Across the two weeks, we were shown how AI can do amazing things, hilarious things, time-saving things, life-changing things. Helping create more good things to be in the world. Very much a big plug for all things AI (with little to zero discussion about the impact it might have on any of the industries we creative professionals all worked in).

The lecturers were, by and large, world-leading: in their respective creative and professional fields; in the work they were doing; and in the way they were using AI. What we saw was, for the most part, genuinely impressive. And in the occasional instance where what we were shown was from someone less impressive, the quality of what was produced was, too.

At the end of the two weeks, we were set a capstone project. In groups of six, working in our own time, using a minimum of five AI tools (including beta access to a new Adobe offer which is now part of the main suite) we had to create ‘something’ within the theme ‘Imagination’.

What became clear very quickly once again was that the quality of what all our groups produced tracked almost exactly with one thing: whether someone with genuine talent and experience was steering it. We had a brilliant graphic designer who got his head round the tools immediately. The AI wasn’t doing the work. He was. The AI was just responding to the quality of the judgement being applied to it.

What became apparent to me more than a year ago on that course, and which has subsequently become apparent all over the internet, is that when not in the hands of people who are already capable, talented and experienced at what they do, what AI produces is mediocre at best.

The AI wasn’t doing the work. He was. The AI was just responding to the quality of the judgement being applied to it.

And to be clear, that is by design. What I learnt after the course is that not only is Generative AI not designed to be good, it’s programmed to be average. To aim for the thing that is most likely to be okay for the most amount of people, i.e. splat bang in the middle of ‘meh’.

Which is fine (maybe, to a degree) in some circumstances. But it really isn’t fine when it comes to using AI as a replacement for creative thinking. Because there’s a reason that for a long time there has been a whole layer of professionals whose job it is to do the creative work. And it isn’t just that they could use the tools better than anyone else. It’s because they brought the quality bar that made the work actually good.

Left to its own devices, AI does the visible bit of creative thinking: it writes words, it creates images, it makes movies. But it doesn’t do the invisible bit: being honest about whether what’s been made is any good. The pushing to make it better, not optimising for average.

Not only is Generative AI not designed to be good, it’s programmed to be average.

All this is not to say AI isn’t genuinely, disruptively useful. Because it absolutely can be.

Take audience research. If you want anyone to do anything at all, you need to know as much as you possibly can about them. Not the stuff you can easily google – how old they are, what they earn, where they live. The stuff it’s harder to find – what they care about, what they love, hate, fear, what they dream of. Before AI it took serious resource to even get close to this sort of insight.

Now we have access to a thing that holds billions of data points simultaneously, from everything that has ever been put on the internet, including everything there is to know about what makes people feel, think and do what they do. Every academic paper published online. Every forum where real people talk about the things they actually care about. AI is spectacularly useful as an audience research tool – for gathering insights, and as a way of provoking and stress-testing thinking.

But what’s so unsettling is that to do this well, you have to fundamentally mistrust everything it tells you. Because it’s trained to tailor its answers to whatever it thinks you want to hear. So to use it most effectively you have to instruct it in a way that means it doesn’t know what you’re actually trying to do. And even then you have to continually push back on whether what it’s saying is even true. To assume it’s wrong, to check everything, to question anything it says, and still not trust it.

The real skill isn’t learning to use AI, it’s learning to distrust it well. To hold it at arm’s length while getting what you need from it.

Which isn’t actually a new skill at all. It’s criticism. The exact same thing that separates good creative work from average creative work. Knowing whether what you’re looking at is good, pushing back when it’s not, or holding your position when something tells you otherwise.

And not just criticism in the abstract. Maintaining creative judgment under conditions that matter. Knowing what good looks like right now, in this situation, for this audience, on this day, when something’s just changed and you need to make a call because important things are at stake.

The real skill isn’t learning to use AI, it’s learning to distrust it well. To hold it at arm’s length while getting what you need from it.

AI has no stakes. It will never be wrong in a way that costs it anything. Because there is no repercussion (yet) for a robot. So what it has isn’t judgment, it’s something that looks like it from a distance, but doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Bringing us back to the point that the real question we should be asking isn’t ‘is it AI?’, it’s the same question it’s always been: ‘is it any good?’

It’s just that to do this with AI, you have to operate in a state of active, ongoing mistrust, knowing if anything goes wrong, it’s all sitting with you.

Which feels like a pretty f*cked up working environment to be pinning all our futures on.

