the implosion of financial brands like Lehman Brothers and the Royal Bank of Scotland. This created a lack of trust in business, the media and the government. We are still seeing that play out today, from cryptocurrency to conspiracy theories and a lack of trust by the public in experts.
The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy is written by Italian-American academic Mariana Mazzucato.
Background
Mazzucato’s work focuses on the intersection of innovation, economics and the role of government. Currently she is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL).
For an economics book The Value of Everything is surprisingly accessible to read. I managed to get through it’s 180 pages in just over a day.
Starting with a quick tour of economic history over five centuries, Mazzucato dissects what value actually means, its connection to statehood and how that meaning has evolved over time.
Premise
The central premise of Mazzucato’s argument is that there are problems the way market economies currently work. Those problems come from the imbalance between value creation and value extraction. The book argues that it is far too easy for those operating in the market economy to get rich by extracting value from those who actually create it, rather than by adding it themselves.
The book diagnoses the reasons for this challenge, notably how value is defined by economists, business people, governments, investors and politicians. Along the way, it touches on what Will Hutton’s The State We’re In termed ‘short-termism’. Mazzucato’s argument isn’t a new one and covers areas that have been talked about in the UK economy since the 1960s by the likes of economist Nicholas Kaldor. If you’ve watched the work of BBC documentary film maker, Adam Curtis the subject matter will feel very familiar.
Mazzucato also addresses the value imbalances in technology platforms echoing the work of Columbia law professor Tim Wu’s work from The Master Switch in 2010 to The Age of Extraction published last year.
In at the top
What makes Mazzucato different to the likes of Gary Stevenson is that the current government is at least paying lip service to her ideas, notably the idea of a mission led government. Whether or not the government can turn Mazzucato’s ideas in The Value of Everything into actionable policy and deliver on it is a discussion way beyond this book review.
2025 started warmer, but windier than normal. I had just published a similar post and had a days break before thinking about drafting 2025 as it happened, how it was seen at the time tends to be missed out when we look back with the benefit of hindsight.
I haven’t written much about the Trump administration, mainly because everything kept changing, so it wasn’t apparent at the time what was really important. Every day felt like a burning platform.
January 2025
Small and medium sized business confidence at new low. Japanese convenience store operator Lawson used offshore workers to help customers via digital avatar. Chinese property developer VANKE CEO was detained to help authorities with their enquiries. VANKE, alongside Country Garden, is one of the better ran companies known for corporate transparency. Meanwhile Guangzhou FC (formerly Guangzhou Evergrande) was ejected from China’s professional football league. Amazon announced UK drone delivery service.
HSBC shut down their first attempt at competing in the ‘fintech’ space. Zing competed with Wise and Revolut in global money transfers.
Circana research found that GLP-1s weren’t responsible for long term sales declines in snacks and other consumer packaged goods sales.
Rolex raised their prices across their models by 1-to-3 percent. Louis Vuittonrevisited its 2003 collaboration with Takashi Murakami. LVMH Watch Week leaned hard into novelties and featured Bvlgari, Daniel Roth, Gérald Genta, Hublot, L’Epée 1839, Louis Vuitton, TAG Heuer, Tiffany & Co. and Zenith.
Porsche sales dropped, mostly due to 28% drop in China during 2024. Louis Vuitton launched an early 2000s streetwear throwback for its autumn / winter 2025 collection by Nigo and Pharrell Williams.
While generation cohorts are no better than horoscopes, they have prominence in marketing discourse; Gen Beta started. Publicis Worldwide & Leo Burnett merged to form Leo. Kellogg’s returned to British TV screens with mascot Cornelius the Cockrel in the ad ‘See you in the morning’.
51% say that overall, they like the ad, while only 26% disliked it. That’s a good score, you’d expect an average campaign to roughly take 40% like to 20% dislike.
UK institution, the BBC shipping forecast turned 100. Half of banned UK crypto ads remained online.
The earliest iterations of cartoon characters Popeye and Tintin went into the public domain in the U.S – but his likeness and name is still trademarked. STEM content creator Zara Dar made 3x more revenue per video on Pornhub vs. YouTube.
State laws based on Louisiana’s Act 440 require age verification for adult entertainment sites. In response, Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, had blocked access in 20 states. This included Florida, a major centre for porn production. Meta launched machine learning powered accounts, it wasn’t well received. Meta pivoted from fact checking to be more combative with the EU, Brazil and China.
Some US TikTok users signed up to Chinese Instagram analogue Xiaohongshu in protest to TikTok restrictions.
Why did the US take action against TikTok? Rutgers University affiliated research from 2023 was the best public reason given. TikTok returned in one news cycle thanks to President Trump’s patronage.
Donald J. Trump became U.S. president again as typhoon-speed winds drove fires in Los Angeles.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned. Edelman’s trust barometer survey marked new societal nadir with a crisis of grievance.
Oliviero Toscani, the photographer behind Bennetton’s iconic advertising campaigns and work in the fashion label’s COLORS magazine died.
Film director David Lynch died.
Over the past decade ‘children’s cafeterias‘ which offer free or low-cost meals have grown in Japan from a standing start to over 10,000 venues. (Similar to the UK’s food bank expansion.) 2025 saw 1,794 cafeterias open.
The majority of cafeterias have no age restrictions. Out of an estimated total 18.9 million annual users, 70%, or 13 million, were children while the other 30% (5.9 million) were adults.
