Hey all,

First, a reminder that applications for First Draft are open. First Draft is Storythings’ pro-bono consultancy offer to small organisations, groups, networks or collectives who create change by working with under-represented communities. Is that you or do you know someone who would be interested? Get in touch.

Are you going to SXSW? Anjali and I will be running a session on How to Develop a Content Format in 60 Minutes. We’re also hosting an in-person Proper Fancy. If you’d like to meet up, send a message!

And finally, for anyone looking for us elsewhere, you can find us on LinkedIn and Instagram. Or subscribe to our other newsletters Formats Unpacked and Attention Matters.

Enough of us. Here are some lovely stories for you. Have a great weekend.

Hugh

The Dishoom Battersea Story (2-min read)

Real creativity means doing things no one else would dare do (3-min read) 

“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement (5-min read)

Why B2B Needs the Enduring Magic of Storytelling (4-min read)

19 Ways to Make Money as a Writer (5-min read)

Black History in 2 Minutes (2-min watch)

Moving From the Social Graph to the Interest Graph (5-min watch)

Immerse Me In Your Splendour (4-min watch)

The BART Seat Upholstery-Slashing Racket (3-min read)

Adam Curtis-Style Pub Reviews (TikTok channel)

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. If your content isn’t getting the results you need, let us help you understand why. Here are 3 reasons to get in touch. 

1. Audience Research – We help B2B brands understand modern attention patterns and how they can get more engagement with content.2. Content Strategy – We use our bespoke process to develop unique content formats that hold audience attention, build community, and increase brand salience.3. Content Production – We craft beautiful and diverse stories of impact that capture and hold attention using podcasts, videos, editorial, and newsletters. We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch for a FREE 30 minute consultation. 

The Dishoom Battersea Story (2-min read)I’m a huge fan of Dishoom, the restaurant chain based on the Irani cafes that were popular in Bombay in the 60s. The brand is as fabulous as the food. As regular readers of this newsletter will know, with each new restaurant they open they write a story deeply rooted in Bombay history or culture. For their new Battersea restaurant, the story is of Choti Dishoom, a girl who lives in Bombay in 1953 and is transported to an imagined 2023, where she discovers she has superpowers. Here they tell her origin story as a comic strip.

Real creativity means doing things no one else would dare do (3-min read) I love this story of two female speed skaters at the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympics in South Korea who took a risk and came up with a brilliantly creative way of beating the competition. There are also some great links on the themes of dangerous ideas, being human and how small brands need to be more creative or they’ll die.

“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement (5-min read)If you listen to podcasts you’ll be familiar with the phrase “Wherever you get your poodcasts” which is often used at the end of an episode when asking listeners to subscribe. Here, Anil Dash looks at how podcasting, unlike other forms of media, has remained open and hasn’t become owned by one giant company. As a result, the creators are not beholden to the algorithm and if they’re unhappy with the platform they are on they can switch easily, which isn’t the case for creators on platforms such as YouTube or TikTok. Anil suggests that the media’s format offers hope for the future: “And in this era where we're seeing the renaissance of the open web, they point the way toward a future where we can use the same tone to say "wherever you find news" or "wherever you find your friends online", and know that it means that there's a way that our lives online could be fully in our own control.”

Why B2B Needs the Enduring Magic of Storytelling (4-min read)A good piece on how B2B recognised the end of the old and the beginning of the new era of discovery and did something about it. It’s now B2B’s time: “AdWeek reported in May 2023 that we’ve entered ‘the golden age of B2B’. The old order is crumbling and the rule book is being rewritten, one powerful story at a time. The time has come for B2B Marketing teams to shift their focus from the short-term tactics of the ‘digital age’ and rediscover the power of long-term brand building to drive sustainable business growth. The industry needs to reclaim the power of narrative, emotion and human connections. It’s time to relegate the short-sightedness to the past and make your brand famous amongst current and future buyers by embracing the enduring magic of storytelling.”

19 Ways to Make Money as a Writer (5-min read)We have a lot of writers as subscribers and there have been a lot of layoffs recently. So this pice by Susannah Breslin is very useful. It’s part of a five part series on being a writer that you may also want to dive in to.

Black History in 2 Minutes (2-min watch)When we run our format development workshop we look at successful formats and ask “what’s the magic that makes it special?” The magic in this format is the 2 minutes. Of course, it’s impossible to cover all of black history in 2 minutes, but viewed as an archive, this collection is on its way to doing a pretty good job! As we say to clients who are at the very beginning of a content series, don’t just think about the first few episodes, imagine what the 100th episode will look like.

Moving From the Social Graph to the Interest Graph (5-min watch)The old rules of how you get views on YouTube (and other platforms) have changed over the last few years. The number of followers or subscribers you have are not an indicator of how many views you can get. Striking a chord into specific interests and niches will give you more hope of capturing attention. Whilst this full video is packed with lots of good advice on getting attention in the new era of content discovery, there are a couple of points worth jumping into. The first, linked above, gives a nice example of a channel that taps into a couple of niches. And here he makes a great point about the importance of commitment.

Immerse Me In Your Splendour (4-min watch)Manchester United and Adidas have released a clothing range based on the 1989 Stone Roses album. I like this for a couple of reasons. They have a real connection to the band and good origin story behind it. And whilst as a Mancunian I’m always a little put off by my city’s obsession with the past, the point made about the club’s youth not being scared of the past but inspired by it finishes the video nicely. Nice work Charlie Watts.

The BART Seat Upholstery-Slashing Racket (3-min read)Quite a story via Russell Davies’ newsletter. In the 80s, a firm that held the contract for replacing damaged upholstery on the San Francisco BART paid people to slash the seats.

Adam Curtis-Style Pub Reviews (TikTok channel)“Pub bloke” Jimmy goes for a swift one in a bunch of London pubs and delivers his reviews in the most Curtis of ways.

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend, you can subscribe below and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you all next week.

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