Strands of Genius: Why Do You Hate Me?SKIP ADS, Sleepfluencers
Plus: Use Digital Without it Using You
WRITING FROM | Chattanooga, TN
WORKING ON | articles, plans
LOOKING AHEAD
Sept 30-? | Chattanooga, TN
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
Hello and welcome to back! Here’s a big hug. We got to spend a few, wonderful, hectic days in NYC and were reminded how much we love the place and the people there. Many thanks to the lovely ARF who invited us to their conference and the David Ogilvy awards - congrats to all the winners!
Faris did a new talk we’d be delighted to explore with you called “Measuring the Unmeasurable” - on some of the ‘epistemological pot holes’ that creep in when you quantize everything and only use numbers to make decisions…and what to do about it.
The day was about creative effectiveness and AI and there were lots of interesting points and thoughts. It kicked off with a presentation from Olivier Toubia – Glaubinger Professor of Business, Marketing Division, Columbia Business School - and he opened with these quotes about creativity that we agree with - somewhat obviously considering Genius Steals and our beliefs about creativity - nothing comes from nothing, ideas are new combinations, one cannot invent with inventory and play is creative thinking.
The great thing about academic is they source their quotes (downside being their slides are a little busy).
Oh hey btw the offer is still open - if you have gigs going that might be a good fit for the Strands community let us know and we’ll post them here.
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Scott, Rachel & the ARF team for an excellent event, the nice people from agencies and clients we met there (hello if you have just subscribed!), Ben&Margaret, Matt S, Caroline&Rich, Ho Foods in NYC for delicious Taiwanese food, Becky W, Uyen, Troy, Drew, Scott&Ivan, NYC (it’s still awesome), Artichoke Pizza, & YOU.
Yes, YOU, hi we see you.
Thanks! Appreciate you. Maybe post us on Linkedin if you like what we do, no worries if not. Muah.
:: THE LINKS ::
SKIP ADS
Adrián Mediavilla (who guest curated Strands last week - thanks!) interviewed Faris for his SKIPADS newsletter (Spanish) and kindly posted an English translation as well. “At the same time, what's happening is a division between what you can call “industrial advertising” and what you might call “artisanal advertising”. I think if you're churning out a bazillion pieces of content through a production machine and an AI and you're shoving it everywhere, then that's industrial advertising and it's inherently like industrial production, it alienates creatives. (LinkedIn)
BONUS: He has been posting video clips on LinkedIn from the interview as well>
SLEEPFLUENCERS & IDEAS WE LOVE
Tom & Matt’s Ideas We Love newsletter has hit 30 issues old and we enjoyed this one and the IKEA Sleepfluencers media idea (not just because they quote Faris later in the piece, we assure you).
"The idea: Sleepfluencers 🥱😴💤
With agency Åkestam Holst NoA, IKEA Sweden has created a black out blind with a difference. Offered to customers for free, in exchange the blind doubles up as an advertising space for the brand. The exterior of the rollerblind is covered in an advert for IKEA’s range of bedroom products such as mattresses, pillows, beds. Perhaps most importantly though, the promotion was timed to coincide with Sweden’s summer - famous for it’s long hours of daylight - a time when a blackout blind would be absolutely essential. Simple.”
(Substack)
WHY DO YOU HATE ME (USA)
Mariana Spring is the BBC disinformation correspondent and her new series - Mariana in Conspiracyland has just launched with an excellent episode. “Meet Camille and ‘Wild Mother’. Both women love nature, animals, and the outdoors. Both women also believe the assassination attempts on Donald Trump were staged – but have very different political views. Why do people believe the things they do? And what role do social media sites – and their algorithms – play?”
(We aren’t going to weigh in here…but an ear? Really? How does that even happen!? But then again everything is upside down nowadays.)
“Marianna travels to the United States to investigate the social media backdrop to the 2024 presidential election and explore the different ways in which what is happening online is influencing the campaign offline.” (BBC Sounds)
Want to chat, comment, question, compliment?
Strands of Genius is currently read by more than 15,000 subscribers. Support us by sponsoring an issue, encouraging friends or colleagues to subscribe.
:: USE DIGITAL WITHOUT IT USING YOU ::
…is the strapline for a new campaign from Dentsu for digital wellness something called Sync (or possibly Ithra?) but this is to raise awareness broadly - the AOTW site has the strategy as well.
Video isn’t on Youtube yet as far as we can tell so click through to watch it in its very widescreen glory. This is in some ways a build on the now classic observation that if you aren’t paying for the service you are the product being sold, which we in advertising and media and marketing and such are obviously more aware of than regular people.
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 | 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 :)