Across Asia and in diaspora communities around the world, the lunar new year was welcomed in on January 29th. In the Chinese horoscope, it was the year of the wood snake.
Cellular mobile services in UK turn 40. UK government announced improved atomic clock that will help in more precise, jam-proof navigation. CES was all about generative AI. OpenAI continued to lose money on ChatGPT. Irrational exuberance in LLMs deflated by popularity of DeepSeek.
How January 2025 memed
Streetwear’s pivot to avant garde all-black influenced by Rick Owens and Raf Simons with dark eye shadow, was popularised by hip-hop and trap artists out of Atlanta. Playboi Carti was associated with the look. The look got a name inspired by Carti’s Opium record label – opiumcore. Jing Daily claimed that gender fluidity and opiumcore looks were going to trend in China luxury and streetwear.
It’s at odds with Chinese government guidance. They deplatformed ‘excessively feminine’ male models and those who ‘slavishly worship’ western culture. Even opiumcore’s name is problematic.
February 2025
Donald Trump tariffs announced against Canada, China and Mexico. Samsung head Lee Jae-yong cleared of fraud and stock manipulation charges. Clothing store Forever21 went bankrupt again. Bybit had $1.5Bn of etherium stolen from its ‘offline’ cold wallet – biggest crypto theft to date. Nike collaborates with Skims. Unilever changes their CEO.
Robert F Kennedy Jr promised to ‘Make America Healthy Again” or MAHA, crystalised the name of a movement that brought together wellness and the political right.
Language learning company Duolingo, shared their new brand book, which was held up as an example of how to capture a brand’s culture, positioning and market proposition. Liverpool Football Club refreshed their brand identity. R3 published their 2024 new business league table. Key takeaways:
Interpublic lost 500,000 USD in business more than they won, what they won in creative, they lost in media.
Fuji TV screens tentpole anime show Sazae-sanwithout sponsorships, an advertising boycott over a sexual assault allegation cover-up. Lidl sold out its TikTok shop debut in 20 minutes. Post-production and video FX business Technicolor shut down.
Simon Kemp launched this year’s Digital 2025 compendium of global online behaviours. YouTube turned 20 on Valentine’s Day. Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic turned five.
David Webb announced plans for the end of his iconic financial website which covered the Hong Kong market. Webb was in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Fiverr launched FiverrGo – a generative AI art-working service.
Taiwanese TV actress Barbie Hsu (pronounced Shu) died aged 48. Hsu was a popular actress across East and South East Asia. The Democratic Party in Hong Kong disbanded.
HKTaxi – which pioneered taxi-hailing apps in Hong Kong, announced April closure. The Washington Post alleged UK government demanded global backdoor on Apple services. Apple removed protected cloud encryption from UK users. Humane AI has its intellectual property bought by HPE. Humane is shuttered including its AI pin device. Apple launched its iPhone 16e, it featured Apple’s first custom wireless modem. Amazon announced closure of messaging and video app Chime. Promised to continue supporting the Chime SDK, which allows the underlying messaging and video service to be integrated directly into apps. Microsoft announced Skype service closure.
How February 2025 memed?
Credit due to Dan Lambden: *LinkedInsincerity (noun)*: A phenomenon observed on LinkedIn characterised by interactions that appear inauthentic, exaggerated, or lacking genuine sincerity.
These interactions may include overly enthusiastic endorsements, insincere congratulatory messages, and inflated descriptions of professional achievements, often driven by the desire to network or gain visibility rather than foster true professional connections. In essence, LinkedInsincerity represents the façade of professionalism masked by the pursuit of personal gain.
March 2025
March started with cold sunny days and the first snowdrops in the park by my house.
But in comparison to the weather, economic indicators weren’t great. Hong Kong slowed down its retail sales decline. HSBC celebrated the 160th anniversary of its founding.
Launched in 1953, JCB built their 1,000,000th backhoe loader. Volkswagen announced move away from touchscreen-only car controls. AstraZeneca bought cell therapy company esoBiotec. 23andMe declared bankrupt.
Going upmarket, Moët & Chandon & Pharrell Williams collaborated on a €30,000 limited edition champagne bottle. It was to demonstrate ‘ collective spirit, optimism and human connection’. Lewis Hamilton became a Lulu Lemon ambassador. Willy Chavarria collaborated with Tinder on a small collection with the theme ‘How we love is who we are’. Rolex opened London flagship managed by Watches of Switzerland. Maker’s Mark launched Fielden Rye whisky – their first new recipe in 70 years.
Starbucks launched a collaboration with Snoopy to reboot sales.
In media, Sesame Street started shooting its 56th season. But had no distribution partner in place. Yahoo! sold TechCrunch to private equity buyer. The Federal Trade Commission looked into Omnicom’s takeover of Interpublic. Apple loses $1 billion / year on streaming. Medical drama Grey’s Anatomy turns 20 years old. The Grateful Dead celebrated their 60th anniversary with a 60 CD boxset Enjoying The Ride featured live sets recorded from 1969 to 1994.
In online, old was gold as Yahoo! turned 30 and has enjoyed a mild comeback. (Disclosure, I worked there earlier on in my career.) Digg relaunch announced. Discord planned for IPO.
Manus, a Chinese ‘general AI agent’ launched beta release that outperformedOpenAI. Deliveroo announced plan to exit Hong Kong operations in April.
