For twenty years the industry told itself it had learned how to extend the life of entertainment. We built second-screen experiences that ran alongside live broadcasts. We filled Twitter with running commentary and encouraged viewers to react in real-time. We created companion apps, backstage streams and a steady flow of additional clips that surrounded a program like scaffolding. At the time it felt progressive to us, we believed we had broken open the format and given audiences a seat at the table. In hindsight it looks like an early, tentative draft.
Why Effort Is Becoming Marketing’s Most Valuable Currency
Audiences are exhausted by optimization and can smell a shortcut a mile off. The agencies and strategists behind recent culture research argue that visible effort – not speed or scale – is now what earns a brand attention, and respect.
Hannah Bowler
Watch: The Director Building a New Creative Renaissance
He’s turned people’s heartbeats into living artworks, translated brainwaves, and at the time of recording he was building an installation that places you inside the mind of an Alzheimer’s patient. Multidisciplinary artist Otto Plesner on why and how creativity can make the world a better place.
Rich Hewes
Brandmakers: Adobe’s Simon Morris on Staying Ahead of the Marketers He Sells To
He’s spent 14 years at Adobe, watching it reinvent itself from boxed software to subscription giant to AI powerhouse. Now VP of International Marketing Simon Morris has a job harder than many: staying one step ahead of the very marketers he’s marketing to.
Alex Zeevalkink
Sports Sponsorship’s Hidden Advantage: Why Hospitality Beats Visibility
Sponsors spend millions to be seen, but then frequently don’t truly activate their most valuable right, hospitality. Here’s how to turn the access already paid for into memorable experiences and long-lasting relationships.
Matthew Blake
Watch: The Data Designer Making Numbers Mean Something
She’s turned a Kubrick film, a David Bowie single and 13.8 billion years of history into beautiful data-driven art. Apostrophe One founder Valentina D’Efilippo on why data design is more clarification than simplification, and how brands can utilize data's storytelling power.
Rich Hewes