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Hi, it's Saul here.

I have a love-hate relationship with Commercial Creativity. 

By ‘Commercial Creativity’, I mean the loosely defined name given to a group of activities from the marketing function in a business, to those who help those marketers do what they need to do.

I was for a long time of this world: I did lots of things in those roles, some of those are still part of my life, but they are no longer all of my life.

This is a short exploration of the lessons I have learned at the coal face working with others as they chose to stay or leave that space.

Staying in your lane: the good, the bad and the ugly.

It’s an industry, which at its best, is the best of things: smart, creative people, pushing boundaries, often at the forefront of technology. 

It can be the most invigorating kind of job. It is a wonderful mix of art and science. Its skills are transferable across geographies and cultures, they can travel the world. 

There are many things I miss, but many that I don’t: For agencies in particular, there are the late nights and cancelled plans. There are pitches that can go on for years, where many resources are channelled and many sacrifices made, often with no reward for those who have lost.

Whether Commercial Creativity likes it or not, much of it is also deeply rooted in the way capitalism worked in the past, with what worked then. It is an industry that finds it hard to change, because it is bound to a different way of being.

But it’s also an industry that is able to change behaviours like few others. It can and should be the engine of getting us out of this climate mess, but only if it can change its own mind. 

There is one other big challenge and it is a very personal one.

There is a lot of sameness in the work. I don’t mean the outputs, I mean in the inputs, in the making. The same things comes up time and time again. The subject may change, the year, the focus, the budget but there can be an unsettling sense of déjà vu. People get bored.

This is not industry specific, far from it, but it is something that causes many to ask - Is this it? Isn’t there more? 

Seek the metas.

So what’s to be done if you are bored, frustrated? Where can you go? What can you do? For that you need to explore those gifts that the industry and its people share:

They can have ideas on demand, often under great pressure with limited resources. They can help get businesses out of a tight spot with clever thinking and bold action. They can help set businesses up for future demand.

And because they are often category agnostic, they come to the party without the institutional knowledge of a specific sector, they can see things others don't, because they don’t know what they are supposed to see.

It is culturally adept. It understands cultures because it is often either a mirror of them, or, when it is really good, a driver of them.

It is scrappy, it has hutzpah. This is an industry that can be unreasonable in the pursuit of results. 

It can do this because it is also a place of diplomacy, where different agendas somehow find their place. Which means it can do something very difficult - compromise enough to get stuff made, without losing what makes it worth making.

‘Where patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.’ - Tolkien

These are skills that can be used in lots of different places beyond the industry, they are valuable, they are powerful, but they have their limits.

Those edges are perhaps best defined by the idea of ‘Going upstream’.

I know where it comes from: it is commercially interesting: for agencies there are different, bigger pots of money if you can help in a broader, bigger way. For agencies and marketers alike it is also technically interesting, these are very different kinds of problems that are much deeper in the business and challenging in their scope.

This is a world where those meta skills, whilst useful, can only get you so far. It’s like peering up the river, seeing the destination, but only having a rubber dingy, a small paddle and knowing you probably need a motorboat.

It is here I found my limits, it is here you find my decision to go back to school.

When I did, I realised there were questions I wouldn't have got anywhere near asking, the answers to which I couldn’t have even begun to approach.

Questions like this…

How do markets form? How do they die? How do you think about commercial logic when you are about supply push vs demand pull? In inchoate spaces, full of ambiguity and nuance, how do you claim, demarcate and then control?

My ambitions and limitations they presented were difficult to accept, it has been a challenging journey, but my god it has been worth it.

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Saul Betmead de Chasteigner

Consultant, Coach and Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School, Oxford University
(First published on the 7th June 2024)

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^{Further reading:}

https://funnyitworkedlasttime.substack.com/p/how-to-see-the-bigger-picture-in

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https://funnyitworkedlasttime.substack.com/p/a-frame-for-life

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https://funnyitworkedlasttime.substack.com/p/no-risk-no-story

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https://funnyitworkedlasttime.substack.com/p/what-is-your-work-heaven-vs-work

Hi, it's Giles here.

The genesis of this week's newsletter was the result of scrolling through X on a Sunday night and coming across a post referencing Histography.io's incredible visualisation of historical events. I had never heard of it, but it really captured my attention—probably for way too long. It uses Wikipedia as its data source, and each historical event sits as a single dot.

The brilliance here isn’t the data per se, but rather the spatial construct: time becomes literal distance. This helps to visualise scale. From my random clicking, I realised that the first underground railway line in London started operating in 1863, the same year the American Civil War was still raging. It feels true because I can see it, not just because I read it. Histography turns the textbook timeline into a playground.

Data visualisation at its best is a bit of a magic trick. The numbers become stories, dots become people, and the abstract can feel concrete. The Pudding’s interactive essay, “How Hollywood Sees Asian Americans,” zooms us into the present. Scraping 2,300 films, it plots every role played by an Asian American actor on a grid that measures screen time and character agency. Hover over a dot, and up pops Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once or Ke Huy Quan in The Goonies. Data that might have languished in a report is impossible to ignore because it moves as we move across the screen.