Mobile World Congress saw Xiaomi & Realme show concept smartphones with detachable lens. Apple delayed more personalised aspects of Siri in its Apple Intelligence rollout. Alphabet bought security start-up Wiz for $32Bn. Microsoft turned 50 years old. Oracle systems were breached and health records stolen.
In other news, Japan marked 30 years since the Tokyo subway sarin attacks. Author and former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky died. Irish crime fiction author Ken Bruen died.
How March 2025 memed?
Geopolitical disruption: The Daily Star is a UK tabloid newspaper with a right of centre, populist editorial voice. It would be a natural ally of the Trump administration; yet the headline on front page of the paper was ‘JD Dunce‘ on the March 5th, edition.
Research firm YouGov showed a sharp decline in how UK people saw the US.
April 2025
The end of March 2025 was the height of sakura season in Japan and in the UK. The sun greeted the start of April, so did the Trump administration with global tariffs in ‘Liberation Day‘ announcement.
Another thing went up in the US as well as tariffs, preventable disease-related deaths. Pertussis (whooping cough) and measles increased in US compared to last year. Pertussis infections doubled, measles infections grew even more. Spain and Portugal suffered countrywide electricity blackouts.
The US National Science Foundation got rid of most external advisory panels and the FDA announced move to phase out animal testing.
On a lighter note another thing going viral was pistachio cream filled chocolate.
At Watches & Wonders, Rolex launched the Land Dweller, a watch design that is similar in concept to the Oysterquartz, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Vacheron Constantine Overseas. Just as important was the new high-beat movement design rolled out in the Land Dweller. Prada bought Versace. LVMH fashion and leather goods sales fell 5% year-on-year. Added to luxury sector woes were Chinese factories claiming to offer consumers better deals on luxury goods by going direct. One bright note – Highsnobriety found that 40% of American respondents found that sustainable fashion was fashionable. This compared to just 25% of young people (gen-z) globally.
Advertising Week Europe was held in London. Key topics of discussion included retail media and connected TV from Uber, Carwow and Disney. Adobe provided generative AI designed conference bags. UK marketing spend fell for first time in four years. Hostess Brands became first mainstream brand to promote their products on April 20th – informally 4.20 day that celebrated cannabis use. McVities celebrated the 100th anniversary of the chocolate digestive and Wired magazine celebrated the 30th anniversary of its original website.
Bluesky announced its plans to verify accounts. Nike sued over the closure of its NFT business.
In other news, it was 50 years since the end of the Vietnam war. Reggae star Max Romeo died in Jamaica, Pope Francis died in Rome and it was the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s ending to the novel was widely quoted and captured the zeitgeist of April 2025 well.
“They were careless people . . . they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I had started a project engagement at Google. This was 20 years to the day when I started my in-house gig at Yahoo! less “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” more “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.
The Apple iPad turned 15 and AirTags turned 4 years old.
How April 2025 memed?
An article in WARCcaptured April’s mood for me with the acronym VUCA. The phrase has its origin in the US Army War College during the mid-1980s, who were looking to describe a post-cold war scenario.
Volatility: Rapid significant change with little to no warning as to the size of change.
Uncertainty: Unclear outcomes as are the causes.
Complexity: Multiple factors in play with complex inter-related aspects to them which makes finding a way forward challenging.
Ambiguity: the information that is available is open to misinterpretation.
May 2025
May started with the warmest day of the year, 26 celsius in London.
Warren Buffett announced plan to retire from Berkshire Hathaway. The UK and US outline shape of a limited trade agreement. The CIA launched a high production value ad campaign on western social media to recruit Chinese agents.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer celebrated 20 years of his Mad Money show. While 2024 was was the year of semaglutide, Novo Nordisk seemed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was still a surprise when Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen stepped down as CEO. Unilever discovered a correlation between a particular type of skin microbiome bacteria and positive mental health measures. Consumer DNA testing company 23andMe was sold to Regeneron.
Alex Mashinsky sentenced to 12 years for fraud related to 2023 collapse of cryptocurrency business Celsius.
Monocle announced a new book shop and café in Paris. Business Insider laid off over 20% of staff and announced shift to AI. Amazon announced Prime Day to be held in July and did its first brand refresh in two decades. Google refreshed the big G icon. Mozilla announced closure of bookmarking service Pocket. Wikipedia took five years to go from six million articles to seven million around May 28, 2025. DoorDash agreed to buy Deliveroo. Hong Kong congee restaurant chain Ocean Empire closed down abruptly. Nutella announced a new peanut-based variant.
Dior Coutureadmitted a successful cyber attack. US telecoms company Charter announced it was buying Cox Communications.
McDonald’s Restaurants saw a decline in sales. This was down to low income consumers spending less, while middle class earners still weren’t going into McDonalds. Normally when there is a recession, McDonalds should benefit from the more well-off trading down to McDonalds. Instead, fortunes have diverged into a ‘k-shaped’ recession. Lower income earners are hit, while middle classes aren’t. What Axios called the ‘McRecession‘.
How May 2025 memed?
The conclave to select a new Pope shined a light on all things Vatican related. President Trump got in on the act via his social media feed. Robert Provost was elected pope in a relatively fast conclave. His election surprised prediction markets. Recent film Conclave became a must-watch film as it was a good guide to the process of electing a new Pope.
