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IF YOU COULD JUST...sorry to kickstart a festive mail with a booooring admin request but Microsoft have been having issues with my email provider (Kit) lately so you might not have been getting my emails. If you get this, could you send a simple reply (hello will do) or reaction and if you add me to your contacts, then we might just overcome! Onwards... A 2026 prediction worth bothering withYou're either gobbling down 2026 predictions like Roses or avoiding them like Brussels sprouts right now. Either way, there's plenty of them about. And of course, AI features almost universally. A few have caught my eye. They highlight the increasing importance of soft skills as AI starts to eat into technical work. One survey found 80% of workers said skills such as creativity and empathy had become more important. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Jobs Report found in-demand skills were analytical thinking, leadership, influence and creative thinking. In other words, thanks to AI, human skills are becoming ever more valuable - building relationships, storytelling, judgement. One prediction estimates 25% of Instagram and TikTok feeds will be AI-generated by the end of 2026. In this sea of potentially generic, samey content, distinctive storytelling and creativity will stand out a mile (and already does). LinkedIn jobs in the US containing 'storyteller' have doubled in the last year (yes, doubled). Reader, our time is now. Something to give us all a timely dose of optimism as we head towards 2026. And I hope you have a fantastic and restful festive break! WEBINAR CATCH-UPS: resilience and creative campaignsThanks to everyone who came along to last week's webinars on resilience comms and building creative campaigns - great to see so many faces on both. You can catch up on them below if you missed them. Comms For Xmas No 1 and more creative campaign ideas USE THIS: content and campaign ideasGet ready to plan your Christmas jumpers next year - cracking stuff from the RNLI. (Get this type of creative and content inspiration first on the Creative Catch of the Day WhatsApp channel.) SOCIAL: Reels storytelling hints from Meta New best practice guidance from Meta on making Reels. Some interesting and useful stats - including scenes showing people going about everyday activities increases chances of ranking in top 20% by 1.5x. Human. Content. Wins. CRISIS COMMS: Lessons from Grenfell The best presentation I've heard in 2025 was from Nick Price-Thompson, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, on the learnings from the Grenfell fallout. Standout quote from his slot at the Orlo Big Social: "Get real before it gets real." Catch up through this blog if you couldn't be there. STORYTELLING TIPS: a last festive hint from the Story BoardWhat's your favourite Christmas story? Here's a chocolatey tip from the Story Board about one cracker. Catch up on all the storytelling shorts on the Turn The Page YouTube Channel. STORYTELLING: that fuzzy festive feelingI enjoyed this summary of this year's Christmas ads from great creative thinker Sir John Hegarty: "For a few short weeks, the industry steps back from dashboards and data points in favour of broad connection. It’s about speaking to what unites us. That’s the emotional currency. You’d think we’d want more of that, more often. A clear idea and emotional truth." UNAWARDS: learn from the Best Low Cost Comms winnerThe 10th UnAwards was, as always, a reminder of the brilliant work going on in teams and organisations across the country. I was lucky enough to be a judge in one of the most fiercely contested categories - Best Low Cost Comms (is there any other type?) Congratulations to winners NHS England for their superb campaign to increase access to digital health services. You'll be able to read more about how they did it after Christmas and you can see all the winners here. MARIAH-FREE RADIO: Fusion Christmas showIf you've had your fill of Slade and Shakin' Stevens, take refuge on Sunday at 7pm on Fusion Radio for a different twist on festive tunes from the likes of LCD Soundsystem, The Wombats and Eels. ABOUT USTurn The Page is a story-led communications consultancy, using the power of stories to create memorable, measurable campaigns, strategies and narratives. Campaigns and comms led by stories are measurably more successful and improve engagement and trust.
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For any hard-pressed comms person in the public or third sector who just needs a bit of inspiration, handy learning or fascinating facts (there really is a New Fave Fact section). Campaign and creative inspiration you can steal. Storytelling and comms tips and insight to pass off as your own.
Praise the lore - storytelling takes a new shape First I winced. By the end I was punching the air in agreement When this LinkedIn post went semi-viral last week, I was ready to jack it all in and retrain as a dentist (always fancied it for some reason). Death to Storytelling is not the sort of headline you need to see when much of your work revolves around the subject. But as with everything, times change and things evolve. Pretty Little Marketer (LinkedIn) Lore has become the new buzzword...
'Trusted voices on social media open closed doors' How's your campaign or project going? Feel like you're knocking on a brick wall? Maybe it's time to look at who's doing the knocking (not that sort, mucky mind). The Edelman Trust Barometer is a report that emerges at the start of each year to largely tell us we don't really trust politicians and billionaires - who knew? But beyond the headlines, there can be some interesting nuance and the headline above 👆 was one of the more interesting...
Did Brooklyn-gate help us see through 'authentic'? Before last week, I knew very little about Brooklyn Beckham, other than why he's called Brooklyn (which is a bit weird now I think about it). So the chances of this being a psuedo-gossip column hot take on the family feud are nil. But the whole drama surfaced a question that had been troubling me anyway: what 'authentic' really means now. This piece on the Beckhams fallout highlighted how 'authentic' has now become a comms commodity in its...