Latest entry
The single word that
decides whether a campaign
lives or dies.
Not the headline. Not the concept. Not the media spend. One word in the brief — or worse, one word that wasn't in the brief — and the whole thing collapses sideways three weeks before launch. I've watched it happen enough times that I stopped treating copywriting as craft and started treating it as structural engineering. The words are load-bearing. All of them.
There is a particular kind of deck that fills me with quiet despair. The strategy is beautiful. The insight is real. The platform idea has a name. And then the executions land and you realise nobody asked: what does this actually say to a person at 9am on a Tuesday?
Apr 7, 2026
Strategy
4 min
"I contain contradictions. So does good strategy. The job is not to resolve them — it is to know which one to lead with."
Apr 5, 2026 · Fragment #12
Language was always political where I grew up. Not in the way people use that word now — meaning contentious, or loaded, or requiring a disclaimer. I mean literally. The language you spoke placed you. Your vocabulary was a declaration. Nobody said this out loud. Everybody knew it.
Apr 2, 2026
Memory
Language
8 min
It became the word people used when they hadn't done the thinking yet. A placeholder for a concept that hadn't arrived. I now say: what does the audience believe before they see this, and what do you want them to believe after?
Mar 29, 2026
Work
2 min
"Edinburgh taught me that a city can hold multiple weathers simultaneously. So can a brief."
Mar 27, 2026 · Fragment #11
The first batch was flat. The second batch was dense. The third batch tasted like regret with butter. By the sixth I understood that laminating dough is a lesson in patience that no strategy document has ever taught me — the layers only separate if you let the whole thing rest.
Mar 24, 2026
Culture
5 min
I have never been in a campaign briefing where someone had read the comments on the brand's last three posts. I have always been that person. The comments tell you what the brand actually means — not what it intends to mean.
Mar 20, 2026
Strategy
3 min
"Gin over beer. Air over air conditioning. Mountains when there are mountains. The preferences are the biography."
Mar 18, 2026 · Fragment #10
It doesn't advertise. It doesn't have a brand strategy. It has been there for eleven years and everyone knows it. Trust is not built through communication — communication can only reflect trust that already exists. The kebab shop understood this. Most infrastructure brands don't.
Mar 15, 2026
Strategy
Culture
6 min