June 2025
June started with changeable spring-like weather with rain from London to Tokyo. The UK government published its Strategic Defence Review. A Ukrainian operation destroyed Russian aircraft deep inside Russia using small drones concealed in containers. Israel launched attacks on Iran.
CEO Mark Read announced he was leaving WPP at end of 2025. Apple’s ‘Shot on an iPhone’ campaign won at Cannes. Apple launched a new ‘shot on an iPhone’ film featuring Stormzy.
US Vogue editor Anna Wintour moved to more hands-off role as chief content officer at Condé Nast.
Unilever bought ‘chemical-free’ direct-to-consumer men’s personal care brand Dr Squatch for $1.5Bn. UK discounter Poundland was sold for a pound.
Hong Kong legalised basketball betting by Hong Kong Jockey Club. This will attract mainland gamblers where basketball has a huge following in comparison to soccer or horse racing. Asian currency arbitrage opportunity indicated a problem in US finances.
Bill Atkinson who was part of the original Mac and General Magic teams died, as did soundtrack composer Lalo Schifrin.
Meanwhile Apple’s WWDC felt like Mac-orientated conferences of years long past. AI was sprinkled in features with a focus on on-device AI models. Oakley and Meta collaborated on smart glasses. Flickr roles out creative commons 4, giving creators greater control over their image rights.
Chart of the month June 2025
Podcast advertising showed signs of maturing with slowing growth according to WARC.
How June 2025 memed? – TACO
From US foreign policy to trade negotiations the TACO trade dominated. TACO was shorthand for ‘Trump always chickens out’ – markets bet against the Trump administration’s commitment to a course of action – which starts to become a dangerous bet to make when this viewpoint becomes sufficiently visible. OperationMidnight Hammer being the exception that proved the rule.
July 2025
July started off with a heatwave. The Big, Beautiful bill passed in the US senate and congress. In the UK, on of the biggest things that happened in 2025 was that 16 and 17 year olds got the right to vote. The Communist Party of China turned 104, the United States celebrated its 250th anniversary of its founding. It was the 40th anniversary of Live Aid – so Live Aid was the equivalent distance in time from us to what the end of the second world war was to Live Aid.
Perplexity AI touted a nascent advertising offering around media agencies. Chinese multi-modal AI model Kimi launched. One of the more interesting aspects was the ability to upload up to 50 documents for reference. But it didn’t deliver as well as promised, I will let the Web Curios newsletter tell you the rest:
…when I played with it earlier this week it quickly became apparent that this is a mendacious little fcuk and will spit out completely-invented material with a glee unmatched by any of the actual, paid-for, top-end models; as such I can only recommend it as a fun thing to poke around with rather than a free alternative to the big players.
Apple supported the cinema launch of its film F1, with a haptic trailer, which used the vibrating motor on the smartphone alongside the speakers. The film did well at the cinema, so Apple bid for formula 1 streaming rights in the US.
K-pop band BTS announced return with news music and global tour. The Observer laid bare lies and deceit behind bestseller The Salt Path. Media executive Linda Yaccarino resigned from Twitter (X).
In the same way that in the mid-1990s onwards to 2000, the internet became part of culture as much as a technology people used, AI has been having a similar movement since 2023 onwards. When you combine AI with highly memetic training content and accidents ensue, so it was with Grok AI becoming ‘Mechahitler‘ and edgelords around the world rejoiced in their childhood bedroom or parent’s basement. Grok is considered to be an AI without a ‘woke ideology’.
Grok didn’t magic the name ‘Mechahitler’ out of thin air, it is a character from the Wolfenstein series of games based on various alternative history scenarios of world war two. It’s emulated by cosplayers and a film had been in development for over a decade.
Mechahitler as a meme beat out BURRITO – Bold Unilateral Retaliation Regardless of Inflation Trade or Order, which came from the TBOY podcast.
August 2025
July bowed out wetter and cooler than much of the month and August opened with winds that made it feel more like spring. It was the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 250th anniversary of Daniel O’Connell. Indonesians protested their government by flying the pirate flag from manga and anime franchise One Piece.
Vogue saw an online backlash against its first AI model photo shoot. A French livestreamer died live on broadcast – in a manner eerily reminiscent of the David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.
Adidaslaunched a collaborative sneaker with Lufthansa. The Ford Transit celebrated its 60th birthday. Nike leans into its ACG technical outdoor brand to drive growth. Seiko celebrated 60 years of making dive watches in a low-key manner with enthusiasts. McDonald’s in Thailand allegedly demanded damages and fired a restaurant manager for having previously been a go-go dancer – who was pictured on her former bar’s social media. It wasn’t clear if it was a franchisee or the Thai McDonald’s partner McThai Co. Ltd who was involved.
Intel CEO was asked to resign by The White House because of his ‘connections‘ to China. Later on the US government takes a stake in Intel. The Pakistani energy sector suffered from renewed cyber attacks.
https://flic.kr/p/2rmo6o8
NASA Jim Lovell who was famous for being part of Project Apollo died.
How August 2025 memed?
In the same way that Che Guevara was a touchstone for rebellion against established authority in the 20th century – the internet has found its own icon. Ibrahim Traore is a coup leader and Burkinese army officer. Traore has become famous beyond the Francophone region, becoming an icon for protestors from Micronesia to the New Zealand Parliament.
September 2025
Autumn weather started in the last week of August, with the rain arriving too late to help out arable farmers in the home counties.
China, Russia and India met as part of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation).
