I am fortunate to be an awards juror for the second time. This is for the Adforum PHNX advertising awards which attracts entries from around the world.
As part of the process I responded to some interview questions. I hope that my old gaffer Tony Gresty appreciated my quoting of him decades later and was surprised that there wasn’t pushback about my assertion of a ‘post-social’ marketing era.
What motivates you to be part of the PHNX Jury, and what do you hope to bring to the judging process?
Before I worked in advertising, I served an apprenticeship in plant process engineering. My old gaffer who was responsible for me had a few sayings. One of which was practice sharpens skill. By being a judge, I hope that I am helping people within the industry around the world to sharpen their skill. Seeing great challenging work and asking myself how it fits the customer and client needs in turn, helps further sharpen my skill as a strategist. TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) altruist generosity?
PHNX has always been about celebrating creativity in all its forms. What new perspectives or disciplines do you think deserve more recognition in award shows today?
Strategy has the Effies, BUT its focus is larger than creativity with a major focus on efficiency and effectiveness rather the creative process. Strategy always provides the ‘assist’ with single-minded insight and creative JOTBD (job to be done), but is never the ‘goal scorer’ to use an American sports stats metaphor. I think that creativity is not only about the creative, but also the context where the creative is placed – which brings in the disciplines of project management’s orchestration, production’s craft and media planning. I think this is going to become far more important as we go towards a post-social era.
Which countries or regions do you think are leading the creative field right now? And which emerging markets should we look out for?
A really interesting question. Leading is probably the wrong phrase to use, but there are markets that are under-estimated. Thailand and the Philippines have well-deserved reputations for emotional storytelling. Year-after-year when I look at lunar new year adverts Malaysia hits well above its weight given the size of the market.
Japan has been consistently delighting advertising folk for the past five decades.
Probably a better question to ask me after I have been through this year’s award entries.
What trends or cultural shifts do you think will define the most impactful creative work this year?
With everything that’s going on, I think we’ll need more humour. Trends within the advertising industry are also leaning towards a better mix of formats. As an industry we over-index on social vs. attention, efficiency and effectiveness for large brands. So we’ve seen a renaissance in OOH amongst other formats.
There is also a return to basics: creative consistency, fluent objects, the power of storytelling and humour. Finally consumers are more interested in consuming more longer form audio and video content, so what a creative execution might look like I hope is very different.
If you could give one piece of advice to agencies and creatives submitting their work, what would it be?
Be single-minded in terms of category consideration. My biggest criticism of last year’s PHNX award entries was not about the quality of the work per se. Many of the entries had a given creative was put in for consideration for the wrong category. And it was the same entries doing it over-and-over again. If it isn’t relevant it’s just going to get ignored or get under the skin of the judges. In the same way that a poorly-placed ad that is slapped all over the place without consideration would have a similar effect in the real world.
Rant over: I wish everyone the best of luck, finally don’t be disheartened. All of the work was of a high standard, choosing winners is hard.
Which creative minds are inspiring you the most right now?
In the widest creative sense I am working my way through veteran Hong Kong film director Johnnie To‘s back catalogue; some of his works like Breaking News feel like exceptionally contemporary given our media environment. A couple of creatives using AI in a really smart way are Omar Karim aka @arthur_chance on instagram and the Dor Brothers. Agency work-wise VCCP’s immersive installation for Transport for London and a small Malaysian shop called Days Studios (whose bread-and-butter work is usually weddings!), yet, did a fantastic job producing a Chinese New Year ad for a cosmetic treatment clinic Aglow Studio – not what you’d call a big client yet it felt like a bigger production than many large brands. Go Google the ad ‘hiss of prosperity’ and watch it on YouTube.
Welcome to my February 2025 newsletter, I hope that your year of the snake has gotten off to a great start. This newsletter marks my 19th issue – which feels a really short time and strangely long as well, thank you for those of you who have been on the journey so far as subscribers to this humble publication. Prior to writing this newsletter, I found that the number 19 has some interesting connections.
In mandarin Chinese, 19 sounds similar to ‘forever’ and is considered to be lucky by some people, but the belief isn’t as common as 8, 88 or 888.
