Howto as a category morphed out of a few things. I learned about the power of helpful content from Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog. A second aspect of it was my natural inclination to share useful hacks.
I started writing this blog to explore the media so that I could advise clients so its roots were in the howto mentality. Over time, I built up a certain amount of authority based on the content that I shared here. This resulted in work for Econsultancy, teaching MBA students at a private Spanish university and a number of agency jobs.
Howto content tends to come when I am sharing skills and I have been developing AND that these skills can be easily codified into an article or two. I have also shared my personal workflow that I use to try and make sense of the world through online resources.
Many of the skills that I developed doing that came from a pre-social platform dominated world. Before Instagram told us how to look and TikTok told us what to think. And back when Google was actually useful, well more useful than it seems to be now.
I even wrote a couple of guides on how to get the most out of Google, but most of the advice won’t work any more as the platform did away with many shortcuts in favour of telling you which is the nearest coffee shop with free wifi.
The reason why howto ended up being one word rather than how to was down to the early version of Wordpress that I started to blog on and my lack of expertise more than anything else.
The rear-wheel drive AE86 model generation of the humble Toyota Corolla has a dedicated following. The cars were light, had twin-cam engines, a very balanced weight split and a limited slip differential.
Back in the 1980s in Ireland they were a steady performer on the local rally scene. The AE86 because of its simplicity became very adaptable for street and motorsport tuning. The AE86 popularised car culture internationally, turning up across media formats and supported by a vibrant cottage industry of parts manufacturers who exported their parts around the world.
The car entered popular culture across Asia and beyond through the manga and anime adaptions of Initial-D, which told the tale of Takumi – a student holding down two jobs – a petrol station attendant and delivery driver for the family’s tofu business in a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno.
Takumi’s adventures in the family AE86 went on to be portrayed in an 18-year long manga series, a Hong Kong film featuring Taiwanese entertainer Jay Chou as Takumi, 27 game adaptions at the time of writing and at least 12 anime series or feature length films.
This soft culture footprint gave the AE86 an impact across Asia, hence the Malaysian meet-up that Hagerty shot in Kuala Lumpur. Will the popularity of the AE86 die off with this generation of young adults? It’s possible given that over a quarter of them in the US don’t drive.
Toyota / Hyundai motorsport collaboration
In advance of Rally Japan, Toyota’s Gazoo Racing and Hyundai’s N Sport held a joint event in Korea. It’s quite rare to see rival manufacturers partner in this way.
How to read a compass
This took me back to my 12-year old self away at scout camp (which I did only once) doing the activity for my map-making activity badge. Taking bearings from multiple locations and triangulating them allowed me to plot out my map. I need to dig out my Silva compass that my Mam and Dad probably still have somewhere in their attic.
I found myself using the basics of reading a compass when living in urban Hong Kong and Shenzhen as the extremely tall buildings stopped GPS from working that well. Sharing here, partly out of nostalgia and the the life skills benefits.
Hello Kitty and an adoption mindset.
Japan popular culture commentator Matt Alt put out a video about the history of Hello Kitty and Sanrio. One of the interesting things that came out of the video was how adult women embracing the playfulness of Hello Kitty, rather than ‘adulting up’ then became on the leading edge of technology adoption. I thought the idea of a ‘playful mindset’ and adoption was very interesting – yet something that we don’t often think about. I used to think about it as curiosity, but it’s more specific and it can be fostered regardless of age.
Welcome to my July 2024 newsletter, this newsletter which marks my 12th issue. I hope the wettest part of the summer is behind me. This time last year, I didn’t set out to get to 12 issues. I thought I would try three and see where I got to. You’d think I would have had it nailed down by now, but it’s still evolving, finding its voice in an organic process. Getting to this point felt significant, I think it’s down to the weight of the number 12.
12 as a number is loaded with symbolism. The Chinese had a 12 year cycle that they called the ‘earthly branches’ and were matched up with an animal of the Chinese zodiac.
Odin had 12 sons, the Hittites had 12 gods of the underworld. Mount Olympus was home to 12 gods who had vanquished the 12 titans. Lictors who were civil servants assisting magistrates with duties carried a bundle of 12 rods to signify imperial power. The Greeks gave us 12 member juries and both western and Islamic zodiacs have 12 signs.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
Things I’ve written.
Warped media constructs – what marketers and their advisers think about media channels versus what works and what should be measured.
I contributed to the Rambull newsletter with a selection of my favourite places in London.
End of culture – I disagree with some of what Pip Bingemann said about culture and advertising, but he made some interesting discussion points that I went through and annotated or knocked down.
A bit about the Zynternet phenomenon and interesting things from around the web.