China and Russia sign an initial agreement to develop a new high capacity gas line called Spirit of Siberia 2. Oracle’s Larry Ellison becomes the world’s richest man.
ITV celebrated its 70th birthday. Long time online blogging service Typepad closed down. Online news aggregator Techmeme turned 20. Google Docs turns 20 and Google Chrome browser market share exceeds 70 percent. AOL discontinued dial-up internet services in the US and Canada and was put up for sale for $1.5 billion. That’s still less than $1.50 for every disk and CD that AOL ever sent out to consumers in the US and Europe. The UK security services launched the Silent Courier portal to aid leaks by Russian and Chinese sources. Mastodon launched new services for corporates and marketers. Specialist interest online video networks Playeur and History of Weapons and War (think History Channel meets YouTube documentaries) both closed down, subscription based video platforms are hard.
Apple continued to lose key engineers to Meta and launch iPhones. Training LLMs sloppily in one aspect of their roles can make their behaviour malicious in other areas. Chinese company makes world’s fastest production car.
Concerns about an AI bubble started to show up in rate of change in search volume.
In the face of smartphone bans, American school children dug out iPods, Discmans and Walkmans to still have music while they study or just hang out in class. The UK government tested its emergency alerts system prompting a siren sound and this screen shots on smartphones across the country. There was no corresponding SMS text message to feature phones.
Ron Carroll, a Chicago-based singer, producer songwriter died leaving a body of house music behind. Italian film actress Claudia Cardinale died, she was famous for Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Leone’s Once Upon a Time In The West. Giorgio Armani died a week after his last interview with the FT was published. Robert Redford died aged 89, a day after the FT wrote a style article about the tweed blazer he wore in Three Days of The Condor. It didn’t take long for some wags to talk about the ‘curse of the FT’. Yahoo! News covered off Redford’s ‘role‘ in the nod of approval GIF, which made me a bit sad, given for many people that clip of Jeremiah Johnson was all they’d seen of his career as an actor / director.
How September 2025 memed?
Operation ‘Raise The Colours’ saw St George’s flags spring up across England from homes and lamp posts to painted roundabouts. Whilst many of the displays were well meaning, the initative was apparently driven by far right groups. This seemed to be designed to build momentum for a Tommy Robinson rally in London.
October 2025
There was a downpour overnight as September rolled into October. The Labour Party conference had finished, leader Kier Starmer had historically low approval ratings. Storm Amy hit the UK that weekend. Britain lost control of its borders. Data analysed by David Webb showed that Hong Kong had a revenue problem from tax avoidance / evasion of tobacco products. The cause was less clear, it may be cross-border shopping trips, smuggling gangs or more likely both. Webb’s website was shut down on Hallowe’en.
Barclays bought US consumer loans business Fresh Egg.
The FT claimed that the UK government demanded a backdoor to British user data. The Labour Party conference had finished. Ireland elected a new president in a process marred by a large amount of spoiled votes and low turnout. Scandal dogged Labour decision to abandon China spy case – or as former British ambassador with Chinese experience put it ‘appeasement’ and a ‘masterclass in ineptitude’. Chinese conglomerate BYD sells record number of electric cars in UK as Jaguar Land Rover flounders from cyberattack by suspected ‘state actor‘. Mercedes Vision Iconic concept car unveiled in Shanghai, looked like the vehicle the relaunched Jaguar brand would want to build. The grill design mimicked a vintage Mercedes 600 ‘Grosser’ and was a world away from the current nadir of the car brand.
Apple released upgrades of three products with its M5 processor. LVMH offered hope of business growth. Adidas unveiled its football for the next world cup called Trionda which looked like a shanzhai Poké Ball (used for catching and storing Pokemon). Toyota won its ninth manufacturers championship competing in the FIA WRC (world rally championship). 2025 marked their fourth back-to-back championship win.
Indonesia blocked TikTok and then unblocked it when the platform provided user information. Analytics suggested the world usage of social media may have peaked. Amazon hit 200 million US shoppers using Prime. Alphabet celebrated the 25th anniversary of Google Ads.
OpenAI had teething troubles while developing a new consumer hardware product, and seemingly does deals with everyone for $1 trillion+ of infrastructure – by mid-October it’s easier to list who they hadn’t done a deal with. By the end of October, OpenAI announced for-profit business. Concerns about an AI economic bubble became mainstream. EU looked to promote AI digital sovereignty. Amazon Web Services had an outage, Gigabrain announced the shutdown of their Reddit search tool and pivot to Aire AI video. NHS announced major productivity benefits from Microsoft Copilot trial.
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar criticised Jensen Huang and Nvidia (at the head of a vanguard of large American multinationals) on their continued investment in China. The title was subsequently changed on the digital edition of the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to a more generic ‘Why the China Doves Are Wrong.’
Actress and director Diane Keaton died leaving behind a diverse body of film and TV work. I thought her role in The Little Drummer Girl is her most underrated performance.
How October 2025 memed?
My favourite one of the five ‘core’ trends Jing Daily on Chinese social media ‘fits’ was goblincore.
The name tells you everything that you need to know. The looks seems to be inspired by video games and cosplay that borrows heavily from Tolkien, who in turn borrowed from European folklore.
Escapism with a hint of darkness made a good deal of sense in a time of high youth unemployment, economic uncertainty and technological upheaval in China.
