'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...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
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...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Your 2026 superpower? Not to speak like AI Happy New Year - how's 2026 treating you so far? If you escaped a broken-down car, a trip to hospital and snow on the first day back, then you're already doing better than me. So, what does the second quarter of the millenium hold then? Of all the guides to 2026, seeing talking like a human being described as a "linguistic superpower" really did feel like we'd stepped through the looking glass. We talk about sounding human in comms all the time - but...
3 months ago • 3 min read
The Top 3 pieces of creative content for 2025 If you're reading this, it means you're probably at work over Christmas. And for that you deserve some fun, bonus content. And what you clearly need is another end-of-year list. But hopefully this quickfire trio might spark an idea that you'll be able to wow everyone else with when they slope back to work next week. And as you're at work, why not gift yourself a little pressie and sign up for the Creative Catch of the Day WhatsApp channel, where...
3 months ago • 1 min read
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 with You're either gobbling down 2026 predictions like Roses or avoiding them like Brussels sprouts right...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Dodgy briefs aren't just for Christmas "I want to create...a feeling." Probably my favourite brief of all time, from a corporate director to 'help' shape a video we needed to make to introduce our staff awards ceremony. Closely followed by the fire officer so obsessed by a particular song (Jamie T, Zombie) that he wanted to build a fire safety campaign around it. No more detail, just had to have the song in it (don't get me started on the licensing issue...) This is what we get to work with....
4 months ago • 3 min read
Finding the single human truth John Lewis have done it with their Christmas ad. So have Disney (see below). Nike do it all the time. Finding the emotional detonator in their ads that send electric shocks up and down our spine. They find a universal point of connection that we can all understand and interpret. A single human truth. It's about finding the Why - people don't buy into what you do or sell, they buy into why you do it. So how do we pinpoint the Why to give our comms and campaigns...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Is AI really saving us time? It's not us, it's them. Maybe AI isn't a time-saving panacea after all. I spent several hours working up a report-style doc last week - researching, editing, refining - and sent it off for review. Back came a Copiloted version - a blanded out, corporate husk, sucked of any empathy (and even sense in some places) on a topic that very much needed to feel human. What did I do? I spent hours re-editing and putting the humanity and empathy back in. Essentially...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Three campaigns. Three 100% outcomes (pretty much). More than 1000%. I think most people would be pretty happy with that as an outcome for anything they were working on. Thanks to everyone who signed up to hear from Richard Neale, Head of Brand and Marketing at Surrey County Council, on our Story Hunters webinar last week. You can catch up on it if you weren't able to make it. Their email subscribers leapt by more than 1000% in ONE YEAR, supported by a content strategy driven by real people...
5 months ago • 2 min read
