Category: media | 媒體 | 미디어 | メディア

It makes sense to start this category with warning. Marshall McLuhan was most famous for his insight – The medium is the message: it isn’t just the content of a media which matters, but the medium itself which most meaningfully changes the ways humans operate.

But McLuhan wasn’t an advocate of it, he saw dangers beneath the surface as this quote from his participation in the 1976 Canadian Forum shows.

“The violence that all electric media inflict in their users is that they are instantly invaded and deprived of their physical bodies and are merged in a network of extensions of their own nervous systems. As if this were not sufficient violence or invasion of individual rights, the elimination of the physical bodies of the electric media users also deprives them of the means of relating the program experience of their private, individual selves, even as instant involvement suppresses private identity. The loss of individual and personal meaning via the electronic media ensures a corresponding and reciprocal violence from those so deprived of their identities; for violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The less identity, the more violence.”

McLuhan was concerned with the mass media, in particular the effect of television on society. Yet the content is atemporal. I am sure the warning would have fitted in with rock and roll singles during the 1950s or social media platforms today.

I am concerned not only changes in platforms and consumer behaviour but the interaction of those platforms with societal structures.

  • Compradores + more things

    Compradores and Eurasians of Hong Kong

    Hong Konger Andrew Tse explained the complex history of Eurasians in Hong Kong and the role of compradores. Eurasians were the offspring of Europeans and middle Eastern Jews with local women.

    During the 19th century, Hong Kong was segregated. Mixed race couples couldn’t marry. Eurasians didn’t easy fit in with either the Chinese community or westerners. This segregation also had its advantages. Information didn’t flow between the communities.

    Eurasian families looked more towards the Chinese community and over time built up status within it.

    The compradores were people who acted as an agent for foreign organisations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation. They even helped finance deals when there was low trust. The compradore was a valuable person for western trading houses based in Hong Kong and the families built multi-generational wealth.

    After the second world war, Chinese community understanding of English increased with education. China became closed off with the civil war and Hong Kong itself became a manufacturing hub. With the rise of Hong Kong manufacturing there would be a further decline in the need for compradores to help navigate business deals. Hong Kong also had the common law legal system for contract disputes. The compradore role faded away. Instead of becoming compradores, Eurasians worked within the major companies rising to senior positions. Mr Tse’s own career in the aviation sector is empirical evidence of their success.

    They became prominent business people and philanthropists in their own right. The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals benefited from their philanthropy. Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is the oldest and largest not-for-profit organisation in Hong Kong.

    Over time, mixed race marriage was no longer restricted and Hong Kong had its native-born entrepreneurs like Li Ka-shing to govern the old Taipan businesses like Hutchison-Whampoa.

    A century after the Eurasian community had first formed in Hong Kong and became compradores their identity was still a sensitive subject. Peter Hall’s book In The Web that outlined this history was restrained from being published until after the death of certain prominent community members who didn’t wish to be ‘outed’ as Eurasian.

    As a synopsis of the book puts it:

    Peter Hall’s book, ‘In the Web,’ brings to light the mysteries that lay behind his family and the other Hong Kong Eurasian families intertwined with it. Because it attempts to lift the stone firmly left in place for over a century, this work will not be welcomed by those who prefer conjecture to be left to outsiders.

    Hall himself came from a Eurasian background, was interned by the Japanese and worked for prominent property developer Hongkong Land.

    The prominence of the Eurasian community has dissipated, for a number of reasons:

    • Some of them moved overseas, in common with many richer Hong Kongers in the run up to the handover.
    • Some family lines have became re-assimilated in the Chinese community.
    • Many of them died defending Hong Kong during the Japanese invasion.

    Branding

    Q&A: Juanita Zhang on How Chinese Brands Can Win Globally | Branding in Asia – One critical insight is the power of unapologetic differentiation, especially as Chinese brands move beyond the ‘outbound 2.0’ era. The initial wave of success often rode on e-commerce efficiency, providing commodity-level products and leveraging vast data insights. However, we’ve observed that many brands then dwell too much in ‘end-user insight,’ optimizing for existing demand rather than proactively building aspirational gravity. The brands that truly succeed don’t try to be all things to all people; they identify a unique, compelling value proposition and own it fiercely.

