Writing.
Unpacking context until the brand opportunity becomes obvious.
The measure is not the thing
The field's loudest advocates for creative thinking have applied almost none of it to the definition of creativity itself. They've taken one expression of the thing, the short emotional film, and built an entire measurement infrastructure around it. Then they've defended that infrastructure as though it were the thing itself. Creativity isn't a format. It's the discovery or invention of meaning.
On Judgement
Judgement is not what you have when the answer is obvious. It is what you need when it is not.
The Compounding Problem
Before that, you are making deposits. After that, you are drawing interest.
Obey the Brief, or not.
The brief is not the starting point. It is the first hypothesis. Treat it like one.
The Encode Layer
Most brand strategies are written for humans. The problem is that the things executing them now are not.
Inside Five Corporate Rebrands: Five Rules for Making Brand Change Work
Most rebrands are a mistake. After working inside five corporate rebrands across technology, agencies, media, and heavy industry, one lesson is clear. A logo change means nothing unless the company itself changes.
Brand inside the machine
The brand book sits in a shared drive. Polite. Unopened. Meanwhile the tools hum. Here is what to do about it.
Your Instincts Are Wrong
I booked a one-way ticket to Shanghai with a beginner's Mandarin and no plan. What I learned there still shapes everything I do.
Curiosity Without End
It starts with Bayes in seventeentwentysomething. Why the habits of an eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister still explain how the most powerful AI systems in the world actually work.
Coke Is Jingling All the Way
Coke has 137 years of its own advertising to train an AI on. The result is the perfect case study on the advantage long-term brands have in the AI era — and a warning for everyone else.
I Still Want My Hovercar
We do not want less. We want better. We want progress without the punish. On the economics, engineering, and stubborn optimism of the green transition.