Strands of Genius: The Advertising-Climate Paradox, Meeting 1000 People, TV Song Selection
plus, our thoughts on: joy & sadness
WRITING FROM | Los Angeles, CA (Ashley)
WORKING ON | SOSG assets and some desk research for a client project
LOOKING AHEAD
Aug 9 - Aug 25 | Los Angeles, CA
Aug 26-28 | Scottsdale, AZ
Aug 29 - 30 | Chicago, IL
Aug 31 - Sept 8 | New York, NY
Sept 9 - Sept 12 | Atlanta, GA
Sept 13 - Sept 15 | Los Angeles, CA
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
With a busy couple of weeks coming up starting at the end of the month, I’ve been enjoying the slower paced summer. In LA, it’s very easy to dismiss summer as the weather is pretty consistent here year-round. In an effort to make it feel a bit more like summers growing up, I’m trying to something different outside each day - playing soccer, walking Denver, reading, laying by the pool. A little bit of routine with a twist. If you have any favorite outdoor activities, please send them my way!
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Annenberg PetSpace and puppy training, golf lessons, Eva&Steve, HB Grill falafel, Akram, Playa Provisions seafood, box seats to the LeaguesCup at Sofi stadium, Denise, Encanto tacos, the end of Black Bird, Shameless, F45 sweat fests, and 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
// Mike Follet on ‘Attention Oligopolies” | Community Meet Up
Tuesday, August 16, 2022 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM ET
More details for members on School of Stolen Genius.
On Tuesday, August 16, Faris will be joined by Mike Follett for a conversation about his presentation titled 'Attention Oligopolies? Really?’. Mike Follett started his career in advertising, working for DDB in London, New York and Mumbai. In 2013, he helped found Lumen, the leading attention technology company.
:: THE LINKS ::
THE ADVERTISING CLIMATE PARADOX
In this article for WARC, following the recent record temperatures that hit the UK, Faris takes a look at the paradox in the advertising conversation. What are we uncomfortable talking about and why? (WARC)
A GOAL OF MEETING 1,000 NEW PEOPLE
A journalist set a goal for herself in 2019 to meet 1,000 people in one year. With Covid hitting in 2020, she didn’t quite finish her goal but met about 600 people and went into the pandemic with some newfound friendships. Her observations of all of the individuals she’s met, where she met them, and lessons learned is quite humbling and a reminder to all of us that if we allow it, we can find something in common with each individual out there. She says, “In fact, what I’m learning with each new encounter—the awkward, the weird, the instantly fascinating, the guy playing himself in a starring role, the woman who takes the phone out of my hand so she can make the video herself because I’m not doing it right, the lady who wonders what my real motives are—is that they’re all me. I’m the frightened one, the overconfident one, the entertaining one, the funny one, the interesting one, the dopey one, the suspicious one, the one who’s failed over and over and who hopes that this time, maybe this time, I’ll get it right. There isn’t an emotional response I encounter I can’t find in myself, and that’s what connects us.” (Oprah Daily)
HOW SONGS ARE SELECTED FOR TV
Thanks to Stranger Things, songs from Kate Bush and Metallica are hitting the Billboard charts decades after their initial release. Much like the advertising industry and product placement, music supervision (song selection) is intentional, but what exactly makes a song go viral versus the million others we hear on television every day? Denton from Vice speaks with some music supervisors to uncover whether music supervisors are newly setting trends or if these songs are just that good. (Vice)
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:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: JOY & SADNESS ::
August has always been a bit of weird month for me. Back to school, the end of summer (ish), lots of beginnings and endings of things. August 24 marks my younger sister’s angelversary, August 25 is my mom’s birthday, and August 26 marks my grandmother’s angelversary. Like I said, a range of beginnings and (earthly) ends. Like most chapters in life, there’s a bittersweetness to the start and end of something. Lots to be celebrated, yet lots to mourn. I’m always wrapped up in a plethora of emotions this month, primarily joy and sadness. Joy for the celebration of the lives of 3 of the most important women in my life. Sadness for the end of 2 of these lives. And it never ceases to amaze and confuse me that you can feel and experience such extremes all at one time.
I was reminded of an article I read recently from Psych Central that discusses the purpose of emotions as told through ‘Inside Out’ (if you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend). It says:
Just as Joy is the epitome of happiness, Sadness is the epitome of sadness. And Joy treats her just like our society tends to treat sadness. She tries to distract her, she puts her in corners, she tells her not to touch anything. Joy makes the mistake that we all tend to make now and then: ignore sadness, replace it with positivity, and it will go away. The biggest problem with this strategy is that it doesn’t work. Joy realized this (literally with Sadness not going away)… Because the Control Center wasn’t allowing Sadness to be recognized, Riley (the character in the movie whose emotions were getting to know) wasn’t able to acknowledge that’s how she really felt, so it started coming out in other ways. Anger, Fear, and Disgust began to take over.
Joy wouldn’t allow Riley to express her sadness because she didn’t want her to feel sad — a noble intent with very dangerous consequences. When feelings are ignored, buried deep down, or not allowed to be expressed, they push back harder and create the potential for explosion.
The hero of this story was Sadness. Sadness taught Joy that all our emotions serve a purpose. Without even realizing it, Sadness reminded Joy that feelings give us information about our experiences, and about other people’s experiences. They clue us in to life’s challenges and rewards. They motivate us to connect with others, and to make changes in our lives. They keep us safe and they encourage us to take risks. We need all of our feelings to make these things happen. We need all of our feelings to stay healthy.
And an article from TODAY dives into this happiness and sadness narrative a bit more with Jeff Larsen, a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who has been trying to answer the question “is it possible to feel happy and sad at the same time?” for almost 20 years. He shares, “typically, the emotional landscape is laid out in such a way that we’re feeling one or the other, or neither. There are places where we can feel both, and those places are few and far between, but they’re interesting.”
“Our mind has the range to feel both happy and sad at the same time to help us adapt.”
I used to be one of those people that would suppress the sadness and try to look for the positive in everything, and it became exhausting. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that you could feel both, but once I allowed myself to, things actually became much clearer in a way.
I think so often in the work environment and even at home, we don’t allow people to express their full emotions which doesn’t actually yield the outcomes we think it ought to. Instead, allowing your emotions to be spoken for gives way for better work, communication, and relationships.
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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.
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