Hey, Friends 👋!  Welcome from a sweaty 🥵 London.

How has your week been for you?

This week must reads has 10 must-read stories for you to enjoy and share with friends and colleagues.   

Subject Line Explained 😮: Redesigning Emoji’s is becoming a big and important business, Google is re-designing their emojis again! Think of it as rebranding and redesigning packaging every few years (like Coca Cola with Coke Zero). FWIW Internal cost’s for designs are incredibly high and cause a huge amount of discussion. - See the full of redesigned emojis

The 🆓 Hybrid Work Guide Download the most comprehensive guide to setting up and succeeding in Hybrid Work.

Must Read Articles Of The Week

1. Fear Of ‘Not’ Having The Right Conversations 💬 Why Read This? Some people are just bad managers, others are set up to fail, others just struggle to have the right conversations - Read the full article

2. Why Some People Cannot Apologise 😞 Why Read This? This is a good quick read on why those annoying people just cannot apologise. Question to answer today: Does ego and being wrong, get in your way of saying sorry? - Read the full article

3. Peloton Computer Game 🕹 Why Read This? Connected fitness is a huge business and Peloton leads the way, but rather than doubling down with instructors, Peloton is going into a game for subscribers. Smart yes, disconnected maybe…- Read the full story (pair with my future of marketing post on connected fitness)

4. Snapchat’s Decade Of Innovation 👓 Why Read This?  Despite what you will hear, Snap has had quite the decade, its product team has basically been Instagram’s product research lab for years and now Snap are all in with AR shopping, being considered niche isn’t always an issue when you can monetise and become something that is used as your primary messenger & then recommendations and shopping experience app.

5. How The Daily Wire & Ben Shapiro Leverage Facebook 😬 Why Read This? Ben Shapiro is a character, a successful personality who has leveraged religion and politics to build a ‘modern media outlet’. Unfortunately many do not know they are being played by clickbait titles, articles written for responses and to cause anger. This quote says it all: ”The Daily Wire has turned anger into an art form and recycled content into a business model.” Remember enragement = engagement - Read the full story

6. Why IBM Watson Isn’t What We Thought Or Promised 🖥 Why Read This? IBM Watson was supposed to be the next big step in supercomputing, having seen demo’s it seemed to be great, until a shift in priorities. Read how IBM had changed direction and why it’s an important story for us all to learn when you potential over market(ing) your product. - Read the full article ($) 

7. Streaming Product Placement Gold Rush 🥤 Why Read This? You want to know why you will see more references and more people eating chips, drinking soda and wearing clothes on Netflix, Prime Video etc - it’s where the (top of funnel) awareness marketing budget is going to go. I have spoken about this on my podcast, mentioned it numerous times and written about this in my future of marketing blog series - Read the full article ($) 

8. Zero Party Data - Customer & Brand Collaboration 💄 Why Read This? Beauty has finally joined us in 2021 and is beginning to use its customers feedback to understand what products should come out. Why is this smart? By using quizzes and games beauty firms are creating experiences better than NPS surveys & forms. (FWIW Zero party is where customers happily provide their data to improve their own personalised experience) - Read the full article

9. OnlyFans Evolution 💰 Why Read This? OnlyFans is trying to pivot, it is trying to become a platform in which celebrities, influencers and experts create their community, unfortunately, it has overlooked their current community and often ignored safety concerns. OnlyFans had an incredible 2020 & beginning to 2021 but will brands and influencers risk their association with ‘an adult social network’ like OnlyFans and other similar platforms? - Read the full article

10. Powerful Read ✈️ Why Read This? This comes with a trigger warning, this is a long read about one man’s career around cleaning up plane crashes and giving families closure after the crash. - Read the full articleWorth a watch: Gucci x 100 Thieves Drop 👀 - Drops connected to luxury and gaming will continue, why? Not just scarcity…big spending audiences who shout about it are worth a multiple of traditional shoppers Looking for a new role? Friend of must reads Gary is looking for:

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"Quote Of The Week”  

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” — Cormac McCarthy

Thanks for reading again this week Must Readers, please go & have a great end to your week!  

Danny Denhard Must Reads Editor & Focus Founder. 

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