There is a simple idea that links Histography and The Pudding, which is that sight unlocks insight. Whether visualising the timeline of empires or plotting Asian American actors, the designers made the invisible visible. Both of these examples are leveraging the power of digital media, but that is not the reason they are so powerful and engaging. The common denominator is that they are designing from a question. There is a powerful sense of curiosity at the heart of them.

In 1869, French civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard condensed the entire story of Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 march on Moscow into a single poster. A coloured ribbon shows troop size shrinking as it moves east; a black ribbon shows the frozen retreat, and this is overlaid with a thermometer of Siberian temperatures. Edward Tufte, the ‘Galileo of graphics’ (Bloomberg), still calls it “the most eloquent, graphic illustration of war ever made.”

Minard was semi-retired when he read an 1859 history book that quoted the size of Napoleon’s 1812 army but never showed how and where it was lost. He was appalled by the ‘intellectual negligence’ in the official tables and reports, and this drove him to answer what he saw as the critical question: ‘Where, exactly, did Napoleon’s half a million soldiers disappear between Lithuania and their return from Moscow, and what forces hastened that disappearance?’

Ultimately, what links this 19th-century map with the interactive digital storytelling of today is the intent. They transform our passive reading of facts into an active process of discovery, proving that sometimes the best way to answer a question is simply to draw it.

Giles Jepson,
CGO at BeenThereDoneThat

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^{Further reading:}

https://histography.io/

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https://pudding.cool/2025/05/aapi-casting/

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https://chezvoila.com/blog/minard-map/

Hi, it's Jenny here.

The Elusive Power and Potential of Entertainment

We know entertainment is a powerful and potent source of influence - indeed, only last week, Tim Davey framed the BBC as a tool to ‘create a UK that is more inclusive, more secure, and more successful.’

Ever since laundry companies created soap operas to help sell washing powder in the 1930s, brands have sought entertainment’s influence. However, the promise hasn’t (yet) been fully realised. 

There was a feverish buzz of excitement about twenty years ago when ‘new media’ (as the internet was called back then) would give brands endless opportunities outside of traditional advertising. Red Bull’s model - a media company not a soft drink - was heralded as the future and projects like BMW Films ‘The Hire’ swept the awards circuit. Unfortunately, these successes didn’t reshape the industry. Brands focused on what they wanted to say rather than what people enjoyed, leading to a fair bit of aggressive product placement, cringey branded content and a general sense of disillusionment. 

There have been some notable successes. In 2009 I was fortunate enough to work on an innovation project with Lego. The core strategy was to create an entertainment franchise rather than a toy range. So, rather than just ‘Lego Ninja’ we built a rich world called Ninjago, with characters, backstories and narrative arcs that could expand into multiple formats over time (side note: there is nothing more entertaining than listening to research groups where 6 year olds discuss the merits of skull monsters vs snake monsters). However, until recently these examples have been the exceptions rather than the norm and, generally, a business rather than marketing initiative.

So far, so negative. And yet I remain firmly of the belief that a flourishing relationship between brands and entertainment can be a huge win:win for all sides…audiences included. 

And we’re now at the tipping point where it might finally be possible at scale.

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Why now?

What has changed is that there is now mutual need on both sides: We have the gift of desperation with both industries facing systemic challenges…

Entertainment

• There is a financial gap to fill: Funding has been stripped out of the UK market leaving a £400m shortfall with huge swathes of the production force struggling to find work and AI threatening further displacement. Globally, Disney is trimming $3 billion from its content budget. 
• There’s cultural fatigue: A pop-culture apocalypse of bots, distraction, AI slop and endless sequels. We’re at a tipping point with the beginnings of a backlash and renewed appetite for fresh ideas.

Brands

• The attention drought continues:  Fragmented and inaccessible with a third of internet users now blocking ads. No one needs to give their attention to anything that doesn’t interest them.
• Commoditisation increases: Loyalty is on the wane (if it ever existed) and there’s been much discussion about brands’ increasing sameness. 

These systemic challenges, coupled with the reducing costs of entertainment production and creation from AI are (finally) creating a new set of conditions and opportunities.

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So, how do you do it?

I’m sure there are loads more but here are 5x business models that are worth experimenting with. (I’ve focused on TV/film here because I happen to like it, but it could apply to any IP or creator talent really)

• Equity investor: Pay for a proportion of the budget and keeps a slice of global sales, rights etc. E.g. Saint Laurent Productions co-financed award-winner Emilia Perez.

• Studio/Distributor partnerships: Develops projects with a guaranteed ‘pipe’. Nike’s Grid Iron Entertainment and Apple’s partnership.

• IP reboot: Buys dormant rights and relaunches them. Mattel turned an ageing doll into a US $1 bn Barbie movie franchise.

• Event spectaculars: Finances a live spectacle, then monetises around it. Louis Vuitton’s Pharrell runway streams draw 5–17 m live viewers.

• Franchise extension: Partnership unlocks supporting content, merch etc. White Lotus collabs (and, unofficially on Etsy!).

To make these possible also requires a mindset shift. The theory might make total sense but, as with most things in life, it’s the actual, practical reality that trips things up. Neither industry is set up for these models so there needs to be a system shake up. Here are three final questions to wrestle with:

Spread-Betting: Can we act more like a seed-investor with a risk tolerance for failure so it’s possible to try stuff and see what works? 