Anyone who listened to pop radio in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s would be familiar with Paul Hardcastle’s documentary sampling ’19’. The song mixed narration by Clark Kent and sampled news archive footage of the Vietnam war including news reports by read by Walter Cronkite. 19 came from what was cited as the average age of the soldier serving in Vietnam, however this is disputed by Vietnam veteran organisation who claim that the correct number was 22. The veteran’s group did a lot of research to provide accurate information about the conflict, overturning common mistakes repeated as truth in the media. It’s a handy reminder that fallacies and trust in media began way before the commercial internet.
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.
Zing + more things – HSBC’s Zing payments system was shut down and was emblematic of a wider challenge in legacy financial institutions trying to compete against ‘fintech startups. I covered several other things as well including new sensor technology
The 1000 Yen ramen wall is closing down family restaurants across Japan. A confluence of no consumer tolerance for price elasticity due to inflation driven ingredients costs is driving them to the wall. Innovation and product differentiation have not made a difference.
Luxury wellness – why luxury is looking at wellness, what are the thematic opportunities and what would be the competitors for the main luxury marketing conglomerates be successful.
Technical capability notice – having read thoroughly about the allegations that Apple had been served with an order by the British government to provide access to its customer iCloud drive data globally – I still don’t know what to think, but didn’t manage to assuage any of my concerns.
Books that I have read.
World Without End: The million-copy selling graphic novel about climate change by Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain. In Japan, graphic novels regularly non-fiction topics like text books or biographies. A French climate scientist and illustrator collaborated to take a similar approach for climate change and the energy crisis. Their work cuts through false pre-conceptions and trite solutions with science.
Laws of UX by Jon Yablonski. Yablonski breaks down a number of heuristics or razors based on psychological research and how it applies to user experience. These included: Jakob’s Law, Fitt’s Law, Hick’s Law, Miller’s Law, Peak-End Rule and Tesler’s Law (on complexity). While the book focuses on UX, I thought of ways that the thinking could be applied to various aspects of advertising strategy.
I re-read Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal. Eyal’s model did a good job at synthesising B.J. Fogg’s work on persuasive computing, simplifying it into a model that the most casual reader can take and run with it.
Kapferer on Luxury by Jean-Noël Kapferer covers the modern rise of luxury brands as we now know them. Like Dana Thomas’ Deluxe – how luxury lost its lustre Kapferer addresses the mistake of globalised manufacturing and massification of luxury. However Kapferer points out the ‘secret sauce’ that makes luxury products luxurious: the hybridisation of luxury with art and the concept of ‘incomparability’. The absence of both factors explain why British heritage brands from Burberry to Mulberry have failed in their current incarnations as luxury brands.
Black Magic by Masamune Shirow is a manga work from 1983. Masamune is now best known for the creation of Ghost In The Shell which has been turned into a number of anime films, TV series and even a whitewashed Hollywood remake. Despite the title, Black Magic has more in common with space operas like Valerian & Laureline by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières than the occult. In the book Masamune explores some of the ideas which he then more fully developed in Ghost In The Shell including autonomous weapons, robots and machine intelligence.
Doll by Ed McBain. Doll was a police procedural novel written in 1965 that focused on the model agency industry at the time. The novel is unusual in that it features various artistic flourishes including a model portfolio and hand written letters with different styles of penmanship. The author under the McBain pen name managed to produce over 50 novels. They all have taunt dialogue that’s ready for TV and some of them were adapted for broadcast, notably as an episode of Columbo. You can see the influence of McBain’s work in the likes of Dick Wolf’s productions like the Law & Order, FBI and On Call TV series franchises.
Things I have been inspired by.
Can money make you happy?
Past research indicated that happiness from wealth plateaued out with a middle class salary. The latest research via the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania indicates that might not be the case instead, earning more makes you happier and there might not be a point at which one has enough. The upper limit on the research seems to have been restricted by finding sufficiently rich research respondents rather than natural inclination. As a consumer insight that has profound implications in marketing across a range of sectors from gaming to pensions and savings products.
AgeTech
I came across the concept of ‘agetech’ while looking for research launched in time for CES in Las Vegas (7 – 11, January 2025). In the US, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and American Association of Retired People (AARP) have put together a set of deep qualitative and quantitative research looking at the needs of the ‘aged consumer’ for ‘AgeTech’. AgeTech isn’t your Grandma iPad or your boomer CEO’s laptop. Instead it is products that sit at the intersection of health, accessibility and taking care of oneself in the home. The top five perceived age technologies are connected medical alert devices,digital blood pressure monitors, electric or powered wheelchairs/scooters, indoor security cameras, and electronic medication pill dispenser/reminders. Their report 2023 Tech and the 50-Plus, noted that technology spending among those 50-plus in America is forecast to be more than $120 billion by 2030. Admittedly, that ’50-plus’ label could encompass people at the height of their career and family households – but it’s a big number.
