Strategy Storytelling, Brainstorm Questions & David Byrne

Hey all,

Hope you’ve had a good week. Did all your Oscar wishes come true? Or like me, did you protest that all the winning films you haven’t yet seen stole the awards from the films you had? The Banshees of Inisherin was robbed!

This week I’ve been enjoying Physical: 100 on Netflix, only managed to watch 4.34 seconds of Cocaine Bear before deciding enough is enough, and am looking forward to watching Rise and Fall which starts in the UK on Sunday. What have you been enjoying? Let us know in the comments.

As for stories I’ve enjoyed, they’re all below. Enjoy and have a fabulous weekend.

Hugh

Your Strategy Needs a Story (7 min read)

Why Emotion Sticks Attention and Memory Together Like Superglue (Tweet)

A Letter to the UK From Italy (5 min read)

Formats Unpacked: Sports Brackets (6 min read)

Will Digital Platforms Change Our Musical Memories? (7 min read)

Brainstorm Questions Not Ideas (3 min read)

Smart Experiment Shines a Light on Discrimination in Gaming (3 min watch)

The Taste Economy (7 min read)

David Byrne Walks into a Dry Cleaner to Pick Up a Suit (1 min watch)

Seinfeld Set To Laura Palmer’s Theme (1 min watch)

How can we help you?

Storythings is a strategy and production company based in Brighton, London, Bristol, Berlin, and Ibiza. We'd love to help you with some creative and bold ideas. Here are 3 reasons to get in touch. 

1. Audience Strategy - Do you struggle to understand constantly changing audience behaviours, and what strategies you need to reach them?2. Content Format Development - Do you want to develop and test content formats that give you a direct relationship with your audience? (eg newsletters, podcasts, publications, or video series).3. Production - Do you need help developing and running an existing or new content format, and growing loyal audiences around them?We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch. 

Your Strategy Needs a StorySo you’ve spent a long time developing a strategy, and now you have to engage those who will implement it. Strategies must be communicated, understood and motivate action. Knowing how to construct such a strategy story can not only improve implementation but also greatly increase a company’s rate of learning, which can be a key source for competitive advantage. (7 min read)

Why Emotion Sticks Attention and Memory Together Like SuperglueThis makes complete sense. Whilst I knew emotionally charged words are much more likely to be recalled than neutral ones I never knew the evolutionary reason behind it. This smart nugget of information comes from Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains. (Tweet)

A Letter to the UK From ItalyI came across this letter recently whilst working on a pilot we are making for BBC Sounds and it really blew me away. As we approach the third year anniversary of the first lockdown this is fascinating reading. It’s quite incredible how the people of Italy experienced so much in such a short period - they were the first to see their lives changed in ways that we were all about to experience. (5 min read)Formats Unpacked: Sports BracketsIn this week’s Formats Unpacked, we look at how the sports bracket has been used to determine the really important things in life, such as what are the world’s best biscuits, sitcoms, sweets, Christmas movies and more. There’s also something in here for anyone working in comms about how formats can reduce a bunch of pains they come across frequently. Also, happening right now is the real March Madness - the Tournament of Books. (6 min read)Will Digital Platforms Change Our Musical MemoriesSo many of our most precious memories are anchored in particular songs. Jude Rogers looks at whether digital will change that. People of a certain age will fondly reminisce about buying their first record, an experience much of the younger generation doesn’t have. If you like this you should read Jude’s brilliant book The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives,(7 min read)

Brainstorm Questions Not IdeasLike Erika Hall, I have a lot of feelings about how brainstorms should work. I’ve taken part in a lot of bad ones and organised quite a few in my time too. But over the years I refined my approach and try to keep learning from really smart people. Here Erika looks at why being vulnerable is an important part of the creative process and why a good list of questions is essential. As Erika points out “known unknowns are interesting and manageable. Unknown unknowns will jump out and bite you.”(3 min read)

Smart Experiment Shines a Light on Discrimination in GamingThis is clever. Through Their Eyes sees Australian content creators Joel (‘JoelBergs’) and Drew (‘DrewDog) have their voices altered to sound female whilst gaming, and get first-hand experience of the online abuse experienced by female-identifying gamers. (3 min watch)

The Taste EconomyFormer Vanity Fair, Tatler and New Yorker editor, Tina Brown, once said that a magazine “should be a sound not an echo.” Magazines were containers for someone else’s taste, and in an age when competitive advantage is threatened by technology, is now time to pay attention to them again? “In business, there is this idea of the moat: the advantage that one business has over their competitors. If the blockchain and AI take hold, those moats will no longer be data and content creation. Which seems like a bad thing–but what’s left? From my perspective as a nascent entrepreneur, future moats fall into three broad categories: proprietary technology, supply chain innovations, and media that can’t be replaced by AI because it comes from a strong POV (taste)…For the past 10 years, taste couldn’t be monetized. Soon it will be one of the only things that can.”(7 min read)David Byrne Walks into a Dry Cleaner to Pick Up a SuitBut it’s not any old suit. It’s THE suit, and the video is a promo for THAT concert film. In the 80s Stop Making Sense rarely left my VCR and the vinyl spent a lot of time rotating on my turntable. If you haven’t seen it, you really should. You don’t have to be a huge fan of the band to enjoy it - though it’s hard to imagine why you wouldn’t be. It’s as close to perfection as concert movies get. (1 min watch)

Seinfeld Set To Laura Palmer’s ThemeIf you take away the laughing and add a bit of David Lynch you’re going to get something very different indeed. (1 min watch)

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

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