100 Interesting Things 91-95: Stats, Porn, Outrun
This post is part of a series I started after reading “Notice, Collect, Share” by Russell Davies. I’m more inspired than ever to get back into the habit of…noticing, collecting and sharing. As part of that return to habit, I’m going to try and find five things that interest me every week, and share them here on my blog. 5 things per week, for 20 weeks, equals 100 Interesting things. Maybe one of these things will inspire you. Maybe one of them will inspire me. We’ll all learn something along the way.
I’ve also been tracking all of the stuff I find in my “Deck Of Interesting” - it’s screenshots, links, and assorted notes of things that might make into one of these posts.
UPDATE: I’m a bit off my usual cadence of posting here. Vacation, changing jobs, and a 13-month old son will always get in the way of posting.
#91 Scale Model Miniatures The algorithm is mostly awful, but sometimes it delivers a rare post that combines two of your interests. In this case, it’s “Outrun”-style music and visuals along with scale-model miniature buildings/dioramas.
Maybe it’s just me and my niche interests, but this style of visual and music (inspired by the old Sega game) seems to be making a comeback. Are we longing for a simpler time? Or do we just need some colour in our lives?
As far as scale model dioramas go…I think the reason I like them so much is because of how much talent it takes to create them. I know that my attention to detail would never be that good, I could never have the ability to make a smear of paint turn into a perfect bit of dust and dirt on the side of the building. It’s this different, and to me, totally alien skill set.
A small part of me (pun intended?) also remembers going to museums when I was a kid and looking at the dioramas there: WWII trenches, castles with knights, that sort of thing.
If you like this kind of thing, also check out Tokyo Build and Hank Cheng on Instagram
#92 OnlyFans x Advertising Effectiveness If you weren’t convinced in the power of Out Of Home (OOH) advertising as an effective channel, then look no further than Only Fans models using it to promote their pages.
It’s almost like they read WARC’s recent Multiplier Effect deck and saw that OOH advertising is the most effective way to drive Return On Ad Spend:
From the article:
“Bachman said that billboards are also incredibly effective for OnlyFans stars. They allow creators to reach the masses in a way that doesn’t feel invasive, and help the biggest creators skyrocket to even more mainstream fame. Baker reported that her billboard led to a 200% increase in her subscriber count. Chloe Amour, who has a billboard up in Los Angeles said that she’s gained about 70 new subscribers per day from her billboard, leading to thousands of dollars in monthly subscription revenue.”
The Effie Award is there for the taking.
Taylor Lorenz Newsletter On Only Fans Billboards
PS: Taylor Lorenz and Ryan Broderick (Garbage Day) are two of my favourite journalists these days.
PPS: Hey, an OOH campaign I worked on won a Hermes Creative Award!
#93 Audible Runs A Marathon The majority of my career has been spent on the digital, brand, and creative sides of the business. However, the last four years spent overseeing a media team has given me a better appreciation for the importance of placement and channels. Rather than focusing purely on the idea, I get excited about where and how that idea appears.
There are a lot of creative ways to use our existing toolkit of digital, broadcast, and print/OOH formats. And I love the idea of being experimental within the box. But I also love the
That’s why I think the idea of Audible sponsoring marathon pacers is such a cool idea. It brings the product (the audio of the book being read) to life in a way that you might naturally use it (while on a long run), in a way that totally fits the format.
In related “Finding new media channels” news, The DDB NZ crew is always doing cool stuff. I love their campaign of labelling toasters for Vogel’s bread so that people always get the perfect toast.
(Sorry for all the Instagram links these days, My social media consumption goes in waves, and I’m on a bit of an IG kick right now.
#94 AI Is Eating Everything Ben Evans puts together beautiful decks. They are crisp, clean, and clear.
His latest, on AI, is all of that. It’s also worth a read for anyone in marketing, technology, business, communications…or, uh, anything. It’s 59 tight slides.
Here are a few of my favourites:
#95 Numbers and Narrative I’ve always believe that how you tell a story is as important as the story itself. That how is the theatre of the presentation, but also the structure of the elements.
This isn’t just a “Parker” thing, and it’s not just a “strategist” thing, and it’s not just a “marketing thing.” Adding narrative elements to anything can make it more powerful and effective of a communication.
As a case within a case: This excellent blog post about the importance of narrative when telling financial stories starts with a personal anecdote and moves into a very good explanation of how narrative needs to work with numbers to tell a compelling and influential story for their to be a strong recommendation or analysis.
The author uses his example of how different narratives for Uber* creative different scenarios and, ultimately, results and valuations:
*The blog post is from 2014, so likely things are a bit different. However, it is still a testament to the staying power of blogs. Long live the web log!
Drones, Sci-Fi, Books, Writing