Tag: 5things

Five things on Friday #337

Things of note for the week ending Saturday October 1st, 2022

INTRO

Sometimes I start this thing with a hello.

A ‘hi’.

A ‘How have you beeeeen?’

But before that, there’s always a cheeky little check in the inbox just to see how much stuff I’ve tagged with ‘#5things’ for this week’s edition of FToF.

Fair warning: this week there is a lot.

So much so that I don’t know if I’m going to fit it all in. There might have to be some extra filtering. Or maybe an over-expanded bonus section. I’ve no idea. Maybe we’ll figure it out when we get there…

One thing I can tell you though is that even though it is 13:15 on Friday 30th September as I write this section to you, I highly doubt I’ll be hitting the Publish and Send button before midnight. So… I hope you’re having a nice weekend?

What else can I tell you?

I’ve been around the circuit a bit of late (and there’s more in the can, coming soon), and so if you really can’t get enough of me/my face etc, here’s a quick hit of that for you (or just skip straight to Thing 1 if you like, I don’t mind).

STUFF I’VE DONE:

  • Appearing on the same speaker list as the wonderful Cindy Gallop at the Worldwide Partners Global Summit in Amsterdam. The speech I gave was updated version of the ‘Metaverse? What Metaverse?’ talk that has – thanks to Cindy – once again gone a bit nuts on Linkedin.

  • My pal Eric Fulwiler invited me to join his Rival gang on their podcast, ‘PUNCHY’. The show discusses the latest marketing stories and gets its guests to throw out a whole bunch of strong opinions lightly held (ok, maybe not that lightly). This was so much fun! – and I hope you enjoy it. Watch on YouTube or Listen on your podcast platform of choice.

  • Amazing If asked me to participate in Lead : Learn : Connect earlier this week, a different presentation this time – instead an ‘introduction to gaming’ (maybe couched a little bit in metaverse nonsense). Different format this time, 20mins of slides then 40mins conversation and Q&A. Loved it. Best bit? THEY DREW MY TALK!

  • And finally, Rosie and Faris Yakob, of Genius Steals fame, asked me to guest edit their amazing newsletter ‘strands of genius’ – and you can read my edition right here 🙂 – R&F have an incredible system for making this work and I can’t believe how easy they made it for me to participate. Thank you, Yakobs 🙂

STUFF STILL TO DO:

The Sweathead Do Together!

Tickets are still available to this and aside from hearing me droning on about the size of the opportunity / trend growth with all things video games, you’ll also hear from SO MANY OTHER SMART PEOPLE it’s worth making the case to your head of department for some training budget right now.

OK, that’s all the plugs out the way.

Shall we FINALLY get to the things?

LET’S!

1. THIS WEEK IN METAVERSE BS

If you’ve been living under a marketing-repellent rock this week, then you’d be forgiven for missing the latest piece of BS: ‘Walmart has entered the metaverse’

Now look, it’s GREAT that brands are experimenting in arguably one of the world’s largest video game platforms. You have to applaud it.

What’s disappointing however is instead of saying ‘We believe video games are a fantastic way for children and adults to enjoy fun branded experiences together’ – and normalising gaming for all and sundry, Walmart has been hypnotised by the purveyors of snakeoil-dressed-up-as-metaverse-hype and couldn’t help itself in splurging the M word everywhere it could. Ugh.

A TON has been written about this already (honestly Google it) so I’m only going to look at a few things that immediately jumped out for me.

First thing first:
What got lost in a lot of the comms and headlines is that Walmart launched not one but TWO playable Roblox worlds: Walmart Universe of Play and Walmart Land.

As a strategist who has spent the last 15 years working on global brands across all kinds of digital and social channels, I can unequivocally tell you: THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.

Like building two websites, two Facebook pages, two Facebook apps, two Instagram channels or two of literally just about anything you’re trying to get consumers to do for the first time – this is a great way of diluting your audience and your message and ensuring one or both completely fail.

It feels like someone oversold the concept and wanted to try and do everything before they’d done anything.

IF you’re looking to do something in Roblox, learn from Walmart and just try to do ONE thing really well. Not two things with mediocrity.

Next thing:
The user numbers are interesting here.

For those of you that just comment on Roblox without actually participating (you know who you are), then did you know you can check the current world stats on the Roblox app/website?

Scroll back up and check the image and you’ll see what I mean.

At the time of writing Walmart Universe of Play, the world aimed at Roblox’s main population, children, had two (2) active users, a user approval score of 57%, and a total visits count of 4,290.

Walmart Land – reportedly aimed at adults – on the other hand fares far better. At the time of writing (Saturday afternoon, UK time), it has 842 active users, a user approval score of 50%, and a total visits count of 1.9m. That’s a lot of people and the wall to wall PR coverage has served them well. The approval score alas, does not.

Digging a bit deeper, Walmart Land also awards badges for participating and of course, there’s one for simply showing up. The ‘Welcome to Walmart Land’ badge has a ‘Won Ever’ count of a little under 1.4m. 1.4m uniques from 1.9m total visits… Doesn’t feel that sticky at the moment, does it?

…

Finally, the call to action is just weird.

‘Grab your headsets and hop in’ is an odd CTA given (at the last report of the data), 72% of Roblox players play via mobile.

I know it’s a tiny thing but if you were feeling particularly harsh you could say ‘this smacks of a ‘metaverse’ company with an interest in making the metaverse a thing using its clients comms to make the metaverse seem bigger than it is’. If you were feeling harsh.

It’s that or it bad comms planning.

eg:

Goal: drive users to our Roblox world
Barrier: people are scared of video games.
Comms task: trick people into thinking this is a VR-enabled metaverse by implying that loads of people already have and use VR for this metaverse experience
Channels: social

You’re right, that is harsh.

I dunno.

I can see a world where this cleans up at Cannes next year simply because a) it’s a huge brand, b) the visitor numbers will easily hit 2-3m+, and c) Lions judges won’t know the difference between new and good.

And while it’s easy to knock down work from afar, it is clear a fair amount of work has gone into this activation. However, wasted money is still money wasted and it’s important to point it out and prevent it from happening again where and when you see it.

The obvious retort at this point will no doubt be: ‘Well, James, what have you done to move this space forward?’ or better – ‘If you don’t like it, make way for those that do’.

How about… no?

How about stop wasting client money on personal vanity projects that only serve to eat away at the reputation of the creative industries while delivering next to no long-term value?

How about the value I bring to ‘this space’ is in helping clients navigate it with their eyes open and to avoid black holes of budget spend because someone once told them the metaverse was a thing?

How about ‘make way’ for that.

Ugh.

—

Other Metaverse news:

2. CHOP CHOP

A couple of weeks ago now, at around 3pm on September 8th (if you know you know), I was laying on a table in North London saying goodbye to my own personal crown jewels in a process some of you may know as ‘a vasectomy’.

There’s a lot I could tell you.

The jokes the [female] nurse made about my TikTok socks (thanks, Wayne).

The sudden awareness of the consequences of my own decisions (resulting in an extreme compulsion to just get up and RUN! – the moment I laid on the table).

The moment when, as I was putting my shoes back on, I asked ‘So, is there stitches down there now?’, ‘No,’ said the surgeon, ‘We cauterised it’ – and as I reached down to tie my laces, I could smell he was telling the truth.