Creative Sovereignty: Can we let those who know how to make and distribute great stuff do it their way? Can we get comfortable swapping creative control for more valuable assets to monetise?

Process Shift: How do we set teams up to fit into entertainment rather than the other way around? Do we understand commissioning, distribution, and syndication? Can we think platform / format first? 

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So, in conclusion…

We’ve had good ideas about branded entertainment for a long time…and it’s hard. Hopefully now is the moment to get stuck in and make it happen for everyone’s benefit. 

As Richard Osmond stated on the wonderful Rest is Entertainment podcast: “ideas themselves are almost worthless<…>the hard work is in developing (them), in testing them, in casting them and directing them and cutting them.”

Or, to quote Lego Ninjago’s Sensei Wu: “Now is the time to unlock your true potential”.

‍Jenny Howard,
Problem Definer / Strategy Consultant

Hi, it's Shai here.

I can't decide what's more predictable these days: a holding company folding its agency brands or ad agency folks bemoaning the news with some variation of: "For an industry that sells on the importance of brand, we do a crappy job of maintaining agency brands!"

This hollow self-referential argument is precisely why the industry continues its slide into irrelevance.

Really listen to Levitt

In one of the most iconic marketing papers of all times, McGill University’s Theodore Levitt coined the term marketing myopia to describe the short-sighted focus on selling products rather than understanding and meeting customer needs. His HBR article warned businesses against defining their purpose too narrowly - like seeing themselves in the railroad business instead of the broader transportation industry-leading to missed opportunities and decline.

His argument was simple to understand (if sometimes hard to act on): to stay relevant, companies must adopt a customer-centered view and adapt to changing markets

Ad agency folks abused Levitt's marketing myopia for years trying to convince soap companies they're in the business of female empowerment or whatever, while trying to convince themselves they're in the "business of creativity." Both are delusions.

The lesson from marketing myopia is that soap companies are in the business of cleaning bodies and ad agencies are in the business of providing advice that unlocks commercial value for their clients.

"Brand" is merely one type of advice. But it can’t be the only one.

Inescapable fundamentals

Would "brand" have saved Yellow Pages from Google? Could Blockbuster's brand have saved it from Netflix? Could the UK's Carphone Warehouse's brand have protected it from smartphones?

Of course not.

The world around these businesses changed, deeming them increasingly irrelevant. No amount of "brand" or "creativity" would have saved them.

Their only path to survival was to consolidate, cut costs faster than revenue is declining, and pivot to areas where they might have a fighting chance.

WPP (and Omnicom and everyone else) is facing a similar reality. Digital advertising accounts for approximately 77% of total advertising spending and 74% of that money goes to the big platforms. That's the whole ball game.

So yes, WPP et al have to cut and consolidate. And no, brand has nothing to do with it.

Beyond the brand

I dislike the "we should practice what we preach" argument in this context because agencies who are finding success practice and preach differently.

They focus on value that cannot be easily commoditized, they shed unnecessary costs, and their evolve their business model to respond to market realities.

And spare me the argument about how the world’s biggest spenders are the big tech platforms, proving that they themselves believe in advertising. They’re big spenders in ultimate terms but not in relative terms to their revenue. Besides, no one said advertising is going away, just that the money pie from advertising is being split differently and agencies who rely on that pie are going hungry. 

Thriving in the post-execution era

If you’re in the business of providing sound advice that unlocks commercial value, thriving starts from understanding where that value can be delivered.

1. Add value to people, not to companies: Look at ways to make a client’s job safe and easier. You are not serving the interests of the organization, you’re serving the interest of the decision makers who work for that organization. 
   
   
2. Expertise over execution: The commoditization of creative production means you must shift upstream to strategy and business transformation consulting or downstream to specialized execution. FundamentalCo was spun out of Blackstone as a consultancy that, from what I can tell, cares little about cheap execution, prioritizing high value strategic services.
   
   
3. Business model innovation: Replace billable hours with value-based pricing. Sell products, not just services. Everyone’s talking about performance-based models, and they should. But good luck getting paid for metrics you don’t yourself own. One excellent example of this is Block Report, a recently launched agency that charges on a monthly basis based on output they provide.
   
   
4. Talent arbitrage: Strip out unnecessary management layers and focus on talent that delivers value in models you can flex up and down. Companies like BTDT lead the way in this approach.
   
   
5. C-suite fluency: Agency leaders must speak the language of the boardroom, not just the creative department. You need to be able to have an intelligent conversation about EBITDA, CAC/LTV ratios, or capital allocation, you're irrelevant. Anomaly’s Jason DeLand is one of the best in this game. You won’t hear Jason talk about amorphous terms like “the value of creativity” - he’ll talk to boardrooms in language they understand.

Tough times ahead

The future requires embracing the hard truths agencies often hide from: you need less people, you need to shift away from execution, and you need to be comfortable with constant change. 

Is this unfair to the talented people working at these agencies? Absolutely. It sucks.  But capitalism isn't fair and the good old days are not coming back.

But I do believe good days are still ahead and opportunities are still out there for those curious enough to look for them. 

‍Shai Idelson,
Healthcare Marketing Executive

Hi, it's Dom here.

