It’s Friday, so Must Reads is hitting your inbox.

Over the last week, I have had three great virtual coffees from across three continents with friends of Must Reads. If you haven’t already it’s a good time to reach out and talk to connect or catch up with old colleagues or smart people. I know you’re probably over having to zoom (is JOMO of Zoom a thing yet?) with work constantly, I’ve found FaceTime and Google hangouts and Google meets as very stable alternatives.

👍Hit of the week 👍:

Good news rarely gets cut through but the Office and Jack Ryan is reading good news on YouTube and has over 11million views

😍 The Must-Reads Of The Week 😍

This week's handpicked Must Reads newsletter is just over 800 words, about a 6 minutes read:

• ➡️ I have written a list of quick-fire list of tips for Marketing, Advertising, Growth and most importantly applying common sense 

• 🍉 A popular post from last week updated: If you are looking for alternative deliveries in 🇬🇧 here is a great list of places you should order from 🍉

• 😦 How anxiety is affecting your purchasing (“urge to splurge”) or nudging you to buy

• 💻 How logos were created before computers 

• 🖼 Giphy has created a number of retro background for those video calls you are stuck on 

• 😴 Are you constantly tired (or more tired) at home while working? Here’s why

• 👏 57 things to do with friends while remoting

• 🎙 Podcast listening is down up to 20% but other providers say its up - I shared how Spotify listening is down, as I believe podcasting is too, why? Less commuting, less driving, less training, more time at the larger screen.

• 👗 How the virtual runway is stepping up in high fashion - Who knew The Sims have simfluencers. Right now there is a huge opportunity to leverage alternative platforms and become creative

• 💄 Beauty brands are fighting hard and using slack and zoom to collaborate 

• 📱 Is tab management and privacy the way Microsoft will beat Google Chrome? Quite possibly, Brave might have a thing or two to say about that

• 🍎 Apple brought the great paid-for app DarkSky weather app 

• 💰 In no surprise, consumer spent a bucket load of money on apps

• 😞 Lessons from shutting down a startup in a large SaaS company

• 📲 Snap stories coming to other apps on your home screen This is a great growth tactic and a smart tie in for Snap and partners

• ⏯ YouTube is coming after TikTok and will have “Shorts app” by the end of the year YouTube (brand and community moats) has millions of licensed songs and creators so let’s hope the app launch doesn’t hurt them too much

• ❌ Microsoft has released its own version of Grammarly - it’s an AI driven tool that will improve your documents and emails

• 🎢 Zoom released that they went from 10m daily users in January to 200m in March, Zoom has come under a lot of scrutiny about their flaws and bypasses, worth reading about it (Ben Thompson nailed it here), before thinking its the only solution.  

🎧 Podcasts to listen to 🎧

I haven’t had a podcast corner for a while so thought I would treat you with 4

1. Recode Decode: Kara Swisher & Gary Vee talk the current climate, where you should be creating content and the opportunity is right now

2. TED Work-Life: Adam Grant and Esther Perel talk about relationships at work, power in relationships & when the time is to walk away 

3. FS Blog: The 5 levels of management with John Maxwell & why some people never get past level 1 

4. Radio Fix: Friend of the newsletter Simon Andrews has a great newsletter and his podcast with Rory Sutherland is a must listen 🎶 Here is my WFH playlist of diverse mixes from DJ’s going live from their homes.

💯 5 Tips 💯

Here is a series of tips from friends of the newsletter and all-around smart people. This week is from Digital and eCommerce leader Simon Swan 👏

1. Take a step back from your marketing and assess what channels are delivering what?

2. Is your marketing strategy tied to the business vision

3. Pick up the phone and speak to 5 customers and ask them why they chose your company

4. Pick up the phone and speak to 2 customers who recently left your company and ask them why?

5. Go and arrange a WebEx/zoom with someone in your finance dept and ask what are the key business financial metrics that are important and how marketing can support?Share

❤️You Made It To The End❤️

Thanks again for reading this week’s Must Read’s. Please go and have a good weekend! Take care of yourself, please.

Danny Denhard - About Me: 19 years in Marketing, Product, Growth and as a Crowdfunding business leader. You will want to see my RIP to the CMO role presentation and I will be speaking at the Festival Of Marketing, read my Q&A interview. Most importantly, I write this weekly Must Reads Newsletter.

🚨 I have limited availability for advisory or consultancy work 🚨

Disclaimer: All views & recommendations are my own until you click through on the stories.This week’s gifs are from Giphy.