Want to explore more? Read anything by the amazing Abi Awomosu, author of How Not To Use AI.

The eye scans the page in a ‘Z’ style motion. At least, this is what I was taught as a newspaper journalist in training. The reader’s eye glances across the top of the page, taking in the headline, then scans the image (ideally placed on the righthand side) to support the headline, then goes back to read the first few column inches.

For the printed article, headlines were king – followed by the image, the standfirst (subheading) then first few lines of ‘lede’ or ‘intro’.

It was hammered into us that the five Ws (who, what, where, why, when) needed to appear as close as possible to the start of the story – so the reader could orient themselves. The inverted pyramid model of storytelling is a pretty well-known image for news journalists. You front-load the information so editors can cut from the bottom. In this way, headlines could be slightly more playful, perhaps use a pun, and were about attention-grabbing more than anything. Writing them was a form of artistry we all wanted to master.

But when it comes to writing for email, a new kind of model for storytelling emerges. Namely – the headline becomes the email subject line in your subscribers’ inbox: a place of extreme importance.

I’m going to dig a bit deeper into what this means in practice. And how, as modern writers, we want to master this craft just as much as newshounds of the early 00s.

Make every email impossible to ignore

I worked at Substack for three insightful years; first as storytelling lead, and later managing editor, running their two in-house Substacks (the most-read newsletters on the platform with millions of subscribers), as well as all their external comms and channels. Part of my role was interviewing Substack publishers about their newsletters and spending hours finding amazing case studies to champion. I have a rolodex of hundreds of brilliant best practice examples in my head, and I now work 1:1 with clients to help launch, level up, and skyrocket their newsletters.

One of the things which comes up pretty regularly when I look at, and sometimes audit, my clients’ newsletters is the approach to headlines. For a lot of writers, headlines are doing almost the opposite of what they want them to.

This might be a hangover from the early blogosphere, but I see writers using hashtags, numbers, and formulaic headlines, or cryptic one-word ones which obscure, or puns – which all fall flat on piquing the curiosity of their subscribers.1

It might be because writers are forgetting this: the majority of readers will be opening your post as an email, or in the Substack inbox via the mobile or desktop app (which looks a bit like Google Reader from 2008). So you need to imagine that your headline is going to be working the hardest, while the subheading (or standfirst, but I’ll use subheading or subhed throughout) can up the curiosity factor, support, or add a fun detail.

The main thing to remember is this: newsletter headlines appear as the subject line in your readers’ inbox. You have an amazing subscriber list of fans who already signed up to receive your work. So do them a favour and… make sure every email is one they want to open.

For a lot of writers, headlines are doing almost the opposite of what they want them to.

The headline flip

When it comes to newsletters, nine times out of ten, what I see – almost bizarrely to me – is writers putting out what should be the subheading as the headline. Let’s look at some examples:

I’m sorry to these writers for using them to illustrate this, but they are all established enough to not heed much pain if they see themselves here.

Using hashtags, numbers and vague words in headlines does nothing to spark interest in the story. This is a very ‘old school’ way to sell your newsletter: a recurring series name, and a hashtag with the ticker number of that email, eg. ‘home design 101 - EP4.’ Can we all agree this doesn’t help the reader want to open your email?

Try to avoid putting the name of your regular content series in the headline. Readers don’t really care about the names of series and it can feel like repetition. You might want to have a short sentence about the series at the top of the post, but avoid it in the hed and subhed. Hashtags can be added as ‘tags’ in the post Settings, or add your post to a series named ‘Section’ which is on your nav bar. Hashtags are actually quite distracting for readers and they often don’t care how many you’ve done either, unless maybe you’re celebrating a big milestone. But either way, take it all out of the headline.

The key thing to look at here – particularly for Pandora Sykes’s regular roundup (image above), is that the subheading would work better than the chosen headline.

Next time you’re writing a newsletter and putting the meat and gravy into the subheading, think to yourself, wouldn’t this make a better headline?

So what can be done instead?

Find the curiosity gap

What’s in the post which you can tease a little and make it impossible not to open? What can you point to in your headline which is then delivered in the post itself? Lists, number of items, or giving a hint to the ONE THING your reader needs to know works well here.