It even has a negative impact on the supply side of the housing market for younger generations:
The overwhelming majority (95%) of Americans aged 55 and older agree that aging in place – “the ability to live in one’s own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level” – is an important goal for them. This is up from 93% in 2023.
The Mayfair Set v 2.0
During the summer of 1999, a set of documentaries by Adam Curtis covered the reinvention of business during the latter half of the 20th century was broadcast. I got to discover The Mayfair Set much later on. In the documentaries it covered how the social contract between corporates and their communities was broken down and buccaneering entrepreneurs disrupted societal and legal norms for profit. There is a sense of de ja vu from watching the series in Meta’s business pivots to the UK government’s approach to intellectual property rights for the benefit of generative AI model building.
It probably won’t end well, with the UK population being all the poorer for it.
The Californian Ideology
As to why The Mayfair Set 2.0 is happening, we can actually go back to a 1995 essay by two UK based media theorists who were at the University of Westminster at the time. It was originally published in Mute magazine.
This new faith has emerged from a bizarre fusion of the cultural bohemianism of San Francisco with the hi-tech industries of Silicon Valley. Promoted in magazines, books, TV programmes, websites, newsgroups and Net conferences, the Californian Ideology promiscuously combines the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies. This amalgamation of opposites has been achieved through a profound faith in the emancipatory potential of the new information technologies. In the digital utopia, everybody will be both hip and rich. Not surprisingly, this optimistic vision of the future has been enthusiastically embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, innovative capitalists, social activists, trendy academics, futurist bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians across the USA.
It reads like all these things at once:
A prescient foreshadowing from the past.
Any Stewart Brand op-ed piece from 1993 onwards.
The introduction from an as-yet ghost written book on behalf of Sam Altman, a la Bill Gates The Road Ahead.
A mid-1990s fever dream from the minds of speculative fiction authors like Neal Stephenson, William Gibson or Bruce Sterling.
What the essay makes clear is that Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison and Elon Musk are part of a decades long continuum of Californian Ideology, all be it greatly accelerated; rather than a new thing. One of the main differences is that the digital artisans no longer have a chance to get rich with their company through generous stock options.
Even Steve Jobs fitted in with the pattern. For a hippy he drove a 5 litre Mercedes sports car, parked in the handicapped spaces in the Apple car park and had a part in firing Apple’s first gay CEO: Michael Scott because of homophobia and Scott’s David Brent-like handling of Black Wednesday. It may be a coincidence that Tim Cook didn’t come out publicly as gay until over three years after Steve Jobs died.
… a European strategy for developing the new information technologies must openly acknowledge the inevitability of some form of mixed economy – the creative and antagonistic mix of state, corporate and DIY initiatives. The indeterminacy of the digital future is a result of the ubiquity of this mixed economy within the modern world. No one knows exactly what the relative strengths of each component will be, but collective action can ensure that no social group is deliberately excluded from cyberspace.
A European strategy for the information age must also celebrate the creative powers of the digital artisans. Because their labour cannot be deskilled or mechanised, members of the ‘virtual class’ exercise great control over their own work. Rather than succumbing to the fatalism of the Californian Ideology, we should embrace the Promethean possibilities of hypermedia. Within the limitations of the mixed economy, digital artisans are able to invent something completely new – something which has not beenpredicted in any sci-fi novel. These innovative forms of knowledge and communications will sample the achievements of others, including some aspects of the Californian Ideology. It is now impossible for any serious movement for social emancipation not to incorporate feminism, drug culture, gay liberation, ethnic identity and other issues pioneered by West Coast radicals. Similarly, any attempt to develop hypermedia within Europe will need some of the entrepreneurial zeal and can-do attitude championed by the Californian New Right. Yet, at the same time, the development of hypermedia means innovation, creativity and invention. There are no precedents for all aspects of the digital future. As pioneers of the new, the digital artisans need to reconnect themselves with the theory and practice ofproductive art. They are not just employees of others – or even would-be cybernetic entrepreneurs.
They are also artist-engineers – designers of the next stage of modernity.
