I Didn't Know What I Was Writing About
Why I moved my writing off Substack, and what happens when you stop reading your work as individual essays and start reading it as data.
The journal · Theme
Brand & marketing strategy
How brands earn attention and trust when everyone has the same tools. 35 essays, newest first.
We Optimized the Wrong Thing: People Need the Inconvenience
Why friction, effort, and a little difficulty might be exactly what we've been designing out of our lives.
Option A is the obvious answer and Option B is its mirror. The work worth paying for questions the brief itself, and AI is making A and B nearly free.
The Presence Economy Is the Next Great Brand Frontier
Why the most important thing a brand can do right now can’t be generated, automated, or scaled
I stopped writing and went quiet to rethink how I work. Here's why — and where it's headed.
A filmmaking masterclass changed how I work. From scene prompter to director, and a hybrid model for brand micro-drama: shoot less, build more.
A small film about turning an IKEA bag into a bucket hat. Cheap, frequent story experiments are becoming a real capability for brands, and they make craft matter more.
Brands aren't short of ideas. They're short of engines. This is where the Story Engine came from, and how it connects strategy, narrative and production.
AI video doesn't make production free. It moves the cost from matter to meaning, into iteration and judgment that nobody is pricing.
Why I’m Giving Away One of the Most Valuable Things I Use
Why I’m Taking the Cannes Lions Creative MBA (Even Though I’ve Been Critical of Cannes)
I've been hard on Cannes for years. I enrolled anyway, to see how creative excellence is being redefined and how learning gets built to last.
GenAI: The Generation We Choose
Generation AI is a mindset, open to anyone at any age. The divide that matters next is between people who think with AI and people who don't.
Messy, Honest, Human: The Strategic Power of Reddit
Anonymity, friction and a total lack of polish make Reddit the most honest research tool a strategist has. It runs the Five Whys at the scale of a culture.
"I focus on making a better product." - Severine Vauleon, during the IAA talk on Sustainability.
At an IAA Singapore session on sustainability, one line stuck. Sustainability belongs in the product, and advertising should be honest about its own emissions.
Authentic Memories, Human Responses: A Lesson for Brands from Blade Runner 2049
And how I use Google's Flow to test and learn.
Brief the Problem, Not the Solution.
Why most creative briefs fail to spark creativity and what to do about it.
The Epilogue Economy Wasn’t a Theory. It Was a Forecast.
Two years ago, I wrote about it. This week, UBS and e27 confirmed it.
Time & Materials in a Man & Machine World
AI broke time-and-materials pricing, because the hours no longer equal the work. Consultancies need to price thinking instead, through something like a subscription to Creative Capital Units.
The next creative reset must be emotional, not just operational.
Explainer Mode Is Lazy Marketing
Why Telling Us How It Works Isn’t the Same as Telling Us Why It Matters
Meet the Synths: How Synthetic Audiences, Powered by AI, Help Us Navigate Change
In a world that’s obsessed with chasing the new, we often overlook those who are quietly, powerfully, becoming someone new.
Mic Drop: Brands Don’t Just Need a Voice. They Need a Presence.
Why Podcasting Should Be on Every CMO’s Radar
Dents, Stickers, Stories: The Beauty of What We Carry
In a world obsessed with the new, Rimowa reminds me that the things and people with the most scars often carry the richest stories.
IMF Report - Not a Burden, a Growth Market: Rethinking Aging Through the Lens of Opportunity
The IMF's World Economic Outlook makes the case that aging is a growth story. Life stage matters more than age, and the creative industry is missing it.
Transitions: What CMOs Are Missing About These Moments That Matter
Why Transitions Are One of the Most Overlooked Insights in Modern Strategy.
Loneliness Is Not a Personal Flaw. It’s a Design Flaw.
In the age of AI, automation, and aging, the most human need is still to feel seen.
After the We: The Person Left With a Life Built for Two
Widowhood is when "we" becomes "me" and, eventually, a new "us." Brands built for couples rarely know how to design for one.
Generation Jones, my own cohort, proves generational labels are lazy shortcuts. Marketers should target the transitions people are living through instead.
The Relevance Gap: What Happens When Your Team Is Too Young for Your Market
A team decades younger than its customers is guessing. Intergenerational teams are risk management and a positioning advantage.
The $96 Trillion Wake-Up Call: The Epilogue Economy in Focus
By 2050 the 50+ cohort will dominate global consumer spending, yet it gets a sliver of marketing attention. Brands and agencies are leaving the biggest market on the table.
I Never Wanted to Get Political. But Here We Are.
WPP quietly dropped diversity from its annual report. Agencies and brands outside the US should decide where they stand on DEI before someone decides for them.
The Epilogue Economy in 2025: Why Gen X's Milestone Will Reshape Business Strategy
Gen X turns 60 in 2025, digitally fluent and analog-trained. Organizations have about a year to build talent, knowledge and marketing strategies around them.
In my 1-1 sessions, I ask one question, and I am always surprised by the answer.
When did you last read your competitor's annual report? Almost nobody has, and generative AI now makes it easy to read a whole sector at once.
Leveraging the Wisdom of The Epilogue Economy for Sustainability and CSR
Older professionals have lived through technological, economic and climate shifts. That makes them valuable to sustainability work as talent, as consumers, and as role models.
The Epilogue Economy: Unlocking the Power of Older Professionals to Connect with the Aging Consumer
The 50+ market is huge and underserved because the teams building for it are too young to understand it. Older professionals belong in the room as strategic partners.
The Epilogue Economy: Tapping into the Wealth and Wisdom of the Aging Consumer
Epilogues in books and films set up the sequel. People over 50 are writing theirs, and most brands haven't noticed the market or the talent in it.