And it’s worth saying at this point, you can only really do this curiosity gap thing well if you really, really know your reader. If you don’t know them by now, you might want to think about sending out a little survey to get to know them better. The more you know your reader, the more you can create headlines which generate a real curiosity gap for them, so they’ll open up the post, and come away very satisfied and happy when you give them what they were craving. Morsels of tasty content goodness. Mm!

It actually took me a quite a while and a lot of scrolling to find these good examples below. Here both the headline and the subheading work really well together. I’m a subscriber to all of them, and while their posts are quite different (one review, one deep dive, one personal essay, one feature), I wanted to read them ALL. Note Animation Obsessive’s little tease in the standfirst (love that), and how Crib Notes could have put the subhed as the hed and it still would have been good.

Deliver on the promise of the headline

I learnt from the absolute queen of headlines, . Farrah spent many years helming UK glossy magazines as editor-in-chief and knows how to sell a story with a few words on a cover. What Farrah taught me from editing a few of my headlines (and the best way to learn, I think, is to ask someone more experienced to edit you), was that you need to create a curiosity gap WHILE delivering on the promise of the headline.

AKA, your headline should not be clickbait – you don’t want to promise something which isn’t actually there as you’ll start losing fed-up readers like quicksand. Don’t sell them a false promise. You want to look at your post, find the most meaty interesting bits, carve them into a headline and then leave a little question in the reader’s mind.

This is where headline writing becomes a very fun craft and art to master. You need to tread a fine line between not over-promising (clickbait), but also not selling your post short either. They should very much play into the curiosity gap of those who come across the post serendipitously – this is especially important for fully-paywalled posts.

So ideally you can highly recommend something which showcases both the broad appeal of your post, but also a private secret which only you know.

You need to tread a fine line between not over-promising (clickbait), but also not selling your post short either.

Let’s look at some EVEN BETTER examples for the curiosity gap/delivering the promise combo. Disclaimer: these are all current or former clients of mine, and I’ve talked to them all about headlines (though some, like who I think is probably the best writer for Substack I’ve ever encountered) did it naturally brilliantly on their own…

No pun intended

The Sun newspaper was always considered the leader in puns. As newspaper j-schoolers we’d pore over the weekly papers, and wish to god we’d learn the art of writing as brilliantly-punned headlines as Sun journalists.

I do love a good pun. But in the world of newsletter headlines, they do not serve you. Sure, if you’re an A-list celebrity, or globally renowned writer, who readers know for their sense of humour and you can be sure they’ll open your emails regardless of the headline, maybe try a pun or two.

But for most of us laypeople, puns are just going to further distance your readers from the good stuff, wiring them to ignore, delete, or worse, unsubscribe from what you’re putting out there.

I hope what you’re starting to see here is that your headline can tell your readers what is in the post, while dangling some nuggets of juiciness which entice them to open it. You can still be poetic and artful and make the headline all in your voice. But just because people have hit ‘subscribe’, it doesn’t mean you can start trashing their inbox with mushy, non-informative, vague headlines they will also just pop in the trash. Avoid churn. Aim for retention…

Changing how you think about headlines will help you hit home on one of my (many!) Substack maxims I like to remind people. Especially if you have a hunk of great paying subscribers, why not do yourself a favour and…

To read more from Hannah, subscribe to her Substack, Tell Their Stories and check out her website.

If you like this… sign up to receive more writerly features and insights:

1

The only examples I’ve seen this done well are from longtime Substackers who have an artful mastery. Alice Vincent’s headlines have traditionally done one-word headlines pretty well for personal essays, as did for this beautiful visual memoir story which is the best thing I’ve read on the internet in a long while:

Vittles

Patrick

Good morning and welcome to Vittles. Today, we are publishing a graphic essay by Ella Bucknall about eating through childhood, and grief. We strongly recommend reading this version of Ella’s essay, which has been drawn and designed by Ella, in your web browser, but you can read it in standard text format below…

Read more

2 months ago · 136 likes · 12 comments

Plenty of processes, software and organisations exist to measure environmental impact – ideally to bring transparency and rigour to corporate and social change, in order to ultimately avert catastrophic climate change. But these can sometimes feel far removed from climate action and even distract from tangible change.

Not to downplay measurement, it’s pretty essential. But if measuring an impact takes significant time and resource – and you have very limited ability to change it – is that always the best use of resources?

Small but meaningful

In the global climate effort, all emissions reductions – of any size – should be enthusiastically received. But as a very small core business, having rigorously explored the likely extent of our carbon impact, the detailed measurement we’ve been doing began to feel out of proportion to the further impact we’re able to achieve.