    McDonald’s US sales drop by most since height of pandemic | FTKempczinski said his company had surveyed consumers in top global markets about their views on the US, American brands and McDonald’s. While there had been no change to public opinion on the McDonald’s brand, he said more people signalled they would be cutting back on buying American brands. The surveys also revealed an 8 to 10-point rise in “anti-American sentiment”, he said, notably in northern Europe and Canada.

    China

    ‘Hanger war’: Italy’s fast fashion hub becomes Chinese mafia battlefield | Hong Kong Free Press

    Revealed: The scale of cheap Chinese imports flown into UK without paying any tariffs | Money News | Sky News

    Ikea Shanghai becomes a hot spot for senior dating | International | EL PAÍS English – the problem for Ikea is that they can’t monetise these consumers. They bring their own food, drink the free coffee and keep their wallets tightly closed.

    Watchmaker Swatch apologises for ‘slanted eyes’ ad after China social media uproar | Hong Kong Free Press

    Consumer behaviour

    Steve Ells, Chipotle founder: ‘The public doesn’t like to see technology nearby when they’re trying to eat’ | EPS | EL PAÍS English

    We used AI to analyse three cities. It’s true: we now walk more quickly and socialise less | Carlo Ratti | The Guardian

    Economics

    Greedflation Is Back as Corporations Use the Tariff Excuse to Hike Prices | BIG by Matt Stoller

    The Death of the Amex Lounge: Why the Upper Middle Class Isn’t Special AnymoreThere’s something happening to the upper middle class in the United States that no one is talking about. They are going through an existential crisis.  I first noticed it at the airport. A line 20 people deep for the American Express lounge. Then, once you get inside, more lines for food/drinks and not an open chair in sight. Then I saw it in the housing market. I have friends with $10,000+ monthly mortgage payments on modest homes. Ten grand a month and they still don’t own a mansion. Today, buying a 3-bedroom apartment in Jersey City (where I live) would cost me anywhere from $9,300-$14,000 a month (all-in). I could rent the same unit for around $6,000-$7,000 a month.

    Ethics

    The 50something man has a PR problem | Influence Online“Ageism is the last ‘ism’ we need to tackle. Anecdotally, I’m hearing a lot about the 50+ demographic struggling to find new roles because employers perceive them as being so old that they can’t learn new skills or that their tech isn’t up to scratch. All their knowledge is being lost – and because AI is replacing entry-level jobs – there’s a lack of new people coming in to learn from them. Acknowledging ageism exists would be a great start…”

    Finance

    Buy now, pay later, in debt forever? – The Face – or how generation Z credit rating is being impacted by Klarna, Affirm et al which are the digital equivalent of the ‘tally man’ of the early to mid 20th century. Reading all this reminded me of working at MBNA as a student and hearing people’s horror stories as they tried to transfer over scorecard debit to pay it down at a more rational rate.

    FMCG

    Mister Donut’s New Home Cut doughnuts take nostalgia to extremes with barely any sweetness | Sora News 24

    Domestos: a masterclass on how legacy brands can still cut through

    Unilever Acquires Dr. Squatch: What This $1.5B Deal Reveals About Modern CPG Brand Strategy | Mintel

    The story of Nongfu water is the story of the wild, wild west of Chinese business. The health claims still shock me, despite everything I knew about the Chinese market.

    Hong Kong

    Nike sues HK star Edison Chen over alleged breach of contract | Marketing-Interactive

    HK Ghost Signs – beautifully made site documenting historic advertising and industrial signage from back when Hong Kong was a light industrial titan.

    Hong Kong’s busy bankers give its office market a lift | FT contrast this with Collers more sober take on the Hong Kong market Singapore office demand soars 12-fold while Hong Kong remains ‘subdued’, Colliers says | South China Morning Post

    Japan

    Japan’s Hardworking Yakuza — The Viagra Job (2010)

    Luxury

    Is petcare the next luxury opportunity? | Vogue Business

    Luxury blingflation creates opportunity for cheaper challengers | FT – are these premium or luxury? And have the consumers pivoted from luxury to premium?

