#25 – On creativity, growth potential, zero-sum thinking, and the bottom-up potential of TennisTok
Heja.
This week’s issue of Strategy Bites looks at hourlong meandering conversations about creativity, where a brand’s growth potential truly lies, some helpful comms planning stats, the (worrying?) trend that people are thinking more zero-sum, and a deep dive into the world of TennisTok.
Enjoy this week’s Six Links of Inspiration:
Rory Sutherland on Tetragram with Rick Rubin. You might have to break this one into smaller chunks. It’s the Irish Man of podcast episodes. It’s a 3.5 hour long conversation between two of the most creatively interesting and influential people. One firmly from the world of marketing, the other from the world of music.
Where is the brand growth potential? Which strategist hasn’t wondered where to focus their (marketing) efforts to create the biggest possible growth potential? Since we’ve all read How Brands Grow a couple of times by now, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but new research now shows that the biggest growth potential indeed comes from your lightest buyers, where there’s on average 6-times more growth potential than with your heaviest buyers. (Low base and such.)
Comms Planning Stats. Julian Cole is at it again with a compilation of some useful stats any strategist should have up their sleeves to argue the case for more consistent, longterm creative platforms that land singular points in culture. Dive in, copy, and paste.
The Best of Strategist’s Digest: 2023. Contagious have released a compendium of five of their most insightful findings from the last twelve months. The PDF (send me a note if you can’t access it any longer) contains findings on metaphors and why they’re memorable, the formula for effective TV, and more. Worth a download.
People are becoming more zero-sum in their thinking. This is from a longer FT article, but in his post, Tenzer’s singles out the graph that shows how, over time, people have become more zero-sum in their thinking. Meaning: people can only win when others lose. If this is the dominating mindset of today, the entire WAGMI mindset of the Web 3 gold rush in the early days suddenly seem like a twisted joke.
TennisTok. Shared into my feed by Freddie Young, this article examines the role TikTok is playing in shining a light on the highly entertaining world of tennis. It’s a good reminder that the things surrounding your main thing might sometimes make for a more entertaining thing – and you should lean into it to capture people’s interest. The ball boy as a category entry point to the world of tennis. It’s about embracing the spectacle of the sport (think trending sounds, viral formats, and catchy captions) to showcase highlights and behind-the-scenes moments – and less the traditional linear narrative of a tennis match.
That’s all. Short and sweet. If you enjoyed this selection, why not share it with your favourite strategy friend?
See you next week!