Barbrook and Cameron rejected the idea of a straight replication of the Californian Ideology in a European context. Doing so, despite what is written in the media, is more like the rituals of a cargo cult. Instead they recommended fostering a new European culture to address the strengths, failings and contradictions implicit in the Californian Ideology.
Chart of the month: consumer price increases vs. wage increases
This one chart based on consumer price increases and wage increases from 2020 – 2024 tells you everything you need to know about UK consumer sentiment and the everyday struggle to make ends meet.
Things I have watched.
The Organization – Sydney Poitier’s last outing as Virgil Tibbs. The Organization as a title harks back to the 1950s, to back when the FBI were denying that the Mafia even existed. Organised crime in popular culture was thought to be a parallel corporation similar to corporate America, but crooked. It featured in the books of Richard Stark. This was despite law enforcement stumbling on the American mafia’s governing body in 1957. Part of this was down to the fact that the authorities believed that the American arm of the mafia were a bulwark against communism. Back to the film, it starts with an ingenious heist set piece and then develops through a series twists and turns through San Francisco. It was a surprisingly awarding film to watch.
Nakita – Nakita is an early Luc Besson movie made after Subway and The Big Blue. It’s an action film that prioritises style and attitude over fidelity to tactical considerations. The junkies at the start of the film feel like refugees from a Mad Max film who have happened to invade a large French town at night. It is now considered part of the ‘cinéma du look’ film movement of the 1980s through to the early 1990s which also features films like Diva and Subway. Jean Reno’s character of Victor the Cleaner foreshadows his later breakout role as Leon. It was a style of its time drawing on similar vibes of more artistic TV ads, music videos, Michael Mann’s Miami Vice TV series and films Thief and Manhunter.
Stephen Norrington’s original Blade film owes a lot to rave culture and cinéma du look as it does to the comic canon on which it’s based. It’s high energy and packed with personality rather like a darker version of the first Guardians of The Galaxy film. Blade as a character was influenced by blaxploitation characters like Shaft in a Marvel series about a team of vampire hunters. Watching the film almost three decades after it came out, it felt atemporal – from another dimension rather than from the past per se. Norrington’s career came off the rails after his adaption of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen did badly at the box office and star Wesley Snipes went to jail for tax-related offences.
The Magnificent Seven– I watched the film a couple of times during my childhood. John Sturges had already directed a number of iconic films: Bad Day at Black Rock and Gunfight at The OK Corral. With The Magnificent Seven, he borrowed from The Seven Samurai. It was a ‘Zappata western’ covering the period of the Mexican revolution and was shot in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The film did two things to childhood me: made me curious about Japanese cinema and storytelling. There are some connections to subsequent Spaghetti Westerns:
Eli Wallach played a complex Mexican villain in bothThe Magnificent Seven and Leone’s The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.
The visual styling of the film is similar to spaghetti westerns, though the clothes were still too clean, Yul Brynner’s role as the tragic hero in black is a world-away from the traditional Hollywood coding of the good guys wearing white hats (or US cavalry uniforms).
The tight, sparse dialogue set the standard for the Dollars Trilogy and action films moving forward
Zappata westerns were the fuel for more pro-leftist films in the spaghetti western genre. While The Magnificent Seven still has a decidedly western gaze, it took on racism surprisingly on the nose for a Hollywood film of this era.
Watching it now as a more seasoned film watcher only sharpened my appreciation of The Magnificent Seven.
Breaking News by Johnnie To feels as much about now as it when the film was shot 20 years ago. First time I watched it was on the back of a head rest on a Cathay Pacific flight at the time. Back then I was tired and just let the film wash over me. This time I took a more deliberate approach to appreciating the film. In the film the Hong Kong Police try and control and master the Hong Kong public opinion as a robbery goes wrong. However the Hong Kong Police don’t have it all their own way as the criminals wage their own information campaign. This film also has the usual tropes you expect from Hong Kong genre of heroic bloodshed films with amazing plot twists and choreographed action scenes along with the spectacular locations within Hong Kong itself. Watching it this time, I got to appreciate the details such as the cowardly dead-beat Dad Yip played by veteran character actor Suet Lam.
Useful tools.
Current and future uncertainties.
This could be used as thought starters for thinking about business problems for horizon scanning and scenario planning. It’s ideal as fuel for you to then develop a client workshop from. But I wouldn’t use something this information dense in a client-facing document. You can download it as a high resolution PDF here.
