Issue 33: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

After burn 🌤

September is the new August. We take a look at the iPhone 16, evaluate the cultural temperature of the South Korean art market, and break records with Guinness. Plus: tickets are steep, D’you Know What I Mean? And Gen AI is probably harming your productivity. But first, Orlando Wood wants you to show, rather than sell.

OPINION/ ADVERTISING 

A show business: your audience is sick of being sold to

💬 Orlando Wood

There have long been two schools of advertising – showmanship and salesmanship. The first is the art of turning a broad audience into a future customer. The second is about seeking a sale from the already half-interested. Both are important, and each supports the other. A combination is needed if you want to build a profitable business. But a quick glance at the past shows that at certain points in history, companies suddenly abandon the art of showmanship in favour of the ‘hard sell’. For most in the world of marketing, this will sound familiar – it’s what we’ve been doing for the last twenty years.

A lurch towards salesmanship can happen at a time of rapid technological change and can be accelerated by economic adversity. Electronic point-of-sale data has shortened sales reporting timeframes. The digital revolution has enabled companies to target, making us creatively lazy. And successive economic shocks have motivated CEOs to hustle, rather than charm, consumers.

Because of the two schools,

Showmanship is more important

for driving profit and growth.

This is a mistake. Because of the two schools, showmanship is more important for driving profit and growth. It is about capturing attention, beguiling through an emotional appeal, lodging a brand in memory, inserting yourself into culture, all to create preference. Showmanship works straight away but also creates future earnings because its effects are lasting. It strengthens the business fundamentals. It is the foundation for your salesmanship advertising.

Why use the term ‘showmanship’? Because it is suggestive of what’s needed to enthral an audience: narrative, characters, dialogue, tension, music, humour, metaphor – and an understanding of the human condition. It is the type of advertising that entertains. When the industry gets stuck in a salesmanship rut – when it bores its audience – its reputation falls, it struggles to recruit talent, and trust disappears. David Ogilvy once said, ‘Don’t be a bore. You cannot bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them in buying it.’

Audiences are tired of being sold to, it’s time the advertising industry remembered how to put on a show for them instead.

Orlando Wood is chief innovation officer at System1 Group, a consultancy that that helps improve and track the efficacy of advertising. He also hosts a.p.e. – Advertising Principles Explained, a new course designed to increase the impact of business communications.

THE AGENDA

✏️ Pencil it in: your agenda for the coming week

1.
Apple will unveil its iPhone 16. The Cupertino-based company should watch out. Huawei, a Chinese competitor, is rumoured to be planning a smartphone launch a day or so later.
10th September

2.
IFA claims to be the biggest show for consumer electronics and appliances, a statement contested by CES, a huge technology fair in the US. Either way, innovation will be on display at the Messe Berlin.
6th – 10th September

3.
Actors and directors get all the praise. But costume designers, set decorators, and sound editors all play a part in making a brilliant tv drama. Overlooked players will get a spot of limelight at the 76th annual Creative Arts Emmy Awards this week.
7th – 8th September

4.
The latest edition of the ‘Guinness World Records 2025′ hardcover is launched. The world’s bestselling copyrighted book, it has sold over 130 million copies to date. Coming up with a new record to break is a creative feat in and of itself.
10th September

5.
The Korean International Art Fair (KIAF) takes place in Seoul. Art sales have boomed here in recent years, but demand is slowing as the market ‘matures’ according to organisers (via a report in The Art Newspaper).
4th – 8th September

Supersonic sales.
Credit: Andrew carruth / Alamy Stock Photo.

UK / MUSIC

Buy here now

Oasis or Blur? The perennial 1990s question has been revived since news broke that the Gallagher brothers would reform for a comeback tour next year. Folks were overjoyed that anthems associated with ‘cool Britannia’ – a moment of cultural importance for the UK – would return to stadiums across the country. But many who logged on to Ticketmaster, an official sales website, last Saturday found themselves in a lengthy digital queue. When the wait was over, the price of places had inflated vastly. Fan furore erupted and now the UK government promises to review the practice of dynamic pricing. We suggest a national live music subsidy to keep concert costs down – access to the arts shouldn’t be restricted to those who can pay inordinate prices. The band is expecting a £50 million payday for its slew of gigs in 2025. The answer to the question above? Right now, it’s firmly ‘Blur’.

Avoid groupthink: assemble a team of varying perspectives.
Illustration: Clo’e Floirat

Slow-bot?
Credit: imageBROKER(dot)com GmbH & Co. KG / Alamy Stock Photo.

GLOBAL / WORK

Down tools

Of all the myths surrounding generative AI – the category of artificial intelligence that includes ChatGPT – its potential to increase productivity is the most often spouted. A reasonable person might think that chatbots would help us gather information more quickly, or become familiar with a subject faster. But a study from Upwork, a talent company, suggests the reality isn’t so straightforward. Teams report being less effective when they are encouraged to use the tools by the top brass at work. Meanwhile, leaders imagine that generative AI will produce productivity gains as if by magic. Here’s the rub: almost half (47%) of employees who use the technology say they have no idea how to achieve the leap in attainment their employers expect. And 77% say using AI programs decreases productivity and adds to the burden. In the meantime, stick with the essentials: a notepad, a pen, and the organ between your ears.

Wombling free again.
Credit: How&How

GLOBAL / CULTURE

Still making good use 

There’s more than one supergroup reforming right now. The Wombles, a fictional species native to Wimbledon Common in London, is expected to return to tv screens in the near future. The characters have a refreshed aesthetic, created by branding agency, How&How, and this hints at audacious plans for the franchise. We wouldn’t be surprised to see some major brand tie ups coming down the pipe. Did the Wombles invent the concept of upcycling? Perhaps. The story began as a 1968 children’s book by Elisabeth Beresford, and tales centre on the creatures collecting rubbish from their surroundings and creatively repurposing them into useful things. With issues around the environment pressing, we need the Wombles’ brand of grassroots activism more than ever. It’s a reminder that education (and maybe even behaviour change) can start with a set of endearing characters in a charming storyline.

We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.

/Jonathan Gottschall