8th March 2019

From The-Dots, on International Women’s Day, here are 100 trailblazers redefining the creative industry.

From the BBC. Do Digital Echo Chambers Really Exist? ‘A common, and ostensibly common sense, assumption about the era we are living through is that social media is a primary cause of polarisation. I have often endorsed this idea, whether explicitly or implicitly, during my time at the BBC. Twitter has generally struck me as the industrialisation of confirmation bias. Facebook, a softer version of the same. And other platforms, such as Instagram, similar.But this claim – that our digital media habits are an exercise in the lazy endorsement of our prejudices – is itself lazy and full of prejudice.’

Love this. 25+ Photos of Celebrities Posing with Their Younger Selves.

Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are each reportedly working on their own versions of a “Netflix for games,” as the tech giants enter a heated battle to own the subscription business for video games. Thevideo game subscription wars are on. (HT @neilperkin)

J. Walter Thompson Brazil launches ‘Rescue Dogz’ for online dog food brand Güd. The campaign takes advantage of the common misspelling of pure-breed dogs names while searching in Google. Every time someone searches on Google and misspells the name of the breed, ‘Rescue Dogz’ names a puppy after that word, and creates an ad offering the dog for free.

Mark Zuckerberg is rumoured to have a secret escape passageway beneath his conference room for emergencies.

From Gartner. ‘Taking a selfie is one of the most common practices around. In fact, 93 million selfies were taken per day as far back as 2014. Taking action for a cause, on the other hand, often requires a bit of convincing to get someone to do. Here’s how CoverGirl, the first major brand to be certified by Cruelty Free International, got consumers to pledge the cause as part of its #CoverGirlCrueltyFree campaign, demonstrating the power of two trends—wellness and selfies.’

A couple of recent ads. A Campaign, ‘Pick Of The Week’, from The Times, addresses the state of the nation and a ‘Turkey Of The Week’ from Thomas Cook – this ad will make you very sleepy…

This Longhorn bull accidentally deflates his ball, and has thedeepest sadness

Currently somewhere over Greenland writing this, I am headed to Austin for SxSW. Tomorrow I will be attending event to celebrate Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies 2019. You can see thenominees, here. (Thank-you Rachel Crowther of @Street_Wisdom for the tix).