Let's Talk About Me / Win Chocolate Truffles
...A reader asks me to unpack Brands & Humour. Plus: a B&H competition...
Jessi Greenlee of Ann Arbor, Michigan, asks:
I’d love to know more about how you come up with topics for your newsletter and your writing process! I ghost-write a newsletter with humorous elements for one of my clients and coming up with content consistently is a real struggle.
Good question Jessi!
My first reaction is that I don’t want this to be too self-regarding. That said, it’s flattering to be asked. So in the words of Lord Flashheart (below), “dig out your best booze and let’s talk about me”1.
Topics
There are roughly four different topics in B&H. You might get:
A newsy B&H, such as this one on the decision to introduce a humour category in the Cannes Lions awards.
A personal B&H, such as this one on a notable turning-point in my career.
A humour-science-based B&H, such as this one on disposition theory and how it might help you if you work in marketing.
A “this is a funny series of ads and I love them and I think you should too” B&H, such as this one on the great Economist ads:
But here’s the thing: I didn’t know those four topic groups would emerge when I started the newsletter. This might all sound a bit hippie, but they just seemed to naturally feel right.
I have a Googledoc, and regularly drop ideas in. For example, this note…
…became this issue of B&H, about this ad:
Sometimes ideas come from something I’m reading, something I’ve heard, something I’ve watched. Sometimes they linger for a long time; sometimes I feel I really need to get my head around the subject first to write anything half-coherent (my recent three-parter on AI and humour was a good example of this).
Increasingly, ads are sent to me and I’ll include and discuss them. This lovely one, for example, came from a reader called James Harvey at an ad agency in Chicago:
Cheers James.
In all of this, I try to inform but not to get too highfalutin’. Soon after I started Brands & Humour it struck me that many people subscribe not so much to understand the science of humour but to have a laugh on a Monday morning, when each issue comes out. And you know what? That’s a-OK with me.
Why? Well, life’s hard. Many readers face commutes, annoyances, setbacks. London on a Monday morning can look like this:
Grim, right? And apparently there’s rain in other places too. As people take a bus to an office to do a job they don’t much like, if Brands & Humour cheers them up even a little, then I must be doing something right.
Writing Process
Except when I have client commitments, I write every Wednesday morning, normally between about 9 and 11. My office is a log-cabin I built in the back garden:
And I then just spend a few days thinking it over. I’ll tweak and edit until it’s good to go on the Monday morning.
This might all seem very leisurely and relaxed, but I’m also running a consultancy and — if you’ve ever run your own business — you’ll know it’s demanding. So Brands & Humour is, in many ways, a pause for reflection. I can step back a bit and see how rigorous my thinking is and how I can make it better; how I can make it more relevant to my clients.
One last thing: even though my newsletter can be classed as ‘content’, I never think about it as content. This might be my age (50) and/or the fact that when I started my career in advertising, back in 1853, we all talked about campaigns, not content.
I think marketers do themselves — and the brands they work for — a big disservice by talking so much about content. It tends to be synonymous with, well, stuff, and that’s hardly compelling to read, enjoy or, indeed, create. What’s more, it’s stuff without a huge amount of value. This recent New Yorker cartoon sums it up:
This is a bigger debate, but my point is that I try to add value, when at all possible. And, of course, a few laughs or smiles too.
***
COMPETITION TIME
It’s now May, so I’ve been spring-cleaning a few bits and bobs. My site’s had a refresh (here) and I’ve created a new creds deck, entitled ‘The Gentle Art of Marketing Your Brand Without Annoying People’.
As a way of saying thank you for reading Brands & Humour, I’m sending three readers a box of Montezuma chocolate truffles. To enter, I’ve hidden this little chocolatey picture in my creds deck…
All you need to do is download it, here…
…Then tell me what slide the chocolates are on: either send me a screenshot, or just tell me the title/image on that slide. Also, tell me where you’re based, just out of interest. I’ll put your name into a hat: the first three I pull out win.
Just reply to this newsletter with your answer or email me on pg@studiogilmore.com. Closing date is this Friday, the 10th of May.
Terms and conditions?
None. They’re for boring people.
***
Many thanks for your question Jessi2, and a big thanks to you all for reading.
Good luck in the competition!
Paddy
pg@studiogilmore.com
+44 7866 538 233
LinkedIn: here
A reference to Blackadder, the period British sitcom, starring Rowan Atkinson in the title role. Successful? “In the 2004 TV poll to find Britain’s Best Sitcom, Blackadder was voted the second-best British sitcom of all time, topped by Only Fools and Horses.” (Wikipedia) I spent many of my teenage years repeating lines from it, as a way of trying to stay awake in double maths.