    Media

    Why Brands Like State Farm and Argos Are Going All-In on Social-First Episodic Videos | AdWeek – storytelling

    Amazon Breaks Up Wondery Podcast Studio, CEO Jen Sargent Departs | Hollywood Reporter – issues with the business model for audio offerings, curious to know if Vox will follow suit? The shows that moved to SiriusXM are interesting, SiriusXM is a subscription-based satellite and internet radio service

    Chinese ‘vertical dramas’ are booming in America. Should Hollywood be worried? | SCMP – Hollywood has done a poor job of having compelling mobile media

    TVB Introduces AI Short Series – JayneStars.com – this follows on from TVB running an AI avatar to host Miss Hong Kong 2023

    Forget about the AI Guess model — let’s talk about Range Rover’s Vogue ad – The Media Leader

    Online

    What Is “Broke Man Propaganda?” | Cosmopolitan & Yes, it is classist to dehumanise ‘broke’ men | Dazed“Poverty is not the fault of the poor,” she continues. “I find it very cruel to talk about John – a character who loves Lucy, a beautiful character being played beautifully by Chris – in such cruel terms as ‘broke boy’ or ‘broke man’.” She goes on: “I think that is a very troubling result of the way that wealthy people have gotten into our hearts [and convinced us] it’s your fault if you’re poor, or you’re a bad person if you’re poor. So, it doesn’t make me laugh, actually. It just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters [like that], and think about it in such classist terms.”

    Why Is TikTok Overflowing With AI Country Music Erotica? | Pitchfork

    Philippines

    Poblacion is the old part of Makati, the central business district of Manila in the Philippines. I have been to Makati for work in the past and to my regret missed visiting Poblacion.

    Otherwise Makati is full of anonymous office blocks, business hotels that look the same the world over and Starbucks coffee shops.

    Retailing

    Chinese Livestreaming ‘Virtual Human’ Salespeople Are Outselling Their Human Counterparts | 404 Media

    Security

    China Is Winning the Cyberwar: America Needs a New Strategy of Deterrence | Foreign Affairs

    Axios Future of Cybersecurity: 1 big thing: A tale of two generative AI futures – differing opinions from Defcon in Vegas on the impact of AI on hacking and cyber-defence

    Israel Secretly Recruited Iranian Dissidents to Attack Iran From Within — ProPublica

    Inside Beijing’s quiet campaign to sideline Nvidia’s H20 AI chips | DigiTimesChina has told domestic companies to steer clear of Nvidia’s H20 processors, particularly for government and national security projects, raising the stakes for US chipmakers

    Colt Telecommunications Struggles in Wake of Cyber Incident | Dark Reading

    New Zealand spy service warns of China interference | Spacewar

    FBI Warns of Russian Cyber Hackers Targeting Critical US Infrastructure | The Epoch Times

    Colombian Black Hawk shot down by FPV drone | Defence Blog

    EU fires warning shot at Spain over Huawei reliance | FT

    DaVita tells 2.4M people ransomware scum stole health data • The Register

    Software

    Google to provide Gemini AI tools to US government | Robo Daily

    Companies Are Pouring Billions Into A.I. It Has Yet to Pay Off. – The New York Times

    Technology

    ‘AI winter’ is coming, warns leading expert following OpenAI’s botched GPT-5 launch | Graham Lovelace

    Google and IBM believe first workable quantum computer is in sight | FT

    Nigeria deports 50 Chinese nationals in cybercrime crackdown | Reuters

    Tech war: DeepSeek hints China close to unveiling ‘next generation’ AI chips | SCMP

    Tools

    Lumo: Privacy-first AI assistant where chats stay confidential – Proton’s AI assistant

    Is the Flipper Zero the next big car theft gadget? The Verge & Inside the Underground Trade of ‘Flipper Zero’ Tech to Break into Cars | 404 Media

    Web-of-no-web

    Amazon Digital Signage Solutions for Business – interesting AWS / product hybrid

    Harvard dropouts to launch ‘always on’ AI smart glasses that listen and record every conversation | TechCrunch

    Wireless

    Electronic Weapons: Iran Exploits Western Cellphones

  • September 2025 newsletter

    September 2025 introduction – (26) pick-and-mix edition

    Where has the year gone? I am just thankful that we got a little bit of sun, given how fast and hard the autumn wind and rain came in this year. I am now at issue 26, or as a bingo caller would put it ‘pick and mix’.

    Pick'n'Mix

    When I was a child ‘pick-and-mix’ sweets were a way of getting maximum variety for the lowest amount of pocket money that I earned from chores. Woolworths were famous at the time for their pick and mix section, alongside selling vinyl records and cassettes. Woolworths disappeared from the UK high street during the 2008 financial crisis.

    For Mandarin Chinese speakers 26 is considered ‘lucky’ given that it sounds similar to ‘easy flow’ implying easy wealth.