Point is, I’m 42 years old and we have two children. The pill messes with the mrs and I’m not really down with that. So this is the option to make it GREAT.

So I have.

16 weeks and 24 er… expulsions? from now and we’re home free. Woooo! I know it’s quite odd to talk about this in my newsletter about STUFF I LIKE but I LIKE normalising awkward man stuff.

And normalising men getting the snip is a great place to start.

Like Rob.


During the summer of lockdown 2020, Rob Delaney put out this amazing article talking about the ‘pain and pleasure of his vasectomy’ – it’s a fantastic read. And if I’m honest, it’s what prompted the conversation here in the Whatley household as well.

So cheers Rob.

You made it easier for me and I hope by sharing my story, I’m making it easier for others too.

Snip snip!

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

This week in gaming news a whole bunch of interesting brand tie-ups, some updates on hardware, and a little bit of platform news.

But let’s kick off with an outrageously good Ed Sheeran x Pokémon music video – Celestial.

Let’s go.

Stadia? I hardly know her.

As we were going to press (Ed: press? This is a newsletter, not a magazine) (Ed: Who is Ed? James is this you?) (OK, this is weird now), new news dropped about Google’s beleaguered game streaming platform Stadia.

Things to know:

  1. As reported by Reddit, the Stadia team found out shortly before everyone else. Ouch.

  2. As reported by the devs themselves, Google didn’t tell the makers of incoming games that this was happening. Double ouch.

  3. For people who have been investing in the platform with hardware and software purchases since, they can expect a full refund by the middle of January next year. This is actually good?

I am one of those people. I bought a founder’s edition + a Destiny 2 bundle back in November 2019 (you can read my mega thread Twitter review here) and I am stunned Google is offering full refunds (almost certainly as Google Store credit) because the hit of those refunds vs the cost of running the platform is some serious financial cost analysis (fee to refund vs fee to continue service). Brutal.

There are a few ways to look at it. For Stadia fans (there were a just over a handful), they basically had three years of free games and hardware. Think about it. Some serious long-game playing there – ha.

Another way to look at it is that this is yet another hit to Google’s reputation for creating endless hard/software fodder for the Google Graveyard – aka ‘Killed by Google’.

This latter part is severely damaging. And the long-term impact probably immeasurable. It eats away at trust and I wonder what’ll happen should Google ever revisit cloud gaming ever again… 😐

Overall, the challenge was always: could streaming tech get good at games faster than games could get good at streaming tech. I guess now we know the answer.

But then, didn’t we always know?

EDIT/Update: HUGE credit to the devs currently working hard to let Stadia players port their saves over to different versions of the game (Ubisoft and Bungie being the most notable). And I truly hope Google does one final software update to the controller allowing it to be used on other platforms. That would be nice.

I feel sorry for this guy though, Rockstar ain’t coming to save you man.

– – – –

Ted Lasso x FIFA

EA and Apple announced Ted Lasso and AFC Richmond are coming to FIFA 2023.

Two and a half years in the making, apparently. That’s some lead time – and should also give you an idea of just how long these things take.

(Giulio de Bufalo has some decent words/analysis on this. Worth noting how much we align on Walmart too. Good reading – only build would be, Fifa is not reviewing well (7/10 on current gen, 2/10 on Nintendo Switch) – and I hope EA use the dropping of the FIFA licence to go back to the drawing board ahead of EA Sports FC).

Frozen Planet 2 x Minecraft

To tie in with the launch of Frozen Planet 2, BBC Studios and Mojang have created a special educational and completely playable version of the show in Minecraft. Including v/o from the big man himself, Sir David Attenborough. Played a fair bit of this – and then watched the show (available in UHD on iPlayer).

IT’S FREE and I really like it.

PlayStation VR2

Quick hits:

So with all that in mind, there is absolutely no doubt the PS VR2 will be my next VR machine. Horizon Call of the Mountain looks incredible and the deep dive I linked to on the first bullet above has completely sold me. See you there?

THE LAST OF US (TLOU) TV series has a Trailer!

10/10. No notes.

Quick links.

Only other thing I wanted to tell you in this section is that I managed a work-related trip to EGX week before last and managed to play Street Fighter 6 AND Sonic Frontiers. Street Fighter 6 was awesome. Graphics were great and the gameplay felt so good. Sonic was alright – felt a bit like the best/fast/rocket-boot levels from the recent PS5 Ratchet & Clank game (which I loved).

Both worth a look if you’re that way inclined.

4. THE ‘BATTLE FOR TALENT’

“French marketing mastermind Jacques Séguéla had his tongue in his cheek when he titled his book “Don’t tell my mother I’m in advertising . . . she thinks I play the piano in a brothel”. More than 40 years on, however, the difficulties that ad companies are encountering in attracting and retaining staff are no laughing matter.”

This, via the FT, touches upon a known reality in the industry but barely (if at all) goes near a common theme I hear from friends, mentees, and ex-colleagues: the post-covid/brexit/talent-crisis is killing staff with burnout.

‘We’re really struggling to backfill that promotion – sorry’
‘We’ve got no resource on this, can you work late?’
‘We’ve got a pitch on – who’s available?’

There’s no way on Earth those three statements square off in any real workplace and yet this is what I hear over and over and over.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard this year ‘Oh don’t go [there’], they’re a sweatshop’ or ‘Oh, I left [that place]. I was doing 50hr weeks and they keep piling on the work until people break’ or ‘I’ve had to take a month off to recover from my toxic a-hole of a boss’

Can you imagine if Campaign Magazine asked its top ten agencies of the year how many people had been signed off with stress in the past 365 days?

‘Hope Labour’ indeed.

…

Related: this one about ‘Quiet Quitting’ from anonymous adlanders is much closer to the mark.

For me, what started off as an ‘awakening to late stage capitalism manipulation’, post the great resignation, and compounded by a dearth of new/naive blood across the advertising industry (see above) – the forever being burned out talent in adland has, I think finally, had enough. 

What will adland do to keep its talent? 

5. AFTER THE STORM

seal pup asleep in the sand best wildlife photos

This is ‘After the Storm’ by Jayne Bond. Winner of the Natural World round of the 2022 Amateur Photographer of the Year competition.

And you can [bliss out and] see the rest of the winners right here.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND YOUR HEAD.

It’s been a chunky edition this week. That’s what happens when I take a few weeks off. To be honest, my feet haven’t really touched the ground this summer.

We were spoilt rotten with an amazing wedding down in Exeter a couple of weeks ago (thePixel 6 Pro outdid itself yet again) and then went straight from there to Amsterdam for the conference mentioned at the top but with an extra day tacked on to see an old chum (sup Larry) and then to EGX… and now, well, now I’m writing to you. It’s 8pm on Saturday night and I’m about hit publish.

Coming up, I’ve got a trip over to Bristol next week but after that, it’s time to spend some time at home.

Wherever you are in the world as you read this, I hope you are happy, healthy, and well. Life is hard. But do stay if you can.

You are loved more than you know.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #336

Things of note for the week ending Sunday September 4th, 2022

Oh. Hi, September.

INTRO

Hello hello. How have you been?

After last edition’s opener being all ‘I’ll write when I want actually’ – yours truly ended up taking most of August off after all. Lovely.

