10 More Things//Interesting, Mitate, Sunseekr
In this edition: My report on Interesting 2025, Muji partner with a miniature artist & a website that tells you if a pub is sunny or shady
Interesting 2025
“It’s not their job to be interesting. It’s your job to be interested”. Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better set up for a meeting than that. I sat in my seat at Interesting 2025, an event I knew very little about, thinking ‘ok, lets see how interesting these people are’, or, at least I had thought that.
Interesting is Russell Davies’ event, a strategist/ marketeer known for his love of powerpoint and one of the best creative briefs of all time that led to one of the best car ads of all time: Honda’s The Cog. He’s run Interesting since 2007, right around the corner from the old MediaCom office, in Conway Hall, next to Red Lion’s Square. The premise is simple: 14 speakers each have 5-10 minutes to talk about whatever they want. No mention of advertising, marketing or AI. The talks can be about whatever.
I’m not going to recap all the individual talks and speakers. James Whately has a good summary in his newsletter that *scoffs* only covers 5 things. How lazy. (In reality his newsletter covers many more things and is very good). Every talk contained a little flash of humour, obsession and creativity. It’s the kind of event that reminds you why you wanted to work in advertising.
Some thoughts about why I liked it and then I’ll shut up:
The Art Of The Presentation. Seeing 14 speakers back-to-back, with different styles, templates, forms of communication, helps clarify what makes a great presentation. One of the best presentations was about selective mutism, a story about overcoming crippling public speaking anxiety, read word-for-word without a powerpoint slide in sight. It was perfectly crafted and delivered.
The Job Is To Build. The best talks were about people building things. ‘I had an idea and then I built it’. We heard about people building the perfect toilet, expressive postcards, a movement and a radio station that reports on banal information from around the world in real time. Creativity requires following through on ideas. When was the last time you built something?
Back To The People. It’s easy to forget these days that marketing is about understanding and serving people. We are obsessed with data but everyone knows you can manipulate data to say whatever you want (unless you are producing peer reviewed science). Listening to stories of people sharing their passions, ethnographers capturing quirks of human behaviour and angry activists offering a survival manual for creativity in oppression. That’s where the magic is.
Strategy and all that stuff
Media Mix Navigator. This continues to be an invaluable tool - now with updated data.
Google’s AI Courses. I’ve now entered panic mode about AI. It’s going to leave the industry unrecognisable (not dead, although many jobs will become redundant). Learn about it before it learns about you.
Awareness vs Saliency. I like this distinction between awareness and salience. The job of advertising must be to drive fame, you can do that by either going for broad fame (awareness) or fame related to a specific moment (saliency). Sometimes we think about Category Entry Points as mid funnel, not needing as much budget, unrelated from brand-building. No. It only works when it’s part of the brand-building idea.
The Ruffian podcast. I’m a big fan of Ian Leslie’s writing which he mainly shares in The Ruffian, his newsletter. So naturally I gave his podcast a go. I listened to both episodes with James Marriott; one about Jordan Peterson and the other about Britain’s Elites. Both are very insightful about today’s public intellectualism and how Britain’s elites view themselves. They take Peterson’s ideas seriously, discuss why they appeal to (particularly) young men and where to draw the line between his intellectualism and his batshit crazy ideas. The episode on Britain’s elites has a great insight: the new British elites deflect their privilege by adopting/ pretending to adopt popular cultural interests to appear normal. That hasn’t been the case for the entirety of modern history where elites adopted esoteric cultural interests to signal their eliteness.
Creativity & campaigns
Muji x Tatsuya Tanaka. Muji have partnered with Tatsuya Tanaka, an artist known for “miniature artworks based on the Japanese concept of "mitate", which involves reframing objects in an alternative context so that they take on a new meaning”. He has a delightful website called ‘Miniature Calendar’ where he posts a new miniature photo every day.
The Slayeux Tapestry. To promote the release of DOOM: Dark Ages, the game developer partnered with the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds to reimagine the Bayeux Tapestry.
Pysanka. The art of intricate egg design, originating in Ukrainian and Slavic cultures, using wax and, most importantly, patience.
Pick N Mix
Sunseekr. Of anything I’ve shared with my team this has somehow got the best reaction! Learn if a cafe, pub or restaurant will be sunny or in the shade at a particular time.
Gen Z Speak. Great presentations are like stand up. This is a great presentation.
James Austin Johnson’s Trump. Praise for JAJ warms my heart. I’ve been singing his praises for years (and even saw him live when he performed in London). His Trump impression grows from strength to strength. He’s nailed the goofy cadences, the odd turn of phrases, the way he speaks like a stand up that’s run out of pre-prepared material, the tilting head movements.
Peace out ✌️
Alex