Hello!

Over on LinkedIn, Anjali has just posted a video and summary of the workshop we ran at SXSW last month. It was a really fun session, so thanks to everyone who came along in Austin. Yesterday, I was in London with a new client discussing a bespoke version of the workshop for their team, so if you’re interested in a session full of practical advice about how to tell great B2B stories, then hit reply or the button below and we’ll be in touch asap!

In the meantime, here’s 10 links to give you creative inspiration for the weekend. It’s the start of the UK baseball season this weekend, so I’ll be spending all Sunday coaching our AA team in their first game on our beautiful diamond in Brighton. What are you up to this weekend? Hit reply and let me know!

In the meantime, let’s PLAY BALL!

Matt

Incredible AI assisted animation by David Szauder (3-min watch)

Why AI Will Improve Content Quality, Not Degrade It (5-min read)

Formats Unpacked: Chicken Shop Date (6-min read)

Seth Godin on Strategy, Stories, and How To Hack Back (6-min read)

What Will the Ad Industry Look Like in 2050? (2-min watch)

How to Make Your Team Check-Ins More Awesome (1-min read)

Why America Needs Public Media (4-min read)

Inside Dirt’s Creative Approach to Ad Strategy (4-min read)

Freaky Looping Animation by Sam Drew (1-min watch)

The Death of Friday Night Work Drinks (3-min read)

Don’t become a B2B zombie. STAY HUMAN.

Storythings is the content marketing agency that helps you STAY HUMAN in a sea of marketing slop. If you think you’re at risk of becoming a B2B zombie, we’ve got the antidote. Click the button below for your free guide.

Incredible AI assisted animation by David Szauder (3-min watch)
My wife (the brilliant kid’s book illustrator Holly Swain) introduced me to David Szauder’s animation and AI assisted art. As she is normally very anti-AI, this really says something about Szauder’s incredible use of the technology. He combines archive material with AI to create imagery and animation that has the feeling of dadaist or surrealist art, but with a very contemporary twist. I love his Folkloric Robots series in particular.

Why AI Will Improve Content Quality, Not Degrade It (5-min read)
I’m not sure I 100% agree with Noah Brier on this, but he’s one of the smartest people I know on branding and AI, so it’s well worth a read. He argues that rather than leading to slop, AI search will reward people who write high value, complex texts that are designed to be read and interpreted by AI: “If AI continues growing in influence, the content that matters most will be the stuff accessible to the models. Humans will represent just a fraction of the audience directly consuming content. The imperative shifts toward open, high-quality content that AI can index and process widely.”

Formats Unpacked: Chicken Shop Date (6-min read)
I can’t believe it’s taken us so long to do a Formats Unpacked on Chicken Shop Date, especially as it was Hugh’s breakdown of how this format worked that lead to us creating the Formats Unpacked format in the first place. Better late than never - friend of Storythings Nimi Raja has done a great job of unpacking the format on our behalf. Thanks Nimi!

Seth Godin on Strategy, Stories, and How To Hack Back (6-min read)
Anjali and I met up for a BBQ lunch at SXSW with Matt Klein from Zine, and we’re all huge fans of his work at Storythings, so his interview with Seth Godin was a must-read. This quote is going to be something I mention in our workshops a lot: “The secret to finding good stories is to tell stories. Teachers who iterate on their craft are paying attention to which stories resonate, improving them as they go. You’re not going to find a perfect story and tell it. You’re more likely to tell a story and perfect it.”

What Will the Ad Industry Look Like in 2050? (2-min watch)
It was Advertising Week London this week, and they asked Storythings to make a video for their festival, on the idea that 2025 marks the end of ‘Q1’ for this century. We suggested looking forward to what the next quarter might hold, so we asked a group of the brightest and best 20-somethings in the UK Ad business to imagine what their jobs might look like in 2050. I’m very pleased to say that it isn’t all AI, and humans will still have jobs in 2050 [crosses fingers].

How to Make Your Team Check-Ins More Awesome (1-min read)
This is something Emily, our Head of Production, has started doing in our Monday morning catchups. Rather than start by just diving into the work, come up with a new question every week that starts a conversation. It’s a great way to start the week with a creative spark, and get to know more about your team.

Why America Needs Public Media (4-min read)
Last week Republican Senators grilled the heads of PBS and NPR, asking questions about whether Elmo was a member of the Communist Party and whether Bert and Ernie were part of an “extremist homosexual agenda”. This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious - as Evan Shapiro points out in this briliant and well researched post, there is a direct relationship between levels of Public Media investement, the health of a country’s democracy, and public participation in politics. It’s not even as if the USA spends a lot on Public Media - per capita, the US spends six times less than Botswana.

Inside Dirt’s Creative Approach to Ad Strategy (4-min read)
I love the way online publication Dirt sees advertising as opportunities for creativity, not just income. Rather than just sell ads, they encourage brands to partner with them on immersive creative ideas, from literary Tarot decks to audio postcards from Saigon. This is a fresh approach on the old ‘branded content’ idea, but the creative freedom makes it really stand out.

Freaky Looping Animation by Sam Drew (1-min watch)
Our Head of Design Darren Garrett shared these mesmerising looping animations that are simultaneously cute and a bit icky. The eyeball one in particular.

The Death of Friday Night Work Drinks (3-min read)
What are you doing tonight? Meeting up with friends for a drink in a bar near your office? Or closing the laptop, ordering in some food and firing up a movie/boxset? According to the excellent newsletter LondonCentric, bars are seeing more people going out for drinks on Thursday night, as more of us are working from home on Fridays. That might explain why your teammates have the camera off when they take meetings on Friday mornings…

You might not be in the office about to go out for Friday Night Drinks with your team, but it’s nearly the weekend, so close the laptop, grab something cold and delicious (I’m loving the number of really good no-alcohol beers these days) and go out and enjoy the sunshine.

If you’re read this far, you are one of our coolest subscribers, so I want to ask you - what is your favourite brand of crisps? I went old school today and bought some salt and vinegar spirals. They were lush. Hit reply and let me know what your faves are.

See you next week!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh and the rest of Team Storythings