November 2025
The end of October was wet and blustery. The Economist came out and said that western government debt was at levels unseen since Napoleonic times. Donald Trump threatened to sue BBC. Vaping overtook smoking in the UK. Starbucks sold the majority of its China operations to a local private equity investor. Sony launched a cheaper Japan-only Playstation 5. Funko announced that it would struggle to continue as a going concern due to its high debt level. Celebrations for the 85th anniversary of Bruce Lee got underway.
Palantir had great sales results, but spooked investors. Microsoft admitted that its efforts to build out computing power for LLMs was limited by access to data centre electrical power.
Some of the major studios in the porn industry including Aylo who runs Pornhub came together to establish a code of conduct. Why now? China’s equivalent to Grindr have been withdrawn from local app stores.
Shein keelhauled by the French government due to it selling ‘child like’ sex dolls online. Israel gets rid of Chinese cars in its vehicle fleet as it can’t the vehicles against espionage. An executive at L3Harris was jailed for selling secrets to the Russians. BYD announced UK launch date for Porsche 911 rival.
RTÉannounced a new daytime line-up for its week day daytime programming on RTÉ Radio 1 to take it through the end of 2025 onwards. Christmas advertising arrived even earlier than last year. WARC claim that advertisers were following consumers who were starting Christmas shopping research earlier. John Lewis’ effort seemed to be a ‘homage’ to the imagery of Charlotte Wells’ film Aftersun. Nick Asbury wrote the best (all be it over the top) analysis of the advert.
Early research on generative AI produced ad creative had lessons on the best approaches to get effective creative. IPG UK revenue dropped 8.4% quarter-on-quarter in advance of its purchase by Omnicom. Omnicom completed purchase of IPG, a critic described the deal as ‘two drunks leaning on a lamp post‘.
Nigo’s streetwear brand Human Madelisted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Private equity company Vista claimed job cuts were due to AI automating tasks. One in five UK companies expected to follow Vista’s example in 2026. Law firm Clifford Chance let go of 10% of back office staff due to automation and offshoring.
Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po caught fire with the flames spreading from tower-to-tower. The whole of Hong Kong went into mourning. At least 146 people lost their lives. The Chinese government was concerned that the tragedy might spark protests.
How November 2025 memed?
6-7 featured ambiguously on a rap track and was then picked up by teens to mean everything and nothing.
December 2025
The US government published their 2025 National Security Strategy on The Whitehouse website. December started off with rain and Omnicom-IPG related firings playing out in near real-time on Reddit. The share price was up 0.14% by the close of the market in New York. More job cuts were expected as Omnicom hadn’t reorganised its own portfolio of agencies. A presentation that captured the zeitgeist of social media marketing for 2025 was published.
Jimmy Lai, who founded Giordano and The Apple Daily was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign powers and one count of conspiracy to publish seditious materials. The UK government response was weak, the US one slightly stronger.
UK consumer spending dropped at fastest rate in four years. UK arms of discount supermarket brands Aldi and Lidl sold Christmas vegetables including brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, parsnips and potatoes for 8 pence / bag, (or 84 – 94% discount).
WARC has research to show that global advertising spend is growing faster than the economy – but that incremental gain is accruing only to the major online platforms.
Prada closes its acquisition of Versace. Nike announced more changes in the boardroom. Superdry and Nike got called out for greenwashing claims. Toyota launched the GR GT sports car. Unilever ice cream spin-out ousted independent board chairwoman of Ben & Jerry’s.
Netflix moved forward with a $72 billion bid for Warner Studios and HBO Max. Paramount intervened. Vanity Fair ran a tell-all interview with The White House chief-of-staff. President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the BBC moved forward.
Facebook sunset Messenger apps for Windows and macOS. PayPal applied to become a bank. The Pax Silica Declaration was signed by nine nations—the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Australia to bolster the semiconductor supply chain from Chinese pressure.
How 2025 memed?
YouTuber This is Antwon nailed in his description of the year as The Slop Era to capture how generative AI had captured culture in a similar manner to all things internet in culture from about 1994 onwards as the dotcom era kicked off through to the millennial bust.
404 Media discussed the phenomenon at SxSW, specifically why slop content happens.
Much of it was created by more technically-oriented people in the Philippines, the Middle East or South Asia who were looking to go viral. The reason why they did it was not to become famous per se but to gain vitality and get paid by Facebook’s creator programme.
In essence, the slop wasn’t for you or me, but designed to directly target the algorithm and then the creator gets a small share of the subsequent ad revenue. The model worked as a side hustle only because venture-backed AI models are providing a surplus of free tokens to these creators through farmed trial accounts.
By October, ‘AI slop’ was used as a pejorative for any artwork developed with the help of generative AI including a large public art mural in Chicago.
The FT worried about what it was doing to our online experience and work lives.
I have finished my strategy engagement at Google’s internal creative agency and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements. I can start immediately – keep me in mind; or get in touch for discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
November 2025 introduction – (28) in a state edition
I am now at issue 28, or as a bingo caller would put it ‘in a state’. In a state or in a right state usually carried a sense of trepidation in Irish households – it usually describes an odd emotion exhibited by the person being discussed.
It is often associated with stupor, shock, chaos, agitation or anxiety.
“There was a car crash just up the road; thankfully no one was injured but the driver was in a state.”
It could also be used as a tone of disapproval for a person’s grooming and outfit.
