the 60sec investment pitch test
Here’s a no-nonsense framework to hone your pitch until it’s sharp as a tack. This tool isn’t just about brevity; it’s a drill sergeant for your thoughts, compelling you to find the core of your business idea and deliver with ‘thud’. You’ll distill your company’s essence, market position, and unique edge into a minute’s spill. […]
how to pen a punchy 30s tv spot
STEP 1 List six emotional benefits people might feel when using your product or interacting with your brand. Think about your product’s heritage, usage occasions with the strongest emotional story, or the mannerisms of the type of people who flock to it. Next, throw those six benefits up against those of your top competitors and […]
odd ideas of what constitute an investment
At the end of WWII, John Maynard Keynes famously proposed that the best way to get the UK economy moving at full speed would be to ask the Americans to bomb factories in the UK “at an hour when the directors were sitting there and no one else.” He added: “How else are we to […]
cultural imprinting
Our copywriter sent me this essay on the topic of “Cultural Imprinting” this week. Published by social psychology writer Kevin Simler back in 2014, it argues that ads don’t work through individual manipulation but through changing culture, mainly using mass media and OOH advertising to drive peer pressure. For example, when I walk through Piccadilly […]
poisonous phone-checking
My Mum wrote me a long email after our time together over Christmas to express how shocked she was to notice the amount of time I was spending with my head buried in my iPhone. For a lot of folk like myself working in communication, the lines between work and play have become blurred. We […]
the palau pledge
Yesterday a whale died off the southern coast of Thailand. The autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags weighing up to eight kilos were found in the creature’s stomach. Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University, said the bags had made it impossible for the whale to eat any nutritional food. “If you have […]
the president stole your land
Anyone who visited Patagonia’s website last Monday in search of some warm mittens was in for a surprise. The outdoor brand posted a strong accusation on its homepage after President Donald Trump cut the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. The message, in bold black and white, was a stark […]
lord bells excruciating exit
As Bell Pottinger goes into administration in the wake of the scandal over its campaign to stir up racial tensions in South Africa, I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. It seems some make compromises in their work, whatever it is. Unless you have worked for a company, department of government, or local […]
the 4 c’s of great content
The bar has never been higher for brands that want to produce content. Are strategists up to the challenge of taking the brand out of branded content and putting the human element back in? In short, branded content now needs to be as good as unbranded content. Here are a few starters for ten. Context: […]
hail robert harris
Robert Harris’ wise words on Brexit and our government’s jurassic ignorance of logic. Poignant and pithy, this is one of my favourite writers at his best. I’ll just leave this here: R
