It’s May 1st - international Workers’ Day! If you’re in Europe, I hope you’re enjoying your day off. If you’re in the UK, I hope you enjoy your day off on Monday. If you’re in the US, well, I’m sorry you have so few public holidays. Maybe time to join a union?

💻 DATA POINT: There’s been a lot of noise about Taylor Lorenz’s post claiming about a third of the writing on Substack’s bestseller list is AI, but tbh, I’m not sure her methodology is robust enough. This report is a bit more scientific, and found that by mid 2025, around 1/3 of newly generated websites were AI-generated or assisted. So maybe Taylor is in the right ballpark anyway?

VINE IS BACK!!!!! (multiple 6sec watches)

Does Performance Marketing Have Any Impact? (5min read)

The Archive of XOXO Festival (huge archive)

What Causes a Hot Streak? (5min read)

Behind The Scenes of Laika' Studios’ Wildwood (2-min watch)

Every Company Now Sounds Like ChatGPT (5-min read)

The Cure For Dull (report)

Incredible Yung Lean Music Video (7-min watch)

B2B Minigames! (4 minigames)

📣 How We Got Here (4 Episode Podcast) 📣

VINE IS BACK!!!!! (multiple 6sec watches)
The format that started the short-form video boom is back just as algorithmic feeds have turned everything into short-form video. And it’s like a breath of fresh air. There’s something about the strict 6 sec looping format that focuses storytelling. It’s like a great one-liner versus a shaggy dog story.

Does Performance Marketing Have Any Impact? (5min read)
From 1960-2010, the combined sales growth of major FMCG advertisers like P&G and Unilever averaged 8% per year, but since 2010, and the rise of digital advertising, it’s been around 1%. Is the complexity of digital advertising blinding marketing teams to what actually works?

The Archive of XOXO Festival (huge archive)
I was lucky enough to go to indie culture festival XOXO in Portland back in 2015, and it was awesome. It felt like a much bigger and more ambitious version of what we were doing at the time with our The Story conference. If you missed it, you can now revisit every year and speaker on this new archive. Dive in!

What Causes a Hot Streak? (5min read)
This is a great short piece by Derek Thompson on why some artists and inventors seem to hit a ‘hot streak’. The answer isn’t what you think, and gives us insights into how we can develop the conditions for our own hot streaks.

Behind The Scenes of Laika' Studios’ Wildwood (2-min watch)
As someone who loved the Wildwood books, and loves Laika Studio’s incredible stop-motion animated films, I can’t wait for the release of Wildwood in October. This short gives a tiny example of how meticulous their craft is.

Every Company Now Sounds Like ChatGPT (5-min read)
I hope we don’t say this too often in this newsletter, but really - nobody owes you their attention. You have to work hard to be interesting and valuable, and running all your corporate texts through LLMs is not the way to do it.

The Cure For Dull (report)
As further evidence - a great report from System 1 on what audiences emotionally respond to in advertising. I love the list of things that work - animals, music with melody, characters, dialogue, people with accents. In other words - the rich complexity of the world outside our screens.

Incredible Yung Lean Music Video (7-min watch)
You’ve probably seen this in every newsletter this week, but I make no apologies for including it as well. If you haven’t seen it yet, just click on the link and watch. If you were (like me) a nerdy boy who went to a tough secondary school, it feels a bit too close to home, but it’s extraordinary.

B2B Minigames! (4 minigames)
Chris Unitt’s excellent Cultural Digital newsletter returned after a hiatus this week, and he included these fantastic minigames produced by Ticketing Professional. I think B2B games could be a thing, you know. If you’d like to try one out, hit reply and we can talk!

📣 How We Got Here (4 Episode Podcast) 📣
We had a team call with the people behind the Better Business Act on Thursday (we’re signatories!) and we discussed how policy gets made in the UK. Which reminded me we made a short podcast series for Parliament about exactly that - from Animal Welfare to Women’s RIghts.

Behavioural Economist Micheal Baggs has some good insights into how Duolingo are shifting their digital marketing. They’re moving away from their frankly unhinged TikTok videos, as they’re not seeing any organic growth there, preferring to invest in longer-term formats like Reddit that are more likely to be cited by AI. We’ve been saying this for a while, so it’s good to hear a major brand agreeing!

READ MICHAEL’S POST HERE >

Drop us a line if you have anything you’d like us to share in a future edition of this newsletter, or of course if you have any comments or suggestions for us!

Have a great weekend!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh, and the team