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." - Plato

Music has always been central to human culture. Long before LPs, microphones or synths, people made music using their voices, clapping hands, and simple instruments. It was communal, emotional, and passed down by ear. Music told stories, marked rituals, and brought people together. It’s one of the oldest, most natural forms of expression.

Technology has long disrupted music, shifting how and why we create and relate to it. AI is just the latest chapter in a saga of transformation, one that includes game-changers we now take for granted.

It began with the phonograph in the late 19th century, which allowed sound to be captured and replayed. Music could finally exist outside the moment it was performed. Before that, performances were fleeting; their magic lived in the now.

The 20th century brought rapid change: radio spread music globally; the electric guitar redefined genres; multitrack recording let artists layer and experiment. Sony’s Walkman and later Apple’s iPod made music portable. Then came synthesisers, drum machines, and samplers, democratizing music making and fuelling the rise of electronic music.

The early 2000s brought Napster and P2P sharing, which shook the music industry to its core and eventually led to the licensed streaming platforms we rely on today. With each shift, tech opened new doors and sparked new challenges. For every artist who resisted, others jumped in enthusiastically.

Now, AI is beginning to shape music creation in striking ways. AI systems can compose, perform, and analyse music. Tools like Google’s Magenta and OpenAI’s Jukebox generate original compositions based on prompts. Platforms like Suno, Udio, Amper Music, and Soundraw let users create custom soundtracks without traditional skills. These tools learn musical patterns from large datasets - melody, harmony, and rhythm. Some artists use AI as a creative partner; others use it for generating stems or variations quickly.

The results can be surprising. AI has completed unfinished works by famous composers, mimicked specific styles, and even sparked new genres. AI-powered mastering, songwriting assistants, and virtual singers now exist. The pace of change is astonishing, and the tools are becoming more intuitive.

But with innovation comes big questions. One major issue is training data. Many AI models are trained on huge collections of existing music. If copyrighted works are included, it raises concerns about consent and fair use. How are artists asked before their work trains a model? How should they be compensated? Debates around ethical training and copyright are ongoing, with figures like Ed Newton-Rex and the Fairly Trained campaign leading the charge in the UK.

There’s also the matter of originality and ownership. If an AI creates a song, who owns it? If it sounds like a famous artist, is it homage or infringement? These are murky areas where the law is still catching up.

Despite this, I don’t see AI as a threat to creativity. Like Fender Stratocasters or Ableton Live before it, AI is just a new (and powerful) tool. It can help artists move faster, explore new territory, and overcome blocks. It can open up music-making to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access. But as with any powerful tool, it should be used mindfully.

We need transparency. Platforms should disclose when and how AI is used, and audiences deserve to know when a track is machine-generated. Ideally, we’d have systems for fair credit and compensation, not to reject new tech, but to use it responsibly.

AI won’t replace human creativity, it will reshape it. Music evolves with the tools available. The heartbeat of music remains human: emotion, storytelling, connection. AI can support that, as long as we stay grounded in intention.

Decades ago, pioneers like Brian Eno introduced the idea of functional music soundscapes designed not for radio play, but to enhance environments, aid focus, or encourage calm. These pieces weren’t about traditional storytelling, but utility and atmosphere. AI-generated music fits this niche well. Algorithms can now create endless ambient tracks tailored to mood, time of day, or even biometrics, producing personalised soundscapes on demand.

What excites me is a future where generative sound exists alongside traditional, human-crafted songs. AI can excel at bespoke, utilitarian audio for everyday life, while human-made music continues to tell stories, express emotion, and carry cultural weight. This isn’t a battle between man and machine, it’s a rich coexistence.

Happy listening!

‍Dom Hodges,
Head Of Music & Sound at Yoto

^{Further reading:
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A good rundown of the work that Fairly Trained does:

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Some ever-wise words from Brian Eno:

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Lateral uses of AI with the genius that is Imogen Heap:

Hi, it's Jonathan here.

I remember when Direct Mail was the dirty little secret of the agency world. 

Those who had to ‘do direct’ often got to sit on another floor and not touch the bar snacks. 

There was an elitism because work that had a measured and actionable response was just plain unsightly to ‘good’ ad brand creatives. A direct response, ‘how gauche!’ 

The thing is, direct creatives often were the bridge between print shops and ad agencies. It was the closest thing to a trade that existed in the industry. You had to know what card stock was, what a perf tear did, and what spot color adhered to acetate the best. If a brand creative needed a technical answer about print capabilities, they‘d quietly consult a direct creative.  

Then, around 2005-2010, we saw at Cannes and D&AD an explosion in the direct category. Campaigns started to bleed lines between events, PR, ambient, and all had actionable responses. All of them were considered… direct. 

If you look at the old award annuals in this time period it’s amazing to see the category warp, and along with it what a direct creative could now do. A boyfriend was broken up with from a plane banner ad. A house was posted one item at a time through a mailbox. These were things aimed at a direct response that were anything but folded direct mail pieces. 

I never really thought much about it at the time, but in retrospect, these campaigns were the very starts of social advertising as we now know it. Before FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter (X) were in full swing and before the rise of the smartphone, these direct campaigns were created to try and enter culture, news, and be forwarded by email. In other words, ads that understood the need to enter the earned media space. 