It’s been a good summer; a couple of trips up to Norfolk (including almost losing my watch on a rope swing – see?), the annual OREO Summer garden party, then straight onto a relatively last-minute/hungover trip to Disneyland Paris, AND THEN straight to Gamescom in Cologne, AND THEN a Bank Holiday… Well, you can forgive a few weeks of missing pulling this ol’ thing together.

Sidenote: walking for three days around a theme park and then doing the same at the largest conference centre I’ve ever seen in my life is not the one. Do not recommend. My Fitbit just openly laughed at me at one point. I swear to god.

What else can I tell you?

Oh yes! HELLO to the 70+ new subs that have joined since I last hit the publish button. No idea where you’ve all come from BUT you have succeeded in pushing me well over the 3000 subs marker which, for no reason whatsoever, felt like a nice milestone. Thank you – and welcome. I hope you read the small print (it doesn’t always come on Friday but you always get more than five etc) and I hope you stick around… 🙂

With all that out of the way – onwards!

TO THE THINGS!

1. HEY JAMES, IT’S BEEN A WHILE, WHAT’S NEW IN METAVERSE BS?’

Be honest. You’ve missed this haven’t you?

WHERE TO START?

As tempting as it is to bring this to you via the dead eyes of an uncanny valley Mark Zuckerberg, instead we’re going to start with the VMAs.

When MTV said they were introducing – what some called ‘an ill-fated attempt to claw back long-missing relevance’ – a ‘Best Metaverse Performance’ category for this year’s VMAs, I think I said something like:

The VMAs came and went. BLACK PINK picked up the award with Rolling Stone reporting:

“[Blackpink] took’ home the award for the newly created Best Metaverse Performance for their in-game concert in the video game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.”

Emphasis mine.

I say again: they are talking about video games.

NEXT!

RAZORFISH published this steaming pile of twaddle.

Featuring phenomenal guff such as

‘52% of Gen Z feel more like “themselves” in the metaverse than IRL’

And!

‘Those in the metaverse are six times more likely to describe themselves as introverts vs. extroverts’

You’ll be surprised to know that they make getting your hands on the data quite difficult. Well, I found the PDF and guess what?!

THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT GAMING.

It literally says on page two ‘But what exactly is the metaverse? While we’re not here to define it…’

HOW CAN YOU CONDUCT A SURVEY ABOUT A THING IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DEFINE THE THING YOU’RE SURVEYING ABOUT YOU UTTER CRETINS.

It gets better! Let’s take a look at the methodology.

COME THE EFF ON. It’s right there! In… black purple and white. ‘We shadowed 12 Gen Z GAMERS during a 1-hour VIDEO GAMING experience…’

I say again: THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT GAMING.

For crying out loud – just call it gaming. It makes me weep.

NEXT!

Sad to report McKinsey is at it again (first pile of BS available here – anyone who quotes McKinsey at you about the future of the metaverse DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WORDS and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near your timesheets) with this widely-derided word salad on ‘the metaverse’ and ‘building the next big experiences – how the metaverse will drive value’. You can read it if you want (but fair warning: it might make you want to put your finger in your eye and swirl around your brain until anything anything starts to make sense).

The reason I’m linking you to it is because I did have a special section lined up in my head to really pull it apart but the excellent Charlie Warzel beat me to it.

“The scourge of business-dude lorem ipsum” is amazing and arguably the best thing in FTOF this week. Read it.

As an aside. I heard something recently that was understandable as it was completely and clinically insane.

Why are these big consultancies and the (more often than not) west coast tech firms chasing vaporware in this way? Where does the drive come from? They surely can’t believe this is the genuine future?

Optionality.

Whether it’s talking about the metaverse, throwing around nonsense about NFTs or simply wanging on about Web3 – if any of them suddenly rocket to the moon, these companies get to say ‘Oh, we were in it from the start’.

If not, they quietly forget about it (I mean, close your eyes and point anywhere on Killed by Google to see my point), and move on. The option cost is some white papers, a couple of ‘tech visionary’ salaries and maybe some light touch product development.

Turns out making up BS about the future of the metaverse is an option cost. Of course it is! I hate it as much as I respect the sheer corporate/shareholder focus of it all.

Next: quick metaverse bites

OK, that’s enough now.

Let ‘em have it Zucko!

Image

2. SWEATHEAD DO TOGETHER

Image

Somehow, in some way, someone (probably Mark) thought it’d be a good idea if I joined the speaking line up for this incredible conference next month.

The Sweathead Do Together conference is pulled together by the amazing Sweathead strategy community and this year’s conference is all about the FIGHT against MEDIOCRITY.

As Sweathead puts it:

Strategy roles have never been in so many companies in so many countries. But a lot of these companies are new to strategy – or, account planning – and don’t always know how to help it succeed.

In this year’s version of The Sweathead Do-Together, we are going to take a stance – mediocrity is a habit but it’s a crap habit.

We’re inviting people we love and respect to:

Psyche You Up and leave with a fire lit under you.

Skill You Up so you can start your next project with new skills.

Trend You Up by updating your knowledge of the world and technology.

Yours truly is appearing in the TREND YOU UP section, talking about the trend of gaming and how to practically apply trend watching and interpretation to your day to day work as a strategist.

I am equally excited and nervous AF*. Tickets are $495 for the conference or $895 for a conference + masterclass session. Available here.

Will I see you there?

Let me know 🙂

*this reminds me, I have an open edit on a trade piece about being a strategy leader. I should finish that. 😬

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

GAMESCOM!

I would love to tell you about all the amazing games I played and things I saw while at Gamescom but alas I can only fulfil the latter (if my boss is reading this – please can we tack on some consumer days next time, thanks, love you). That said, it was a fantastic conference in easily the LARGEST CONFERENCE CENTRE I’VE EVER VISITED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Pro tip: if you’re based in Halls 2 and 3 and someone says ‘Do you want to meet in Hall 8?’ – you say no.

But what did I see?

An amazing Batcycle c/o WB Games and Gotham Knights (can’t wait for this), VASCO from Bethesda’s Starfield (built by cosplayers – amazing), the Pokémon/Mini Cooper tie-in I didn’t know I need it (Pikachu + Electric Charging is a brand partnership made in heaven), some outstanding merch, and of course, the Irish Bar in the square at the end of the night (which, for my adland friends, is basically Cannes’ Gutter Bar but for Gamescom).

See larger photos on Linkedin.

All in all, I had a GREAT time. Meeting existing clients for the first time face to face, meeting potential new clients looking for help, and overall just meeting a whole bunch of people who have a deep passion and care for all things gaming.

Reader, I am home.

Next: two micros-sections.

First a smattering of gaming stuff to be across then a quick hitlist of what I’m currently playing.

LET’S GOOOOOOOO.

Good game stuff I’ve read since we last spoke:

What am I playing?

Image

  • Cult of the Lamb has taken over my life (and my son’s – and the lives of so many people at Diva HQ – we did the digital assets + some gorgeous alt key art – see above). I’m 3/4 (5?) bosses down and just enjoying building my little group of Casual Cultists. If you’re playing, what did you call your cult?

  • New Destiny 2, Season of Plunder has hit (landing after the monster Lightfall reveal) and along with it came the updated version of arguably the best raid Bungie has ever produced, King’s Fall. Our team (me included) knocked it over on Day 2. #Proud [thread].