Guide to iPhone security
Given the propensity of phone snatching to take over bank accounts and the need to secure work phones, the EFF guide to securing your iPhone has a useful set of reminders and how-to instructions for privacy and security settings here.
Novel recommendations
I got this from Neil Perkin, an LLM-driven fictional book recommendation engine. It has been trained on Goodreads (which reminds me I need to update my Goodreads profile). When I asked it for ‘modern spy novels with the class of John Le Carre’ it gave me Mick Herron’s Slow Horses, Chris Pavone’s The Expats and Chris Cumming’s The Trinity Six. All of which were solid recommendations.
Smartphone tripod
Whether it’s taking a picture of a workshop’s forest of post-it notes or an Instagrammable sunset a steady stand can be really useful. Peak Design (who were falsely accused of being a ‘snitch‘) have come up with a really elegant mobile tripod design that utilises the MagSafe section on the back of an iPhone.
Apple Notes alternative
I am a big fan of Apple Notes as an app. I draft in it, sync ideas and thoughts across devices using it. But for some people that might not work – different folks for different strokes. I was impressed bu the quality of Bear which is a multi-platform alternative to the default Notes app.
The sales pitch.
I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Welcome to my December 2024 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 17th issue. MIT computer students described 17 as the least random number following research asking respondents to provide a number between 1 and 20, 17 was the most popular answer.
In some Chinese dialects 17 can be considered unlucky as it sounds similar to ‘life of anger’. I am hoping for a life of relaxation rather than a life of anger over the Christmas holiday period.
I have found London to be cold, but not necessarily crisp, but the dark days will start to become lighter soon.
Whatever the holiday season throws at you, and whatever your favourite festival of choice to celebrate is called. Have a great one! (Here’s a soundtrack for the vibes.)
Being thankful
A good deal of December is about being thankful. The people and things that I am being thankful for (a by no means complete list).
I will be dropping my review of 2024 on December 31st (technology permitting); here’s my review of 2023 to give you a feel about what you can expect to see.
Books that I have read.
I have been a bit slack on reading this month, but have made up for it with film recommendations below.
I am stilling reading it at the time of writing, but I am really enjoying reading The Peacock and The Sparrow by I.S. Berry. The book rides a resurgence of espionage as a genre. Unusually for books it covers the early 2010s in Bahrain with a clear-eyed look at the civil disturbance that happened at the time. Obliquely, the book also deals with the post-petroleum phase of Bahrain’s development. Bahrain is a former petro-state that has now pivoted to Gulf area tourism and related services industries.
Things I have been inspired by.
2025 trends reports.
Matt Muir of Web Curios fame reminded me of the annual strategy and ad planners ritual of collating annual trends reports. While they aren’t the most scientific piece of work, they give you a good idea of what the corporate publishers who paid for them think in terms of:
What they think their future business looks like
What they think they need to say to remain relevant in the next year
Election 2 – Johnnie To’s trouble with the Hong Kong and Chinese government following his interview with the BBC meant I bought a lot of films I will be sharing here over the next few months. I watched Election last month and followed it up Election 2. The sequel focuses on Louis Koo and Nick Cheung’s characters from the first film amongst others. It’s a film that pulls less punches and alludes to the machinations of how the Beijing government captured control of the Triad groups in Hong Kong. Needless to say, unlike the first film less than two years earlier, Election 2 didn’t get released in China.
The Hitcher– The Hitcher is an amazing film for a number of reasons. Rutger Hauer’s performance as John Ryder is amazing. You have a really taunt horrific thriller of a story, completely at odds with the film’s 15 certificate. The story is matched by a director who wrung a big production out of a small budget. The cinematography at times is breathtaking, shot in the deserts of California. When it got released on Blu-Ray I had to watch it.
I vividly remember the first time I watched it, with my mate Joe. His folks were away for the weekend and we hit the local convenience store bought an armful of snacks and fried up a packet of Bird’s Eye frozen paella prior to sitting down and watching the film. We were glued to the screen watching a rental VHS copy of The Hitcher. My friend Joe’s house backed on to a copse and a couple of tramps dossed in the small wood during the summer. While we were watching the film, a vagrant tried his back door, which was locked and scared the living daylights out of us. We ran him off wielding whatever we had to hand in the kitchen. I had to lock all my windows and doors before I pressed play this time around.
