Five things on Friday #382
Summer breaks, Olympic games, and a whole bunch of FRESHNESS.
#382
Things of note for the week ending Sunday August 4th, 2024.
INTRO
Well hello there.
Absence makes the heart grow stronger, right?
I don't know about you but there's something quite nice about taking a well earned break from time to time that allows you to breathe. AMIRITE?
There’s more of that coming up throughout August so, per the last edition’s parish notices, please expect continual patchy delivery throughout the summer month(s).
It's been a chunky fortnight since we last spoke. Talking, dancing, drinking, singing, LOVING, adoring... just being.
(sorry, did someone mention summer?)
Above all else, I am grateful.
As a quick aside, what are you grateful for?
Like, actually?
I mean it. You don’t have to tell me where you land on it but maybe write it down. Stick it somewhere where you can see. Say it out loud.
Are you grateful for your health? For your love? For the life you are yet to live? What is it?
Delineate it somewhere.
—
You do that, and I’ll crack on with the things.
Plan? P L A N.
Right, let’s go.
TO THE THINGS!
THING 1. YOU’RE A FIRESTARTER TWISTED GOOGLE FIRESTARTER
Many of you lovely lot may have seen this on Linkedin already but as promised in the last edition, my recent Google Firestarters interview has gone live.
And look, I know I use this platform to occasionally talk about my own stuff (‘this week in James’ etc) but this particular thing is something I'm quite proud of. I've been a fan of Neil's stuff for ages. His newsletter and the Google Firestarters sessions (originally in person and later as a podcast) are always great and so to be invited on was a big deal for me.
If you've got even a passing interest in what gaming means for brands then I can recommend this to you. Neil's questions were great and with them, we covered everything from the range of marketing choices you can make when it comes to working with games brands through to simply equipping marketers with better questions for when someone says 'I want to do something in games'
Watch it on YouTube or listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Like I said, I really enjoyed this talk and it feels like we covered a lot of ground in the time we had. It’s been a while since I got to think and flex the games/ brand/ integrated marketing brain in this way and it felt good.
I'd love to know what you think.
THING 2. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE THE TOP OF YOUR GAME?
It's the Olympics at the moment. You may have noticed. And if you've been anywhere near a screen this week then you may have ALSO noticed this photo of Olympic surfer, Gabriel Medina.
Taken (from a boat!) by surf photographer, Jerome Brouillet (Surfer Today has a great piece on this, including a brief interview with Brouillet) it is a phenomenal example of how, when it comes to the Olympiad, it's not just the Olympians that at the top of their game.
It's everyone.
Presenters, helpers, supporters, the media, and of course, the photographers.
Capturing these moments is an art form in itself. And the work that goes into getting ready for the pinnacle sporting moment of our time is worth celebrating.
Celebrate the Olympics.
Celebrate the phenomenal talent on display.
Celebrate all that make it happen.
And celebrate Jerome Brouillet for the defining photo of the Olympics (so far).
THING 3. THIS WEEK IN… ADVERTISING
In a change from our usual programming, this week we’re doing a quick round on what is FRESH over in ADLAND.
We’re looking at FRESH MINDS, FRESH DATA, and FRESH BS.
FRESH MINDS.
Planners have the best job in advertising. They do. If you're interested (and everything is interesting if you're interested enough). However, if you read the trades, here in the UK at least, you'd be forgiven for thinking there are only five or six London-based senior planners who actually work in the industry - such is the focus, profile, and platform given anyone one deigns to open their maw of 500-word-capped insights.
Well, FRESH MINDS is here to solve that.
The BRAIN CHILD…
(I love that phrase BRAIN CHILD, like, it is clearly another name for ‘an idea’ but I also like the idea of it being the child of a brain. Like, what would a brain’s toddler look like? Individual cells sprouting arms and legs running around shouting about only one idea at a time. BRAIN CHILD. Nursed. Born. Looked after. Well-fed! Loved. Brought out into the world. Eyes wide, gaping at the sky of opportunity. Careful, BRAIN CHILD. Careful how you go… are we done now? I think we’re done, CHILD O’BRAIN.)
…of Zoe Mann and Alex Orton and setup specifically address the lack of support and platform offered to younger strategists who are still figuring out how to use their voice, FRESH MINDS is a newsletter platform that will offer FRESH TAKES from YOUNG TALENT every month.
And I am a fan.
Creative Salon covered the launch and you can subscribe to the first FRESH MINDS right here.
As a complete aside, I hired Zoe as my junior at my last agency and She. Is. GREAT. One to watch etc.
What else? Yes! FRESH DATA.
If, like me, you're a complete nerd for the annual data dump from Ofcom then hey, GUESS WHAT, it's actual Christmas (thanks Iain).
The annual Ofcom data dump is hereeeeeee [PDF link].