In Cantonese 28 has positive connotations and is interpreted as “easy to be rich” or “easy prosperity”. The pronunciation of ‘2’ (yi) sounds like ‘easy’ and ‘8’ (ba) sounds like ‘prosper’ (fa).
This edition’s soundtrack is from The Hideout, a former boutique that used to be based in Golden Square and specialised in Japanese streetwear brands like Neighborhood, A Bathing Ape, WTAPs etc. Each Christmas time they used to have this mixtape put together by Andrew Hale on heavy rotation. Since then it’s become a seasonal go to in Chez Carroll.
( Hale played keyboards for Sade. He was a member of Japanese experimental supergroup Water Melon (ウォーター・メロン) alongside Gota Yashiki, KUDO, Toshio Nakanishi aka Tycoon To$h, and provided soundtracks for computer games and films.) Ok, I will stop nerding out now.
Now we have a sound track, let’s get into it.
New reader?
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Things I’ve written.
Mico + more things – Mircrosoft’s AI companion has a bit of Clippy and a bit of Willo the Wisp (who was the brand character of British Gas) to it. But as a fluent object it’s not bad.
Toyota FJ Land Cruiser + more stuff – Toyota’s genius move to launch a smaller footprint Land Cruiser with fantastic utilitarian details in the design. The downside is that we are unlikely to see any of them in the UK.
Books that I have read.
I have been reading my Dad’s copies of Gerald Seymour’s books back when I was a child. My friend Ian introduced me to his later works and character Jonas Merrick. Crocodile Hunter explains the back story why a caravan-loving middle-aged ‘underachieving’ MI5 officer had been given so much latitude. Merrick then becomes the metaphorical crocodile hunter of the title in a game of wits with an experienced veteran of the Syrian civil war and Iraq conflicts in the environs of Canterbury.
1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History by Andrew Ross Sorkin was a decade in the writing following on from his previous book Too Big To Fail about the 2008 financial crisis. Sorkin makes the story readable despite the book being chunky enough to be a door stop. He does so by telling the stories of the individuals involved. In doing so he also challenges many of our learned assumptions about the crisis. The timing of its release while concerns turn towards an AI driven stock market bubble gives it addition relevance.
As I was reading this article in the FT How this 31-year-old made $250mn in 30 months | FT – oil trading with Russian oil. A few things crossed my mind. Amongst them being that it sounded like a pitch for prospective series two of McMafia. Will the protagonist fall out of a window from a Moscow skyscraper?
Things I have been inspired by.
I managed to spend some time with my long time colleague Calvin Wong on a stopover before he headed to Portugal for Web Summit.
It might be merely a rationalisation of my own biases, after the later part of the 2010s being a lull in the creative web. 2025 seems to be spawning more creative things built on the web. My current favourite is Radiooooo shocking brand name, but an amazing site. You can navigate a map of the world, click on a country and listen to music from that country. Not only that but can select whether you are open to fast, slow tempo songs or ‘weird’. My current favourites are Japanese, Thai and Cambodian pop of the 1960s.
When visual gen AI was used to modify existing ads originally created by human experts, its performance fell short of the original ads.
When visual gen AI was used to create ads from scratch, those ads outperformed both the human expert–created and gen AI-modified ads.
When everything including the product package created by gen AI in the advertisement was associated with higher ad effectiveness.
But consumers still aren’t fans, when gen AI involvement in ad generation is disclosed, advertisement effectiveness decreases. Disclosure is becoming a legal requirement in many markets and cramping ad effectiveness.
These oddities could be down to how well their models performed with modified prompts, rather than a repudiation of human effort. And all of these nuances are likely to change as models are improved. This doesn’t mean that generative AI is the best advertising and packaging designers. But it does depend a lot on the aesthetic / taste of the human prompter even more.
20% growth every year since 2021 for client complaints about efficiency.
58% of what clients link efficiency to is non-operational. Efficiency, is a partnership quality rather than a production metric – kind of like the idea of synchronicity. Increasing ‘juniorisation’ of teams, hybrid working, and smaller budgets have created an operational squeeze, while automation and rigid systems stripped back the human touch that clients value most.
The chasm opening up between rising client satisfaction (currently 8.0) and declining team satisfaction (7.3) in their agency team threatens work quality, client retention and employee churn. The problems stem from agency culture: little agency leadership, recognition or care.
Chart of the month.
Ipsos did a 30-country survey to answer the question ‘Is Life Getting Better? comparing attitudes to 1975 versus 2025. Nostalgia is a great standby for trend reports as the past is constantly been repackaged.
What the Ipsos report hints at is widespread dissatisfaction with current political and economic systems in Europe, Latin America, North America, South Africa and many Asian countries. Part of this maybe down to what Ipsos termed ‘the middle class in crisis‘. The contrary outlier was South Korea.
As tough as the Korean economy is now, the country has made a huge step change over the past five decades: shaking off a military dictatorship and undergoing massive economic development.
The UK’s intense desire for nostalgia hints at a wider unease, what The New Statesman called the Netflixification of politics.
Things I have watched.
Apple TV+ have followed up Slow Horses this season with a second adaptation of a Mick Herron novel Down Cemetery Road. Emma Thompson is the protagonist unearthing a very British conspiracy bought about by a suspicious fire and abducted child in Oxford. It is made to the same high standard as Slow Horses and I have found it to be must-see TV.