Rare Exports – Rare Exports is an amazing Christmas film made in Finland. It’s funny, touching, action-filled and horrific. It’s a modern twist on the Krampus legend.
Troll Hunter – Troll Hunter is a Norwegian film borrowing from the found footage genre including the likes of The Blair Witch Project and Canniblal Ferrox. A documentary film maker seeks to find out more about a mysterious hunter who is thought to poach bears out of season. The reality is far darker.
Useful tools.
Maven
If you’ve followed technology and social platforms for the past three decades you’ve probably heard the name Ev Williams. He was one of the founders of Pyra Labs who developed the Blogger platform that powered Google’s blogspot.com blogs, publishing platform Medium and microblogging platform Twitter. Maven is his latest social platform looking to provide a healthier alternative to other platforms focused on the dopamine hit triggers of followers, likes and comments.
It’s too early to see whether Maven will be successful, and people have lots of platform choices from BlueSky, Threads and Mastadon to Reddit. Give Maven a try here.
The sales pitch.
I have enjoyed working on a number of projects for Havas and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from January 2025 onwards; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Welcome to my November 2024 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 16th issue. 16 is a low power of two which saw it used in weighing light objects in several cultures. For instance in the British Imperial system of weights 16 ounces were in one pound. This lived on far longer with British drug dealers who looked to sell cannabis in ‘teenths’ (16ths) or eighths of an ounce. Prior to decimal being implemented in China 16 taels or liǎng equalled one catty or jin. Chinese Taoists counted on their finger times and joints of the fingers with a the tip of the thumb, so 16 can be counted on each hand.
The highlight of November was meeting up for brunch with Calvin who I used to work with in Hong Kong and collaborate with on occasion for projects going in-or-out of China. He was passing through London on his way to Web Congress in Lisbon, supporting one of the burgeoning number of start-ups coming out of Shanghai.
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.
Ghost Signs – how legacy signage allows us to peer back into history, camcorders having their ‘lomography’ moment and much more.
Layers of the future – or how innovation doesn’t exist in a fully-formed world, but instead exists within layers of progress over time.
Presidential election beliefs – amongst the autopsies of the campaign that have been discussed, one of the things that struck me was the role of presidential election beliefs that have wrong-footed analysis
Klad & more stuff – a Russian pioneered integration of dark web markets and concealed ‘Amazon locker’ type infrastructure to deliver a new approach to drug dealing. Other items include bottlenecks in gadget manufacturing, internet maturity and more.
Books that I have read.
Dead Calm by Charles Williams – the early 1960s crime novel packs a lot into the story. Trauma, mental illness, murder and intrigue on the high seas. Dead Calm was later made into a film and relocated from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
Jipi and the paranoid chip by Neal Stephenson. A short story that fits into the Cryptonomicon universe of Stephenson’s books – shares the story of Jipi a former flight attendant who works for Mindshare Management Associates Inc. – an agency that distracts tourists to Manila from the rapid construction work taking place during a China-like economic miracle. Because of her personality, Jipi has to track down errant AI powered car alarms fitted with plastic explosives that were designed to deter thieves, but AI happened. If you’ve ever had to write prompts, you’ll likely appreciate it.
Things I have been inspired by.
The fame game
Irish rally driver Rosemary Smith, had the skills but never did get the fame. Smith even got behind the wheel of a Renault formula 1 car to get a test drive at 79 years of age.
I am by no means a sports addict but even in my psyche I know the names and reputations of several famous sports stars across hurling, gaelic football, motorsports rugby league and even soccer. Sid Lee and Appino have raised the issue of how this fame gap is bridged in women’s sports drive into long term mainstream success. Where is the women’s sport equivalent of Stig Blomqvist, Arnold Palmer or Michael Jordan who are hailed in a similar way? Want to know more, reach out to Rory Natkiel.
Yes, Christmas really is getting earlier
My local supermarket started to sell mince pies right after the August bank holiday this year. It had Christmas decorations for sale before the Halloween ones. Christmas seems to be coming earlier this year. The Guardian researched how Christmas was arriving earlier each year, from charting music to mince pies and Christmas puddings going on sale. This year lo-fi girl had their first Christmas soundtrack up on November 4th. If you want a change from the Spotify Christmas list, try this old mix from former streetwear boutique The Hideout.
WARC noted how companies like John Lewis with dedicated Christmas campaigns look to gain a first-mover advantage to aid the talkability around their campaign and gain the full benefit from their emotion driven campaign bedding in and building new memory structures.