Our emissions are small and most of the systems for thorough emissions measurement are designed, understandably, for bigger emitters.

On the one hand, we could leave it there – we’re too small and accurate measurement of emissions is disproportionately costly.

On the other hand though, we wondered, can the impact you create – beyond what you can easily measure – be just as meaningful?

We believe so. That’s why we’re changing our approach to our impact reporting.

A more proportionate approach to Scope 3

Our 2025 impact report contains a measure of our Core Emissions using standard emissions factors – without disproportionate cost and time for measurement. Rather than ignoring the rest of our possible emissions we’re treating those as Other Scope 3. Scope 3 is the most varied and broad category of emissions – and arguably hardest to measure accurately – including your supply chain, business travel, use of sold products, hotel stays and digital activity.

For us, having reduced all non-essential areas as far as possible, Other Scope 3 covers the small emissions from our events, such as Firelight, and parts of our digital footprint – areas where the cost and effort of precise measurement far outweigh our ability to meaningfully influence the outcome.

Going forward, we won’t measure these year-on-year in the same way as our Core Emissions, though we will still act to reduce them.

This measurement change will free up time and resources that we can put into positive, real-world impact. This includes supporting client projects that help reduce environmental and social impact beyond our own footprint and activities. And direct financial support for environmental restoration that removes carbon from the atmosphere over time.

What this means in practice

Last year, our Core Emissions were similar to the year before. Reducing emissions from a low base can be difficult but we have made some organisational changes in 2026 that will reduce parts of our Core Emissions during this year, helping put us back on target to reduce emissions by 9% each year.

Our Other Scope 3 emissions are higher than before as we have included the small level of generative AI use from some of the team. It’s early days in understanding the true extent of its impact, but there is no question that generative AI at scale is data- and energy-intensive. A single user might account for minimal emissions – but training models and scaling usage to millions is a growing problem.

For us, as a small business, we believe you can be part of growing problems for the world – socially or environmentally – or you can be part of the solutions to make the world better. Acknowledging that, and being transparent about where you sit on that spectrum, is as important as accurate measurement.

To put a price on carbon and remove discretion from donation levels, for 2025 we’ve used the European Emissions Trading Scheme figure for tonnes of carbon to price our emissions impact – both Core and Other Scope 3 – and we’ve donated that amount to Plant One.

We support Plant One because they’re creating new wildlife-rich habitats that have the potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere long term. That doesn’t offset our emissions, but it does turn a small negative impact into positive change.

Recently, Plant One have been replanting trees damaged during storms that swept through the south west earlier this year and are now embarking on an ambitious plan for temperate rainforest restoration through the No Trees, No Seas campaign.

Those are changes we can see and feel, at sites across our home county of Cornwall.

Going forward we’re focusing on supporting projects like this and exploring new areas of positive impact we can affect as a business, while keeping emissions low and measurement meaningful.

Find out more about what we’ve been doing:

Read the Stranger Collective Impact Report 2025

Do writers need editors? Do dogs need walks? Do fish need bicycles?

You’re probably thinking, ‘Duh, obviously.’ Me too. (Well, maybe not the third one—that’s ridiculous!). Which is why I was slightly sceptical about a panel discussion set on answering the awkward question: Do writers need editors?

I bow down before The Chicago Manual of Style. I harbour a fondness for each and every one of the peculiarly twirling proofreading symbols. I heart Hart’s Rules.

My reservation about the event was that it might be a debate about the de-professionalising of an industry (publishing) in the face of the digital self-publishing phenomenon.

‘How do you know when you’ve finished editing the text?’ Resoundingly, the editors answered: ‘When you’ve used up the budget, run out of time or done all you can reasonably do by the deadline.’

As it turned out, the panel (editor Dr Susan Greenberg, author Courttia Newland, agent Carole Blake and critic Anita Sethi) did touch on how the digital age has changed the editing process, but, to my relief, the evening had more of an anecdotal than digital hue.

Susan Greenberg spoke about the characters who inhabit her book Editors Talk About Editing, who she interviewed in order to determine how much editors across different publishing platforms and formats have in common.

For instance, she asked, ‘How do you know when you’ve finished editing the text?’ Resoundingly, the editors answered: ‘When you’ve used up the budget, run out of time or done all you can reasonably do by the deadline’.