  • While waiting for my washing between Disney and Gamescom, I picked up Roller Drome and since getting back I have found it REALLY QUITE HARD to put down. Similarly to Neon White, it’s got that pick-up-and-playability element, combined with relatively short level design plus a scoring system that keeps you coming back. This is my gaming recommendation of the week. Here’s a trailer (available on Steam, PS4 and PS5).

  • Once Roller Drome is done, next on my list is Immortality (on Game Pass). The reviews for this have been insane and it scored a rare-as-rocking-horse-sheet 10/10 in the most recent edition of EDGE.

  • THEN I might get to The Last of Us Part 1.

So yeah, there’s a lot to get on with.

What are you playing?

4. NIKITA GILL

Nikita Gill – and her gorgeous poetry – has appeared in this newsletter a few times in issues past. This Guardian profile is well worth your time.

Nikita’s book, ‘These are the words’ is available on paperback right now (I’ve just bought mine).

5. THE TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

As the line says, the perfect comedy for our times.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Right, this turned out to be a bumper edition didn’t it? I hope y’all liked it and – like I always say – you’re welcome to hit that reply button ANY TIME. It’s lovely to hear from you. As I slowly meander towards the big blue ‘Publish’ button, it’s coming up on 1215 UK time on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. Coffee has been consumed, bacon muffins demolished, and the shower beckons.

I hope you’re having a gorgeous weekend and hopefully we’ll speak again soon.

Big love,

Whatley out x

PS. In case you were wondering, the top image is my lunch in Brussels on the way home from Cologne. After several days of all day meetings followed by drinking and non-stop networking, I can’t tell you how much that poutine saved my life. Poutine: food of the GODS, I tell you.

Five things on Friday #335

Things of note for the week ending Saturday August 6th, 2022

INTRO

I was reminded yesterday (by the lovely Wadds, hello Wadds) that I used to take two months off – August and December – each year from this newsletter. And I thought ‘yeah, actually – taking the summer off FTOF would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

But it’s funny.

Committing to not writing it is sometimes just as hard as committing to writing it. I never really know week by week what I’m going to see or write about; what will make me want to boot up Substack and start collecting thoughts and links together; or whether or not I’ll even find the time to do it (example: it’s 0955 on Saturday morning as I start this edition, I highly doubt it’ll go out this morning, let alone today; we’ll see how we get on).

Point is: the writing comes when it comes (and it goes when it goes). So while the words are in my head, I’m going to keep letting them out as and when I can.

Plan?

Plan.

Thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing, and just thanks – it’s nice having people to speak to week in and week out. You’re all lovely.

Shall we crack on?

LET’S.

1. LIONESSES ROAR

Metaverse BS getting a bump to number two this week thanks to… well…

These incredible women.

Euro 2022: Lionesses win final with extra-time victory over Germany | UK News | Sky News

To make this about the work for a minute, Alex Scott said it perfectly in the post-match analysis when she said:

“I’m not begging corporates to get involved because if you’re not already you’ve missed the bus”

And I thought yeah, she’s right. There’ll be a special layer of brands that get to be the headliners for the years to come and you know what – all credit to them.

Companies such as LinkedIn, VISA, Nike, EA… all of them have found their own ways to shine light on the women’s game over the years.

And they were there first. All credit to them. And of course, to the AMAZING winning England team (because they all read this and will be well happy to get a mention).

PS. Who else did I miss? Hit reply and tell me.

2. AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR THIS WEEK’S DOSE OF METAVERSE BS (SORRY ABOUT THE SMELL)

Sitting comfortably? Got a cuppa to hand? OK, let’s get into some stuff.

Earlier in the week, I found this ‘research’ from Bain & Co, entitled ‘Young Gamers and the Metaverse: How the Rules of Success Are Changing’ – and it’s all such rubbish.

For example, ‘Younger gamers expect to spend more time in the metaverse’

‘Metaverse-style games’ are not ‘the metaverse’ – by your own definition, Bain, you utter ball bags. That may sound harsh but this is the same Bain that also this week was told it was now barred from UK state contracts over ‘grave misconduct’ in South Africa.

Cool. Cool. So your data is bad AND you’re corrupt AF? GREAT JOB, GANG!

Moving on.

How about some more meaningless metaverse stats?!

This time from ‘Talkdesk’.

You can read the 14-slide PDF right here (as per, these stats were reported with no interrogation whatsoever). And, because I actually read the report, I can tell you that there isn’t a single mention of how the metaverse was defined for the survey anywhere in the whole document.

So I asked.

‘I can’t find the metaverse definition used for this survey. It’s not in the methodology, are you able to share it please?’

To their credit, they replied:

‘For the purposes of the survey, we define the metaverse as the new frontier of merging physical and digital worlds, including today’s proto-metaverse platforms.’

So… literally not ‘the metaverse’ then? For. Crying. Out. Loud.

We move on. Again.

The delightful (and now once more back in the UK) being known as Matt Muir put this on my radar earlier this week.

Image

Which, y’know should be kind of telling?

So say we all.

A few more things to tell you:

  1. Through a good mutual (and the mutual love of debunking modern metaverse terms as simply ‘gaming’), I’ve got to know JD Stringfield a little bit. He is very good on this topic. Not only has a new book out (mine is in the post) but also recently given a pretty good good interview with Digiday which is worth a read.

  2. Dior have released a skin for Gran Turismo 7. Vogue seems to think this is the metaverse. It isn’t.

  3. Tinder is reportedly ‘stepping back’ from its metaverse plans.

  4. I found the below tweet from the CEO of The Sandbox last week, challenging/addressing the recently reported DAU number (a little over 1100ish).

Good to know.

20-30k DAUs during special events is both highly conditional AND still not exactly record breaking (the whole thread is worth clicking through and reading, for additional context). If someone is pitching you an activation in The Sandbox, I ask again: who would it be for?

And finally.

If you’ve been following me for a decent amount of time then you probably know I like an experiment. I’ve tried podcasting, Spotify radio, Slideshares, and Linkedin – I’ve built Google Assistant add-ons, and Messenger bots… I like to tinker and play.

It helps me understand.

Anyway, that’s a very long way to say (and thanks to relatively popular* demand) I’ve been dicking about on TikTok.

Feedback welcome.

*like, three people.

3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING

Your weekly gaming news bulletin.

Corfe Castle, recreated stone by stone in Minecraft

Playtime-wise, I had a dip into Fortnite with some friends last night – that was fun. And, thanks to the only Final Fantasy game I’ve ever played being Crystal Chronicles on the GameCube, I’ve downloaded FFVII (original) and I’m having a run at that.

Because why not?

4. ANONYMOUS CV TOOL

This is an outstanding piece of work from my old lot at Digitas UK.

Digitas UK Makes Proprietary CV Anonymisation Tool Available to Recruiters Free of Charge | LBBOnline

According to The Drum:

“After developing its own CV anonymization tool to weed out bias in recruitment, Digitas quickly saved over 500 hours in the drawn out recruitment process. It’s now made the tech free to use for any company, including its agency rivals…”

It’s here.

It’s free to use.

And it’s bloody great.

Great job, Digitas fam. As important as it is impressive.

5. BATGIRL

Let’s just all take a moment’s silence and pour one out for Batgirl.