    This month’s soundtrack has been a banging digital compilation put together by Paradisco and Disco Isn’t Dead featuring The Reflex, PBR Streetgang, Prins Thomas, J Kriv, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66.

    Right, let’s get into it.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here

    SO

    Things I’ve written.

    Books that I have read.

    • I finished Moscow X by David McCloskey. (No plot spoilers). This is the second book my McCloskey after Damascus Station, which I read and enjoyed back in May last year. The book is like a more action-orientated American version of a LeCarré novel. The plot reminded me of LeCarré’s Single & Single and Our Kind of Traitor. McCloskey isn’t afraid to have strong female lead characters in his book.
    • Your Life is Manufactured by Tim Minshall. Minshall is a professor at Cambridge and heads up the engineering department’s manufacturing research centre. Because of his mastery of the subject area, he manages to provide an exceptionally accessible primer in terms of what manufacturing is, how it happens and what it means. More about it here.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Election-winning opacity in influencer relations 

    I have been following Taylor Lorenz‘ work since she became the beat reporter for online culture and technology at the Business Insider. Her article for Wired magazine on how the Democratic Party in the US is working with paid influencers makes for an interesting read.

    What would be the norm in the commercial world about influencer transparency where there is a paid relationship – isn’t happening in politics.

    Ok, why does this matter? The reason why I think this matters is that people who do their time in the trenches of a presidential election campaign have a clear path into a number of American agencies.

    ‘I’ve have won a victory for X candidate and can do the same for your brand’ has been a popular refrain for decades in agencies.

    I have been in the room when senior American agency people have tried to convince Chinese companies to buy their services based on their success in marketing a candidate in an election using western social media channels. There was no sense of irony when this was awkwardly delivered as a possible solution for domestic market campaigns to marketing teams in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai.

    Bad habits will be brought into agencies and sold on to clients.

    Chart of the month. 

    Kim Malcolm shared a great report done by Zappi and VaynerMedia looking at The State of Creative Effectiveness 2025. Two charts piqued my interest. The change in distinctiveness of advertising by age cohort.

    distinctiveness

    The overall emotion that an advert evokes by age cohort.

    emotion

    Causality of these effects aren’t clear. Empirically, I know that great adverts still put a smile on the faces of people of all ages and can change brand choice, even in the oldest consumers.

    I had more questions than answers. VaynerMedia thought that the answer should be cohort-specific campaigns. I am less sure, since brands tend to better within culture as a common point of truth for everyone. Also, I don’t believe in leaping to a solution until I understand the underlying ‘problem’.

    I could understand a decline in novelty as people gain decades of life experience and will have seen similar creative executions before.

    Are the adverts lacking a foundation in strong cultural insights and cues that would resonate with these older audience cohorts?

    What I did notice is a correlation with the age profile in advertising agency staff compared to the general public and the point at which the drop-off to occurs. But correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation.

    It’s concerning that advertising effectiveness declines in older audience cohorts as economic power skews older within the general population. This is likely to continue as millennials inherit wealth from their baby boomer relatives as they enter their 50s and 60s. Which makes the old marketer line about half of a consumers economic value is over by 35 seem hollow.

    Things I have watched. 

    Ghost In The Shell Arise: Border 1 and Border 2. In the GITS storyline this is a prequel to the original film. It follows how the eventual team comes together. The technology looks less fantastical and more prophetic each time I watch it. The animation is still spectacular.

    Ghost In The Shell Arise: Border 3 and Border 4. Following on from Border 1 and Border 2, this has Togusa and the Section 9 team following the same case from different ends – which eventually has Togusa joining Section 9 as its only unaugmented team member.

    I bought up as many of the films I could in Johnnie To’s filmography after he criticised Hong Kong’s national security regulation in an interview, which was likely to be the kiss of death to his film career. I finally got around to watching one of his best known films PTU and the series of Tactical Unit films that came from the same universe.

