Strands of Genius: Is it Heinz, Collect & Collect & Collect, In The Demo Pod
Plus: call for guest curators next year
WRITING FROM | Chattanooga, TN
WORKING ON | settling into our house!
LOOKING AHEAD
Dec 5-15 | Chattanooga, TN
Dec 15-18 | Atlanta, GA
Dec 18-20 | Chattanooga, TN
Dec 20-29 | Nashville, TN
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
So, it’s beginning to feel a lot like… well, Winter, since it suddenly got a lot colder here in Chattanooga. It’s the season which Faris enjoys more than Rosie does. We are slowly moving in to our house from a standing start and making great progress (entirely thanks to Rosie and some nice contractors). There is still a LOT to do. It seems like HOUSE is an endlessly ongoing (set of) project(s) once you buy one. Playing ‘HOUSE’ is all new to us but we are enjoying the journey, and we love (having our own) BED and SOFA and TV, for the first time in a decade. People keep asking us how much time we’ll spend here and the answer is that we truly don’t know, but we’re loving it so far.
This is the ‘silly season’ in advertising, full of media parties and client / agency hospitality, which means urgency increases but not much tends to get done. Agencies mostly close between Xmas and the New Year, a traditional yuletide concession towards refueling their talent. We wish you no pitches, great lunches, un-embarrassing parties, and joy and festive whatnot. It’s the 12th December, 2023, you are reading Strands and the year is almost over you did it! Good on you, take pride, enjoy some time, rest if you can, and be merry.
ALSO DON’T MISS OUR CALL FOR GUEST CURATORS FOR NEXT YEAR AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS EMAIL
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Will&Corey, Chelsea, Ashley, Survivor, Jade&Jennifer, Star Trek Lower Decks, cooking, kitchen islands, smashed gyozas, Chapli burgers, Kim, Mountain City Tile, & YOU.
:: THE LINKS ::
COLLECT & COLLECT & COLLECT
Faris doesn’t blog anymore and the social web largely moved but the OG planning blogger Russell Davies is still a) at it and b) great. This is a lovely post called “Do Cornellison” (c.f. Do Interesting) very much in line with our thinking and the core thesis of this newsletter - steal everything.
So they collect and collect and collect.
Images, photography, illustrative styles, bits of type, overheard speech, fragments of idea, other ads, anything that grabs their eye.
None of it with any real purpose other than one day it’ll come in handy. (And this is one place where the industry's reputation for kleptomania comes from.)”
(Russell Davies blog)
IN THE DEMO (PODCAST)
Faris was delighted to be the guest of Farrah Bostic and Adam Pierno for the In the Demo podcast. They discuss a wide range of topics (inevitably, it being Faris) around segmentation, generations, ‘millennials’, how advertising and media actually function from the inside, and why the same ‘trends’ seem to re-appear with every youth ‘generation’.
IS THAT HEINZ?
If you’ve ever worked in the restaurant industry (or have had friends that worked in restaurants) you’ll be familiar with the concept of ‘marrying ketchup’ which means pouring one ketchup into another. As part of this practice, some will learn that the ketchup going into the Heinz bottles is not, in fact, Heinz. A perk for the brand in that restaurants know that people prefer the Heinz brand, but also harmful because their logo is often associated with products that aren’t theirs. And that’s where the latest campaign from Wunderman Thompson Turkey comes into play. Their team found the Pantone color of Heinz, and added a color match to the sticker on the bottle, so that it’s clear whether or not you’re topping with Heinz. Brilliant. (Wunderman Thompson)
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:: CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS ::
As we start to plan for Strands of Genius guest curators next year, we’d love your suggestions! Hit reply and let us know:
Your nomination’s name (You can absolutely self-nominate)
A reference link of some kind (portfolio, LinkedIn, other social channel)
Why you think they’d be a good fit as a guest curator (short & sweet is fine!)
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
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 in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, 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 :)