Hey Must Readers, welcome from a dry week just outside London

Here’s a mix of must read articles and videos to inform how you shape the next few months. Thanks for reading again today & let’s dive in.

We live in a world that recycles ideas; it is far from new (we recycle looks (this is why the mullet and baggy jeans are everywhere) and ideas from 20-30 years ago every decade or so), but formats become more creative and often become offline accessories. IRL and items of status are the smartest combo, and fashion brands are taking the opportunity. In this case, Coach x Penguin Random House collab is a great idea to leverage the explosion in charms and offers a way to attach yourself to the status of the brand and the status of the books, too.

I suspect we might start seeing old school badges and patches becoming something younger and trendy people move towards.

I love the way some companies are leaning into and embracing magazines, not just for nostalgia and moving away from digital but as a way to connect more deeply. Brands and platforms have the opportunity to be creative and offer magazines and design paper and glossy newsletters to give to customers and fans.

Have you noticed the trend, Podcast is becoming TV - How Goalhanger (this is the firm co-founded by Gary Lineker whose the rest of pods include chart toppers likes the rest is history, the rest is science, the rest is football & the rest is entertainment) is deciding whether it’s a podcast or a TV show is a true reflection of what podcasts are becoming with celebrity hosts and cult following

An area that I would pay a lot of attention to over the next 6 months is prediction markets. Players such as Robinhood, Polymarket, Kalshi are invading, they target young adults to bet on almost anything, they lightly encourage insider trading (although Mr Beast's team just got a warning shot) and they are worryingly integrating into platforms like Substack (clever marketing and partnership play). This should make you question how they have got into this position away from aggressive advertising spends and bending a few rules before they are heavily regulated.

British food has been criticised for years, but when people come to the UK, they actually see how good and, importantly, how diverse our food scene is. The British-style pubs have translated well and captured the American food scene with classics and high end British food at the centre of the experience

Here’s how I’ve helped businesses recently:

Earlier this month, Pinterest laid off several employees across the company, but what was interesting was a few developers created custom scripts (on internal tools and messenger apps) to find out who was let go before formally announced and reverse-engineer who was let go.
Unfortunately, a somewhat smart idea but silly in reality, as they were let go for this. This says a lot more about the state of internal communications in large businesses.

As an Arsenal fan I know how many drops the club pushes, 50 in 2 years has brought in millions into the club. Adidas have benefited from the promotion and has become a canonical example for other clubs to promote their own drops as well as their official kit manufacturers drops too. This also shows what a global reach can do for football corporations clubs who leverage their fans numerous times a year.

A really good explainer to understand how AI works (Harper is a great follow for AI advice and easy-to-understand explainers)

As someone who sees AI’s positives, there is often the slop argument & experiencing poor quality and misleading videos and images. In news that’s flown under the radar, AI has detected breast cancer cases in AI-supported screening and reduced the workload of the hospital staff

I could say a lot about the current state of “social media”, let’s now call it entertainment media (serving a constant stream of video about something you expressed a tiny bit of interest in until you show it many times you don’t care). Instagram, which was once the centre of friend connections, is now leaving your friends’ content behind and being replaced by videos from strangers, brands that pay enough or viral engineers creating content to flood feeds. This is Instagram’s third life, I don’t predict they will have many more in the way its being shaped currently, but I suspect the knock-on effect isn’t great on how younger people use Instagram as the messaging app and canonical tool to see what and who’s in and who’s out…

A Follow-Up Read: How Instagram Has Shifted & Adapted In Social Media 3.0

Over the last 10 years, from the vertical media takeover to carousel dominance to why a lot of posts end up looking and feeling the same (hint, currently Insta and TikTok reward the same content as they can serve content you have shown you like previously)

When you think of safe spaces and anti-AI slop spaces, you won’t always instantly think of Reddit, but Reddit is becoming a safe haven for many in the fight against the AI content tsunami. More and more of us will flock to safer platforms, forums and apps that remove algorithmic control and are human-first networks.

A couple of years ago, I made a similar recommendation to revive the high street and retail needed to be more entertainment with appointments as a USP, I don’t think everyone will flock to community, but with the digital fatigue many are suffering, this could be a theme for the rest of the year

There is some great video journalism happening currently and newpress members (ex Verge journalists) are leading the way. This is a good investigation into shadows and figures appearing in the Arctic

I love this framing from American Eagle, calling out that comments and internet comments aren’t customers and despite the noise around Sydnet Sweeney they are bringing her back - sometimes proves the difference between cultural noise and customer signal…

This is a strong look at the money in dog shows and why the business is thriving (not financially for owners and winners).

Whether you believe in space or not, it is interesting timing that NASA and the space mission is coming back after the space travel industry has gone so quiet. Maybe 7figures to fly in an advanced plane is too expensive…

Pallarax scrolling used to be a cool way to storytell (still is) and it went out of fashion with short videos, but Pudding has delivered a very nicely done story on the sizing problem in women’s clothes and why they fluctuate.

Got any questions or comments on any of the Must Reads, or want to chat through Marketing, Growth or AI, get in touch by hitting reply or emailing me.