WARC predicted that Christmas advertising spend would rise 7.8% to over £10.5 billion. Big growth for search, online display and out of home compared to last year. The biggest losers including TV, direct mail, magazine and print news media.
Things I have watched.
Famous Hong Kong cinema film director Johnnie To criticised Hong Kong’s national security regulation in an interview for the BBC’s Chinese language service. With that in mind, I thought it prudent to buy up as much of his back catalogue as possible because the classics amongst them may be harder to get hold of in the future.
PTU – PTU starts in a similar way to Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog with a policeman losing their duty weapon. However that’s where the parallels finish. In Stray Dog the young detective looking for his gun feel empathy at the end with the criminal who used his weapon. The moral being two-fold – crime starts with a few wrong choices, but are still human. In order to deliver law, over time the policeman needs to become less empathetic, losing a bit of their humanity. PTU on the other hand shows how police blurred the line between the law and crime with extra-legal methods to solve crime. It also highlights the complex relationships between criminal gangs and the police. To keeps the tension going with PTU throughout the film. The ambiguity between police and criminals would not be allowed in future Hong Kong films thanks to the National Security laws that have come into force.
Election – The literal Cantonese title for this film is ‘Black Society’ – which as a term covers all kinds of organised crime groups. Two members of the Wo Lin Shing are up for election become leader (aka chairman or dragonhead) of the organised crime group. It’s a common trope in Hong Kong cinema that these elections happen on a regular basis. Wo Lin Shing is a stand-in name of the very real Wo Shing Wo – a group that have a side hustle doing wet work for the Beijing forces at work in the city.
The film focuses on the election and immediate fallout. Lok runs a more rational campaign, whereas Big-D runs a showy campaign offering money for votes. The elders appoint Lok and Big-D tries to steal the symbol of power. To moves the tension and action on at a rate of knots. It features many of the heavyweights of Hong Kong cinema including Simon Lam, Louis Koo, ‘Big’ Tony Leung, former policeman Nick Cheung and Lam Suet.
Not a Johnnie To production, but I have been enjoying Detective Chinatown on Amazon Prime. The show is similar to the BBC show Sherlock and CSI in the way its plot devices and how its story arcs work. It has been interesting to watch for a number of reasons. The series was produced for Chinese streaming platform iQiyi – think Chinese Netflix. The series is based in Bangkok, Thailand. The senior Thai police representative is portrayed as dramatic, volatile and religious in nature – interesting stereotyping by the Chinese production team. The plot line has a very supernatural aspect to it, which is generally considered to be a no-no with Chinese censors. I am curious to see where they take the show.
Useful tools.
Mac keyboard shortcuts
Alongside David Pogue’s Missing Manual series of reference books for each version of macOS, MacMost’s videos are a great resource for the Mac user. MacMost now have a free downloadable table of Mac keyboard shortcuts.
AI-powered diagram creation
Ever sat in front of a blank Keynote or PowerPoint slide and wondered how to represent something? I am across the Napkin AI which takes your written text describing something and renders it into a diagram. I don’t use these diagrams as the finished product, but as an inspiration for me then to artwork together in Keynote, OmniGraffle or PowerPoint. You can output from Napkin AI as a PNG file. At the moment it’s free to use as a beta product.
Woznim
Woznim allows you to record the names of people and where you met them to try and aid in recall of of them if you run into them again. It reminds me of Foursquare and social bookmarking. Foursquare because of its where 2.0 location based data and social bookmarking because if you develop the Woznim habit it could be life-changing, but if it doesn’t gel with you it’ll be dropped as a service in no time. At the moment it’s an iPhone-only app.
Bluesky
Bluesky has been having a moment as another tranche of social media users follow The Guardian’s lead to leave Twitter and need a micro-blogging service. Bluesky has got a good deal of attention because of its starter packs and list features. Whether Bluesky will continue to grow into a vibrant post-Twitter place isn’t certain yet. But if you are going to use Bluesky then these two tools might help:
Bluesky tools directory. There is a surprisingly rich set of tools available rather like ‘golden age’ era Twitter.
Starter packs. Starter packs are a set of curated recommended accounts to follow based around interests. This site has a large directory of them covering everything from professional interests to sports passions.
The sales pitch.
I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from January 2025 onwards; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my November 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into the Christmas season and the rush to complete projects before clients disappear on holiday.