Fast forward a decade or two and the rise and domination of social media has now presented us with a dystopian reality: viewers are now inescapably intertwined with brands. Whether it’s an Instagram story or a long form sponsored post by an influencer, we’re surrounded by them.

Yet in a time where brands are expected/bullied/presumed to create social content, now is a salient time to ask yourself this: “Do I as a brand manager need to do any of this?”

Example: I’ve seen time and again social ads for Tide Detergent: “let’s check out this mom from Des Moines wash her weekly load”. And each time I’ve been forced to watch I’ve voiced to myself, “how many extra bottles of Tide are you selling from this?” 

The same question can be levelled at a ton of brands who are being brainwashed to be ‘social first’.

I used to contract to one agency who had a soup brand and would create social content pieces for them, charging out $12,000 a post / piece of content (not media spend purely creative concept budget). Looking at the work afterwards, you’d be lucky if each post got more than 8 likes each. 

The dating app, Hinge, has made a point not to ‘do social’. On their instagram are just 9 posts, creating a screen mosaic that tells the user they’re there to be deleted. It’s not just a clever wink back to their brand promise, it’s also a statement to say ‘social just ain’t worth it for us’. 

I think it’s time that more brands asked, does their brand benefit from social? 

And if the answer is no, then guess what: stop it and save all of our eyeballs. 

When was the last time anyone chose their toothpaste based on a social TikTok post? 

But if your brand really truly does benefit from having a social plan, then at the very least think back to the inflection point when direct became social in the mid 2000s. Every piece that was seen didn’t invade a person’s space. Instead, it intrigued, invited, and engaged. 

Looking at the mid 2000s direct work will help to determine if your social posts are clutter and noise, or entertaining and provoking. 

And when you get it right, oh man, what a treat that is for everyone. Believe it or not, even in the US, we get the occasional Curry’s post that has been forwarded to us from someone, somewhere. 

That’s true reach. That’s social that isn’t just made for the sake of it. 

‍Jonathan Horner,
Freelance Creative Director in NYC  at jonathanhorner.com

^{Further reading:
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Jeff Loucks hot take on when social doesn’t work

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Want to delve into old ad winners at major festivals, here’s a great place to start

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A great blog article on social by Paul Dambra

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Remember, your social ads are competing with the news for attention. So, here’s the news

Welcome to BeenThereDoneThat - Built Different. A series where we explore how industry leaders are challenging conventional wisdom and thinking differently to overcome their latest, greatest challenges.

In each episode of the series we pose three questions to our guests: 

1. What’s the biggest current challenge that’s forcing you to think differently?
2. What’s the biggest aha moment or fresh wisdom you’ve picked up on that journey to date?
3. What has been the single most effective practical step you’ve taken so far?

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Hi, it's Anna here.

Recently, I was sitting in a friend's garden when some noisy birds flew overhead. Someone quickly whipped out their phone and confirmed they were Ring-necked Parakeets, using the Cornell University Merlin app. I thought I was alone in this bird identification phase of my life. Turns out I'm not.

Technology is often posed in opposition to nature. When someone is too online we tell them to “go touch grass”. But as the tools we use to identify and understand the world around us evolve, I find myself more in touch with nature through my phone rather than without it.

This is obviously exemplified by the Merlin app. I've identified 96 birds through the app so far, by the time this article is published I could easily have 100 birds on my “Life List”.

Merlin has plenty of identification features, but my favourite is how it listens. When a bird calls, it identifies the species in real-time. Point your phone at the sky, and a list appears on your screen. The app enhances your senses. It becomes an extension of your ears, your knowledge.

Walthamstow Wetlands provides the perfect backdrop for my bird listening. This massive urban nature reserve hosts over 140 bird species each year. Rare waterfowl, Kingfishers, and even a resident Peregrine Falcon visit or make their homes there.

It’s also the workplace of Lira Valencia, a conservationist and influencer, using social media to get a new generation interested in birds. The birdwatching demographic is changing. It's younger, more diverse, more technologically equipped.

I once identified an Alpine Swift  at the Wetlands, using Merlin. I wanted to confirm this very unusual sighting with the staff at the visitor centre, but they dismissed me. Saying there was no way an amateur would have spotted a bird that rarely visits the UK. The next day, multiple confirmed sightings came in from the exact same spot. Technology has turned me from an amateur to an expert.

The Romans believed birds were messengers from the gods. Augurs were priests who would interpret the flight patterns, feeding habits, and calls of birds to determine if planned actions should proceed. A bird appearing on the left or right, flying high or low, alone or in groups, all carried different meanings.

Artist Gaston Weisch, has created a website that lets users ask questions to contemporary bird oracles. Based on ancient Roman augury practices, the AI-generated system watches birds through webcams and interprets their movements as answers to your questions. AI tracks the birds on camera, considers your question, and delivers an interpretation. This use case is not about identification. It's about meaning. What are these creatures trying to tell us?

There are so many wasteful and thoughtless uses of AI that gravely threaten the future of our planet. And yet, the Merlin app, Lira’s instagram and Weisch’s oracle project all reveal an interesting truth; technology can bring us closer to nature. This might seem contradictory. Shouldn't we disconnect from screens to connect with wildlife? The answer is increasingly no. Our phones don't always separate us from nature. They can help us interpret it.

