Strands of Genius: Media for One, Analogue & Digital Cities, Present Perfect Tense is Ruining Your Life
Plus: brand 'love', infinite idea generator
Strands of Genius is a newsletter from the co-founders of Genius Steals, Faris & Rosie Yakob. They are award-winning strategists, facilitators, creative directors, writers and public speakers who get excited about working with smart people on interesting challenges. You should probably go ahead and hit reply so we can collaborate on something together :)
:: THE UPDATE ::
Well, January seemed to last forever, but finally (finally-!) we’ve made it to February. (We also finally watched Wicked!) The groundhog may have predicted 6 more weeks of winter, but in Tennessee, it was 70F (~21C) yesterday, and supposed to be just as warm today.
While January left a lot to be desired in many ways (ahem, speaking to the other American residents reading this), there was one thing that boosted our spirits: After a nearly year-long wait (including 7 different 6-week classes and volunteering weekly at the classroom), I’m officially a studio member at Scenic City Clay Arts! I had my studio orientation on Thursday, and spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday getting pieces glazed and ready for the kiln! (The studio is closed on Mondays, which is probably a good thing, since I leave for Mexico tomorrow for several weeks and haven’t yet packed…)
And, of course, next week is Valentine’s Day. Geoffrey Chaucer's poem The Parlement of Fowls is considered one of the earliest works to associate Valentine's Day with romantic love. The poem is a dream vision that takes place on St. Valentine's Day, where birds gather to select their mates. It turned into more of a card thing in the Victorian era. While the ultimate romance was a love note penned by a person, Hallmark created cards featuring their own copy, and all you had to do was sign. Then, “In 1868, the British chocolate company Cadbury created Fancy Boxes – a decorated box of chocolates – in the shape of a heart for Valentine's Day. Boxes of filled chocolates quickly became associated with the holiday” - making February one of the key seasons to sell chocolate (and then flowers and jewelry and so on.) It’s what inspired our theme for this month — brand love!
But before we go on, a little poem for you brand-lovers out there…
Branded | by John F. McCullagh
Her little black dress is by Ralph Lauren,
her complexion is Lancôme.
Estee lauder blushed her lips
And Apple made her phone.
She loves the feel of Hermes' silk
upon her naked skin.
Her shoes are Gucci,
her bag by Coach.
Her perfume is 'my Sin'
Lady Clairol turned her hair
the color of ripe wheat.
She's a devil wearing Prada
who looks good enough to eat.
I ponder on this vision
And a stray thought makes me laugh:
My fiercely independent woman
Has been 'branded' like a calf.
:: A HOT TAKE ON BRAND LOVE ::
Our theme for February is Brand Love.
In a world where attention spans are fleeting and choices are endless, building brand ‘love’ is no longer optional—it’s essential. Brand experience can wrap a transaction in a connection or a turn customer into an advocate. It’s the ultimate competitive advantage, when brands are able to become something people don’t just choose, but champion. However, this is arguably very rare, especially for big brands, and despite double jeopardy, and certain kinds of brand ‘stan’ behaviors (tattoos are usually mentioned). It’s hard to love brands if they don’t seem to love you back…
More broadly, the ‘industry’, despite endlessly proclaiming our love for brand, seems to have cooled on it for various reasons. The drive towards immediacy and efficiency in finance has been evident for a long time, with performance based marketing
However, for long term growth, brand works as a multiplier on performance, as the new WARC report points out. This is (almost always) a result of internal champions, the folks who pushed back against performance and fought to allocate money to brand investments - brand lovers. Because brand multipliers don’t typically stem from performance-based marketing in isolation, and all performance media is increasing in price, so it seems like a good time for yet another reconsideration of how to maximize budget allocation…
:: THE LINKS ::
THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE IS RUINING YOUR LIFE
We have often discussed the difference between wanting to do something and wanting have done that thing. I want to have run a marathon, say, but I do not want to run a marathon. The old Netflix queue was a testament to this, full of worthy films and documentaries that, when you sat down, you never wanted to watch. This piece explains how it’s the present perfect tense’s fault. “There’s a world of difference between wanting to do something and wanting to have done something.
“I’m not the first to find this distinction interesting:
I don’t believe any of you have ever read PARADISE LOST, and you don’t want to. That’s something that you just want to take on trust. It’s a classic, just as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Mark Twain, “The Disappearance of Literature”
What’s dangerous is when we conflate the two tenses. We say, “I want to do X,” when really we want to have done X. I’ve often caught myself doing this, and I see others doing it too. It’s a form of deception (usually self-deception), and it sets us up for failure and frustration in our efforts.” [Patrick Farley]
THE ANALOGUE CITY AND THE DIGITAL CITY
This thoughtful piece examines the interaction of the new digital media with our existing political structure and seems ever more prescient at the moment.
“Digital media is reconfiguring our politics at a more fundamental level.
The challenges we are facing are not merely the bad actors, whether they be foreign agents, big tech companies, or political extremists.
We are in the middle of a deep transformation of our political culture, as digital technology is reshaping the human experience at both an individual and a social level.
The Internet is not simply a tool with which we do politics well or badly; it has created a new environment that yields a different set of assumptions, principles, and habits from those that ordered American politics in the pre-digital age.
We are caught between two ages, as it were, and we are experiencing all of the attendant confusion, frustration, and exhaustion that such a liminal state involves. To borrow a line from the Antonio Gramsci, “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” (New Atlantis) (HT Mark Rukman)
PARTY OF ONE: MEDIA
Media goods are non-rivalrous - they don’t get consumed like grain. However, media is increasingly personalized - do you know who was Christmas Number One last Christmas? Faris considers the possible impact on the media business. What does media become when its only for one? Plus a jungle tune of the article…(MediaCat)
:: DON’T JUST MEASURE SHORT TERM BECAUSE ::
especially if by short term you media delivery metrics…
:: INFINITE IDEA GENERATOR ::
From Jason Bagley
This week, we’re writing to you from Chattanooga, TN. We’re especially thankful for:
an especially wild week in the backyard - from golden crowned kinglets to European starlings to red-bellied woodpeckers, 7 (seven!!!) deer hanging out in the trees, an almost-finished-patio-and-fire-pit area, hot chicken and biscuits, Wicked, Night Agent, Squid Game, Sara & Jordan, Ringo & Anna, chicken & buttered rice, orange and chocolate cake, a Christmas cactus that’s about to bloom again, and all this warm weather!
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know. You can hit reply to this email if you’ve got anything to say, and we’ll endeavor to get back to you promptly!
rockON,
faris & rosie | your friends over at geniussteals.co
(still want more? @faris is still “tweeting” while @rosieyakob prefers instagram stories)
Know someone who could use some inspiration in their inbox? Forward this email to them! We appreciate you spreading the word.
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. We have a distributed team ourselves, an 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 :)