But it was the plight of the writer, as recounted by novelist Courttia Newland, that I found most revealing:

“I found out the hard way. I had no idea about writing. I met someone who became my mentor. He gave me a computer because mine was broken and said, ‘Go and tell this story’. I had the first draft of a book and it was 740 pages! My mentor went through it with a red pen and I was livid. I got into a big slanging match. I said, I’m never coming back. I’ll write this book on my own!'”

“Then I saw his comments and I was like, Oh. I could just see it. Yeah, I see how that works. Then I had to get on the phone and call him and say, Sorry. Can I come back? I’ve still got that manuscript with the red pen marks. After that, I got it down to 347 pages. And it was a much better book. It makes me laugh now, how upset you get. I felt brutalised and victimised. But I know not to open my mouth now.”

I was rapt by Courttia’s account of editing. This loss, this sense of injustice! As a writer and researcher, I have felt his pain keenly. As an editor and lecturer, I have (seemingly) critiqued cruelly. But of necessity. Half-formed thinking must be cut and bad sentences culled.

I too am a murderer. But as William Faulkner said, ‘In writing, you must kill your darlings.’ Even if, as Stephen King added, ‘It breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart.’

So why is this hyperbolic language so fitting? Because sometimes we fall in love with our words, our phrases, our wit, alliteration, allusions, amplifications and malapropisms. We quietly delight in our wordy creations and consequently grieve their passing.

Clearly, this writing lark isn’t for the fainthearted. As poet and editor Kathryn Gray put it, “Writers need to cultivate a habit, post-raw-text, of mature emotional detachment. Hard, but not always impossible.”

Susan Greenberg spoke about the need for editors to be “emotionally intelligent”, quoting from her book: “You’re telling people all the time that they’re going to have to do a shitload more work and then trying to make them excited about it.”

“You’re telling people all the time that they’re going to have to do a shitload more work and then trying to make them excited about it.”

The mark of a great editor, then, lies in the ability to be diplomatic when necessary and constructively critical. To eke out the best in a crestfallen creative and to mentor and energise. All this and, of course, x-ray eyes that are able to spot a dud sentence from a mile off.

My own internal editorial mottos are more Greenberg than Faulkner: ‘If in doubt, cut it out’ and ‘get rid’. The first is particularly helpful when guarding against florid pomp and the second is all about the process. Don’t let work sit on your desk undone. If you can’t do it, delegate. If you must do it, do it then pass it on or up to the next stage. Otherwise, deadlines will slip and the world as we know it will soon fall into a state of rack and ruin.

Editors are stereotypically viewed as introverted pedants who find confidence in the rigour of rules. Despite the disarming demands of social media for authors today, the idea of writers hasn’t altered significantly from the literary archetype of the Romantic Hero in flux.

So do writers need editors? What this panel discussion did really well was to show that the writer must be a great editor to be a really good writer. By embracing this schizophrenic self, their best writing can be beaten into something better. Something worth reading.

The clock’s ticking. You play awkwardly with your pen, waiting for the spark to come. Words, ideas, banter are bandied, bounced and grappled around. Like a crossword puzzle, the last wrong answer sticks in your head. Your phone rings. “I better take this…” Phew. What a relief.

We’ve all been there. Whatever your job, chances are ‘brainstorms’ are a regular part of working life. At Stranger Collective, they usually feature a few times a week – whether sitting around a big table like the ‘good old days’, or plugged into Zoom, staring awkwardly into the screen and your own bad hair. But recently I’ve been thinking how we, like organisations the length and breadth of the land, might just be going about it wrong.

Listening to some excellent speakers at various events over the years has set off a tornado of new ideas in my head. One that really stuck is how we can think differently about thinking differently.

And it starts with blowing a few brainstorming myths out of the water:

Myth 1: Get everyone together and great ideas will emerge

This may be the most common approach to brainstorming, but it can actually be reductive, says content strategist Emma Dunn. The characteristics and relationships of the people in the room (or on the call) can completely shape what comes out. She explains that often there are a couple of ‘egos’ who are more vocal about their ideas, and, on the other end of the spectrum, introverts who might have great ideas but aren’t as comfortable putting them out there. A group can easily become fixated on a couple of dominant personalities or ideas, without giving enough opportunity for other ideas and perspectives to see the light of day.