Linkedin splashes aside, the headlines (IMO) are as interesting as they are healthy and, if anything, welcome.
Purely looking at the TV and video side of things, Ofcom says:
The decline in broadcast TV’s reach accelerated in 2023, although for every age group the amount of viewing declined at a slower rate than in the previous year
Overall viewing of TV and video increased in 2023, driven by online platforms, including video-sharing platforms such as YouTube, and broadcasters’ own services such as iPlayer and ITVX
Revenues for commercial broadcasters fell in 2023 amid an economic downturn, almost completely offsetting the continued growth of online video revenue
PSB first-run spend and output fell in 2023, after 2022’s record highs, which were driven by lingering Covid impacts and the cyclic nature of major sports events
The SVoD market has matured, with subscriber numbers plateauing, and ad-supported tiers positioned to drive future growth
Which to me at least tells a story of post-covid re-normalisation. The spread of SVOD platforms reaching saturation and to that final point, an overall maturity in the marketplace.
And about time too.
Either way, the whole thing is worth a read. As always, it makes great deck fodder.
Finally FRESH BS(?)
In an unnamed group I'm in recently, someone asked 'Synthetic data? Is it BS?' (OK, it was me but still) and fortunately, someone replied with ‘You should think about it this way’ - that someone then turned that reply into a blog post (which I am taking FULL credit for).
Scott Thompson writes:
“In the growing buzz around generative AI, a new concept in research methodologies has arisen; "synthetic respondents". Instead of asking people the questions, a Large Language Model creates 'synthetic respondents' which you can ask as many questions as you like. And they will give you answers. And they will probably sound like real people. They will never get bored. They will never try to disguise their "true" thoughts and feelings (as David Ogilvy once said, “People don’t think what they feel, don’t say what they think, and don’t do what they say.”.) You can get answers from thousands of them, very quickly and at very little costs.
(Also - they never leave behind a bad smell, and won't eat all of your biscuits.)
But again - so obvious as to be barely worth mentioning - they aren't real people. They are synthetic - "made up." Just like the 'actors', pretending to be the sort of people we actually want to talk to.
They will do it faster. They will do it cheaper. Will they do it better - or at least, 'good enough'? Well... that's the real question.
The danger here is the cognitive bias of Abraham Kaplan's 'Law of the Instrument', which can be neatly expressed as 'Give a boy a hammer and everything he meets has to be pounded.'
It seems that there are a lot of boys running round with hammers right now. If we want to get the most value out of these new research tools, it's essential that we know when to use them - and when not to.
The synthetic data argument to me feels a bit like ‘we can keep asking made up people for made up data we get the made up answers we need’.
Is it BS? It might be. It might not be.
But either way, you should probably read more about it.
‘Synthetic Respondents’ is smart. Read that.
And maybe read this too: ‘Synthetic survey respondents: A revolution in research methods or the worst idea ever?’
THING 4. THE SEMIOTICS OF CELEBRITY BRANDING
A long time ago, when I was part of the global social team for Land Rover, Facebook rolled out ‘timeline’ for brand pages and, over the course of several weeks, we rolled out master pages and a complete ‘timeline’ of backdated historical posts for 130+ markets and their related pages.
FUN TIMES.
Anyway. I remember there being a big thing about how Land Rover was doing ‘celebrity’ influencers long before they were even a thing.
Like so.
A few months prior to that, we did the launch for the Victoria Beckham-designed Evoque. A very different celebrity endorsement for a very different time.
Celebrity branding can come in many shapes and sizes. The two examples above are the tip of the iceberg.
There’s so much more to the intricacies of making this work - for you, your brand, your celebrity status.
So you are incredibly lucky that THE EXTREMELY GENEROUS THINKER (and strat for hire), Jenny Chang, has GIFTED you this fantastic 80 slide deck on what it all means - filled with cases, examples, and more.
Jenny doesn’t miss, y’all.
THING 5. OK FINE HERE’S SOME GAMES STUFF
This week, brought to by my new toy: the Abernic RG35XX.
All of about £50 from Ali Express, comes with a ton of games already installed and very friendly to setting up new ones. I’ve been playing tons of Marvel v Capcom 2 on this and the thing is smaller than my phone.
I love it.
VIDEO GAME ACTORS STRIKE
The big news this week is that video game talent represented by SAG-AFTRA have voted to strike citing an impasse over AI regulation and related talent protection.
So, this shouldn’t be new news.
If you work in games and have been paying attention then you’ll know that on September 25th 2023, members of SAG-AFTRA, voted 98.32% in favour of strike authorization against the ongoing stalemate between the union and games studios (and production houses).
Given everything we know about the decimation of the industry over the past 18mth, it was clear that a) the union wasn’t going to budge and b) the senior players at games companies weren’t going to either.