As AI continues to develop, we might eventually translate bird calls directly. We already decode their patterns and identify their species. Full translation feels like the next step. But the Roman augury tradition reminds us that people have been interpreting animals for millennia. What technology does is democratize this knowledge. It turns amateurs into experts and maybe also listening into understanding.

Anna Rose Kerr,
Freelance Creative Director & Consultant

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^{Further reading:
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DM me when you have more than 100 birds

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Augury Birds, the webcam oracle

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Outside with Lira

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AI binoculars identify birds in real time

Hi, it's Will here.

Strategy, at its heart, is a human process. A conversation about what matters, what’s possible, and what’s next.

But too often we treat it like a logic puzzle; linear, objective, neat. We apply frameworks, chase clarity, and focus on outputs while ignoring the undercurrents that shape how decisions are really made.

Coaching, too, is a conversation. One that makes space. Surfaces unspoken tensions. Invites depth, reflection, and the kind of insight that can’t be forced.

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea of the strategist having all the answers, as though strategy is akin to Moses descending from the mountain bearing The Truth. That just never rang true. Strategy has always felt, to me, like a messy, live, collaborative process. So, having spent 20 years developing brand strategy, when I subsequently trained as an Executive Coach, something clicked. It turned out I’d been blending the two all along. I just hadn’t had the language for it.

Coaching helped me name the discomfort I felt with traditional strategy work. And it gave me new tools to lean into the discomfort rather than paper over it. Coaching breeds an obsessive focus on defining the real problem, and great strategy demands that. The easy thing is to take the presenting problem at face value. The real work is sitting in the ambiguity and getting under the surface. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been brought in to solve a ‘comms problem’ that turned out to be a product issue. Or a ‘growth challenge’ that was really about team dynamics. The presenting problem is rarely the problem.

To surface the real issue, great coaches use words sparingly but powerfully. They ask questions that stop you in your tracks. The kind of question that makes you pause, sigh, and say, "That's a good question." As a Coach Strategist, I try to do the same. I want my questions to reframe the conversation, to make people look at their business- and themselves- differently. A favourite of mine: "What are we pretending not to know?" Simple. But it shifts something.

This kind of depth doesn’t happen by accident. A coach works hard to create the space for it. A space of trust, psychological safety, and focused attention. As a Coach Strategist, I bring that same intent to strategy work. Because there is vulnerability in confronting the real problem. And that requires a container where honest thinking can emerge. One of the most valuable things a coach learns is how to actually see when someone is thinking. And then not interrupt. Silence is not the enemy. Sometimes it’s where the strategy lives.

Listening is an underestimated skill in strategy. In the early stages of strategy work- the discovery phase- we need to really hear context, perspective, and lived experience. And that means listening in a way most strategists were never taught. I remember the first time I experienced Nancy Kline’s Time To Think methodology. It blew me away. Her Ten Components of a Thinking Environment is a cheat sheet for how strategists can show up in workshops and client conversations. If you want to hear something new, you have to stop filling the silence.

Another lesson coaching teaches is that it's not about you. The best coaches don't show up to be the smartest person in the room. They show up to help the other person think better. That can be humbling for strategists, especially early in your career when you feel pressure to perform and have the answers. But over time, I’ve learned to trust the process. And I’ve become more comfortable "staying in the fire"; holding space without rushing to a solution. That’s when real insight arrives.

Coaching also helps you become more conscious of the dynamic between you and your client. Are we meeting as equals? Or is there a hidden power play at work? What assumptions are shaping this interaction? Training in Transactional Analysis (TA) has been invaluable here. It helps you spot parent-child dynamics and shift back into adult-adult mode, where true collaboration happens.

But coaching goes beyond the one-to-one. It’s increasingly systemic. A rapidly emerging modality is Systemic Coaching and Constellations. Rather than zooming in on the individual, it looks at the whole system: the team, the culture, the interdependencies, the energy. The Coach Strategist maps the business in its full complexity: the people, the processes, the unspoken dynamics. They don’t treat strategy as a fixed blueprint. They treat it as something emergent and alive. Change one part of the system, and everything else shifts.

When a coaching approach is integrated into strategy development, something powerful happens. We surface the real problem, not just the presenting one. We ask bolder questions. We work with systems, not silos. And we allow complexity, emotion and emergence to have a seat at the table. Not as distractions, but as vital ingredients in meaningful, adaptive strategy.

I don’t arrive with a rigid playbook. I bring presence, curiosity, and a mindset that invites emergence, not just execution. In a world that prizes speed, certainty and linear logic, this work offers something different: a way to go deeper, listen harder, and think more intelligently about the human dynamics that shape strategy.

Because strategy doesn’t live in a slide deck. It lives in people. And if we want better strategies, we need to become better at working with the people who create them.

Will Worsdell
Founder, Growth Perspective

Hi, it's Charlotte here.

At the dawn of the age of Ai, nostalgia is an ever more powerful ingredient for brands. But how do you both harness your heritage and look to the future without incensing the angry mob?

2024 saw Jaguar reveal a teaser for their polarising rebrand.
Testament to its place as a symbol of British culture, the internet lit up.

