The100: saying vs doing, video essays and barking for yourself

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Are you a hanger or a dumper?

Richard Shotton features on The Day One podcast. He’s discussing his 3 worst insight industry pet peeves (the myth of the public trust crisis, complex jargon, and the over-reliance on claimed data). On the last one, Richard uses Cialdini et al’s famous hotel towel experiment as an illustration, and concluded:

People are trying to tell the truth, but because they don’t know that they don’t know, they end up misleading us. 

Listen from 21:37 for that, or pick up the phone and listen to me bang on about it for hours 😉 

In praise of weirdness

Jim Carroll suggests we embrace the weird and wonderful events in our life:

Perhaps we should more actively embrace strange and bizarre events in our personal and professional worlds; not just in our dreams or on holiday, but in our day-to-day experience. Maybe we should use the weird and wonderful to ward off the narrowing perspectives brought on by habit, custom and age. Maybe we would do well to regard disruption, not just as a revolutionary market force; but as a necessary part of our daily regime.

A fix for the empathy deficit?

If you’re introducing some “weird” into your life, how about sitting with a stranger for an hour in an inflated empathy echo chamber? 

Another option, albeit less weird… possibly… ask me to show you my new deck on ‘Closing the empathy gap and improving your innovation success rates’.

A culture of shame, silence and super gaslighters

This, from Zoe Scaman, on ‘Mad Men, Furious Women’ is a tough, but absolutely vital read.  

I tell you these stories not to be sensationalist and not to seek out your sympathies, but because I want you to understand. There are real, horrific and painful reasons why women in this industry are angry, broken, exhausted and often scared into silence. 

Thank you for smoking

The UK government is going to ban online advertising for high fat, salt and sugar foods from the end of 2022. It’s ruffled more than just a few feathers. But as Amelia Torode points out, it comes down to a simple question: do you believe advertising works? If your answer is “yes”, it’s hard to argue against the move. 

Powerful video storytelling

There are some great examples of creative video essays and presentations that we’ve seen over the past 18 months – I’m a massive fan of John Wilshire and Marcus Brown. 

This (h/t Russell Davies) is another beauty. 

From a storytelling perspective it’s an absolute classic. Incredibly engaging, brilliantly produced, and if you’re interested in music theory the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians, it’s even better. Even if you’re not, it’s still worth a watch to see the creativity and potential of video storytelling itself.  

Or try this Trends Report from YouTube, which is really quite something.

What, not How

Dave Trott on how to brief. It’s an excellent story (as always). 

In essence he says briefs should be about what to do, not how to do it.  Otherwise…

It’s like having a dog and barking yourself.

As an agency who receives multiple briefs on a daily basis, we witness all the shades between What and How. That’s why we’re currently trialing a new briefing template, to arrive at better deliverables. If you’d like to take a look at it (your feedback would be most warmly welcome), again, just give me a shout.

Bots to Plots

For your daily dose of weirdness (see earlier entry ; -) try this mesmerising and informative 5 min video of groceries being packed by robots. 

Or this: the London Tube map plotted over an aerial view of London. Magnificent (via @nocontextbrits). 

Here to serve.