BIG QUESTIONS
Is your in-house creative team overwhelmed?
If so, they’re normal. That’s because in the rush to move work in house to save money and increase speed, companies overlooked some very important things. First, ease of scalability. Marketing moves fast; agencies can scale up in hours, while companies take 30–60 days. Second, due to the hierarchical structure of companies, in-house teams lose control of the creative process to people who don’t understand (or care to learn) good creative process. (They DO, however, understand that sweet dopamine rush they get from checking boxes.) Third, meetings. Oh dear lord, the meetings. Agencies keep their teams out of them so they can stay in flow (and bill their time), but companies simply do not understand that. So a good third of in-house capacity is gobbled by check-ins, one-on-ones, team calls, all-hands, and many a soul-crushing circle-up. Fourth, because resources can be spread across clients, agencies have more experts. In-house teams have very smart, but less-experienced generalists covering multiple specialties. Your copywriter may be very good, but they’re not an expert in podcasts, SEM, or user manuals. The best mix for companies for easy scalability, more effective marketing, and often lowering costs (believe it not), is to have agencies partner with the in-house teams. Not just augment, but truly integrate and solve all the problems that were created when they overlooked the aforementioned four things.
TOOL JOY
Does this sound human to you?
The world is quickly flooding with AI slop—writing that definitely sounds like it was generated by a machine with no perspective or personal experience. And people can tell. Humanize AI is like a translator for your voice when you want to use AI without anyone knowing you used AI. After ChatGPT (or Grammarly, Bard, Jasper, etc.) spits out a response to one of your prompts, you can run it through Humanize AI to polish the rough edges, rephrase clumsy wording, and sprinkle on some personality so your text reads unmistakably human. The result? Your writing shines with less jargon, a sharper tone, and better rhythm—without sacrificing meaning.
Note: Pinwheel is an AI-forward agency, but we do not use AI as a writing tool.
DESIGN WE ❤️
Royal Institute of Philosophy rebrand by Only agency
It’s back to basics for this issue, with an acknowledgement of Only agency’s rebrand of The Royal Institute of Philosophy. Only approached the rebrand effort with a simple brand idea: Question Everything. From that starting point, they developed an accessible and rigorous rebrand of an institution that was struggling to connect with a modern audience. The heart of the identity is the deceptively simple and elegant mark, formed by interlocking question marks, suggesting perpetual questioning. A comprehensive design language was developed from there. It’s always refreshing to see a rebrand that resists the temptation to follow the latest fads and strives to personify the organization as simply and eloquently as possible.
BEEP BOOP
Beding-Beding: After 30 years, AOL’s dial-up internet service is going offline permanently in September. It’s always weird to find out something still exists when it announces the end of its existence.
“Life, uh, finds a way”: Renowned designer Chip Kidd tells a rather engaging story about creating the book cover concept for Jurassic Park.
Cognitive debt infects us all: Apparently AI is making doctors worse at spotting cancer (when AI isn’t helping them).
Hi, I’m a PC: Remember the ol’ PC vs. Mac campaign? That took over 50 weeks to land on, with creatives presenting new ideas to Steve Jobs every single week. Read an interview with one of the (previously exhausted) creative minds behind that award-winning campaign.
SEO plot twist: ChatGPT is likely relying quite a bit on Google Search, which is yet another reason why SEO is not at all dead.
WORD TO THE WISE
“Only 5% of your ideal customers are even close to entertaining working with you right now. That means the other 95% need to remember you fondly.”
—Ted Rogers, former president and CEO of Rogers Communications Inc.
WHAT CLIENTS WANT
Emotional vs. Informational Ads
New researchanalyzing 2,317 car ads, 15 years of sales data, and seven years of search trends reveals a key insight: The type of ad that works best depends on what you’re selling—and its price tag.
Some key take-aways:
- Informational ads are most effective for items in a category that are toward the bottom of the price and/or quality range. They drive more sales by addressing consumer doubts (e.g., “Does this cheap car have terrible mileage?”).
- Emotional ads drive sales regardless of quality and are especially effective for high-priced, high-quality items by creating positive associations and perceived value.
- For lower-priced items, emotional ads sparked more online searches, but informational ads converted better.
The lesson: People rely on hard facts when a product seems cheap or questionable. But when the price signals quality, emotions help seal the deal.
ICEBREAKER
If you had to hold a funeral for your favorite idea that died, what song would play?
Todd: Baby, Come Back by Player. “There was something in everything about you.”
Melissa: I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan. I hate to let an idea go… so it will always be there in the back of my mind.
Sarah: Bittersweet symphony by The Verve. Mostly because I played it on repeat (on my Discman) to soothe my fresh-outta-college soul after a campaign I created for the launch of a new, sporty Volvo was crushed in Sweden right before shooting.
Jason: Another One bites the Dust by Queen. I don’t want to call out the client (Top 20 US brand), but over a two-year period nothing went live. The product that we were working on was eventually scrapped, too.
John: Hello, Goodbye by the Beatles. Creative that didn’t make the final cut doesn’t need to be permanently relegated to the dustbin. A catalogue of strong unused creative can inform future projects. I don’t know why you say goodbye; I say hello.
FALLACIES, PARADOXES & THEORIES…OH MY
The Pareto Principle
Developed in 1906 by economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, you might know this theory by its other name: “the 80/20 rule.” It holds that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words, most things have an unequal distribution. In complex systems, small differences snowball into big differences, momentum builds, and advantages or disadvantages compound. By identifying and harnessing the disproportionate relationship between what’s working and what’s not, we can focus our attention on the vital few factors that drive the majority of results (and ignore the rest). In marketing, the Pareto Principle underscores the importance of market segmentation, audience-specific messaging, targeted campaigns, testing, and tracking.