    PTU: One of the paradoxes of Hong Kong is the prevalence of triad and corruption dramas, compared to the real life which whilst not crime and corruption free is much more staid. Hong Kong is as different from its cinematic counterpart, as the UK is to Richard Curtis’ films. PTU like Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog is based around the search for a missing police pistol. PTU (police tactical unit) officers look to help out a detective from the OCTB (organised crime and triad bureau). While the film occurs over one night, it was actually shot over three years and is one of Johnnie To’s best known films. Shooting only at night, To provided the audience with a familiar, yet different, cinematic experience. The washed out colours of day time Hong Kong is replaced by vibrant signage and the sharp shadows defined by the street lighting. Officers walking with a street lamp lit Tom Lee music instrument store behind them, look like its from a John Ford scene in composition. Some of his tracking shots, due to the framing of photography and the distortions of the night give an almost Inception like feeling to the geography of Hong Kong streets, warping the horizon between buildings the night sky. PTU was successful internationally and then spawned, five further films from the same universe made in 2008 and 2009.

    Tactical Unit: The Code was a one of a series of Tactical Unit sequels to Johnnie To’s PTU. In The Code several plot lines come together. The investigation of CCTV footage of officers beating up a triad , a police officer heavily in debt due to negative equity on his mortgage and a drug deal gone wrong. All this plays out in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. When this film was made back in 2008, it would have been considered well done, but largely unremarkable. Nowadays it couldn’t be made as it would in breach of the National Security Law. The irony is that this film is available on the iQiyi streaming service from mainland China.

    Tactical Unit: Human Nature loses some of the cinematic feel of PTU. It’s not as masterful a film , BUT, the convoluted threads of the plot and the great cast who are now completely comfortable in their characters make it work well.

    Tactical Unit: No Way Out. No Way Out starts with an impressive screne shot in Temple Street market. The film explores the Temple Street area of Kowloon and organised crime links to everything from cigarette smuggling to drugs.

    Tactical Unit: Comrade in Arms is the penultimate in the series from the PTU universe of films. You still have the main cast of Hong Kong veterans Lam Suet, Simon Yam and Maggie Shiu. Plain clothes officer Lo Sa has been demoted to wearing a uniform and both Mike Ho and Sergeant Kat’s squads are still patrolling the Kowloon side of Victoria harbour. This sees the stars leave their usual urban beat and go into the hills of the New Territories after bank robbers. Much of it occurs in daylight, which sets it apart from the night time beat of PTU. Nowadays it couldn’t be made as it would in breach of the National Security Law. The irony is that this film is available on the iQiyi streaming service from mainland China.

    Tactical Unit: Partners. Partners is unusual in that it revolves around the challenges of the ethnic minorities that make up Hong Kong from romance fraud ensnaring filipina workers to discrimination against Indians and Nepalis. While some of the show happens during late on in the day, it still captures much of the night time feeling of the universe

    2001 Nights is a 3D anime. While I admire the ambition and the technical expertise that went into the models, the characters as CGI fall down and distract from the storytelling. Also it felt weirdly like Space 1999 – and not in a good way.

    Her Vengeance is a Hong Kong category III revenge movie filmed in 1988 that 88 Films recently release on Blu Ray. It borrows from another Hong Kong film in the early 1970s and I Spit On Your Grave. Despite being an low budget exploitation film it features a number of notable Hong Kong actors, probably because it was a Golden Harvest Production.

    Casino Lisboa

    I found the film interesting because its opening was shot at Stanley Ho’s iconic Casino Lisboa in Macau. This was unusual because Hong Kong had lots of nightclubs that would have been fine for the protagonists management role without the hassle of the additional travel and government permissions. So we get a rare late 1980s snapshot of the then Portuguese colony.

    When The Last Sword Is Drawn is a classic chambara (samurai sword-play) movie. It tells the complex story of a samurai, who unable to support his family on his meagre income as a school teacher and fencing master, turns his back on his clan and leaves to find work in Kyoto. Once in Kyoto he becomes embroiled in the battle between the declining Takagawa Shogunate and the Imperial Royal Family during the 19th century. Whilst the film does contain a lot of violence, it is used as a backdrop to the humanity of the main character and battles he faces between providing for his family and doing the honourable thing.

    The plot is told through the recollections of others and finishes with the samurai’s youngest daughter getting ready to leave Japan with her husband and set up a doctor’s surgery in Manchuria (China).

    Useful tools.

    Playing Blu-Ray discs on a Mac

    I have a Blu Ray player in my home theatre that enjoy using in lieu of subscribing to Netflix, which allows to me to explore more art house content than I can stream. Macgo Mac Blu Ray Player Pro gives your Mac the software capability that Steve Jobs wouldn’t.

    One final thing, if you prefer to use Substack, you can now subscribe to this newsletter there.