Dominic Cooper plays a blinder in Apple TV+ series The Last Frontier. The tangled storyline of conspiracy, paranoia and secrets reminded me of vintage TV series like 24 and The X Files. What separates The Last Frontier is the detail, its scenic shots of an Alaskan winter are beautiful.
Useful tools.
Koolyz is a directory / portal of online tools that I found via Matt Muir’s excellent newsletter. It helps on all the finicky tasks like compressing PDFs or moving an image from one format to another. It is also worth looking at The Creative Cheat Sheet for visual inspiration, writing and presentation building tools.
I got to try out Hubspot‘s AEO grader here. It is a good starting point to understand how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google Gemini ‘see’ and ‘understand’ your brand.
Finally LUMAscapes is a series of charts by LUMA that give you the main players in agencies, AI, OOH, martech and more categories as convenient PDFs.
The sales pitch.
I am currently working on a brand and creative strategy engagement at Google’s internal creative agency. I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from the start of 2026 – keep me in mind; or get in touch for discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my November 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and get planning for Christmas. As an additional treat here is a link to my Mam’s recipe for Christmas cake – we usually make one in November. It is then allowed to sit prior to serving at Christmas. If looked after correctly it can keep for several months. I grew up with and love fruit cake but your mileage may vary.
Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.
Mico – A vibrant new way to talk with Copilot | Product Hunt – Strategy wise I have mixed feelings about it. People are already anthropomorphising LLMs and the full impact of that is still yet to be understood – I don’t think its universally good. However, we’ve already got there with Mico as a character. I imagine that fluent objects like Mico does make services stickier.
In this respect Mico looks like the kind of moral trap Meta, Bytedance have fallen into on their social media platforms.
Then there is the Clippy trauma now encapsulated as a drop of fleum – but that’s age bracketed so likely means nothing to younger cohorts.
On the other hand from a marketing effectiveness perspective, if Microsoft use Mico in brand advertising it might work well as a fluent object and boost their brand building performance. Reminded me a lot of British Gas’ Willo the Wisp character.
The 12th floor of 18 On Lan Street, a Ginza-style commercial building in Central, was handed over to Surplus Inc for HK$34 million (US$4.4 million) on Friday, according to Land Registry records. That represented a 65 per cent loss for the previous owner, Zhou Shubo, who bought the floor for HK$96 million in 2013.
Kanika Sam Ang was a director at Surplus, according to Companies Registry data. Sam Ang has been associated with the family of tycoon Tony Tandijono, who owns Cambodia-based President Airlines, Phnom Penh casino Holiday Palace and a travel agency in Hong Kong.
Gen Z Men So Scared of Getting Filmed They’ve Stopped Dating | Rolling Stone – It ends up fueling mistrust in many young men and can turn interactions into battlegrounds where boys feel they must protect their egos. Over time, empathy can go away and suspicion takes its place. Instead of feeling comfortable being genuine, sometimes they second-guess every word or message, wondering how it might be judged, shared, or mocked. But then it takes a turn and that’s why young men may retreat into online spaces that confirm the suspicions they have and help to reinforce negative stereotypes about girls. This causes a Cold War among genders where each side is suspicious of each other and doesn’t have empathy. In these divided spaces, interactions become games of defensive accusation and people grow untrustworthy of one another. – Failing is part of success and of life
Theft Bisect – via Matt Muir ‘This exists because, seemingly, the Met Police are too dumb to make this themselves’ – you can read an explanation as to the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ behind its existence here, but generally this is just a smart idea, simply-executed.‘
Chinese experts criticised the series of statements, saying they reflect some Australia politicians’ anxiety and bias toward China’s technological and military progress. Moreover, they said the spy chief’s remarks reveal an arrogance rooted in the belief that Western political system is superior – Global Times is a Chinese government published newspaper.
Software
ChatEurope – slow and would have been ok a few years ago
Nvidia faces Washington heat over alleged Huawei ties | DigiTimes – US lawmakers are ramping up scrutiny of China’s AI and semiconductor sectors, tightening oversight from corporate ties to capital flows to reinforce Washington’s edge in the global AI competition.
Sixt Halloween ad combines a Stranger Things aesthetic with a hard-hitting competition comparison at the core of the creative. I would put money on it that the production leaned heavily on generative AI. I’ve used Sixt previously and they were ok as a car rental company, they won my business many on price and location of their pick-up points for vehicles. It will be interesting if they can build this Halloween execution into a wider ongoing brand building campaign that turns Sixt into a car rental juggernaut.
How QRcode payments took off in India?
UX commentator Phoebe Yu did a really good video exploring why QRcode based payments took off in India. India has learned from and adopted some of the O2O experience in China and used it in a different context.
Jeep Grand Wagoneer ‘The Family’ advert
On one hand given how the current US administration relies on the support of the religious white, this advert is brave. I am also amazed they managed to hang a 3-minute film from one statement in a car review by Jalopnik.
All the best people are dogs
Life 360 have built a campaign around a banger of a human insight that all dog owners know. Their dog always owns a good deal of their human’s mental real estate, by latching on to that space Life 360 were looking to cut through Apple AirTag’s fame in the space.
Great ideas start on a Mac
There are several Apple films that I could have put up here. Aside from great craft, all these films have one other thing in common – too little media spend to actually get them seen by a relevant audience.
Keep thinking with Claude
Anthropic have come with a great brand anthem of a film. While it may have been produced with LLM generated video, it also shows the very human feature of great taste behind it. All of which fits into the idea of AI as collaborator.
