Hey,

There are just a couple more days to vote for our SXSW workshop. After the extraordinarily successful format designing game show we did at SXSW this year, we’ve developed an equally fun workshop format called Boring to Brilliant - B2B Storytelling the Hollywood Way. Give us a vote or if you would like to add a bit of that magic to your content strategy get in touch.

Here’s your monthly reminder for Proper Fancy. If you need creative inspiration join creatives from all over the world for our show and tell, next Thursday (August 22nd). It will be great to meet you all.

OK. Enough from me. The weekend has almost landed. On to the links. And what a fine bunch we have for you this Friday. Enjoy!

Hugh

The Holy Trinity of B2B Customer Promise Campaigns (2-minute read)

The Internet Has Few Centres of Gravity Right Now (6-minute read)

Nick Cave and Stephen Colbert’s Remarkable Conversation (22-minute watch)

Formats Unpacked: The Athletic’s Daily Football Briefing (5-minute read)

The Newsletter Advice I Give Again and Again (7-minute read)

Mixtaping My Metaphors (8-minute read)

“Copywriting has one real job: To reframe or reaffirm ONE message in people's minds” (3-minute read)

Twitter 1995 (1 min read)

The Machine in the Garden (8-minute read)

It’s Okay: Drag Queen Story Hour Simply Observed (10-minute watch)

How we can help you

Storythings is the content marketing agency of choice for some of the world’s most forward-thinking B2B brands and organisations. Here are 2 reasons to get in touch. 

1. “I don’t know what to do” – You’ve been creating content but it’s not having the impact you need. Talk to us about our Content Audit Workshop.

2. “I need something making” – You know what you want to make, but need an agency to make it. We can help make your podcast, video, publication, animation or newsletter. We do other things too. Get in touch for a FREE 30 minute consultation. 

The Holy Trinity of B2B Customer Promise Campaigns (2-minute read)
New research from WARC, the B2B Institute at LinkedIn, and strategy expert Roger Martin shows that B2B campaigns that make a customer promise are three times more likely to report an increase in market share than those that don’t. This piece outlines why they are more effective as well as the the three key characteristics successful customer promises have.

The Internet Has Few Centres of Gravity Right Now (6-minute read)
The brilliant Kyle Chayka on the value of curation and aggregation as the internet loses its centre of gravity: “Publications, whether massive or tiny, are platforms now. Audiences will choose a small number and become very loyal to them. Thus news publications will perform more and more aggregation as a service. As the rest of the internet gets overtaken by bots and AI-generated content and oligarch-owners livestreaming megalomaniacal presidential candidates, the self-contained publications controlled entirely by professional humans win out. We actually need more aggregation. Substack newsletter directories and link dumps don’t cut it. I actually think a Gawker-esque website of short blurbs, a place where everyone can congregate and bounce off the same subjects, would kill right now.”

Nick Cave and Stephen Colbert’s Remarkable Conversation (22-minute watch)
This is stunning! If you can’t watch it now, bookmark it for a quiet moment. Colbert reaffirms his status as being the absolute best at what he does. While Nick Cave takes the audience on an emotional journey which had me sobbing loudly at a story I had already sobbed over whilst reading his book. I really don’t know anyone, living or dead, who speaks about culture, faith, or grief in the way he does.

Formats Unpacked: The Athletic’s Daily Football Briefing (5-minute read)
Don’t let not being a fan of football put you off reading this week’s Formats Unpacked. This unpacking of a short morning podcast may might give you clues on how to capture the attention of your entire industry or sector. And don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you need some help doing that!

The Newsletter Advice I Give Again and Again (7-minute read)
The Inbox Collective is a brilliant newsletter about running newsletters. As a content marketing agency with three newsletters, we value them highly. The numerous pieces of advice in this article resonates with our experience. There is also great advice for anyone interested in monetising a newsletter.

Mixtaping My Metaphors (8-minute read)
A useful collection of thoughts on metaphors from Phil Adams. We work with a lot of organisations whose stories are quite complex. To make the abstract more concrete we rely on good metaphors. The thing is, it’s never easy. So this mixtape, which contains some future hits including The Three Ps, Sheep Dipping and Nemawashi, is a helpful guide.

“Copywriting has one real job: To reframe or reaffirm ONE message in people's minds” (3-minute read)
An anecdote, a piece of advice, and three superb examples of great copy all in Miguel Ferreira’s Creative Samba: "Copy should be as short as possible to explain the brand’s message and as long as necessary to express the brand’s voice."

Twitter 1995 (1 min read)
This website is a live-updating simulation of Twitter as it might have been if it was around in 1995, the year the future began: @LanceArmstrong on August 16, 1995 at 01:06 PM - "The justice system must prioritize accountability and transparency, especially in high-profile cases like the OJ Simpson trial"

The Machine in the Garden (8-minute read)
As mentioned in Kyle Chayka’s piece above, this is a good read on Substack’s drift into the age of average as writers drive to monetise everything: “Today, I can barely tell anyone apart. Many of the Substacks I follow use these big, figurative words that don’t really make sense in an attempt to go viral, which on this platform means getting subscribers and notes and comments. It’s like there’s this internet language that “works” for engagement (literal language, but also sense of style, and a range of trending topics to touch upon) but it all coagulates together and creates a whitewashed, boring internet.”

It’s Okay: Drag Queen Story Hour Simply Observed (10-minute watch)
A lovely short film from the New Yorker. Stick around for the end. And if you like this you may want to check out our work on the History of Drag.

We hope you've enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Spread the love and forward it on to a friend, relative or colleague. If you’ve received this from someone else yourself, you can subscribe below and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the whole team at Storythings.