Strands of Genius: 13 Years of the Only Dead Fish Post of the Month Hall of Fame, The Memex Method, ROI is Dead

Guest curated by Tom Roach

Jun 17, 2021

:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, TOM ROACH ::

LOCATION: London, United Kingdom
PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT: Jellyfish

Hello! I’m Tom and I’m lucky enough to have been a planner (strategist?) in some legendary agencies (like AMV BBDO, BBH and adam&eveDDB) for a couple of decades and now work at Jellyfish, which might become a modern legend if things go to plan. I’ve been really lucky to have worked with some proper industry legends (like Jim Carroll at BBH and Les Binet at adam&eve) on some great brands (like Sainsbury’s, McDonald’s, Waitrose and KFC). I got lucky on some of those and won some IPA effectiveness awards, which means people think I know about ad effectiveness. Writing those awards entries gave me the confidence to start writing blogs for BBHLabs which led to me writing more stuff, all of which can be found at www.thetomroach.com...

Editor’s Note (Faris): I have never met Tom but I really like him. This used to happen a lot more in the old twitter internet world, when encountering a social media friend IRL was something of note. However, since everyone went social that sensation is less common. Tom is a voice I respect, his writing is how I heard it, and it cut through clearly at an important moment in our discourse of brands and effectiveness and advertising and that. I’ve really enjoyed our virtual conversations and am excited for his new adventure! After a storied career at storied agencies, he made a leap into the future, which is always exciting because it’s betting on the new, the unknown, the possible, not the established titans. We love his edition, are excited he will be speaking to our community for SoSG, and can’t wait to meet in person!

:: THE LINKS ::

13 YEARS OF THE ONLY DEAD FISH POST OF THE MONTH HALL OF FAME

The world’s oversupplied with new blog posts (7m new ones a day according to internetlivestats.com) and it’s easy to miss or forget the classics. So I wanted to point to a page that’s a great resource for classic strategy blog posts (including some of Faris’s best) and more recent stuff. Reading the titles gives you a sense of the shifting mood of the planning community, as it anticipates, tries out and embraces or rejects new ideas and technologies, or rediscovers old ones. Seeing these posts curated here also gives you a sense that the communications strategy community genuinely is a type of community, with a history, a present and, hopefully, a future. (Only Dead Fish)

CORY DOCTOROW, THE MEMEX METHOD

Continuing the theme of blogging this is a must read article by the brilliant author and blogger Cory Doctorow. It’s a love letter to his 20 years of blogging, an inspirational piece that explains how it made him a better writer. It resonated with me because blogging has had a huge part to play for me personally but also for the ad strategy community more generally since the 2000s and whilst strategy blogging has waxed and waned a bit since then, it feels like it has an important role to play in helping people express themselves, shape their thinking, and create a debate in a longer form than twitter allows. I can heartily recommend people start a blog of their own. (Cory Doctorow)

ROI IS DEAD: NOW BURY IT, TIM AMBLER

On the theme of the importance of reading some classics and not just new stuff, here’s an article I was reminded of recently, a stone cold classic by Tim Ambler from 2004 on the dangers of focusing on ROI, that over-focussing on ROI can lead to fatal investment decisions, and that the easiest way to increase ROI is to reduce spend. Saw this happening for real fairly recently - quite a tricky thing to address and put right - and this article is a brilliant place to start if you're faced with this issue yourself. (WARC)

Looking for more from Tom Roach? Those enrolled in The School of Stolen Genius will receive a deep dive from him in their inbox shortly! You can access all our expert interviews for SOSG here.

:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::

:: Game :: Trivial Pursuit

:: City :: Tempted to say Sydney, Capetown or Barcelona, but will plump for my home city which is Cambridge

:: Book :: Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, by Ian MacDonald

:: Podcast :: RHLSTP (Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast) or Dear Joan and Jericha

:: Album :: London Calling, The Clash

:: THE DOMINOES BROS ::

My 12yr old boy Noah would be thrilled if he racked up any more views or subscribers to his YouTube channel (The Dominoes Bros) where he does domino art.

Feel free to connect on LI or twitter or subscribe to my blog.

Tom Roach

tom.roach@jellyfish.com

linkedin | twitter | blog

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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

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