Damn shame.

Variety has the best analysis.

Bets now open on how long it takes for this to leak.

Side: Batgirl is a playable character in the upcoming Gotham Knights. So if you’re really missing out, maybe give this a go (it’s giving me solid Arkham vibes). IGN has a 16mins of Batgirl gameplay to show you.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

It’s been a full-on week.

A decent/chunky project moving through the business (all being well, I’ll be telling you about it later in the year), a trip back and forth to Bristol (including an awesome agency away day/afternoon/evening), and a top secret brief for a new project delivering early next year.

All that and I sign this off to you, I’m going to dive into either SANDMAN or PREY.

Can’t wait.

Hope you’re having a glorious weekend, wherever you are.

Until next time,

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #334

Things of note for the week ending Sunday July 31, 2022

INTRO

There wasn’t going to be a newsletter this week.


It’s 1030am on Sunday morning as I fire up Substack. Today is the first day since Monday I’ve woken up feeling human after suffering a good six days with my second bout of Covid. It has not been fun.

But today? Today I definitely feel better. The family are playing Minecraft together (the youngest is teaching Mumma how to play – and it’s going well) and I’ve probably got an hour or so to see if I can knock out a quick newsletter. What do you think? Can we do it? Worth a try, right?

I know there’s a a decent selection of links saved in the #5things bookmarks so let’s knuckle down and see what we can see.

Maybe we can crank out a swift one before anyone notices.

Our secret, OK?

LET’S GET TO IT.

1. YOUR WEEKLY METAVERSE BS

Believe it or not, I am loathe to keep regular themes in this newsletter. Preferring instead to switch up the topics as and when but honestly, every time I think I can put this particular hot potato down for a bit, something makes it bubble right back up again.

The ‘Metaverse? What Metaverse?’ talk is is coming up on 6k views and the public and private notes of endorsement keep growing. Thank you to everyone who has written in. I set out to make it useful, to help equip you with better questions to ask when faced with metaverse presentations and pitches, and by and large, from what I’m hearing this has achieved that goal 😊

Let’s have a look at the latest metaverse news/data you should be across:

Image

In FB/Meta news.

  • First FB/Meta put up the price of its two-year old headset, the Meta Quest II, by £100/$100 (citing component costs). Same hardware, new expensive price. What.

  • Then the FTC blocked FB/Meta’s purchase of a VR company (Within). The agency argues the deal would put Facebook’s parent company one step closer “to its ultimate goal of owning the entire ‘Metaverse’”. I mean, aside from this being really odd generally (feels small fry tbh – the FTC clutching at straws perhaps), this is yet another nail in FB/M’s ‘innovate or buy’ strategy.

  • Then FB/Meta posted its first ever quarterly sales decline.

  • And in that earnings report, it revealed FB/Meta’s VR division, Reality Labs (remember them?), reported a loss of $2.81b.

So let’s review:

If your Meta rep has asked you to pop ‘round to ‘share their vision of the metaverse’ anytime soon, please please please keep this stuff in your back pocket.

There’s no value in brand investment in this space right now. None. And if you are investing – specifically in Meta’s vision for the space – then there’s a good chance you’re propping up their losses (with your own).

Eyes open, folks.

…

Finally on this section, I know my output on this topic comes across as being a nay-sayer. I get that. And I can see why you might land there. Personally, I prefer the label researcher. I like data. I like human behaviour. When it comes to data points, I prefer millions vs hundreds.

And as I said last week: this isn’t rocket science, this is reading.

So the next time you’re faced with a ridiculous metaverse number (be that users, or predicted spend or whatever) do yourself a favour and go the extra click.

Don’t just accept it at face value. Look at the source, check the methodology, do the due diligence – and really challenge yourself to try and see what’s really going on.

That is all.

2. GOOD SHOUT

You may remember my friend and TikTok muse Amy Kean used to run a thing called Practice Makes Unperfect. Back then, PMU was about getting more women speaking at conferences and events. And after literally hundreds of people going through the course, Amy made the decision to wind it down (you can read more about that decision here).

In its place, and with a refreshed team and vision, the amazing GOOD SHOUT has been born.

GOOD SHOUT, in Amy’s words, is a new training programme that helps people experiment with their voice, their talent & their thinking, through social learning.

Covering topics such as:

– how to use your voice
– presentation skills
– how to be more creative
– how to get better chemistry in your working relationships
– how to listen
– how to have a ‘realer’ culture
– how to write better at work
– AND (Amy’s favourite) how to be WEIRDER.

Private courses have been running already and the first publicly available course is being run in September. If this is something you’re interested in, or if you know someone who could learn or benefit from it, then get in touch via the detals below.

Amy is great. Her team is fantastic. I can’t recommend this enough.

3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING

I’ve been sick this week so I’ve been gaming. A LOT.

GAMES I’VE PLAYED THIS WEEK

  • I picked up, played, and finished STRAY (aka ‘the cat game’ – pictured at the top of this newsletter). It is charming and only really a 7hr playthrough. It’s free as part of PlayStation Plus Extra (mid-tier plus) or £25 from the store. Worth a go – moreso if you love cats.

  • No Man’s Sky dropped a new update ‘Endurance’, along with a new expedition, ‘Polestar’. I updated to the former and played through the latter. Expeditions are a great way to get back into NMS. If you’re an OG player, boot it up and start a new save with an expedition – they’re really good.

  • What Remains of Edith Finch. Annapurna Interactive (also the publisher of Stray) dropped a free next-gen update to this earlier in the week and I used that as an excuse to finally give this a playthrough. You can do it in a couple of hours and if you haven’t, then you absolutely should play this absolute pinnacle piece of gaming-as-a-storytelling-artform.

Gaming news worth knowing about:

Got anything gaming in your head?
Wanna chat about it?
Hit that reply button.

PS. Gamescom diary is filling up. Going? Give me a nudge.

4. THE BROKEN PROMISES OF UTOPIA AND THE RELENTLESSLY OPTIMISTIC NIHILISM OF MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

I bet you didn’t wake up this morning thinking you’d need this presentation about dystopia, resilience, feminism, mythology, and optimistic nihilism (but most importantly, high-octane car chases in a post-apocalyptic wasteland) in your life did you?

Well, you do.

If you enjoy it, then head to Twitter and say thank you to the outrageously smart Jenny Chang, for generously sharing the contents of her head once again.

5. ‘PLEASE FORGET YOUR SCARF IN MY LIFE…’

The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.

I love this.

-via the must follow Nikita Gill.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Everyone keeps asking me if I’ve read Matthew Ball’s new book ‘The Metaverse’. I haven’t. I am going to. However someone also asked me what I thought of Snowcrash last week and I realised I hadn’t read that either. Oops.

So I bought Snowcrash, which I’m reading now. And then I’ll move onto Ball.

OK? OK.

(Have you read them? What did you think? Hit reply and tell me)

In the meantime, it’s 13:35. Bacon sandwiches have been consumed and the rest of the day beckons. I hope you’ve had a restful weekend and let’s catch up soon. The summer is here and it’s time to get outside and see people – maybe you included.

Big love,

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #333

Things of note for the week ending Friday, July 22nd 2022

INTRO

My philosophy on life has changed significantly over the past five or so years. It’s funny. Two rounds of therapy, a suicide attempt, and a pandemic will do that – I guess.