We would be kidding ourselves to believe that it was really the controversial upper-case G that was triggering the baying crowd. Or the loss of the iconic cat, afterall, the elegant jaguar 'leaper' will be exquisitely rendered (on the side, just not the bonnet.)

No, the outrage was neither typographical nor zoological.
The rebrand triggers our sense of nostalgia. Another death knoll for a bygone era of traditional masculinity, sex and petrol. And if we were in any doubt this was intentional, the accompanying advert made sure we knew it. As Marina Hyde described it “we’ve got eight capital-D diverse models in category-five tulle busting out of a pink-planet lift wielding a hammer.’ Prompting Nigel Farage to bluster:  'Mark my words, Jaguar will go bust.'

No doubt the marketing team delighted in Farage and Musk's outrage, it did exactly as intended and killed the Jag man. A fact, they haven’t shied away from, freely admitting  they were only anticipating  to keep 15% of their current fanbase. The shift to electric vehicles has become so embedded in our culture wars that the move away from petrol means they had little choice but to seek a brand new demographic. As (jag enthusiast and brand guru) Rory Sutherland wisely muses ‘Let’s face it, you can’t survive off pipe smoking Brits anymore.’

There's no doubt that Jaguar's shift was an intentional and historic change. 

But many brands are facing more subtle dilemmas, as they attempt to evolve their heritage branding without triggering our nostalgic threat response.

Toblerone is among the brands that have deftly navigated that change.

After moving their production out of Switzerland, they lost the right to use the Matterhorn on their packaging. If you didn't notice, you’re not alone. Embracing and evolving their other heritage elements including creating a new typeface 'Tobler' crafted from their iconic Art Nouveau lettering and a cursive font inspired by their founder’s signature. By retaining and subtly modernising these nostalgic elements they can now confidently flex into a new digitally driven era of personalised packaging and Insta headlines. United by the rallying cry 'Be More Triangle,' they have identified a positioning that is iconically Toblerone shaped, that also gives them permission to celebrate difference and diversity without taking away our sentimental shield.

Identifying the core of what you have always stood for, and understanding what that might mean tomorrow seems to be the path to victory over vitriol. Just ask Barbie. 

The last decade has seen Barbie make the move from a problematic beauty standard to a feminist icon and grossed $1.45 billion in the process.  Beyond the movie, we also saw Mattel launching #TheDollEvolves an array of more inclusive dolls to write a new chapter of the Barbie story, rather than erase the old one.

How? They identified an idea that is true to her past and used it to transition towards her future with an incisive new brand positioning:  'There's no one way to be Barbie' . 

Although recently coined, it’s an idea that’s authentic to a past where we’ve seen her master over 250 careers from archaeologist to astronaut (including landing on the moon 4 years before us mortals). This powerful idea ‘There’s no one way to be Barbie’ can now extend beyond her career ambitions to race, disability and body shape. Harnessing nostalgia to power change rather than resist it.

No greater testament exists to the strange power of brand nostalgia than Lyle’s Golden Syrup. I am ashamed to admit (as a designer who prides themselves in noticing detail) that until they controversially evolved their packaging design in 2024, I hadn’t noticed it had been, in fact, featured a lion carcass covered in bees all along. ‘No!’ Shouted the internet. ‘That’s our dead lion. We like dead lions on our food packaging.’

I too felt a little sad to lose the rotting feline, despite not having really noticed it until they threatened to take it away. Nervous it might be part of the great brand blandenning we have seen so many companies succumb to in the last 20 years. The redesign, it turns out, is subtle and beautiful. Keeping the iconic gold and green, and vintage typography. The (now living) lion’s mane echoes the flourishes and filigree from the original packaging, holding a single bee within the syrupy patterns which adorn the squeezy bottle.  And if all that is still not enough to keep the angry mob at bay, the original tin design has been kept just as it is, cat carcass and all, for those of us that treasure it.  

In an age of AI, rapid change, culture wars and increasing uncertainty.
The desire to hold onto the traditional, the familiar will no doubt dial up. 

From leaping jaguars to dead lions, the way forward will be understanding the right things to keep and how to keep them relevant. To know what makes your story great, and not be afraid to write the next chapter.

Charlotte Cline,
Founder & Creative at One Man Band Design

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Session details

Available to watch now on-demand - Virtual

Today's discussion will focus on the growing challenges for innovation; what the new pressures are, what needs to change in our processes and why culturally driven thinking is critical to success.

Our expert panel will share their unique perspective from within their businesses and how they are driving change within their organisations.

They’ll talk about the new methods, tactics and approaches we can all employ to tap into culture as a driver of insight, a force for story-telling and a shaper of better strategy.

Seismic changes are happening in every category, and those who innovate in smarter, sharper, faster ways with one eye always on culture, are going to win.

We hope you enjoy the webinar!

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What you can expect to take away from the session

Key takeaways:‍

1. Adopting an explore not exploit mindset - big businesses are well oiled machines, but new opportunities won’t come from looking from looking inward.
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2. Subcultures are culture - the true insights are found a layer down from broad ‘trends’, but rather in the conversations and unvarnished truths of sub-culture.
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3. We have the tools - the speed at which we can discover, connect dots, test, listen and react is unprecedented, but we need to set ourselves up institutionally to do it.
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4. Bravery meets authenticity - you can’t innovate in culture if you don’t have a POV, the bolder you can be, the more success you’ll have.
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5. We buy stories not features - everything is about narrative, if a new product doesn’t have a story and an emotional and aspirational pull it won’t land in an unforgiving cultural landscape.