Dogfight – Silicon Valley based journalist Fred Vogelstein was writing for publications like Wired and Fortune at the time Apple launched the iPhone and Google launched Android. He had a front-row seat to the rivalry between the two brands. The book is undemanding to read but doesn’t give insight in the way that other works likeInsanely Great, Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Accidental Empires did. Part of this might be down to the highly orchestrated public relations campaigns happening at the time. (Vogelstein wrote about his experiences with Microsoft’s PR machine for Wired back in 2007). Instead Vogelstein documents developments that I had largely forgotten about like music labels launching albums as multimedia apps on the new iPhone ecosystem. It’s a workman-like if uninspiring document.
This Time No Mistakes by Will Hutton seemed to be a must-read document in the face of an imminent Labour party victory in the general election. Hutton’s The State We’re In was the defining work of wonkish thinking around policy as Labour came into power under Tony Blair in 1997. Three decades later and Labour is poised to rule again during a time of more social issues and lower economic performance. The people are poor and the economy has been barely growing for over a decade. The State We’re In was a positive roadmap of introducing long-term investment culture into British business and upgrading vocational education. This Time No Mistakes is an angrier manifesto of wider change from media and healthcare to government involvement in business. Both books outlined a multi-term roadmap for politicians. In the end, Labour didn’t deliver on The State We’re In‘s vision; this time they are even less likely to do so.
Dark Wire – Joseph Cox was one of the journalists whose work I followed on Vice News. He specialises in information security related journalism and turns out the kind of features that would have been a cover story on Wired magazine back in the day. With the implosion of Vice Media, he now writes for his own publication: 404 Media. Dark Wire follows the story of four encrypted messaging platforms, with the main focus being on Anon. Anon is a digital cuckoo’s egg. An encrypted messaging service designed for criminals, ran as an arms length front company for the FBI. Cox tells the complex story in a taunt in-depth account that brings it all to life. But the story isn’t all happy endings and it does question the threats posed to services like Signal and WhatsApp if law enforcement see criminals moving there.
I went back and revisited Media Virus by Douglas Rushkoff. Once a touchstone of public intellectuals and media wonks, it’s rather different than I remember it from the first reading I had of it at the start of my agency career. More of my thoughts on subjects covered in the book from authoritarian regimes to patient-centric medicine here.
Not a book, but really enjoying Yaling Jiang’s newsletter Following the Yuan that looks at a mix of consumer marketing stories in China with a balanced and analytical approach. Social listening platform YouScan have an interesting insights newsletter, where you can subscribe to here.
Things I have been inspired by.
Lean web design.
I have been keen on lean web design, especially has web page sizes have ballooned over the past decade with little benefit in functionality. However Wholegrain Digital have taken this idea in a new direction by looking at a websites typical carbon footprint. Mine came out better than 97 percent of websites they’d tested so far.
Crushing conformity with creativity
Samira Brophy of IPSOS and Tati Lindenberg of Unilever were at Cannes and talked through some of the dirt is good campaigns and how Unilever switched plot lines in an inventive manner to make better campaigns that fit in with Unilever’s socially forward orientation.
The Arsenal example that they show is a really nice twist on girl plays soccer, kit gets cleaned trope and captures the essence of fandom.
The Future Health Index.
Philips the former consumer electronics pioneer have surveyed healthcare leaders around the world to see what their concerns are and where they may be looking to invest in the future. It’s an interesting read. When I have worked on health clients in the past, we’ve usually focused on what the relevant prescribing healthcare professional thoughts and any patient insights we could glean.
There was a big focus on automation (AI was a particular focus for respondents in countries with distinct healthcare challenges. However the respondents caveated the move to automation with this bit of wisdom:
Automation can help relieve staff shortages, if used right
The Future Health Index 2024 – Philips
Given the old heuristic of about 70 percent of IT projects not meeting the goals set for them, one can understand why there is a degrees of healthy skepticism in leaders and the staff who work with them.
Remote monitoring was one of the most popular areas for healthcare leaders wanting to use clinical decision support software (powered by AI). Curiously, preventative care ranked much lower.
Finally, there was some good news for pharmaceutical companies, negotiating lower prices for drugs was pretty low down on the list for the way leaders thought that they could make financial savings. Though this was tempered in a greater interest in ‘value-based billing’.
State of the (online) union.
From the late 1990s onwards, Mary Meeker’s snapshot of the technology sector was a must read presentation. Meeker came to mainstream fame leading the Netscape IPO while at Morgan Stanley. Early the same year she published The Internet Report – which launched a thousand agency slide decks and was a reference for the investment community during the dot com boom.
The themes of Meeker’s reports over the years followed the development of online:
E-commerce
Mobile internet
Online advertising and search
Rise of Chinese internet companies
Meeker left investment banking to join VC Kleiner Perkins and eight years later set up her own venture capital firm. During COVID-19 Meeker’s internet report wasn’t published for the first time since 1995.
