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Bright Objects

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ICP: finding your perfect match

ICP: finding your perfect match

Don’t get distracted from your ICP I had an epiphany in my late thirties, which transformed my life and changed how I saw the world. This epiphany is also vital for business and marketing: "I am not for everybody, and everybody is not for me." - Dave Hayward (way too...

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3 ideas to counter decision fatigue 

3 ideas to counter decision fatigue 

On decision fatigue: "Good decision making is not a trait of the person, in the sense that it's always there. It's a state that fluctuates." Roy Baumeister One late Spring in the 90s, my cousin Trish and I had exams. We had plenty of time and a great space to study....

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Late bloomers and decision-makers

Late bloomers and decision-makers

How to make peace with arbitrary choices and create meaning anyway “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by,And that has made all the difference.” It’s hard to beat the final lines of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. It’s also, famously,...

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AI agents demystified by Nadia Ellis of Curiosity

AI agents demystified by Nadia Ellis of Curiosity

Time to stop worrying and start building your hive of AI agents When I first started thinking seriously about AI agents, I felt the same way I did when I first encountered AI. Too technical. Too complex. A little too much time upfront. I’m fortunate to be surrounded...

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How persuasion works (and how it doesn’t)

How persuasion works (and how it doesn’t)

Persuasion and perseverance One of the hardest jobs I ever had was selling coffee in London. In my twenties, I started at a brand new company with no established customer base. Armed with a London A to Z street map, a newly bought suit, and some business cards, I...

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3 unglamorous ways AI can improve growth and efficiency

3 unglamorous ways AI can improve growth and efficiency

3 practical ways AI can improve growth and efficiency for SMEs Relatively low cost access to AI makes things easier for SME businesses, but for the ones benefiting the most, it’s not in the ways you might think. That's because the zone is being flooded by frothy...

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The origin story of Europa Creative Partners

The origin story of Europa Creative Partners

A bright object. A mystery wrapped in an enigma. That’s what we’re looking for in marketing and brand. It just so happens that it also describes my favourite moon in the solar system…. And the name of Europa Creative Partners (and our newsletter, Bright Objects). The...

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5 AI tools to make your SME a big deal

5 AI tools to make your SME a big deal

Like Festivus, it’s AI tools for the rest of us. Running an SME does not mean you have a shortage of decisions. Now, it turns out you've got to keep abreast of all the AI tools you must choose. We thought exploring five areas in which AI can help with off-the-shelf...

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I was taught by a great painter. Here’s what I learned.

I was taught by a great painter. Here’s what I learned.

The tension between structure and magic makes successful creative You may not know this about me, but I trained as an artist and am a painter (although I don’t get to practice much these days). One of my sketches is the header image of this article (no AI here!)....

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5 ways to accelerate your B2B content strategy

5 ways to accelerate your B2B content strategy

B2B content strategy is the key to successful, sustainable sales pipelines, but it can feel like a lot of hard work and a bit fruitless, especially at the beginning. There is no shortcut to the hard work aspect, but there are five concepts that, if implemented, will...

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3 ideas (and 5 steps) to syncronise sales and marketing

3 ideas (and 5 steps) to syncronise sales and marketing

Sales and marketing teams can be like the Lennon and McCartney of your business. When there is a healthy tension between them, magic happens. If they go in different directions, you can choose a best-forgotten solo Beatles album from the seventies to supply the...

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Founder-led marketing is on the rise

Founder-led marketing is on the rise

Founder-led marketing is having a moment. Even at some of the world's largest brands, previously mousey principals have undergone sudden glow-ups (sometimes using AI to make themselves look swol), talked on podcasts, and been relatable on LinkedIn. While this isn't...

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Top 5 articles of 2024

Top 5 articles of 2024

Our most popular reads from 2024 In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose" – "the more things change, the more they stay the same”. When I reviewed our best work from 2024, I noticed an unintended underlying...

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

We did not want to miss our moment to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all. As we hurtle towards the year's end, I find myself caught between two competing impulses: desperately wanting an extra week to wrap up our work, and simultaneously, I can’t wait to get into the...

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3 AI personas to transform your workflow

3 AI personas to transform your workflow

Imagine producing work that is 40% higher quality. In his visit to New Zealand earlier in the year, Section's Greg Shove described the concept of "AI personas": a way of thinking about how AI works and what kind of use cases it can be applied to. Matt Martel of...

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Vanity or valuable? Marketing metrics that matter

Vanity or valuable? Marketing metrics that matter

Which metrics matter? “What metrics do we measure? How do we measure ROI?” These are two of the most common questions in initial client engagements. I do not answer each question or client the same way, but every answer I give includes the word “depends.” It’s easy to...

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Anyone who says they’re an AI expert is lying

Anyone who says they’re an AI expert is lying

Some of the brightest brains in tech are not AI experts yet. I left Spark Accelerate last week with my head hurting from trying to retain all the information generated by the incredible speakers and content. One of the standouts was Edmundo Ortega’s keynote, “An...

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What we talk about when we talk about AI

What we talk about when we talk about AI

Is it possible to write with AI and maintain an honest voice? Everywhere I look, I can see gluggy writing flooding every orifice of the internet. It’s instantly recognisable as produced and posted by unedited generative AI. Generative AI is amazingly good at writing,...

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Older professionals have the edge with AI

Older professionals have the edge with AI

“If I don’t get my arms around AI as a late 40s marketer, I am cooked.” Those words I said to a colleague when I understood the technology meaningfully. My view now is that there’s a hidden advantage for older professionals, particularly those who have honed our...

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I hallucinate more than AI does

I hallucinate more than AI does

Hallucination is an old term for a new concept. I first heard the term “hallucination” used in connection with AI during a presentation we organised earlier this year with Greg Shove, CEO of Section, hosted by Journey. Greg explained it (and reiterated in Professor...

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Marketing: going on attack, even when conditions are tough

Marketing: going on attack, even when conditions are tough

Marketing and cricket analogy klaxon "Doubt kills more ideas than failure ever did" Brendon "Baz" McCallum, former captain of the New Zealand Black Caps and current head coach of the England team, didn’t invent the phrase, but he lives by it. It underpins the...

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On starting again

On starting again

There’s a wonderful purity in starting again. "It's about letting things go so you can get what you want." Bert Cooper from Mad Men was talking about account management, but he could easily have been referring to that moment when you realise it’s time to return to the...

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Digital Marketing Conference (DigiMarCon) – recap, Day 2

Digital Marketing Conference (DigiMarCon) – recap, Day 2

The final day of DigiMarCon was notable in its focus on actionable, technical, and platform-specific insights. Like Day 1, we were blessed with deep domain experts who matched strategic vision with actual how-tos. It was “inside baseball” for digital marketers, with...

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Digital Marketing Conference (DigiMarCon) – recap, Day 1

Digital Marketing Conference (DigiMarCon) – recap, Day 1

In August, I spent two days with intensely bright people discussing digital marketing at DigiMarCon. COVID struck some key talent, so I became emcee at short notice. It was an honour to introduce so many great speakers. Here, in brief, is what was discussed on Day 1:...

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