    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.

    now taking bookings

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my September 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and get planning for Hallowe’en.

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.

    Get in touch 

  • PHNX 2025 favourites

    Now that the awards have been announced I can share my PHNX 2025 favourites from the categories that I had a the good fortune to judge. It took me a little time to sit down and collect my thoughts. You can find the details of the Grand Prix winners here.

    Proud to be a juror again this year for Adforms PHNX awards

    My PHNX 2025 favourites come from around the world. The categories are truly global in nature and you get work from a wide range of agency sizes. Partly because of my time in Hong Kong campaigns from Cathay Pacific and HSBC stood out for me when looking at PHNX 2025. This wasn’t out of a sense of mawkish nostalgia, but because I understand the cultural context and legislative issues lurking beneath the surface looking to sink a campaign for fear of ‘soft resistance’.

    Cathay Pacific paraolympics

    While Hong Kong has historically had a strong showing at the paraolympics , its para-olympians achievements hadn’t been seen in the past. Cathay Pacific used the new opportunities that generative AI tools allowed these moments to be recreated.

    Cathay Pacific had the permission to do this advert because of its position in Hong Kong life. Cathay Pacific aka ‘CX’ is the nervous system that connects Hong Kong and Hong Kongers to the wider world. As importantly, CX also connects the Hong Kong diaspora to the home city. The airline’s loyalty card is the second most common card for Hong Kongers after the Hong Kong ID card.

    HSBC – Hong Kong move forward

    Hong Kong as a city has been through a lot:

    • The protests
    • The National Security Law and the social changes that came after it
    • COVID-19 lockdown
    • A battered economy

    All of this piled on top of the co-opetition between the city and nearby cities from Guangzhou and Shenzhen to Macau and Singapore.

    Move Forward tries to capture the Hong Kong commercial spirit, even as ‘Underneath the Lion Rock’ common identity dimmed and spread around the world.

    HSBC took this concept further by using Tony Leung Chiu-wai ‘aka Little Tony’ as a brand spokesperson. Leung as a star is universally liked by Hong Kongers, from Marvel fans to Wong Kar-wai devotees like me. Leung embodies the ‘Lion Rock spirit’. He left school at 15 due to family hardship. Worked in everyman jobs like a salesman in an electrical goods store and built his career thanks the apprenticeship / talent development system that local TV station TVB ran at the time.

    Midea white goods

    In the 1980s and early 1990s this ad wouldn’t have been notable. It would have been considered a good advert, but not great. But it’s now 2025, Gym Shark clothing and Suri dental health adverts are soul-rotting. So the joy of seeing any craft and conceptual creativity in an advert makes this Midea spot notable.

    https://youtu.be/ujpb1o-vlBU

    If Diageo made white goods, this is what their campaigns would look like.

    Limin’ with Gram

    Of my PHNX 2025 favourites, Limin with Gram was my sole pick from the UK based on the categories that I was a jury member for. It warmed the strategist in me for the way cultural insights were applied to a health-related public service announcement style campaign.

    More related content here.

  • Get lost in a book

    I was judging global creative advertising awards, and I came across an Irish Libraries campaign to encourage readers to Get Lost In A Book.

    At ArtisTree

    Literature and reading is as Irish as the GAA or a glass of Club Orange. Over the years I have found it easy to get lost in a book. My parents may not have bought me every toy that I wanted from the Argos catalogue, but we had a house with books and I got a library card early on. When I would stay on the family farm, I would read a book on rare coins, old editions of The Reader’s Digest, Old Moore’s almanac, paperbacks of Irish folk tales and Irish history books. Facts About Ireland captured my imagination with its pictures of Newgrange and the Tara brooch.

    Dublin Archaeology Museum: The Tara Brooch

    Decades later and after I have written this paragraph I am heading to bed to get lost in a book before falling to sleep.

    Reading as a pass-time for a good number of Irish people is something that we do. During COVID-19 in 2021, the Government of Ireland launched Ireland Reads month which encouraged people to read as it was considered to help with mental health and wellbeing. Its from this campaign that Get Lost In A Book sprang out of.

    Reading seems to be on the decline in both adults and children. Of those that do read younger male cohorts seem to read more for ‘life maxing’ than for pleasure with reading material focusing solely on the works of self-improvement ‘experts’ who have varying degrees of expertise.

