Advertising today

Yet, despite this abundance of enthusiasm for cultural research, it often feels like it’s easier than ever to slip into the gravity well of banality. Cookie-cutter essays optimized for algorithmic engagement. Hot takes stripped of depth. Fleeting fads interpreted as extreme, paradigm-shifting hyperbole. We resort to dramatic binaries, either... See more

Adaptive literacy is knowing when to let go of what worked before.

Unlearning is harder than learning. Because it means admitting that the thing you spent years mastering is now obsolete. That the knowledge you built your career on doesn’t apply anymore. That the mental models you rely on are actively getting in your way.

Most of advertising is... See more

Architectural literacy is knowing how to build when all the templates are null and void.

The traditional structure - holding companies, creative shops, the pitch-retainer-fee model - doesn’t work anymore. And no one’s handing out a blueprint for what comes next. Most people respond to that by trying to save the old model. Optimise it. Make it more... See more

Systems literacy is reading incentives, power structures, and unspoken rules.

It’s understanding why decisions get made the way they do. Not what people say motivates them, but what the structure actually rewards. Not who has the title, but who has the power. Not what’s in the handbook, but what actually determines who gets ahead.

Most of... See more

What it needs is the ability to see the system it’s trapped inside. To read reality, not just chase trends. To think in second and third-order effects. To build without blueprints when all the old templates break. These aren’t soft skills. They’re survival literacies. And women have them.

AI isn’t just threatening to automate our work. It’s exposing how much of what we did was already formulaic. How much was just expensive theatre.

We can’t articulate what we’re for. “Ideas” and “storytelling” stopped being differentiators the moment everyone claimed them. Strategy got hollowed out. Creativity got reduced to “content.” We became a cost centre pretending to be a strategic partner.

And now we’re all competing in this great grey soup of commodified offerings. Agencies,... See more

🌀 People are quietly quitting Instagram (👋 fellow lurkers)

🌀 They're adding friction to break the scroll (deleting apps, muting notifications)

🌀 They're building slower, smaller spaces (on Discord, WhatsApp… and most importantly around 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 tables again)

🌀 They're designing moments to experience, not to optimise for content

It’s not anti-digital. It’s... See more