Now, you would think that the games studios MIGHT have learned the lessons from the Actors strike (which literally saw talent walk off red carpets) but it would seem this is not the case.
And even still, with company CEOs saying ‘we don’t expect any near-term disruption to any of the games we have in development or any of the live services we’re currently running’ (thanks, George, for that one - and also a decent overview of why the working restrictions aren’t as tight here), you have to wonder if they’re taking it seriously at all.
‘We don’t expect any near-term disruption’ - the lead times for AAAs can be anywhere between 3-10 years. Given we’re only just now seeing the bottom of a post-covid renormalisation, then the above sentence makes sense. But let’s check back in a few years and see where the games are and maybe also see who is still in business.
-
Quick news bites.
Makers of one my favourite games, Bungie, made another round of lay-offs this week. And the optics are… not great?
A while back, pre-Olympics kick off, one of my readers wrote to ask if I knew anything about a new Mario & Sonic at the Olympics games game coming out for Paris. I didn’t know the answer but I said I’d keep an eye out. Well, my eye was turned this week when Eurogamer reported the exact reasons why this hadn’t happened and those reasons are… not great? (trigger warning: NFTs are mentioned in that link 😭).
Sorry, did someone say ‘LEGO BATTLE BUS’ ?
The ‘real reason’ teens play video games.
The Cybertruck is in Fortnite. That’s going about as well as you can imagine.
Teresa Rivera, who dreams of starting her own video game company… is a new Barbie.
THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE is out now and looks brilliant (it’s all of about three hours of game play for about £14 - you should pick it up). Here’s the BBC covering on where it came from.
What is James playing?
I’ve given up on the end boss of the Elden Ring DLC (I’ll probably rope a mate in to help me at some point), and delivering the retro hit via the Abernic as above, I’m currently playing a lot of NO MAN’S SKY again (the recent 5.0 update is a literal game-changer), which has been fab.
What are you playing?
BONUS SECTION
THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.
ENJOY.
‘Linkedin, where honesty goes to die’ is just one KILLER line from this excellent newsletter from Grace Gorden (thanks to Vikki Ross for the share).
Piece by Piece is neeeeearly here.
I saw DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (in IMAX on opening night - I have the best friends) and it was everything I wanted it to be and more. I hope you get to see it soon.
Nine years ago, me and some talented people helped CONVERSE launch the Chuck Taylor II. To say ‘We made all the content for social and the Tumblr’ should date it enough. Notable for classy af clients.
One Question Critical Thinking: is how we lead determined by how we were led? - is worth a read. This is the output from the recent Conversations over Lunch event (that I had to miss due to illness) so I’m pleased that I get to read the write up - and you do too.
Like Cheez-its? They’re coming to the UK!
Sizemore is back with another EXCELLENT short story (I love a werewolf tale, me).
Mark Kermode takes Alistair Campbell to see In The Loop. I hadn’t seen this before but I did quite enjoy Alistair’s pushback toward the end. Agree with him or not, his principles are clear.
NOW TV got told off for not saying its service is ad-supported (it had one complaint, apparently). It was upheld and now the ad can’t appear again. If an ad doesn’t look right to you, you should always complain. It’s what the ASA is for.
‘Rewrite an ad 20 times’ Vikki Ross (you all should follow her on Linkedin) reshared this the other week, and I thought it was fascinating.
Ben Evans on the continuing ‘VR Winter’.
Related: Yahoo Finance did some good journalism on Reality Labs.
Someone recently told me that the quote ‘Great minds discuss ideas…’ should be attributed to Aristotle. Then it turned out it was actually Eleanor Roosevelt. And THEN (because I go the extra click), I found out it was neither of them.
YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.
As I write to you now, it’s 1202 on Sunday August 5th. Y’all v nearly didn’t get an edition this week. I’ve pulled a muscle in my shoulder and typing right now is not the one. But hey, what can I say? I’m committed to the cause.
That said, last week’s edition didn’t happen because a) I fancied a week off and b) the Mrs SPRANG SURPRISE LATITUDE TICKETS on us and, well, that took up my weekend instead. We saw, mainly from the front: Seasick Steve, Daft Funk (a banging Daft Punk tribute DJ set), CMAT (YES), Rick Astley (AMAZING), Keane (wow), and LONDON GRAMMAR (love) - all photography available threads.
Point is: it was great and we loved it. After the year we’ve had, it feels like we’re starting to get our lives back (so forgive me for not writing) and it’s joyous.
Thanks to all of you that have sent words of support since the start of the year. It means the world. Especially now we’re seeing progress. deep happy sigh
Also, I MAY HAVE MENTIONED, I’ve got a lot of travel coming up this month so pinning down the time to write might not be easy but let’s see how we go, yeah?
Until next time,
Whatley out x
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