    • Reading for pleasure has life long benefits.
    • The Irish government highlighted mental health and its link to wellbeing.
    • Increased vocabulary and mathematical reasoning
    • A sense of personal confidence and connectedness

    In 2006, The National Literacy Trust found that choice was a key factor in fostering life-long reading as a habit, allowing the reader to continue to get lost in a book. The problem now seems to be a surplus of choice via our smartphones and social platforms. Book recommendations here and here, more related posts here.

  • August 2025 newsletter

    August 2025 introduction – duck and dive (25) edition

    Diving Duck

    This is the 25th edition of Strategic Outcomes. The first edition was quickly bashed out in a hotel room. And people signed up, and kept coming back. As I write this August 2025 has been a weird month with the weather throwing all the seasons at once at us from storms to heatwaves.

    The bingo call for 25 – ‘duck and dive’ would have been equally appropriate descriptor for 2025 to date – with massive changes across current affairs, the economy and culture. It seemed to make more sense than calling this a ‘silver edition’.

    25 evokes memories a of childhood Irish card game played with my Uncle and Granny on the formica top of the farmhouse kitchen table. Something I frequently did during August nights after a day’s work cleaning up after animals, feeding livestock and other tasks.

    For this month’s musical accompaniment I can recommend St Etienne Take Me To The Pilot produced by Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll, which hits different to previous St Etienne records.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here

    Strategic outcomes

    Things I’ve written.

    • From the changing nature of motorsport fandom to do clients actually care about WPP’s organisational changes and new CEO?
    • Hacks for moving city, from my time uprooting my life from London to Hong Kong and back again. These were and edited version of notes from an email I wrote years ago for a acquaintance who was moving to Shenzhen, soon after I had made the jump to Hong Kong. He is no longer with us, you may get some value out of them.

    Books that I have read.

    • I am currently reading David McCloskey’s Moscow X. The slow reading pace is more down to me rather than the accessibility of the book which is up to McCloskey’s usual high standards.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Escalating trade tensions

    GLG shared a discussion on escalating global trade tensions. I had a number of takeaways from it.

    US trade war with China has devolved into a dangerous stalemate where neither side can back down without losing face.

    The core conflict stems from China’s state-led industrial policy clashing with the rules-based system. The Trump administration’s rhetoric triggered China’s historical “century of humiliation,” making compromise politically difficult.

    Key takeaways from the discussion:

    1. China’s top demands aren’t about tariffs.
    • Respect is paramount: China’s first demand for restarting talks is that the Trump administration speaks to them with respect and stops insults.
    • Sovereignty is key: China insists on discussing Taiwan, which it views as its “most important and most sensitive issue”.
    1. The U.S. is overstretched.
    • Not enough negotiators: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has only about 250 total employees.
    • Outsourcing is unworkable: Using pro bono law firms to assist raises problems with security clearances and conflicts of interest.
    1. The non-China strategy is different.
    • A softer tone: The administration’s approach to allies like Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam is more ‘measured’.
    • Quick deals: preliminary agreements with these nations that focus on tariff reductions, while punting more complex issues negotiations down the road.
    1. Sector-specific US risks loom large.
    • Technology: export controls on advanced chips and dumping of Chinese-made legacy chips used in cars and white goods.
    • Autos: Highly integrated supply chains that cross borders, are very vulnerable to tariffs.
    • Pharmaceuticals: Tariffs on generic drugs could become unprofitable and cause them to disappear from the U.S. market.

    The state of AI in business

    The Gen AI divide: state of AI in business 2025 | MIT was published and created an AI stock sell-off based on its top-line factoid: 95% of companies get zero RoI from GenAI.

    But there was more interesting takeaways in the report that paint a more nuanced picture:

    The “Learning Gap” is the real barrier.

    • The primary reason AI pilots stall is that most systems don’t retain feedback, adapt to context, or improve over time. 
    • While 70% of employees prefer AI for simple tasks like emails and summaries, 90% choose a human colleague for complex projects because of the learning gap.

    Buy, don’t build.

    • Internally developed tools fail twice as often as COTS ones.
    • The data shows a clear winning strategy: pilots built through strategic partnerships with external vendors are twice as likely to reach full deployment as those built internally (a 66% success rate versus 33%).

    Companies are making misplaced bets.

    • An estimated 70% of AI investment is directed at high-visibility sales and marketing functions.
    • The highest and clearest ROI in underfunded “back-office” areas. Some firms are saving $2-10 million annually in customer service and document processing.