Now it’s returned, you can find the latest issue here. In the meantime, while Meeker took an AI-focused approach to her latest report LUMA Partners have looked at the advertising technology ecosystem in more detail. You can find their comprehensive report here. An honorary mention to Benedict Evans’ annual presentation as well that is even more theme based in style.
Marvel x NHS blood donation
Disney’s partnership with NHS opens up access to a wider potential donor base.
Things I have watched.
Dark Hearts (Newen)
I don’t watch BBC iPlayer all that much, but occasionally I do find some ‘gold’. Dark Hearts (or Cœurs noirs literally Black Hearts) is a French series about a team looking for terrorist weapons, terrorist schemes and French ISIS members in Iraq circa 2016. It’s got the kind of gritty tense feel of SEAL Team or Zero Dark Thirty.
Chronos is a short film very much in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi. In Chronos the director tries to journey through thousands of years in history through the medium of timelapse photography. It’s a beautiful piece of film, but looks very ‘everyday’ now due to the time-lapse functions provided in our smartphones and generative AI services. Film-maker Ron Fricke had to build his own cameras to shoot the footage.
Hong Kong cinema is in a bit of a weird place at the moment. Its most bankable stars are in their 50s and early 60s – though they are holding off aging well. Cantonese culture in general is being squeezed out by mainland media, as well as the rise of Korean and Thai cinema. The current national security laws mean that previous bestsellers like Infernal Affairs or Election can no longer be made in the territory and even a retrospective showing of them could be in a legal grey area. The Goldfinger gets around this by going back to Hong Kong’s go-go era of the 1970s and 1980s and draws on the story of the Carrian Group which went belly up in the midst of a corruption and fraud scandal saw a bank auditor killed and buried in a banana tree grove. Lawyer John Wimbush was found dead in his home swimming pool. A nylon rope around his neck tethered to a concrete manhole cover at the bottom of the pool. So The Goldfinger has a rich vein of material to mine. The Goldfinger starts off during the Hong Kong police mutiny against the ICAC. it follows the rise of Tony Leung as Henry Ching Yat-yin (presumably to avoid legal trouble with George Tan founder of the Carrian Group, who only died during COVID). Ching then has a cat-and-mouse chase with Andy Lau’s Lau Kai-yuen, an inspector of the ICAC. I enjoyed The Goldfinger immensely, CGI and green screen was used to fill in for old Hong Kong which is substantially changed over the decades since. The ‘gweilo’ in the film were over-acted which was distracting, but the Hong Kong talent was top drawer. The more fantastical aspects of it reminded me a bit of Paul Schrader’s Mishima biopic.
The Great Silence is one of the greats of the spaghetti western genre. It was shot in a ski resort in the Dolomites and in a studio of fake snow. That alone would have made it highly unusual. The film was directed by Sergio Corbucci who was more famous for Django. Eureka’s Masters of Cinema have done a fantastic job of putting together a great print and commentary from experts including Alex Cox. It’s probably the best role that Klaus Kinski played in his considerable film career. Even though it’s a western, the underlying politics of the film make it surprisingly contemporary. That’s as much as I can say without giving the plot away.
Useful tools.
Better Reddit search
Google search has become much more limited in its capability for a number of reasons. Giga uses Reddit posts as its source material for search results. It can be useful in research, beyond trying to trawl Reddit using Google advanced search.
Mood board research
Historically, I have been a big fan of Flickr’s image search because of its ‘interestingness’ feature. Same Energy is a tool that matches the vibe of an image that you submit with other images.
Manifestos
A great collection of manifestos and tools to help manifesto writing for brand planners.
The sales pitch.
I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Zynternet is a portmanteau made up of Zyn and internet. If you’re reading this internet is self-explanatory, the Zyn in question is tabacco-free Skoal bandit type nicotine pouches. Zyn comes in a tin and has various flavours.
According to journalist Max Read, the Zynternet is a kind of 90s to early 2000s sports obsessed ‘lad’ type culture; but in the 2020s. There are shades of ‘white van man’ in there as well.
a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative 20- and sometimes (embarrassingly) 30-somethings–mostly but by no means entirely male–has emerged to form a newly prominent online subculture.
Despite Read’s definition defining it as a 20 to 30-something thing, the subculture seems to bleed into 40-something Dads and draws on creators like Barstool Sports. They’re less extreme than the Andrew Tate acolytes. They care more about sports and professional golf than they do about current affairs and politics. But they’ll be voting Republican. They like college sports, sports betting, light beers and Zyn nicotine pouches.
The culture has grown prominent on the laissez-faire Musk era Twitter.
Zynternet stretch
It would be very easy to point to the Zynternet audience and draw parallels to the ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. And then go down a dystopian k-hole.
