Pitch The Subthread

What We're Looking For

We cover the people, ideas and experiments shaping the future of marketing – from brands and agencies to platforms, studios and side projects.

What we’re looking for changes over time. We’re always happy to hear from professionals looking to contribute, especially if you're working at well‑known brands.

Contributions can happen either by offering op‑eds, giving your time for features or podcasts, or joining us on panels at events.

For sponsorship opportunities, email Advertising

For editorial tips, suggestions or recommendations, email Editorial

For more details on what we're currently looking for, please read this page.

On this page:

Podcasts

These are the podcast formats we currently have in the works:

Culture Code
A series spotlighting artists and designers experimenting at the edge of creativity and technology – and what their work can teach brands.

We’re looking for people who are willing to come to North London for a few hours to film these in person.

The Brandmakers
This show highlights some of the most innovative brands and the people behind them, digging into how they actually make things happen.

For seasons 2 and 3 we’d love to hear from senior marketers working for household names and who are willing to discuss their work and methods.

Uncut
An unfiltered podcast for agencies, featuring honest and fun conversations with creative leaders about staying innovative, navigating shifting market realities, and their ideas on shaping the future.

We’d love to hear from you if you work for an agency in a senior capacity and would like to be interviewed by us on camera at your offices. Expect a conversation that extends beyond what the agency does and dives into subjects like career building, inspiration, innovation and motivation.

Features

We’re always on the lookout for people who have something interesting to talk about that can help develop the mindset of others within the marketing and creative industries.

Perhaps you’ve recently worked on a new design system and approached it in a different way. Maybe you’re about to launch a truly innovative campaign and can talk about the mindset in the business that made this happen. Or perhaps you and your team are exploring innovative ways of collaborating that have given you a new competitive edge and signal a new way of thinking and working.

If this sounds like you, drop us a line and we can discuss setting up an interview – or we can decide together whether your topic is better suited to come from you directly in the form of an op‑ed.

Other content series we are currently developing and for which we are open to pitches are:

Brand Archives
We’re starting a series that dives into the archives of well‑known B2C brands. Take us behind the scenes to tell a story of innovation and progress fuelled by nostalgia. If you can show us how your brand learns, innovates and grows, drop us a line.

Non‑endemic Sports Partnerships
As we’re gearing up our coverage of the world of sports, we’d love brands, rights holders or agencies to sit down with us for an interview and discuss their recent partnership work and the thinking behind it. We’re equally interested in those who can share thoughts on sports as culture.

Job Title Series
What does a semiotician do, or a conversation designer? Ever heard of a brand moment curator or a cosmic dream alchemist? Or perhaps you’ve taken up a new role at Canva as head of making Canva feel British? We’d like to dive under the hood of what these roles involve, so if you’re bored of explaining what you do – or never receive the right questions from industry colleagues but feel you have a lot to offer – then drop us a line.

Nostalgic and Innovative Campaigns
We’re on the hunt for people who are happy to share the stories behind their old campaigns with us. What made them innovative at the time? How do you look back at them now, and what have you learned since?

Was it the first time you used CGI, or the first time you created something for Twitter? Did you experiment with an emerging platform, a new production method or an unusual media buy?

We’d love to hear about the cultural or industry shift it responded to. What did you have to fight for internally? What (honestly) went wrong? And how would you approach the same idea if you made it today?

Get in touch if you’re happy to share your old work and the thinking behind it for publication on our site.

We’re probably not the best fit for:

  • Standard funding / hiring / office opening announcements.
  • Generic ‘state of the industry’ commentary with no fresh insight.
  • Product launches or updates with no creative or cultural angle.
  • Content written entirely by AI.
  • Purely self‑promotional pieces or sly product‑placement articles.

Op‑Eds

We love hearing from people who think, create and make change possible.

Aim for strong, well‑argued points of view, not generic fluff – and be brave enough to supply examples or evidence.

If it’s more of a case‑study‑style piece, make sure it gives an honest breakdown of a campaign or experiment and tells us what you tried, what worked and what didn’t.

What makes a good pitch for us?

  • It’s true thought leadership – Your article offers readers a way to expand their horizon and challenges their current thinking.

  • There’s a clear tension or question highlighting a new approach: for example, “How X brand is using lo‑fi production values deliberately as a business strategy.”

  • It reveals process, not just outcomes: “How our in‑house team rebuilt our briefing process to work better with AI tools.”

  • It says something about the industry: “What XYZ’s campaign approach says about how Gen Z’s view of nostalgia is slowly changing.”

  • It’s specific, not vague: Data points, results or behaviour changes – we’re here for it, even if they’re directional (“3x uplift in saves vs likes”).

If you give us a short outline of your thought process in an email and we green‑light it, we’ll work with you on the piece to ensure it resonates with – and is useful to – our audience.

Who we love hearing from

We especially love hearing from:

  • In‑house creative and marketing teams
  • Independent studios
  • Brand‑side marketers trying interesting, slightly risky things
  • Producers, strategists, technologists and makers who usually sit behind the scenes
  • Communities, curators and small projects with something to say about creative culture
  • Those working on sports partnerships who can give their take on recent deals or cultural moments

How To Pitch Us

  • Subject line: Pitch: Brand / person – short angle

  • In 3–4 sentences: What’s the story, and why now?

  • Format: Are you looking for an interview, offering some thoughts, writing an op‑ed or suggesting someone for our podcasts?

  • Key details: Who’s involved (brand, agency, studio, individuals)? What, where, why and how?

  • Why it fits The Subthread: One line tying it back to creativity, culture or innovation in marketing.

  • What access you can offer: People we can interview, data you can share, assets (stills, video, behind‑the‑scenes, decks).

Email pitches to: Editorial

We read every pitch, but due to volume we can only reply to the ones we’re taking forward.

Newsletter Material

The Subthread Weekly
Every Thursday we put together a newsletter for our community. We love adding fun elements to give our audience extra creative inspiration.

If you’ve seen a fun post, launched a wild campaign or have a cracking side project the industry will enjoy, drop us a line and include “Thursday’s Creative Inspiration” in the subject line, with a link to the work and a few lines on why we should include it.

Seeking Residencies

The Subthread team is a small team of four, but we aim to come together once or twice a week in central London. We enjoy visiting agencies and finding out how people work, innovate and think.

If your office has great internet, a few spare desks, some welcoming faces and you’d like to host us and show us behind the scenes, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re now booking month‑long residencies for the year ahead. Fear not: we don’t gossip or post things we hear around the watercooler, and we’re happy to sign NDAs.

Event Speakers

We always plan ahead and would love to hear from speakers who are experts in their field and willing to part with their time in exchange for a fun evening with us, food, drinks and the chance to connect with likeminded people in our community.

All our events are filmed and shared with attendees and readers of The Subthread after the event has taken place, and we aim to publish write‑ups of all panels.

Email Editorial and include “Speaker Suggestion” in the subject line and a bio in the main body. We’ll keep these on file and reach out if we have suitable opportunities.

Partnerships and Commercial Ideas

If you’re interested in working with us on sponsored content, editorially‑led partnerships, live events or community‑driven experiments, email Advertising with “Partnership” in the subject line.

We’re interested in collaborations that feel useful and thoughtful for our audience, and we’ll work with you to ensure your brand gets the most meaningful exposure to the right people.