An Introduction

The sea they swim in

This is Reliable Sources. It's a newsletter for marketers, just without all the 'marketing'.

To follow Marketing LinkedIn is to wade through a swamp of hot takes, bad advice, and lazy insight.

This isn't one of those newsletters. (At least I hope it won't be...)

I have no interest in sharing Chat GPT prompts. I won't pepper posts with selfies, and I have no designs on starting a copywriting podcast.

I'm far more interested in are ideas, criticism, and debate happening in wider culture, and the points where they touch marketing discourse.

I love finding new things. Every year I create a playlist on Spotify where I save my favourite songs released that year. There's nothing better than getting hooked on a new song that then sits on repeat for days.

As a portrait photographer, I try to visit as many photo galleries as I can lay my eyes on. During a work trip to Connecticut in March, I took a Sunday train down to New York City just to visit The International Center of Photography. It was a 3.5 hour round trip and I spent maybe an hour on site before closing. Would I go through that hassle again? In a heartbeat.

I devour interviews and podcasts with any creative talking about their process. In 2021, I produced a 10-part podcast series called The Shot, where award-winning photographers told the stories behind their best photos. Some of the pictures were harrowing and divisive, but they taught me lessons about structure, workflow, and tone.

Hell, I've learned more in 20 minutes of watching Phoebe Waller-Bridge talk about storytelling than hours reading some self-professed AI guru here on CursedWebsiteDotCom.

That's the sitch: learning about creativity outside marketing has made me a better marketer.

There's an inflexion point where creative culture and marketing meet. Too often our profession talks about creativity in silted marketing jargon, like it's algebraic equation t h a t m u s t m a x i m i s e R O I.

But culture informs our work. The storytelling we do on the clock constantly borrows from creatives outside our bubble.

I want marketers to think about how writers, artists, musicians, comedians, and other performers think about creative process and apply those lessons to their own work.

For every "Content guru" on LinkedIn, there is a non-marketer (or "normie") telling beautiful, punchy, funny, stories. There is plenty we can learn by exploring the sea they swim in.

That's what Reliable Sources aims to do: Showcase brilliant, beautiful, creative culture, the ideas that imbue it, the critiques that line it, and the debates that shape it.

And then finally, how you can use it.

What each issue will look like

If marketing is on an axis, with creativity on the left and analytics on the right, Reliable Sources sits with the freaks and geeks in band class.

Here's what you can expect from each issue:

1. Things to Read: Articles, essays, profiles, reviews, short stories, or poems that will capture the imagination.
2. Things to See: Films, TV shows, interviews, photographs, drawings that appeal to the eye.
3. Things to Listen to: Podcasts, music, and audio documentaries to play on the go.
4. Things to Attend: Upcoming events, talks, shows, and gigs that are worth experiencing live. (This will likely skew more towards UK events since I'm based in London, but I'll do my best to be inclusive.)

At the end of every story, I will include a marketing-themed takeaway.

Where can I read Reliable Sources?

The newsletter will be published every Wednesday on LinkedIn and Substack. You can sign up to have it delivered to your inbox here.

There will be weeks where I won't be able to publish, but I'll signpost that ahead of time.

The first issue will be out Wednesday 19 July 2023.

Can I send you stuff I like?

Oh, god yes. [email protected] or just DM me here.

How can I help?

If you have a dog, you should go pet it and/or play with it. But first, subscribe to the newsletter, share it with someone, or message me with ideas of cool things you've seen, read, listened to, or watched.

Sounds like the recipe for some fun

You got it, buckaroo.