I’ll leave the last words to David Ogilvy for those despairing about the Zynternet:
You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who’ll get married next year. An advertisement is just like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar and keep it sweeping.
David Ogilvy
TL;DR if you’re not reaching the zynternet, you’re probably not doing political marketing properly. More related content here.
Content or couture? Balenciaga’s 30-minute dress becomes the flashpoint of the season | Vogue Business – “It feels a little like a fast fashion iteration of haute couture,” says Victoria Moss, fashion director of The Standard, of the swirling mass of black nylon. “This feels at odds with what fashion at this level should be, which is exquisitely made pieces that somewhat justify their extreme pricing.” She adds that many invest in couture to have garments perfectly fitted to their bodies — and made to last for years.
“Is it beautiful? That’s debatable. Is it impressive? Not really. Is it brazen? Absolutely. Is it a meditation on the creative process? Maybe. Are we bored of these kinds of gimmicks at Balenciaga? Clearly not, as Demna’s work continues to be both a lightning rod and a conversation starter. “Call it ‘pret-a-polarize’,” says fashion journalist and ‘Newfash’ podcast host Mosha Lundström. “To my eye and understanding, I see this look as content rather than couture.”
Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters – yes stories like this are funny because ‘modern’ Japan with its flip phones, fax machines and floppy discs are an anachronism. But there’s a few other things to consider. There might be issues in terms of investment a la the NHS and critical systems that for whatever reason can’t be ported on to modern systems (like the problems had with security based on ActiveX).
Dumb systems also have security benefits, you can’t steal nearly as much data on even a compressed floppy disk as you can on a USB stick.
Interesting use cases for generative AI in China which sounds like a plot line from Ghost In The Shell.
Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile – is Baidu ERNIE really the number one generative AI service? It depends on if the numbers are true. 14 million developers, 950,000 models within the eco-system
China plays down importance of lithography tools in semiconductor challenges – Interesting report from Taiwan’s DigiTimes semiconductor trade magazine: China seems to be deliberately playing down the importance of lithography tools as it identifies the challenges for the development of its semiconductor industry in a recently published dossier.
Welcome to my May 2024 newsletter, I hope that you’re looking forward to the spring bank holiday, unfortunately if like me you’re in the UK – then that was the last public holiday before the end of August. This newsletter which marks my 10th issue. I wasn’t certain that I would get to a tenth edition of this newsletter.
The number ten has a high amount of cultural symbolism from the biblical ten commandments to the ten celestial (or heavenly) stems during the Shang dynasty that marked the days of their week. There were corresponding earthy branches based on 12 day groupings. While the stems are no longer used in calendars they still appear in feng shui, Chinese astrology, mathematical proofs instead of the roman alphabet, student grading systems and multiple choice questionnaires.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
Things I’ve written.
I wrote a comment that struck a bit of a nerve about being asked to do a project ‘for my portfolio’.
Omakase and luxury futures. In the face of all the changes facing the luxury sector, is the answer learning from the Japanese tradition of omakase?
April marked the 20th anniversary of Dove’s campaign for real beauty. I took a slower approach than the LinkedIn hot takes to reflect on its legacy.
How behavioural science can help optimise the response to a coffee shop problem.
I saw clear parallels between car touchscreens and the changes that digital music instruments went through in terms of design and adoption.
I have had Alex Kassian’s cover version of the Manuel Göttsching classic E2 – E4 on heavy rotation. It was released just in time for the Ibiza season and has Mad Professor remixes dubbing out the balearic vibes for all the deep house shamans.
Books that I have read.
After Watches and Wonders 2024, I finally managed to get the time toreadRolex Wristwatches: An Unauthorized History by James M Dowling. Dowling is the person that the pre-owned watch market goes to for authentication of really old or unusual Rolex models. His history of the company, while unauthorised, had the collaboration of early Rolex staffers. What comes out is an interesting tale of adaption. Rolex started off as a UK reseller. The company innovated due to client needs and somewhere along the way because the luxury watch manufacturing giant we know today. What becomes apparent that their success was partly down to timing, circumstance and a belief that you change nothing, unless you’re making it better. The last point is something that product managers the world over could learn from.
David McCloskey’s Damascus Station came highly recommended as leisure reading. My taste in espionage fiction is more towards Mick Herron and John Le Carre rather than the more action orientated. This book had enough intellect and imperfection to make me put up with the James Bond factor.
I am at the time of writing working my way through Nixonland by Rick Perlstein – which I started before the student sit-ins against the conflict in the Gaza strip happened. More on this book once I have finished it.
I like watches, the design and quality of engineering that they represent and even the sound of them ticking away, but I generally don’t enjoy Hodinkee interviews. However, when they interviewed sneaker legend Ronnie Fieg I watched it. Fieg’s story around his watches is amazing, with each watch marking a milestone.
