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Even after a decade of working for myself, promoting my work still feels awkward and unnatural to me. I always disliked the methods of conventional marketing: the clichéd language, the fluffy stories, the pushy ‘call to action’, the predictable format of every landing page.
My usual excuse is my cultural background – Germans tend to deflect praise, downsell, undervalue. We’re uncomfortable sellers. (Maybe it’s the privilege?) And since I’m stereotyping, my US American friends usually tell me that marketing is an honourable service because it’s about “enriching customers’ lives with products that enlarge them” or something like that. I remain unconvinced.
I often get asked how I managed to find a sustainable readership for Offscreen, and my answer is usually rather vague: focus on quality, stay consistent, aim for 1000 True Fans. I always liked projects that I could relate to, so one of my tactics was to make it personal. Put a face on it. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. One of Offscreen’s best-performing emails was an 800-word rant about how difficult it was to finish that particular issue.
I never really knew how to summarise my marketing strategy attitude towards promoting, until I recently came across Rob Hardy’s post on ‘Non-Coercive Marketing’. As I read through his introduction, I finally felt as if someone managed to put my sales-averse approach into a cohesive concept worth sharing.
“Non-coercive marketing is a leap of faith, rooted in the idea that if you stop trying to control people, and encourage them to be their own authority, you can build positive sum relationships that lead to organic and mutually-enriching transactions. This relational shift is also at the heart of how we begin healing the emotional wounds lying beneath humanity’s many problems. ...
Non-coercive marketing is about radical honesty. It’s about being courageous enough to say what’s true, even if it’s unpopular, unflattering, or dredges up insecurities. It’s about leaning into full authenticity and openness, because that’s how you stand out, find the others, and build deep relationships in a world where most marketing is inauthentic performance art.”
If it sounds ambitious and idealistic, it’s because Non-Coercive Marketing is not an instruction manual for sales people. It’s a way of looking at yourself and others; it’s a trade philosophy.
I have yet to dive deeper into Hardy’s writing (there is quite a lot on his website that doesn’t require any payment or other commitment) but I’m glad I now have a source I can send to all my co-conspirators who are equally annoyed – bordering offended – by the uninspired uniformity of the marketing world that sees people as mere blips on their sales dashboard. – Kai
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In today’s world of high stress, ample pollution and fast’n’easy meals, most people would benefit from offering their detoxification systems more support. Nutritional biochemist Dr Libby Weaver (PhD) has created a carefully designed course to help you understand how your body naturally detoxifies substances and how you can best support this process. Sign up for the next intake here.
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Apps & Sites
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Evidence-based search results
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An interesting new search engine that claims to crawl peer-reviewed, published scientific sources to give you evidence-based answers to your search queries. Not sure how reliable the results really are.
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TinyKiwi is a simple, fast editing tool to polish screenshots, create blog post covers and size-appropriate social media assets.
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A brilliant name for a fun project that made me chuckle: “Display your design into bad conditions. Because the world isn’t as perfect as many mockups pretend.”
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What a great initiative: a network and advocacy group that first teaches you how to optimise your climate action impact and then connects you with industry leaders and other climate-focused organisations. “Our free on-ramp helps you learn about climate tech and connect with companies decarbonizing the world that could use your help. Anyone can now join our network year-round to access resources and get more involved with the climate tech community.”
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Mini Interview with Brynn O’Brien
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Brynn O’Brien is the Executive Director of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR). In her role at the ACCR, she engages with companies and their investors on environmental, social and governance performance and holds Australian companies accountable for their adverse impacts.
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Depending on who you ask, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is described as a game-changer for capitalism or as simply more greenwashing. How should the average person think about CSR?
I think they should ignore the CSR label and glossy statements, and look at the outcomes. All those corporate commitments on climate change, for example, might give people the idea that we have this emissions thing under control. Well, I’m sorry to inform your readers that real world emissions are still going up. It’s infuriating that major emitters get away with greenwashing, enabled by armies of lawyers, financiers, auditors, PR firms and CSR consultants.
Can you briefly explain what shareholder activism is and how it works?
Listed companies are essentially participatory democracies, where each share comes with voting and other rights. Shareholder activism is where shareholders use those rights in a strategic way to achieve an outcome. ACCR is basically a ‘club’ that helps shareholders – small and large – to use their rights effectively.
What are some recent successes you had in your work with the ACCR?
Last year, we convinced a majority of shareholders of AGL (Australia’s biggest corporate emitter) to vote for the company to publish plans to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement. This year, we played a role in blocking AGL’s demerger. Our community has played a long game on AGL, which I’m confident will contribute to the early closure of AGL’s remaining coal-fired power stations.