So instead of all sitting around a table or video call for an hour or three, she recommends bringing people together for a quick 10-15 minute briefing session then everyone going away and thinking of ideas individually. When everyone has had the chance to give it the consideration it deserves on their own, bring all the ideas back to the group and work together to develop into “awesomeness”. Group power is invaluable for shaping and fine-tuning ideas, but individual thinking time first is invaluable for bringing the best range of ideas to the table in the first place.

And remember the old adage: “We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

“It’s not that people are creative or not, it’s the act of creating that’s important. Creativity is not a thing, it’s about establishing the psychological and social permission to create.”

Myth 2: Some people are more creative than others

Rubbish! Studies show that the right – v – left side of the brain theories are a myth, says Dunn. Everyone has the ability to be creative – we just need to be in a context that stimulates it.

“The term ‘creativity’ is so overused,” says Steve Chapman, trainer, ‘Chief Adventurer’ and author of the excellent Can Scorpions Smoke? “It’s not that people are creative or not, it’s the act of creating that’s important. Creativity is not a thing, it’s about establishing the psychological and social permission to create.” It’s amazing how social anxiety and working dynamics can affect how people conceive and express ideas, he explains. It’s usually more about conscious or unconscious self-censoring than whether someone has the ability to come up with a good idea. “All you need is now,” he says. “It’s about your psyche, the other people in the room and the permission to let your minds roam freely.”

As an example of what this ‘permission’ means, I’ve seen Steve divide a room of 120 people into two. One side, he tells us, is a teenage boy and the other a teenage girl. We have to have a conversation with each other, without discussing with the rest of our group what we’re going to say… and see what comes out. All under the proviso that it’s impossible to get it wrong. Unsurprisingly, the first attempts are fractured and confusing. Steve tells us to slow right down and start making a loose noise, then shape as we hear what’s coming out of the crowd. The more we slow down, listen and use our instincts without thinking about what would be the logical answer or trying to second-guess what others might say, the more we speak as one. And, he tells us, it’s because we have the permission to just try it, without worrying about what comes out and whether or not it’s right.

Myth 3: Focus on being relevant and getting it right

This is one of the biggest barriers to creative thinking. “We need to get rid of the fear of being mad, bad and wrong,” says Chapman. “The most important thing is letting the ideas flow, without evaluating them or tweaking them to make them sane, good and right.”

We should strive to keep the creative and analytical phases very separate, and avoid editing and rejecting ideas as we go. “Say yes (to the mess)” is one of Steve’s mantras, because “’No’ is the language of safety and certainty, while ‘Yes’ is the language of adventure and creativity. ‘No’ kills the children of ideas.” If we reject an idea, it stops us thinking or talking about it and denies any more ideas that might have come from it the chance to exist. So we mustn’t underestimate the importance of free association, tangents, randomness and irrelevance, because we never know where they could lead, given the chance. Open the floodgates – and tidy up later. “It’s not always about learning new skills,” says Chapman. “Letting go of old habits is just as important.”

“’No’ is the language of safety and certainty, while ‘Yes’ is the language of adventure and creativity. ‘No’ kills the children of ideas.”

Creative content consultant Mark Johnstone talks about the importance of getting all your thoughts and ideas down on paper – whether it’s Post-Its, notebooks or on the wall all around you – however random or ridiculous they may at first seem. “If you get them out, then it frees up your mind to start looking for interesting connections.” Because, ultimately, the best ideas are “a novel combination of previously unconnected elements in a way that adds value”.

Myth 4: Try to think ‘outside the box’

One of our most common mistakes is trying too hard, says Chapman. So he encourages us to “Be obvious, be altered.” It’s basically the opposite of trying to be clever. “As soon as you try, you can’t do it. So try to be obvious, it’s amazing what you can do. What’s obvious to you might be original to someone else. And be changed by each other – adjust your thoughts, processes and intentions in response to other people. Brainstorming isn’t about having one idea after another – often we need to sit with ideas for longer to see where it might lead. It’s not about thinking outside the box; let’s look in the box more.”

Myth 5: Start with the product

No. Start with the people who might use it. Who are they? What makes them happy? What makes them mad? What do they really care about? Chances are, it’s not your product – so find the thing they do want to talk about, then a credible way of connecting it to your product.

Often, the powerful product truth isn’t directly about the product itself, Johnstone reminds us. For example, Red Bull didn’t decide to focus its message on caffeinated drinks – it built its brand around the idea of pushing you beyond natural limits. That’s how they got to the captivating ‘Red Bull gives you wings’ instead of something like ‘Fizzy drink that helps wake you up’. Too often, marketers think ideas will only work if they stick closely to the product itself – missing the opportunity for an idea that will really stand out and stick.

