Insights
What we have worked out.
Writing across everything we do: positioning, identity, creative direction, launches, content, digital, creator work and applied AI. What we have worked out, and the parts we are still figuring out in public.
Applied AI
Ten times the output, none of the voice
Generative tools solved production capacity and created a distinctiveness problem. The fix is a system, not a better prompt.
Read it →Applied AI
Answer engine optimization: how to get cited when the model is the front door
A working guide to being the source an answer engine names, rather than the site it quietly summarizes and drops.
Read it →Marketing
Where agents actually belong in a marketing team
Not replacing marketers. Removing the repetitive middle of the work that was never the reason anyone was hired.
Read it →Brand strategy
Positioning is a decision about who you are willing to lose
A position that costs you nothing is not a position. It is a description, and descriptions do not win anything.
Read it →Brand identity
An identity is a system, and the logo is the smallest part of it
Logos get the attention and the argument. The parts that actually make a brand recognizable are the ones nobody debates.
Read it →Creative direction
Creative direction is a decision function, not a taste function
The job is not having the best ideas. It is holding a standard across work made by many people under pressure.
Read it →Go-to-market
A launch is not a date
Most launches are planned as an event and then judged as one. The ones that work are built as a sequence.
Read it →Content
A calendar is not a content strategy
Publishing consistently is an operating achievement. It is not, on its own, evidence that anything is working.
Read it →Digital experience
Your website is the product demo
Whatever you claim about quality, the site is the first working thing anyone uses. It gets believed over the copy.
Read it →Creators
Creator campaigns fail at the brief, not at the creator
You are buying a relationship somebody else built. Most briefs are written as though you are buying media.
Read it →Craft
How photography shapes brand strategy
Brand identity is not invented, it is observed. What a camera trains you to notice ends up in the work.
Read it →Craft
How prop styling set me up for the rest of my career
Absolut, Pepsi, Dos Equis, Nike, Disney. Big budgets, impossible asks, and the training that turned into everything after.
Read it →Start a project
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