19th May 2017
Interesting piece on what Sushi can teach us about creativity. ‘By all accounts, Americans were scared of the stuff. Eating raw fish was an aberration and to most, tofu and seaweed were punch lines, not food.Then came the California Roll. While the origin of the famous maki is still contested, its impact is undeniable. The California Roll was made in the USA by combining familiar ingredients in a new way. Rice, avocado, cucumber, sesame seeds, and crab meat — the only ingredient unfamiliar to the average American palate was the barely visible sliver of nori seaweed holding it all together. People don’t want something truly new, They want the familiar done differently.‘
One interesting takeout from the disastrous failure of the Fyre Festivalhas been its negative association with high profile promoters including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin. Partly as a result of this event, it looks like the backlash against Influencer Marketing has arrived. ‘The influencer bubble will totally collapse in the next 12 months if people aren’t very careful about the money being thrown around as brands try to buy influencer placement.’
Facebook is in trouble with its metrics again (the 5th time since September) as it finds a new measurement bug. This time advertisers are being reimbursed.
@neilperkin on the Trust Equation – Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy divided by Self-Orientation = Trustworthiness. ‘ Credibility (is being credible on the subject); Reliability (is dependable, someone who delivers, does what they say they will do); Intimacy (referring to the safety or security that we feel when entrusting someone with something); and Self-Orientation (referring to the person’s focus and whether, in particular, their primary focus is on themselves and what they can get out of it, or on the other person).‘
One organisation very much on the way up. ‘ I believe that Amazon is the most defensible company on earth, and we haven’t even begun to grasp the scale of its dominance over competitors. Amazon’s lead will only grow over the coming decade, and I don’t think there is much that any other retailer can do to stop it.’
And one on the way down – ‘The painful verdict is all but indisputable: The golden era of Pixar is over. It was a 15-year run of unmatched commercial and creative excellence, beginning with Toy Story in 1995 and culminating with the extraordinary trifecta of wall-e in 2008, Up in 2009, and Toy Story 3 in 2010. Since then, other animation studios have made consistently better films. The problem, ( as one might expect) seems to be to do with Disney.
An Interesting example of the trend of products becoming services – Citymapper is launching a bus service.
A great example that innovation in the print medium is still alive and well. Sports retailer Asics is helping people find out more about the shape of their feet using a print ad. The two-page ‘Tread Test’ ad, created in São Paulo, is printed with thermochromic paint, so anyone interested just needs to step barefoot onto the advert and it will react to the heat of their body and show them the shape of their footprint.
From Mashable. Some Americans think North Korea, is in Australia, Or China. Or maybe Indonesia.
My colleague @itsjimmyb is particularly pleased about this development – Redhead emojis could be coming our way in the next update.