There’s a real (parent) insightful moment no one really talks about. Not when the baby arrives. Not when they start crawling. Not even when they start walking. It’s the moment you quietly realise your house feels like yours again. For the past year, our living room wasn’t really a living room. It was a babyContinue reading “WE STOPPED LIVING WITH A BABY AND STARTED HAVING A BABY LIVE WITH US.”
Category Archives: LEARNINGS
Stop trying to do everything. You’re achieving sweet fuck all.
Let’s talk about marketing objectives, because most briefs that come through are cooked. Not bad, not wrong, just trying to do way too much at once. You’ll see it straight away. “We want to launch a new product, build awareness, drive sales, increase retention, grow brand love, make people feel something, make them smile, makeContinue reading “Stop trying to do everything. You’re achieving sweet fuck all.”
AI Is Getting Smarter. Are We Getting Dumber?
AI is extraordinary. There’s no doubt about that. It can write, analyse, design, synthesise, code, optimise and problem-solve faster than most of us on our best day. It can compress hours of thinking into seconds. It can surface patterns we would never spot. It can feel like a superpower. And it is. Just ask myContinue reading “AI Is Getting Smarter. Are We Getting Dumber?”
Hope and Belief: The Real Currency of Brands
Let’s be brutally real… Nobody wakes up in the morning and thanks a brand for saving their life. Nobody cares that much. But people do wake up with hope. Hope for a better day, a better job, a better body, a better future. And belief is what fuels that hope. The tension between hope andContinue reading “Hope and Belief: The Real Currency of Brands”
HOLY SHIT – I’M A (MARKETING) DAD…
What I’ve Learned (So Far) From Becoming a First-time Parent in a “World of Perfect Instagram Families” and Overpriced Fucking Sleep Sacks… You can read every book. You can scroll every post. You can spend months prepping the nursery, watching endless videos on Tik Tok, YouTube and Boundless Babies Beyond…. — With all the new-foundContinue reading “HOLY SHIT – I’M A (MARKETING) DAD…”
Why Frictionless Design at Point of Puchase: Feels Like Death by a Thousand Cuts 💀
Self-service checkouts. Websites. Apps. These systems were designed to make life easier, faster, and smoother, right? Yet here I am, standing at a Woolworths self-service checkout, trying to do the exact thing the system was meant to facilitate: pay for my shit and leave. But no. Life’s never that simple. Welcome to the Self-Checkout GauntletContinue reading “Why Frictionless Design at Point of Puchase: Feels Like Death by a Thousand Cuts 💀”
Framework Fetish: Why Strategists Must Think Beyond the Boxes 💀🖤
xx There’s this industry obsession with oversimplification. We’re all about condensing, condensing, and condensing some more, as though brevity is always the soul of effectiveness… But what if, in our rush to simplify everything, we’re slicing away the very substance that makes strategy work? Look, I get it… our job as strategists is to takeContinue reading “Framework Fetish: Why Strategists Must Think Beyond the Boxes 💀🖤”
Clients, Cash, and Clout: The Three C’s of Strategy Leadership 💀🖤
Stepping into a Strategy Director (or even Head of Strategy) role can feel like you’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool. But here’s the thing: there’s no handbook that can truly prepare you for the reality of leading a strategy team. Sure, you might find a few craft skill sheets and expectations,Continue reading “Clients, Cash, and Clout: The Three C’s of Strategy Leadership 💀🖤”
The Dark Art of Ghosting: A Recruiter’s Haunting Silence
Imagine wandering through the professional wilderness, drawn by the inviting glow of opportunities. Recruiters and talent scouts, like elusive specters, reach out promising a path to success. “Ghosting can be haunting for talent,” they say. How painfully true. In my journey through the career development woods, I’ve encountered these elusive recruiters—some friendly, some witty, andContinue reading “The Dark Art of Ghosting: A Recruiter’s Haunting Silence”
Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.
It’s a crude but often hilariously accurate saying that’s been doing the rounds for as long as I can remember. It’s a great pre-cursor before engaging in feedback/retros/reviews/pre-mortems. And while I wouldn’t usually compare the complex world of marketing, advertising, and communications to the anatomical features of the human posterior, there’s a curious parallel worthContinue reading “Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.”
THE CREATIVE STRATEGIST 