I found the above image (source) a couple of months ago and I just keep coming back to it. We are here for such a short time. Against the backdrop of the amusing, enlightening, and inspiring JWST perspective from last week (link again in case you missed it), I just wanted to reiterate: nothing matters – and that’s ok – so if you can, please, find some ways to enjoy yourself.

Take a breath, think about what’s important, hug the people you love (and include yourself in that), and smile into the rest of your day.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives, right?

Do the thing. Make the leap. Tell that person you love them. And if it doesn’t work out, you tried. Trying and failing is infinitely better than doing nothing at all.

I promise.

…

OK. So. That was quite the primer! I did not see that coming. Shall we crack on with THE THINGS?

OK, LET’S GO.

👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

1. YOUR WEEKLY METAVERSE BS

Because honestly, between butt-hurt metaverse gurus on Linkedin and the ridiculous excuse of regurgitated PR that is the [occasional] excuse for industry/trade “journalism” (we’ll come back to that), we are still calling this ridiculousness out.

In the past few days, a couple of people tagged me in this:

‘Our map of the metaverse worlds: find a virtual home now’

Image

“The metaverse is a new canvas for creativity, but the hyped up trend wave could snuff all the incredible out of a good thing. We must see past the hype and build the future. Blinded by a shiny new thing, a nearsighted pursuit of rapid innovation can lead to a misuse of technology. With flashy acts that don’t contribute to overall brand business objectives, the fun is over before it ever even really begins.”

And I honestly don’t know where to start with the levels of disinformation contained within. To put that quote on the same page as the above image is such a phenomenal self-own, I can’t quite believe it’s still live.

  1. These are not metaverse ‘worlds’. The names mentioned are either desolate website wastelands OR video games or VR platforms.

  2. ‘Metaverse worlds’ is an oxymoron, ya moron. Any background reading or literally any serious attempt at a definition of what ‘the metaverse’ might be one day, clearly delineates that this space will be persistent, interoperable, and singular. In short, you’ll be in one metaverse and move between them seamlessly. You can’t just back-pedal a metaverse ‘worlds’ definition onto video games because you’ve woken up soiled in Web3.

  3. The sizing of the ‘infographic’ is WAY off. Fortnite’s numbers next to Decentraland’s make no sense. ‘Here’s a K! Here’s an M! – they’re the same!’ they are not.

  4. The MAUs are as incorrect as they are misleading (google it).

  5. For some unknown reason ‘Fearless Girl’ is in there too, is it because she is an NFT now? My dudes (because a pound to a penny this was signed off by dudes), NFTs ≠ the metaverse.

She’s right, y’know.

Because I had 15mins between meetings on Wednesday and – to be quite honest – I still find it utterly baffling that people pay buffoons to mutter the likes of Sandbox and Decentraland in the same sentence as Fortnite and Roblox, I made a few charts.

The first one was taking the MAUs supplied by this ‘map’ at face value, combining it with the DAU data I could find, and then representing what that data looks like with a bit more meaning (and by ‘a bit more’ I mean ‘more than zero’).

If you can see it, then it’s a video game.

If you can’t see it, then thems those clothes the emperor has been wanging on about so much lately.

For real.

Check this out: someone made a live user counter for Decentraland. It’s amazing! Click, scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll see.

As I write to you the number says ‘Total Users: 750’.

And yet clients are giving up their marketing dollars to pay for this horse manure.

Anyway. I rewrote the ‘map’.

Updated with DAU actuals across the board (aside from Horizon – telling that Facebook doesn’t publish this figure) and updated definitions (video games, websites, etc), this is a slightly more realistic version of the ‘metaverse map’.

Realistic insofar that it shows real numbers. The interoperability, persistence, and random addition of NFTs in the middle of it all were just too much to bother about.

My goodness, this stuff makes me cross.

You can tweet it or post it on LinkedIn or whatever, or just print it and stick it above your desk at work or at home. Hell, laminate it if you want.

The point is: if you see the original repurposed anywhere, hit reply with the updated stats or just send them this way.

We make no changes unless we collectively work to prevent this disease from spreading across our industry.

………………………………

UPDATE: since drafting this section, S4 has issued a profit warning, slicing £30m off EBITDA forecasts and stating spiraling staff costs as a problem:

“The staff costs issue, it clarified, is concentrated in its content practice. It still expects its data and digital media practice and technology services practice to deliver “healthy” EBITDA margins for the full year.” –

It is a difficult year for everyone. Maybe let’s stop selling things that aren’t real to clients that don’t need them and then maybe people can keep their jobs?

………………………………

I mentioned PR as trade ‘journalism’ earlier.

Here’s why:

This isn’t rocket science. This is reading.

I clicked on the link and it said:

“The artists were briefed on the project and told to “showcase an electrified interpretation of how the Nissan Ariya is a ‘ray of hope’ within each of their cities”.

Each artwork is influenced by the Japanese-inspired design of the Ariya but the artists were encouraged to use their own personal style and story in their pieces.

The images will be shown in digital and on large-format outdoor sites while also presenting consumers with a QR code.”

Guess where the QR code takes them. Go on guess.

“You can literally step into it with a Meta Quest headset for a fully immersive experience or explore it in 3D on your mobile or computer.”

It’s a website.

“Car lovers will be able to enter the metaverse using the QR code and experience the artwork in a truly immersive way.”

I have a question.

Sorry to be a dick about it but out of curiosity how many people passing ‘large-format outdoor sites’ will be carrying their Meta Quest headsets in their bags?

Oh, and while we’re at it: Meta Quest is not the metaverse.
It’s a self-contained VR platform made by Facebook.

Also! Exploring a ‘3D website’ on your mobile or computer is not the metaverse.
It’s just a website! Oy.

…and breathe…

OK, I think we’re done here.

If you are a brand or a client and you’re still unsure about this, hit reply to this email – I just want to talk. If you’re looking at your 2023 planning briefs at the moment and you’ve got a couple of slides near the back with the words ‘the metaverse is coming’ on them, then take a good long hard look at yourself and ask ‘Why is this here?’

Have you had too many free breakfasts at the Facebook offices? Has your media agency been told it has to find extra money in the budget because they bent over backwards to win your business last year? Or are you putting it in the deck because you think if you don’t then you might not be seen as ‘innovative’?

Whatever it is, stop. It is dangerous – for your budget, for your ROI, for your job – and it will deliver zero brand growth.

2. THE WHALE DYING ON THE MOUNTAIN

The Comox Glacier, or Queneesh, is a familiar sight from the surrounding towns, but possibly not for much longer. Photo by Michael Wheatley/All Canada Photos/Corbis

This is a gentle, timely, and somewhat beautiful read.

We don’t have long.

3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING

This week I’m playing: Neon White with my colleagues in Bristol, new Hot Wheels DLC for Forza Horizon 5 (it’s ridic) and, hopefully, I’ll get a chance later today to dive into the latest FREE update to No Man’s Sky, ‘Endurance’ – which has been described as ‘Captaining it up like Picard’ – in.

