Strands of Genius: Droga Wants to Kill Advertising, Power, Pointing and Persuasion, USA's Centre of Political Gravity
plus, our thoughts on: Everything Everywhere All At Once
WRITING FROM | Nashville, TN
WORKING ON | A consulting and training program for a large CPG conglomerate across dozens of brands
LOOKING AHEAD
May 1-28 | London, UK
May 28-June 6 | TBD: Portugal or France?
June 6-24 | London, UK
June 24-27 | New York, NY
June 27-July 12 | Wingdale, NY
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
We are passing through Nashville because we had what turned out to be a lovely, emotional, memorial for Rosie’s Godmother, Faith, over the weekend. While here we’ve been sorting various personal and work related things, and packing/planning for the next few months, since we fly to UK today and will be in various parts of Europe through the Summer. Probably.
(We didn’t get Burning Man tickets in the lottery and have a couple of weddings around then, so probably won’t be heading to the Playa this year, although that does mean we might find other liminal spaces to explore - anyone been to The Lost Village Festival in the UK?)
We have some in person client meetings and events coming up in London - excited to be back in front of people and on stages - and will hopefully have time to visit some other parts of UK, but we always intend to and yet never have enough time in London to catch up with half the people we’d like to see. In the UK, we have Faris’ mother’s memorial at the end of the month. Fingers crossed that will be the last memorial we have for a while.
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Judy, Jason et al for a delicious birthday crabstravaganza, and Jason again, for delivering us sushi, Spring, Lauren, all the family at the memorial, shining but not-too-hot sun, getting to the dentist, Dogfish Head Sea Quench Sour, Eric&Erin, organic white wines, yoga, self care & YOU.
S C H O O L O F S T O L E N G E N I U S >> H I G H L I G H T S
COMMUNITY MEET UP! Weds 18th May 10AM ET / 2PM GMT
On Wednesday, May 18th, we’ll host a community meetup for all members of the School of Stolen Genius.
During this community meetup, we’ll spend the time getting to know some of our other members, sharing learnings, and connecting with everyone. We look forward to seeing you there :)
More details for members on School of Stolen Genius.
:: THE LINKS ::
DAVID DROGA WANTS TO KILL ADVERTISING
I remember well when the first Droga5 work fooled, confused and impressed the advertising industry. This piece covers David’s career and impact on the industry and his vision at CEO of Accenture Song, nee Interactive, the world’s largest (digital) agency. “Bridging top-shelf creative work with business consulting and transformation has been a rainbow that many have been reaching for over the past decade. Consulting corporations such as Accenture and Deloitte have been more interested in advertising, ad agency R/GA started a consulting practice, and startups like Proto and Wolfgang LA are pursuing it all from a fresh slate.” (Fast Company) (BONUS: As a creative consulting company for the last decade we’ve been tracking this trend - The Great Blur - for years now.)
POINTING, POWER AND PERSUASION
All advertising campaigns launch the same exact way - in a presentation. It is in this much maligned medium that the ads need to convince its first audience/s to spend money. The presentation is an ancient theatrical form and Russell Davies’ new book about PowerPoint is packed with punchy points, but never too many bullets, and is a masterwork of how to think about presentations, attention and communication broadly. (WARC)
WHAT HAPPENED TO USA’S POLITICAL CENTRE OF GRAVITY?
In light of various strands of the current discourse, especially around Twitter of late, it’s worth grounding our thinking in research based analysis about the polarization in USA. Despite what certain factions suggest, there has been very limited movement to the left from within the mainstream discourse in the Democratic Party, which remains far to the right of left wing parties in Europe. Plus "The Republican Party leans much farther right than most traditional conservative parties in Western Europe and Canada"
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:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE ::
We ventured out to the movies to see The Daniels new masterpiece and it is extremely worth seeing. It stands out as distinctive, if that’s a hook for you, because it’s unlike anything else we’ve seen, is creatively inspiring in every scene and stirs powerful human emotions with the conceptual and visual pyrotechnics. Go see it!
Also, maybe don’t drink a whole lot of water (ahem or Blue Moon) during the movie because then you’ll have to pee and there’s legitimately not a single good time to pee. Seriously, you won’t want to miss a single second.
We’re grateful to our friends @Twitter who invited Faris to speak about one of their key trends from their report “The Conversation”
- you can listen to the recording here.
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rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed
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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.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)