Subscriptions, Career Advice and Weird Brand Content

Hey all,

The latest ReThink Quarterly, a publication we make with ADP, is out there waiting for your eyes. If you don’t know, the Quarterly tells the human stories about what happens before the paycheck and after the paycheck. This issue is all about Risk and features fascinating stories on one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, the very first calculating machine (it’s four centuries old y’know) and how six people in Accra earn their money in different ways. Jump in and take a look around. Get in touch if you’d like to talk about how we can help you tell human stories about your brand or industry.

Our show and tell event, Proper Fancy, is back later this month. It’s happening on Thursday 29th June, 13.00 (BST). If you want to join us, just send us your details and we’ll send over a Zoom link closer to the date.

OK. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all back here next week.

Hugh

Subscriptions: So What Do These Numbers Really Mean? (7 min read)

Keep Your Brand Content Weird (8 min read)

Short Doc Club: Slomo (16 min watch)

Charlie Bit My Finger Should Be Acquired For the Nation (5 min read)

Formats Unpacked: I Think You Should Leave (4 min read)

Storytelling Makes Two Hearts Beat As One (5 min read)

Six Pieces Of Career Advice From a Photographer (7 min read)

TV Shows That Are Other Shows (1 min read)

I Saw the Shape of My Heart (2 min read)

99% Invisible: Courtroom Sketch (36 min listen)

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? (e.g. newsletters, podcasts, publications, or video series).3. Production - Do you need help creating 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. 

Subscriptions: So What Do These Numbers Really Mean?I’ve really enjoyed this series on how attention has been measured and this final piece by our very own Matt Locke is the best of the lot. Matt looks at subscriptions and why they have become so important in recent years: “If we are at the end of the Traffic era, then what kinds of metrics should we be using to understand our audiences? There are a couple of interesting trends emerging that share one thing in common - a focus on measurable transactions and value for your audiences, rather than the huge, but not always valuable, social media metrics. If the Traffic era was about going for the biggest reach and engagement possible, then the post-Traffic era is about smaller, but more valuable, relationships.” (7 min read)

Keep Your Brand Content WeirdAs Vicky Gu says in this excellent piece “It takes artful maneuvering to charm humans…But you can't stun the audience if you're using the same moves as everyone else.” Adding a little bit of weird to your content marketing is often a good idea but requires new research data and insights. This content framework will help you deliver content that will not only get eyeballs but also get users to stay, luxuriate, wander around and enable your audience to enjoy your brand, and yield customer loyalty and retention.(8 min read)

Short Doc Club: SlomoThe thing I love about Rob Alderson’s Short Doc Club is that you not only get introduced to great short films but you get to hear from the director about their creative process. This week we get to see Slomo, a wonderful film about rollerskating, dreaming and dropping everything to become a new person. I loved this from the interview with the filmmaker Josh Izenberg: “The film also showed me how universal certain themes are. So many of us feel like we’re in a bit of a rat race. I don’t remember if this is in the film, but Slomo told me that he's the guy who broke out of the rat race, and he’s running for the woods across the field, like in a war film. Everybody's cheering – are they going to shoot him? Or is he going to get into the woods and break away? We all want to see that person escape, you know? Because he gives us hope that maybe one day, we'll get to escape too.” (16 min watch)Charlie Bit My Finger Should Be Acquired For the NationThe classic video was sold as an NFT back in 2021 but the new owners agreed it should stay public. But if you go to the video now it’s marked private. Matt Webb believes it should be in a museum but to do that a big piece of thinking needs to be done on how you collect memes: “We need collectors! Philanthropic donators! Tax dodges! The whole kit and caboodle of the art and cultural artefacts ecosystem. So really what we need is a billionaire who wants to put some real effort into figuring out what it means to collect memes. How do you collect Charlie Bit My Finger, really? How do you display it? How do you attach your name to it?…Then how do you lend a collection to a museum? And eventually donate it?”(5 min read)

Formats Unpacked: I Think You Should LeaveI’m a big fan of ITYSL. Not everyone is. But those who like it love it. A really good format has two defining features. The first is an element of familiarity – you kinda need to know where something is leading. The second is a healthy dose of surprise or novelty. Here Gem Royston-Claire writes brilliantly about the joy of when the second part is cranked up to 11. (4 min read)

Storytelling Makes Two Hearts Beat As OneScientists found that people unconsciously synchronise bodily functions like heartbeat and breathing when they are paying attention to a story, but it's unaffected by how emotional the tale is – as participants matched heartbeats even when watching bland educational videos. The researchers say when people are listening attentively, their hearts respond to signals from their brains as they think about what will happen next.(5 min read)

Six Pieces Of Career Advice From a PhotographerYou don’t have to be a photographer to be able to use this advice from celeb snapper Chris Floyd who has shot artists such as David Bowie, Anthony Bourdain, and Bill Murray. Take for example point number four when he talks about following your instinct until it “sounds right.” It’s the same whether you are a photographer, a chef or a musician. (7 min read)

TV Shows That Are Other ShowsStop trying so hard to make your work feel completely original. Everything is a version of something else. Sex and the City is just The Golden Girls, Big Bang Theory is just Friends and Parks and Recreation is just West Wing. These lists of shows that are other shows are a good reminder that old ideas can be recycled as long as you do something interesting with them. Or to quote Jean-Luc Godard: “It's not where you take things from. It's where you take them to.”(1 min read)I Saw the Shape of My HeartBoth the story and the delivery of this are beautiful. I’d love to see more stories told this way. We’ve created comics a few times for clients and I always feel like they are a great way for explaining complex issues to a wider audience. (2 min read)

99% Invisible: Courtroom SketchA really good listen on the history of the courtroom artist. It’s the kinda thing I’m a little obsessed with. So much so that back in my BBC days, when a huge band refused us permission to take photography during one of their performances, we planned to get a courtroom artist to visualise the event for the website. Sadly, the band eventually changed their minds and allowed cameras. I was gutted. (36 min listen)

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.