TML Partners and Accenture Song have done an interesting report on ‘the future of intelligent marketing performance‘ – basically CRM and e-commerce based on a impressive roundtable of marketers. What immediately struck me was how many of the problems would haven written about in a similar way a decade ago. We are constantly in a state of digital transformation, that is starting to feel more like ‘digital treading water’ now. It is due to relatively short organisation memory and lack of a ‘learning element’ in organisations.
Back when I worked in Hong Kong, I got to work on Colgate alongside other agencies. The work that I was doing was in association with the dedicated agency Red Fuse which was the umbrella for all WPP work. I was eventually shut down from working on it by APACseniormanagement from my own agency at the time; due to internal agency politics that I long gave up trying to understand.
While I was working on the project, I got to meet Jason Oke who is now in charge of global client relationships at Dentsu in New York. Jason appears on the Google Firestarters podcast discussing how to get great advertising ideas made. Some of the thoughts are timeless and echo the advice of Ogilvy on Advertising. It’s well worth listening to.
BBH Singapore Cultural Bleats newsletter
Every agency has some sort of email newsletter, but one that stands head-and-shoulders above other agencies is BBH Singapore’s Cultural Bleats. I promise you once you get past the name, it’s brilliant. The premise of the newsletter is that they put together interesting cultural things to act as useful provocations. This is exactly the kind of thinking, curation and sharing that planning and strategy teams should be doing if they aren’t over-committed on Workfront. A prime example of the kind of thing that Culture Bleats might pick up on is how rich people no longer appear to eat due to Ozempic and meal replacements like Huel.
Dow and Procter & Gamble announced an agreement to make a proprietary way to recycle mixed plastics. I am all for improving recycling of plastics, but having a proprietary method adds complexity into a recycling system that’s already unfit for purpose. I hope that once commercialisation happens P&G will follow the example of Unilever who freely licensed its more efficient aerosol cans to other manufacturers who were interested in the technology.
The Norwegian government published the results of its Mannsutvalgets or Men’s Equality Commission. The report goes into policies across several areas here (in Norwegian). It has some interesting findings that echo think tank thinking about the intersection of social class and opportunity outcomes.
Some of the content around health is particularly interesting Dagens Medisin covered some of these findings, you can see a translation of their article here. However some of the findings in health did make me wonder. It notes that men in Norway live shorter lives than women and considers this to be an equality challenge. Most writing I have seen around the gender mortality gap see it as a biological given rather than a ‘gap’. It felt like greater research was needed to support this reframe in science rather than a well-meaning aspiration.
The report calls on the Research Council in Norway to take up the challenge of improving the knowledge base on many of the issues tackled in the report. The commission acknowledged data-related challenges and wanted revised statistics / indicators for gender equality so that they reflect the equality challenges of boys and men than are currently available.
If you have semiconductor clients and haven’t been on Malcolm Penn’s Future Horizons semiconductor industry awareness workshop, you’re in look he’s running it again on June 18th. I started my agency career working on technology hardware, gadgets and semiconductors – the Future Horizons course helped no end. I went on to work for numerous technology clients including AMD, ARM and Qualcomm.
Finally this essay on human creativity provided a lot of fuel for thought. It pulls together a multi-variant model for why human creativity is on the wane.
Factors included:
A childhood lack of free time for play and imagination. Instead children have much more regimented structural lifestyles today.
Massive access to more cultural artefacts than we could possibly consume from around the world at the touch of our fingers. The unknown space is now limited and so there is less opportunity to be creative within it.
Science and technology innovation is connecting less disparate areas of knowledge in order to make a ‘thing’.
Stimulation is focused rather than a wide range of stuff, rather than washing over us.
Things I have watched.
I have found myself watching less Netflix over time. Then Netflix moved from getting paid through the Apple app store to wanting a direct payment and bumped the price up. So a mix of inertia and not wanting to watch a compelling show or two has meant that I have consciously uncoupled from Netflix for the time being. I will probably go back when I have a good enough reason. In the meantime, I am buying the odd Blu-Ray or DVD here and there instead. It seems that I am not the only one who has taken this approach.
Amazon Prime Video seems to have a bipolar personality between Apple TV+ level tentpole content and a wide range of trashy films, some of which deserve the moniker ‘cult cinema’. Red Queenfits into the former category rather than the latter. It is based a series of books by Juan Gómez-Jurado. I have just started reading the book Red Queen, but the TV series is compelling. I didn’t realise that I had managed to watch four episodes in one sitting.
