28th March 2020
The Speed Premium in an exponentially growing pandemic world. ‘If you are writing commentary, the value is being there is the morning, not the evening. The “commentary cycle” used to stretch at least a day or two, occasionally a full week. Have you perused recent newspapers and mentally noted how many of the articles — such as reviews of art exhibitions — obviously were written and planned in The Time Before (can I call it that?). Those articles are now largely worthless, though a few of them may have nostalgia value.’
“Vaccinate Your Brand”: BBH issues a briefing on Covid-19 for Marketing Leaders. Download full deck here.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. ‘How Covid-19 Changed Our World’ : Futurist Gerd Leonhard looks ‘back’ from the end of 2020 and the changes that have occurred as a result of Covid-19. 12 observations include – the beginning of ‘The United States of Europe’ ; ‘Hell = no other people’; ‘extreme capitalist societies have slipped into chaos’ ; ‘populism faded quickly’ ;’ agriculture is re-booting to support self-sufficiency’; ‘remote everything is here’; and ‘changing views on how, when and where we need to travel.‘
From The Washington Examiner. ‘A scientist who warned that the coronavirus would kill 500,000 people in the United Kingdom has presented evidence that if current measures work as expected, the death toll would drop to roughly 20,000 people or fewer.’
Looking forward to seeing what comes out of this. The UN issues global call to creatives for first time ever. An open brief has been launched by the United Nations in a bid to generate localised messaging around Covid-19.
From AdAge. 5 tips from a consumer psychologist on how brands should respond to coronavirus – – Stop with the cute logos, play up your expertise and take action. And here (also from Ad Age) a regularly updated list tracking marketer’s response to coronavirus. (reg may be necessary)
Lovely to see that (friend of The Filter) the creative ‘walkshop’ project Street Wisdom, is ‘coming in from the cold’. ‘If you are stuck inside, don’t worry. As you’ll see from this video, you can bring Street Wisdom home with you….
From Wikipedia. An introduction to viruses.
Could be some good news here, from The Guardian. Covid-19 self-test could allow return to work, say health officials
A couple of interesting pieces from BBC Travel. Why We Are What We Are ( a series that examines the characteristics of a country and investigates whether they are true); and The Travel ‘Ache’ You Can’t Translate – ‘For all of us trapped inside our homes during coronavirus who long to travel, the Germans have a word for that: fernweh, or a pain to see far-flung places beyond our doorstep’.
From WARC. The continued ascension of Houseparty and the ‘re-socialisaton of media’.’ The question will be whether Houseparty can build the kind of sustainable popularity that makes it a destination for brands to explore integrations rather than outright advertising. Like Fortnite, where brands like the NFL gained a foothold through skins that users could buy; the real asset, is the extended engagement from an audience that is abandoning Facebook.
From Strands of Genius. A (google drive) folder of marketing POVs, business and consumer research reports, from across agency land ( including China) to help everyone make better decisions. In total, an upload of 130 POV reports as well as a spreadsheet directory of 111 links including a tab on “Brands Doing Good”.
From WARC – ‘Why stockpiling is not the crazy, selfish behaviour that it seems.’ (Research shows that) ‘huge volumes of shoppers were adding a few extra purchases of products they normally buy and adding a few purchases of categories that they don’t often buy into their trolley or basket and were doing this more frequently, i.e. also shopping more regularly than normal, across these first few weeks. This adds up to a whole lot of buying….This is not the kind of behaviour that those shoppers would see as selfish and abnormal, in the same way that walking out of a store with the last 30 packs of loo roll would obviously do.’
Bompas & Parr is looking for creatives to rethink hand sanitiser. Launching a competition with the Design Museum in support of The British Red Cross,
Google Earth launches virtual tours of 31 of the world’s most incredible National Parks.
In the US, seven brands that increased social media spend, during the pandemic. Dial (cleaning brands), Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now, Quibi (mobile video), Instacart (deliveries), Uber Eats, and interestingly...South West Airlines. (reg may be necessary)
A Snapchat-owned location app just added a leaderboard comparing who stays home the most.
From Chartbeat. How coronavirus is impacting the news. An analysis of global traffic and coverage data.
Mailchimp will be showing more than 70 short films that were meant to show at the cancelled SXSW Film Festival. In fact, I was in Austin at the time that Sx should have been on and still managed to catch some great film and music. Highlight was seeing a premiere on a inflatable screen in a parking lot in south Austin. The Mystery of The Pink Flamingo; trailer here.
Miley Cyrus has been doing her part to keep her fans’ and followers’ spirits up as they practice social distancing with her new Instagram Live show, Bright Minded. Now, she’s taken things one step further byreleasing a surreal (and somewhat jarring) theme song for the series.
Social distancing hits classic album covers. (HT @neilperkin)
Footage of ‘coronal rain’ on the surface of the Sun, was recorded by Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, in a time frame of 9 and a half hours. After around 30s of this video you will see an image of earth, for scale.
New York From Behind (an Instagram account)
Europe’s last football league is now a global phenomenon – and they’re not slowing down. This is how to stream games this weekendfrom The Belarus Premier League.
If your dog needs a walk but you can’t go out. Here is a video of a drone ‘walking’ a dog