    These three points are good news for consultants, productivity suite vendors and enterprise software companies that really understand their clients workflow pain-points.

    Chart of the month. 

    Actually two charts. The first one is a decline in conscientiousness. Depending who you believe this could be down to our always-on lives thanks to social media and smartphones, OR, a victim of the broken social contract that young adults (aka generation z) feel has happened.

    conscientiousness

    A corresponding decline in US consumers reading for pleasure tends to imply a smartphone-related effect rather than broken social contract as cause. Also broken social contracts are depressingly common generation-by-generation.

    reading

    Things I have watched. 

    The Iron Prefect was a film that I watched purely on the basis of a talk Alex Cox gave as part of the special features on the Blu Ray. The film is an account of a Fascist-era official sent to combat the Sicilian mafia who ends up finding how endemic and self-defeating his mission is. It is based on the story of Cesare Mori and some of his most famous acts such as the siege of Gangi. Cox talked about its similarity to The Mattei Affair – which I can see to a certain extent, in terms of the themes explored. The film features Claudia Cardinale and Giuliano Gemma – two greats of Italian cinema. But the real star is the scenery.

    Hong Kong Hong Kong is a tragic romantic triangle about mainland migrants with a social realism bent. It was shot in 1983, but didn’t have the escapism of more popular films in the Hong Kong box office at the time.

    The film is similar in feel to the likes of the kitchen sink dramas of 1960s kitchen sink dramas like This Sporting Life, and John Huston’s boxing drama Fat City. It shows a different side to Hong Kong cinema than western audiences were used to. It came out the same time as Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain and Jackie Chan’s Project A. Hong Kong Hong Kong benefited from the free flow of rostered actors attached to TVB – the dominant broadcaster being able to work for Shaw Brothers film productions. Protagonist Alex Man, like other stars of his era including Chow Yun-fat and Simon Yam Tat-wah came through TVB’s acting school that nurtured talent from all walks of life from first-jobbers, to former models and policemen.

    Man brought experience from television and stage roles to his film performances which makes Hong Kong Hong Kong more powerful.

    Finally 1980s the city of Hong Kong itself plays a fantastic role to the drama. From the opening tracking shot taken somewhere above Kennedy Town to the composite buildings and Shangri-La Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui – to migrant slums that were being dismantled as public housing improved. Hong Kong has continually changed from an architectural point of view, though the pace has slowed recently. Some of the shots pulled at me deep inside as only a home you deeply cared about can.

    An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty featured Alex Man as a classic wuxi swordsman. The star is Pat Ha Man-jing who would have been 18 or 19 at the time. The film feels more ‘Japanese’ chambara romance than your usual Hong Kong film. Ha’s cleavage is on display – which is unusual as the Hong Kong film industry is more socially conservative. Violence is ok, but risqué films like Sex and Zen with a category III rating often had Japanese actresses in them like Mari Ayukawa and Rena Murakami. The Japanese actresses appeared because of the stigma in Hong Kong society affected actresses careers more than their male counterparts AND the ongoing popularity of Japanese adult films in Hong Kong. 

    An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty shows the two sides of Shaw Brothers productions: great actors and inventive cinematography on one side, together with cheap skating on set design like giant marine plywood panels.

    Shaw Brothers had been wounded by the founding of Golden Harvest, he power of the studio system was waning, the Hong Kong new wave movement was taking off and soon ‘mainland collaborations’ would dismantle much of the ecosystem that made Hong Kong cinema great.

    I really wanted to like Butterfly on Amazon Prime Video. It had a great cast including Daniel Dae Kim, Piper Perabo and Charles Parnell. It was shot on location in South Korea. It had an interesting take on the privatisation of intelligence operations. But it felt empty and definitely less than the sum of its parts, which is a shame given how well Amazon did on its Tom Clancy adaptions. Butterfly was let down by poor storytelling.

    Useful tools.

    Yet another LLM. Anara was something I have trialled a little and found useful due to its heavier weighting towards citing research papers compared to the other main LLMs out there. Useful for account planners as another tool in our arsenal to be used in parallel with the more mainstream tools out there, rather than as a substitute.

    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.

    now taking bookings

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my August 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward for an indian summer, despite some of August already feeling autumnal.

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.

    Get in touch if you have any tips or thoughts.