Some quick links for you:

And finally, my agency – Diva – is a sponsor of the ongoing thought pieces ‘Playable Futures’ on GamesIndustry.biz. The latest is an interview with the always fantastic Anna Rafferty from Lego. Her thoughts on ‘Rubber Safety Mulch’ give me even more confidence in Lego’s partnership with Epic. I can’t wait to see more.

4. THE TALL BENCHES OF COPENHAGEN

10 benches in Copenhagen have been raised by 1 meter (3.28 feet) and set up in prominent areas of the city. A copper plate on each bench reads:

“Flooding will become part of our everyday life unless we start doing something about our climate. According to the latest UN Climate Report sea levels are expected to rise by up to 1 meter before 2100 if global warming continues.”

A haunting way to illustrate an impending problem.

More.

5. ‘I WANT YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT’

First came the threatening texts, followed by the SWAT teams. Then someone wound up dead.

A man with a target on his face made of an @ sign

This is as chilling as it is nuts. Eesh.

BONUS SECTION

BONUS LINK CHROME TAB COMBO BREAKER INCOMING – THIS WEEK SOURCED FROM TWITTER LIKES AND LINKEDIN COMMENTS BECAUSE WHY NOT

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Thanks for reading.

If you liked this week’s newsletter, please forward it to someone. I’m edging towards 3000 subs and it’d be nice to hit that number for no other reason than vanity x

I love you 3000,

Whatley out x

PS. Are you going to Gamescom? Hit reply and say hi.

Five things on Friday #332

Things of note for the week ending Sunday, July 17th 2022.

INTRO

Well howdy.

Any newsletter worth its salt openes with the above image this week. IF YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK then you may have missed NASA release the first batch of images from the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).

Don’t just sit there, GO LOOK AT THEM.

(and then watch this)

…

Back?

…OK great.

Hope you’ve had a good week. I had a couple of days holiday. The Mrs had a birthday on Monday and a long-planned shoot in Cambridge on Tuesday so we used it as an excuse to get away from it all for a bit (stayed here, and ate here – both excellent) and generally enjoy mooching around Cambridge. The Hockney Exhibition at The Fitzwilliam Museum was a highlight. It was fun. You should go.

What else can I tell you?

The metaverse talk from last week’s edition is currently sat at just over 1800 views on YouTube. For a 30min presentation about such a ridiculous topic, I’d say that’s some good numbers.

(And we’ve had glowing endorsements too – from the likes of Xbox, Electronic Arts, and Lego – hi gang, thank you, x)

As a result, Diva has had a few speaker requests come in (I think five or six at the last count) from agencies, tech platforms, and other equally globally recognised brands.

We are saying yes to as many as we can.

If you’re after similar, then do please hit reply to this email and get in touch (or use the contact details on the last slide of the talk). We’d love to hear from you.

Right then, shall we crack on?

ONWARDS! TO THE THINGS!

1. ‘WE KNOW METAVERSE’

No. You don’t.

Readers of last week’s edition of FTOF of FTOF might remember this:

“In the BIMA talk mentioned above, I go into a fair bit of detail as to why the recent McKinsey Metaverse report is balderdash (it’s honestly a joke). I’m looking forward to doing the same with this twaddle from Momentum Worldwide …but funnily enough, they haven’t shared the methodology (I’ve asked).”

If you’ve seen the headlines on Adweek or Little Black Book, this ‘wE kNoW mEtAvErSe’ report features such belters as:

  • “67% are unaware of the term ‘Metaverse’ or have heard it but don’t know what it is”

  • “The metaverse is a place where people are finding true emotional value.”

  • “63% had no idea they had been in the metaverse all this time”

Well, you will be wholly unsurprised that Momentum never got back to me.

But Patrick Kulp at Adweek did. And he shared the link that Momentum provided to the original report. You can download it right here.

On page six of the report, it identifies two audiences in their data set of 4500 people. TWO. Accidentals and Intentionals.

And guess what.

THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT GAMING.

It’s right there!

“The Accidentals are exactly what their name implies: they arrived in the metaverse space accidentally or unintentionally.”

YES. ACCIDENTALLY OR UNINTENTIONALLY BECAUSE YOU SUDDENLY CALLED GAMES “THE METAVERSE”.

“This is a group that predominately plays Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox.”

AS WE HAVE ESTABLISHED ALREADY, THESE ARE VIDEO GAMES.

“They are less likely to associate themselves with the metaverse and are simply enjoying the platforms for the relaxation and fun.”

OF COURSE THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO ‘ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH THE METAVERSE’ – THEY’RE GAMERS.

Goodness me. What is it with the obsession of calling anything remotely to do with gaming, tHe MeTaVeRsE?! It’s maddening (RT this, please).

“Yeah but James, what about the intentionals?”

I couldn’t give a monkey’s to be honest because at no point in the report whatsover does it mention of the percentage split of these two audiences.

The only other thing I’m going to pull out from the report is the teeny tiny bit of explaining it does around the ‘methodology’

“The global study collected more than 4,500 consumer responses and over 100 ethnographic interviews across seven countries: Canada, Japan, MENA, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US. This approach takes a step away from the means and methods of the metaverse and instead steps toward the meaning and motivators for being there, all while never referencing the word “metaverse” until the very end of the survey journey.”

So I’m guessing the survey probably asked people what games they play, why they play them, do they buy in-game items, why do they play games etc… and then back filled a load of metaverse juice all over the answers at the end, right?

It’s painful.

…

I mentioned this whole thing to my CEO. Her instant response?

“Because for years gaming has been treated as a social pariah and rather than advocating for gaming, which flies in the face of so many stories we’ve been told about gaming culture and the negative affect gaming has on society, it’s easier for big business to rebadge it as something altogether different than to admit that they were wrong, and worse still, woefully behind the curve… – enter ‘the metaverse’”

And that’s where I think we’ll leave it.

Believe it or not, my ambition with this kind of stuff is not to knock things down and kick things over. I just want you all to know what you can uncover when you simply ask better questions.

The headlines that came off the back of this Momentum/4A report were all about diveristy and inclusion and how the metaverse will make people happier etc… but not one headline actually looked at the report and said ‘hang on, the metaverse doesn’t exist – do you mean gaming?’

Just ask better questions, yeah? Please.

Download the report and judge for yourself.

2. WHAT IS A BRAND?

“When a word starts to mean everything, it risks coming to mean nothing.”

Brand strategist (and co-author of the must-own book, ‘Which wine when’), Claire Strickett has written this excellent examination and primer to answer the ‘simple’ question: ‘’What is a brand?’

Covering:

  • Brand as signifier of origin.

  • Brand as reputation.

  • Brand as business.

To quote Strickett, “we owe it to the word “brand” to use it with the care, respect and above all, the clarity it deserves”.

This dedication to craft and rigorous application thereof is something we can all learn from.

Mandatory reading.

3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING

I’m barely into thing three and Substack is giving me the ol’ ‘Near email length limit’ warning. Rubbish!

I’ll be brief.

4. IT’S OK TO OPT OUT OF THE CRYPTO ‘REVOLUTION’

That’s it. That’s the link.

5. YOUR EVENT IS BROKEN

Last month, The DICE (Diversity & Inclusion for Conferences and Events) Charter launched its first ever advertising campaign.

This work is the brainchild of creative duo Katherine O’Connor and Alicia Hessey, students from the University of Lincoln, who responded to a brief from the DICE team as part of their second-year project.