I went back to watch the Alain Delon Traitement de choc aka Shock Treatment. Delon plays Dr Devilers, the proprietor of a clinic on the Brittany coast. The clinic focuses on rejuvenating tired wealthy clients with spa treatments, special diets and infusions. The middle-aged patients at the clinic are true believers and as their treatment happens they become more child-like as the rejuvenation happens. The dark side of the clinic is that the serum comes at a price. A new patient finds out what actually happens and what plays out is a French New Wave allegory that touches on similar ethical health concerns, rather like the film adaptation of John Le Carré’s The Constant Gardener.
My internet went down and I managed to work my way through The Street Fighter Trilogy starring Sonny Chiba and made famous by the Tony Scott-directed True Romance. The Street Fighter series was a key influence with Quentin Tarantino, who wrote in their role as a plot device in True Romance and had Sonny Chiba appear in his Kill Bill series. All of the films feel a bit hackneyed in a post-John Wick world, but the first instalment is hard-bitten. Given the torrent of films coming out of Hong Kong at the time, The Street Fighter films stood apart with their unflinching violence displayed on screen. They became the first film in the US to receive an X certificate for violence alone.
Along with the Shaw Brothers boxsets and Bruce Lee’s filmography, the Street Fighter trilogy, is essential viewing for both Asian cinema buffs and martial artist movie fanatics.
How do the sequel films stack up? The second and third film in the series have a bit more playfulness and off-kilter aspects to them similar to films of a similar age made as spaghetti westerns. Sonny Chiba’s 1974 trilogy typify the martial arts craze that swept western cinema in the early 1970s onwards. In the UK, The Street Fighter was called Kung Fu Street Fighter. The likely reasons were two-fold, a similarly named Charles Bronson film and the glut of Hong Kong martial arts films being shown.
The Source is a French police procedural series that shows the cat and mouse game between a French Moroccan crime family and the police tasked to catch them. I am in a few episodes and really enjoying the show so far.
Useful tools.
Email charter
My friend Marshall mentioned this email charter on LinkedIn. Share it with anyone you work with to improve the quality and volume of team communications. Much of it is about level setting expectations. More about the email charter here.
Martin
Martin is an app that integrates Claude-3, Deepgram’s Novo speech to text service and GPT-4 Turbo to interact with Google personal productivity software including Google Calendar and Gmail. Conceptually it’s a better Siri-type digital assistant. I have heard good things about it, but don’t rely heavily on Google services myself, so your mileage may vary. More details here.
Magnet
Magnet is a handy piece of software that keeps your desktop organised. It was recommended to me by a friend who codes software for a living. It is particularly handy for keeping ‘presence’ based channels (like Slack, Teams, Mail.app together on one screen as a ‘war room” type view and having creation on another screen. It even works if you use your screen in a vertical orientation.
PamPam
A service that allows you to create and share maps. You can import maps in various formats or describe it in text for PamPam to render it. Strangely useful.
Scribd downloader
I am not sure how Scribd managed to digest so many resources and hide them behind a paywall. But this might be the antedote if you have something specific that you need.
The sales pitch.
I have had a great time working on a project with GREY & Tank Worldwide. I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements for a bit of time that I have in early to mid-June; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Welcome to my April 2024 newsletter which marks my 9th issue. We managed to make it through the winter and the clocks moved forward allowing for lighter evenings in the northern hemisphere.
The number nine is full of symbolism in a good way. In Chinese culture it sounds similar to long-lasting. It was strongly associated with the mystical and powerful nature of the Chinese dragon. From the number of dragon types and children to the number of scales on the dragon – which were multiples of 9. You have nine channels in traditional Chinese medicine. In Norse mythology there are nine worlds and Odin the all-father hangs on the tree of life for 9 days to gain knowledge of the runes.
Social media-related cognitive dissonance
A couple of conversations with people, spurred me to write this next piece.
I know it’s obvious and common sense, but it needs to be said occasionally. This time last year, I was on a Zurich work trip, providing support to a teammate running a workshop for a client who viewed the agency as the least worst option. We did good work and built temporary rapport, we got insight about the wider client-side politics at play. It was the classic example of the complexities involved in agency life and Lord knows we already have enough internal politics in our own shops to deal with.
The photo I shared on Instagram at the time gave no clue to what was happening, serving as a reminder to consider the curated nature of social feeds when scrolling through.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
What my answers to Campaign’s a-list questions would look like.
Boutique e-tailers and why the multi-brand luxury retail sector has gone from boom to bust.
Very Ralph and other things – Ralph Lauren’s world building abilities and how others from a cancer patient or overseas migrant workers have bent the world to their needs, or made a new one.
Books that I have read.
There are a few books that I revisit and the March 1974 JWT London planning guide is one of them. In many respects it feels fresh and more articulate than more modern tomes.
Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism by Angela Zhang sounds exceptionally dry to the uninitiated. But if like me, you’ve worked on brands like Qualcomm, Huawei or GSK you realise how much of an impact China’s regulatory environment can have on your client’s success. Zhang breaks down the history of China’s antitrust regulatory environment, how it works within China’s power structures and how it differs from the US model. What becomes apparent is that Chinese power isn’t monolithic and that China is weaponising antitrust legislation for strategic and policy goals rather than consumer benefit. It is important for everything from technology to the millions of COVID deaths that happened in China due to a lack of effective vaccines. Zhang’s book won awards when it first came out in 2021, and is still valuable now given the relatively static US-China policy views. Given the recent changes in Hong Kong where she lives, we may not see as frank a book of its quality come out of Hong Kong academia again on this subject matter.
Van Horne and Riley’s Left of Bang was recommended by a friend who recently left military service. It codified and gave me a lexicon for describing observations of focus group dynamics and observation-based shopper marketing. Probably of bigger value to people more interested in the analytical side of behavioural science is the bibliography – which is extensive.
Things I have been inspired by.
Sustaining a sustainable brand
Kantar do a good webinar series called On Brand with Kantar. I got to watch one of them: Why consumers ignore brands’ sustainability efforts. Consumers are reticent to trust in brand’s sustainable efforts. Kantar’s recommendation is to stay the course and continue to demonstrate real sustainability. Kantar’s work complemented System 1’s Greenprint US-orientated sustainable advertising report. There is a UK-specific version as well with half a dozen ideas for marketers published in partnership with ITV.
Media platform trends
GWI released their 2024 Global Media trends report. GWI takes a survey based approach to understand consumer media behaviour.
Broadcast TV still commands the greatest share of total TV time, despite Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and a plethora of other streaming platforms from Criterion to Disney+.
Survival/horror players are most excited about gaming luxury collabs, whether or not luxury brands are equally excited about survival or horror gamers is a bigger question.
Games console ownership has halved in the past ten years. This surprised me given how many of my friends have a Switch or PlayStation 5. It probably explains why Microsoft is focusing on being a publisher rather than on platforms as well.
They focused exclusivity on internet advertising, which gives you a good idea on where they want the balance of media spend to go, rather than necessarily the right tool for the right job. Yes digital is very important, BUT, we live in a world were we are wrapped by and consume layers of digital and analogue media.
We can see from GWI data that this viewpoint is likely to be still excessively myopic in terms of media due to offline – online media linkages. This is likely to be even more so in Japan that still has a more robust traditional media industry.
Internet advertising reached a new high, despite being a couple of years after the Olympic games were hosted in Tokyo. (Media spend when a country hosts the olympics tends to be skewed that year upwards).
One thing I would flag is that this report is based on surveying people across the Japanese advertising industry and built on their responses. So there maybe some biases built into that process. Overall it’s a fascinating read.
Social media engagement benchmarks
RivalIQ published their 2024 Social Media Industry Engagement bench report, download it to get the full details. Three things that struck me straight away:
Macro-level decline across platforms on engagement rate, which matches the trends that Manson and Whatley outlined ten years ago in their Facebook Zero paper for Ogilvy Social.
If brands didn’t need enough reason already to reduce exposure to Twitter, the falling engagement rates on the platform add additional reasons. Overall video seemed to underperform on engagement compared to photos.
One thing leaped out to me in the industry verticals data, if you are looking to reach student age adults, why not consider collaborating with higher education institution social media accounts rather than influencers?
Shocking health outcomes
The Hidden Cost of Ageism | A Barrier to Innovation & Growth | Future Work – sparked a lot of discussion with its implications on workplace practices, particularly within the advertising sector. What was less discussed but more important was the implications of ageism related biases on healthcare treatment.
Under-treatment or Over-treatment: Older adults may receive less aggressive treatment options or are overtreated because of age-related biases, rather than based on individual health needs and preferences.
Dismissal of Concerns: Healthcare providers might dismiss older patients’ health issues as inevitable parts of ageing, potentially overlooking treatable conditions.
Age-Based Prioritisation: In some cases, age influences the allocation of healthcare resources, with younger individuals being prioritised over older ones, assuming they have more “life worth living.”
The Hidden Cost of Ageism | Future Work
MSNBC News in the US did a report on what it called a ‘Post-Roe underground’ echoing the underground railroads to free slaves in the Southern states and the Vietnam war era draft dodgers who escaped north to Canada. This time it is to help women access abortion pills or procedures in other states or Mexico.
MSNBC
My friend Parrus hosted a talk on World Health Day, more on that here, the key takeaway for me was not trying to replicate developed market solutions in developing markets. Instead think about how it could be reinvented. Thinking that could be extended beyond health care to consumer goods, telecoms and technology sectors as well.