Speakers

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Tom Donohue

Head of Strategy at BeenThereDoneThat

Leading the discussion is Tom, Head of strategy at BeenThereDoneThat, with over 18 years of strategic innovation and brand consultant experience, spearheading growth for the world’s most successful brands.

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Jenna Behrer

Panelist

Chief Growth Officer, Dr. Praeger’s | alum Heineken & PepsiCo

Jenna has over 15 years success in building & leading teams to develop winning brands, innovation and growth businesses, driving significant financial impact & organization culture change.

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Alistair Bramley

Panelist

Senior Director, Systems Innovation at PepsiCo

Alistair is a self confessed empathic designer that is passionate about working from a systemic perspective through a life centered process. I leverage tools from system design, strategic foresight, business model design and circular economy to find regenerative outcomes for people, planet and business.

Hi, it's Liz here.

When the world feels unsettled and unsettling, it’s altogether understandable to seek quick highs. 

Mainlining fast fixes feels inevitable in our overstimulated world - binge scrolling for rapid escapism, GLP-1s for rapid weight loss, AI searches for rapid answers. 

This irresistible, high-velocity escape from the drudgery of slow, dull reality centres, of course, on your friend and mine, dopamine - the principal bestower of intense feelings of pleasure and reward (and arguably queen among the other four ‘feel-good’ hormones serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin).

But dopamine addiction isn't just happening to humans.

It’s endemic in businesses too, because (albeit easy to forget sometimes) companies are still ultimately directed by human minds and so, our most base desires. 

Often, ‘brand dopamine dependence’ is most acute right at the very top of the business org chart and shareholders, casting a dopamine-seeking tint across the core business functions and even the development, delivery and mechanisms of the products themselves.

Maybe this is why dopamine is trending so highly, with big trend spikes across the topic (Exploding Topics, 5-year global view). We seem to be fascinated by how to achieve a healthier and more naturalised flow of this powerful, desirable and essential driver.

So how does brand dopamine addiction manifest across the key dimensions of a brand? 

And more importantly, what might be our most powerful detox tactics?

1. Proposition

• Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Trend chasing (even worse if it’s a late trend that’s already waning); superspeed NPD with minimally tested new products; explosion of sub or side brands with low authenticity
  
  
• How to detox: Redefine brand and product strategy to secure a big, motivating commitment to a fresh plan based on real goals and strategic guardrails, with an explicit focus on how risky dopamine dependence can be for the brand and business 

2. Customer Experience

• Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Over-rewarding customers in return for false sentiment spikes; treating customers poorly as a pressure release valve; replacing true service with inferior or frustrating technology experiences in an innovation effort; promising the world to customers but failing to actualise
  
  
• How to detox: Map out the well-trodden CX ‘process pathways’ - operational and mental - to reimagine them in motivating, unorthodox ways that reignite a love of the customer and a deeper understanding of the community (including how to attend to their own dopamine temptations in ethical ways)

3. Culture

• Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Uncertain or changeable employer brand that varies depending on immediate business needs or other short-term factors; compulsive hire and fire cycles that supercharge teams’ sense of thrill, anticipation and drama; entrenched gossip culture
  
  
• How to detox: Identify where internal insecurities or trust issues are boomeranging back as toxic buzz-seeking habits (often unconsciously); anonymised surveys provide quant data to help measure this often intangible  but insidious challenge

4. Marketing & ROI

• Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Overdosing on performance marketing to chase quick results; major inconsistencies across messaging, tone of voice and visuals (including by agencies briefed poorly, even when that’s because of the excitement of a new engagement); false pricing strategies prompting customers to buy more when artificial reductions kick in - this one is especially tempting when Gartner predicts that 73% of tariff costs will go straight to the consumer
  
  
• How to detox: Shift focus to loyalty and LTV rather than quarterly (or monthly… or weekly…) indicators - while defining a clear separate strategic focus on short-term wins and revenue driving 

This last point is at the heart of the story. The punishment for giving in to the temptation of quick wins is severe, but the huge business value and ROI rewards from the hard slog of long-term brand building are consistently proven, as Kantar BRANDZ’s latest data shows of the world’s most valuable brands:

As with so much in brand, business and strategy, real success and fulfilment often lie not in pushing harder, but in seeking sustainable balance. For the most progressive brands committed to nutritious behaviours rather than an overdependence on junk foods, this includes setting a new vision of growth. One that knowingly, deliberately settles into a long-term, slower view, described in Zoe Scaman’s Growth2 manifesto. Delayed gratification is a stealth value today.

Unlocking this progressive new incarnation of ‘sustainability’ means rebalancing to a semi-predictable, non-distracting, motivating flow of dopamine through your brand - after all it’s what helps us focus, work towards goals, and find things interesting. 

And - brain or brand - that’s a good thing for us all.

Liz Hatherley,
Senior Brand and Content Strategy Consultant

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