The ‘Your Event Is Broken Without Diversity’ campaign will run in partnership with ISOLATED Talks® (an initiative from creative agency …Gasp!) and will run across national digital billboards donated by Clear Channel (and it turns out many others).

The creative itself hinges on the visual of a broken screen on each digital billboard, reflecting the idea that any event that only amplifies the voices of certain groups – such as white, middle-class men – is essentially silencing every other voice. The lack of representation reflects a broken system, propped up by corporate gaslighting that prefers to discuss change rather than enact it.

And I love it.

I can’t believe this thing we built continues to not only grow and grow but also impact real world and digital events the world over. Events are getting better at DE&I thanks to DICE – and thanks to all the people mentioned above, even more people will now know about it.

Incred.

Read (and see) more on the DICE website.

BONUS SECTION

IT IS HOT. BUT NOT TOO HOT FOR BONUSES.

COME GET SOME.

Kicking off the bonus section with a late entry/brief plug for the DICE certified, State of Social 2022 event in Perth. The lovely Meg Coffey asked me if I could speak at it this year and I can’t as I’m away with the family. But just because I can’t be there. doesn’t mean you can’t (virtual tickets are available).

As Meg puts it:

Because Australia is never a bad idea. Check out State of Social ‘22 in Perth this August.

Two days of killer keynotes, discussions and breakout brainstorms analysing the latest digital trends, techniques and real-world case studies to help you plan, create and convert, no matter what the world throws at you.

I can’t go but you should. It’s even DICE certified.

OK, now back to the bonuses.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. TAKE CARE OUT THERE.

It’s about to hit midday on Sunday as the UK is headed into the most dangerous heatwave in recent history. It’s not going to get cooler, friends. So if you’re in the UK, please buy that fan, stock up on bottled water, buy the bags of ice, and just keep out the danger zones.

Look after yourself, and each other.

Whatley out x

PS. Ms Marvel is the best damn thing Disney has ever done. WATCH IT.

Five things on Friday #331

Things of note for Saturday July 9th, 2022.

Hello mate.

It has been a week.

(And no, not because of ‘the politics’ here in the UK (there’ll be none of that here, thanks).

Standing on stage a little over eight days ago, talking to an engaged audience about how many often mistake gaming platforms for ‘The Metaverse’, I didn’t have much of a clue that one single slide would pull on its boots and go stomping around LinkedIn, Instagram, Discord, and more… According to one account (FROM CANADA), I had upset ‘metaverse gurus and crypto bros everywhere’. Lol.

And judging by some of the LinkedIn commentary, you can believe it. Shame. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

In the meantime, you can always tell when FTOF goes on a little break – because it means life is good, and busy, and the creativity and love I normally pour into this is being spent elsewhere. It’s Saturday as I write this to you and the girls are away for the weekend. It’s been in the diary for a while so I collected up some links this week and thought ‘Hmm, I think there might be a newsletter this week’ – and well, here we are. How nice.

So. That’s the preamble out the way. Onwards… TO THE THINGS!

1. LET’S GET THE METAVERSE TALK OUT OF THE WAY SHALL WE?

Here’s what happened.

Wednesday, June 29th, I did a talk at the #BIMABeyond conference.

One of my… er… punchier slides (3/63) got snapped (below) and went a bit nuts on LinkedIn.

Anybody who stands on this stage and tells you the Metaverse is the future hasn't got a fucking clue and you should NOT be OK with that.

Cue: tons of comments, shares, replies, and angry metaverse believers. Since the above LinkedIn post went live, I’ve been called a flat earther, a metaverse atheist, and… best of all ‘anti-human’. It’s mad. Like, just because you’ve made an app for Facebook’s Meta Quest VR, doesn’t mean you’re in the metaverse, my dude.

ALSO. Can you imagine how much worse this would’ve been if I was either a woman or a person of colour or both? Ugh.

The good news is:

  1. 90% of the commentary – publicly and privately – has been really quite lovely and positive. Lots of ‘THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS!’

  2. Thanks to huge amount of inquiries from people asking to see the slides, Diva found some time for me to not only share the slides (with written out speaker notes) but also record a version of the exact same talk that you can see as well.

The slides and the video are available on the Diva website.

Given the interest so far (and if you’ve not seen it yet), I would really love to know what you think. Thanks, gang x

—

Other Metaverse links of note:

2. CULTURE MOVES FAST BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GO SLOW?

Sara Barqawi writes:

“As an industry, we’ve fixated on ‘tapping into culture’ or creating comms ‘at the speed of culture’, which is great in theory. In practice, we’re only actually tapping into what’s trending on TikTok or Twitter that day. This is limited to reacting to cultural events that work at the speed of our news cycle; it relies on influencers, platforms, or current affairs. It also means you’re just as quickly forgotten.

This partnership does the opposite. By going after long-standing cultural institutions which have existed and contributed to the vibrancy of city life for decades, Adidas will create legitimate long-term relevance and desire. By chasing the more robust side of culture — slow culture (culture that really matters) the brand may be rewarded by staying remembered for longer.”

I had never heard of Ravi’s before. And Sara’s brilliant piece on both the history of this local cultural touchstone and why it’s so perfectly chosen for this partnership is a great read.

So go read it!

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING 

First off, what am I playing?

My current fave is Neon White (available on Switch and PC). It’s a super nuts speedrunning game and I love it.

Neon White | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo

The levels take between 10-90s depending on how fast you are, the action is frenetic and it’s the first game that’s made me want to get a Nintendo Pro controller..

It’s really hard to capture how fun this game is but here’s the trailer and a decent review. Genuinely can’t recommend this enough.

Also playing: Destiny 2 (standard) and finally working my way through Horizon Forbidden West (with occasional dips into Fall Guys – now free to play on all platforms! – and Forza Horizon 5 (can’t wait for the Hot Wheels update).

Next, I’m looking forward to God of War: Ragnarök in November.

Oh – and STRAY! which looks great (you play a cat for crying out loud).

What are you playing?

—

Other games news of note:

Side note: I’m working on a ton of games stuff at the moment AND I CAN’T TELL YOU ABOUT ANY OF IT BUT MY GOD I HAVE THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD.

4. LISTENING: FRENCH TOUCH

My go-to ‘GTD’ playlist is Whatleydude playlist for Getting Things Done (you’re welcome) but recently I’ve taken to sticking French Touch in my ears and it’s having a similar effect.

But with more chair dancing.

Recommended.

Fun fact: the Wikipedia entry for Daft Punk uses one of my photos on the main page. Hurrah for creative commons.

5. THE WAR ON GIRLS

My god, this is some writing. I mean proper writing. The kind of writing that forces tears from your eyes and lights a fire in your belly and then you scream and scream and scream. This is some writing.

My friend Amy Kean can write.

And with this ‘The war on girls: why can society take young women seriously?’ she’s done it again.

I implore you to read it.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Well, that was lovely, wasn’t it?

It’s been a hot minute since the last FTOF and I can’t promise when the next one will be but what I can tell you is that I’ve still got a bunch of links in the bank and when the time comes for round FTOF #322, you’ll be the first to know. Until then, thank you, as ever, for reading, for subscribing, for screenshotting, and for sharing. You’re proper lovely.

Hope you’re having a gorgeous summer.

Whatley out x