Are you aware of other organisations, specifically in the US and the EU, that are doing similar work and you’d recommend getting involved in?
In the UK, Share Action; across a bunch of markets, Follow This; in the US, Majority Action and As You Sow; in South Africa, Just Share.
What makes you hopeful that global companies contributing most to the climate crisis will change their ways and/or be held to account?
Some major institutional investors are starting to take much more effective action, often in collaboration with organisations like us. This year, with investors that have $3 trillion USD (!) under management, we worked to put pressure on a handful of heavy-emitting, major Japanese companies. Collaboration is the thing I find most hopeful and most exciting right now.
(Did you know? Friends of DD can respond to and engage with guest contributors like Brynn O’Brien in one click.)
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Books & Accessories
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Resistance, resilience and collective power
In this short book, human rights lawyer and environmental activist Julian Aguon from the pacific island of Guam collects stories, poems and speeches linked to his personal experience with pressing global issues concerning family, climate change, love of land, pain, grief and, ultimately, justice. “Deploying the feminist insight that the personal is political, The Properties of Perpetual Light illuminates a path for others to confront injustice, to find their way, and to ‘write as if everything they love is on the line.’”
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A life beyond the clock
Seeing that Jenny Odell has a new book coming out early next year makes me so very excited. After her bestseller How to Do Nothing, which offered an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism (see also our interview in Offscreen #22), Odell now examines our understanding of time and why it is so tightly interwoven with notions of productivity and profit. “Explaining how we got to the point where time became money, Odell offers us new models to live by – inspired by pre-industrial cultures, ecological, and geological time – that make a more humane, more hopeful way of living seem possible.”
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Overheard on Twitter
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Regret is a sign of progress. If you look back at your past self and see a fool, congratulations: you’ve grown.
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Food for Thought
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I talk about this piece in my intro: a really enjoyable summary not of specific marketing techniques, but of the mindset required to promote your work in a genuinely caring, non-intrusive way. “Trust others fully. Trust them to encounter your truth and be able to evaluate it for themselves. Trust them to make empowered decisions for themselves without an ounce of emotional coercion or manipulation. And trust that ditching the need to control and manage everything can indeed get you more of what you want in both your business, and your life.”
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Ezra Klein on Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, concluding that the internet must be taken more seriously as a behaviour-shaping, attention-consuming medium that’s fundamentally reworking the way we think. “McLuhan’s view is that mediums matter more than content; it’s the common rules that govern all creation and consumption across a medium that change people and society. Oral culture teaches us to think one way, written culture another. Television turned everything into entertainment, and social media taught us to think with the crowd.” (Possible soft paywall)
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A fun, short read about a Dutch traffic engineer that dismantled traffic lights, stop signs, speed bumps and warning signs to let traffic roam free – with surprising results. “His assumption was that when people feel insecure, they’re more attentive, patient, and alert – a voluntary behavioral change. It sounds like a recipe for Lusitania-quality catastrophe, with random C/D editors using the clear intersections as skidpads. (We would.) Instead, the intersections promoted a more efficient flow of cars, buses spent less time waiting, startup times were slashed, and accidents both declined and were less severe. ‘Who has the right of way?’ Monderman rhetorically asked. ‘I don’t care. People here have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves, use their brains.’”
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Aesthetically Pleasing
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In the series SGN, photographer Noritaka Minami captures convoluted electricity poles found on various street corners of Vietnam.
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The Concealed Refuge is proof that you can build a small-footprint home (just 85-square-metres of living space) while still making it feel spacious with an almost sculptural appeal. Like many of my favourite projects, simple, honest materials such as concrete, timber and metal give it a reclusive and calm feeling.
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If you’re into typography, German publisher Slanted just released the 464-page Yearbook of Type, a selection of new typefaces created all over the world – from larger publishers to smaller, independent typographers and foundries. Friends of DD enjoy a 10% discount.
Become a Friend to access specials like this.
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I love Valizas’ unique and cheerful expression, with a generous x-height that makes her personality pop even more. Available as a variable font.
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Notable Numbers
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NASA’s recent mission marked humanity’s first ever attempt at moving an asteroid in space. In its last moments, the spacecraft sent back a series of photographs of the asteroid, Dimorphos, as it approached at more than 22,000 km/h (14,000 mph).
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Indian auto maker Tata Motors launched the country’s lowest priced electric car at a little over $10,000. The bulk of cars sold in India, the world’s fourth-largest car market, are priced below $15,000.
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Money spent on broadcast, cable, streaming and digital platforms to sway voters ahead of the US midterm elections in November is on track to more than double from the last midterm elections to now $9.7 billion.
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Classifieds
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The Week in a GIF
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Reply or tweet at DD with your favourite GIF and it might get featured here in a future issue.
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