Luxury market shake-up
Business of Fashion covered a US court case where two women brought a lawsuit against Hermès, alleging purchase of its sought-after Birkin bag is dependent on purchase of other products and is an “illegal tying arrangement” that violated US antitrust law.
Hermès is more vulnerable than other brands because it owns its retail stores. The case, if successful could have implications far beyond the luxury bag-maker. For instance, how Ford selected prospective owners for its GT-40 sports cars, or most Ferrari limited edition for that matter.
While we’re on the subject of luxury, LVMH are rerunning their INSIDE LVMH certificate which is invaluable for anyone who might work on a luxury brand now or in the future. More here.
Morizo
Toyota are on a tear at the moment. They correctly guessed that electric cars were too expensive at the moment and focused hybrids as a stepping stone to electric and hydrogen fuel cell production. They have also successfully use the passion for driving in their products and their marketing. The Toyota GR Yaris was a result of Chairman Akio Toyoda instructing engineers to make something sporty enough to win the World Rally Championship and affordable.
He also outed himself as a speed demon who went under the nom de plume of Morizo.
Quebec
For many English speakers one of the most dissonant experiences is being confronted by a language you can’t speak. It’s part of the reason why ireland managed to become the European base of companies like Alphabet and and Intel. So I was very impressed by this campaign by the Quebec government to attract visitors and inbound investment.
Things I have watched.
I watched Mr Inbetween series one in March and managed to work through series two and three this month. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough as a series. They just keep building on each other.
Over Easter, I revisited some old VHS tapes my parents still had and rediscovered the Christopher Walken science fiction horror film “Communion.” It epitomizes its era, with alien abduction narratives emerging during the Cold War and permeating popular culture from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to “The X-Files,” tapering off after 9/11. “Communion” demonstrates how effective editing and minimal special effects can heighten tension and emotion. Despite the film’s incredulous premise, Walken delivers a fantastic performance.
“Modesty Blaise” is from a time when comic book adaptations were uncommon in cinemas. This 1966 adaptation of the 1960s comic strip shares stylistic similarities with “Barbarella” and stars a young Terence Stamp. I received a tape copy from a friend who was attending art college at the time. The depiction of the computer as a character with emotional reactions in the film feels contemporary, echoing the rise of virtual assistants like Siri and ChatGPT, despite being portrayed as a mainframe. It is interesting to contrast it with Spike Jonze’s movie Her made 50 years later.
Useful tools.
A lot of the tools this month have been inspired by my trusty Mac slowly dying and needing to get my new machine up and running before my old machine gave out.
Time Machine
Apple’s native backup software, Time Machine, serves as a personal sysadmin for home users. Regular backups are essential. If a crucial document disappears while you’re working on it, Time Machine, coupled with a Time Machine-enabled hard drive, allows you to retrieve earlier versions of the document, potentially saving your sanity in critical moments.
Microsoft Office
I prefer the one-off payment model over Office 365 services. I use Apple’s Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps instead of Outlook. While Office is available for just £100, which is reasonable considering its features, I still prefer Keynote over PowerPoint for creating presentations.
Superlist
Many of you may recall Wunderlist, which Microsoft acquired, but much of its original charm was lost in the transition to Microsoft To Do. Superlist is a reboot of Wunderlist by the original team, this time without Microsoft’s involvement. It’s available on iOS, macOS, and the web, catering to both individual and team task management needs.
https://youtu.be/2MzzbRhYlSA?si=04eBXH-MqKLpX2bN
ESET Home Security Essential
I used to rely on Kaspersky, and while I generally like their products, I have concerns about the potential influence of the Russian government. Therefore, I switched providers. ESET has a strong reputation and offers better Mac support than F-Secure. I can recommend their ESET HOME Security Essential package.
Amazon Basics laptop sleeve
I use a various bags depending on my destination and activities. Over the years, I’ve found that Amazon Basics brand laptop sleeves work well for my machines. They’re often among the cheapest options available and tend to outlast the computers they protect.
Laptop camera cover
The photo of Mark Zuckerberg’s laptop with tape covering the camera raised awareness about privacy. Webcam privacy covers, such as a sliver of plastic that slides across, are ideal as they allow your laptop to close fully. A pro tip is to use a red LED torch to clearly locate your camera when applying the stick-on cover.
Protective case and keyboard cover
I’m a big fan of clip-on polycarbonate shells to protect my laptop, as they provide a better surface for the stickers that personalize my machine over time. You don’t necessarily need a big-name case. The one I have came with a keyboard cover that works well. Anything that prevented Red Bull, coffee, or croissant flakes from getting under my keys is worth doing.
Screen protector film
The screen protector film provides great protection and is easy to apply and clean, even for beginners like me. I’ll update you if my opinion changes.
The sales pitch.
I have enjoyed working on projects for PRECISIONeffect and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my April 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the bank holiday.
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Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues.