“People value experiences, not marketing,” says Georgia Malden, senior consultant at Contagious. “So think about the experiences you can create.”

“New inventions aren’t going to create a new idea. Getting a great idea is more important than all the technology in the world.”

Myth 6: Think of ideas that can use new technologies to stand out

“Behaviours are more important than bandwagons,” says Malden. “Don’t just try to come up with an idea for a snazzy campaign you could do using the very latest tech, just because it’s there and it’s new. Think about people; think long and hard about what they really want, how they live, then how you can create a new and amazing experience for them. And if technology can help you, that’s great – but it shouldn’t be the starting point. The idea always has to come first.”

To underline this point, she quotes advertising legend Bill Bernbach: “New inventions aren’t going to create a new idea. Getting a great idea is more important than all the technology in the world.” The pace of technological change since he said this almost 70 years ago is truly mindboggling, but the relevance still rings true: all great innovations start with an even better idea.

I’m off to sharpen my pencil.

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Your perfect break, discover and book it on the device that tells you how to find the hotel, translates your menu and captures your memories with a rose-tinted filter. This is the power of the smartphone over our travel experiences, but does it have to determine how brands do travel content?

Control of the holiday narrative, once owned by a travel agent, select travel writers and publishers, has long since proliferated. Hotels have launched TV stations, airlines have curated and created enough online content to sustain any departure lounge wait, and influencers have made a business from a stopover and share approach.

On the most aspirationally visual of the social media platforms, Instagrammers design their entire holiday around a hashtag, while TikTokers search for a first-hand feel for their desired destination.

The device-to-destination effect

The pulling power and influence of digital platforms for travel hasn’t been without a negative fallout, from property market distortion to travel excess.

Shortly after Airbnb filed its IPO to list on the US stock market – 13 years after the digital holiday lettings business was founded – one of its founders reflected on the problems its business model had created. In an interview with Monocle 24 radio (of Monocle magazine) CEO Brian Chesky said “Travellers going to a community is not bad. What we want is to not have everyone flood one city.”

Over-tourism is closely associated with huge growth in Airbnb, and Instagram, where the fear of missing out (FOMO) associated with social media groundswells drives up visitor numbers to unprecedented levels.

Then there’s the tourist spots that have suffered the terror of TripAdvisor. Subjective and selective reviews through to sponsored positive posts distorting the picture. Anyone can review a restaurant or hotel bar right there, on the spot, but does that mean you can trust what you read? Or, do you care what someone else happened to think of the furniture and quality of the highchairs?

When the travel media production unit, the smartphone, is all powerful, where digital platforms pull in the guests, where is the opportunity for travel brands as publishers?

Counter currents

The transformation of travel by the internet and its devices isn’t immovable or unshakeable. Witness what happened to over-tourism in 2020 as world travel was restricted during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to the staycation surge: travel went local. Such moments create new challenges and opportunities, at the same time as the megatrends press on.

What’s borne out through the long-run changes and shorter-term pressures, is the connection and authenticity brands can build with their audience.

Even with the apparent dominance of social media in recent years, emails haven’t gone anywhere, and remain a valid channel to cut through in a digitally saturated society.

When it comes to the publishing platforms, it hasn’t all been about online. For the captive audience, on-train or in-flight print publications have lasting appeal. The same can be said for at least some travel books.

In her 2021 Guardian article, The travel guidebooks we still love, Lois Pryce quotes Bryn Thomas, founder of Trailblazer Guides, David Mantero at Stanfords bookshop and Andrew Dawson of the Wainwright Society. All concluded that the continued appeal of titles such as The Trans-Siberian Handbook, Japan by Rail and the seven-volume Pictorial Guide to The Lakeland Fells was down to a mixture of authenticity, trust, “authorial voice”, storytelling and inspiration.

It’s a reminder that it’s what you say that really counts and resonates, rather than the platform you’re on. It also points to the success of being specific, or finding your niche.

What the examples above have in common is that they’re sharing expertise on a specific place or journey. That’s value worth paying for, which isn’t so easy to come by.

There’s no doubt some specific info is best served real-time, on demand, like the cross-border train connection times, or the opening times for that temporary exhibition.

Inspiring stories and trustworthy retelling may be best found elsewhere.

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