Dear Reader,
From West African mammies to what might be the world's most powerful silent keynote, this week's stories demonstrate how advertising can be a force for good and why one social media platform is so desperate to silence the author of a whistleblower book that she was forced to take the stage at a major conference NOT to speak. Also this week, some fascinating trend research around why the world has been steadily losing its color and a few bonus stories about retro products, the truth about brain freezes and a redesign of one of the world's most iconic chairs.
Enjoy the stories and stay curious!
Rohit
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The World Is Losing Its Color
This is the definition of a macrotrend - our modern world has steadily been losing color over the past several decades. As culture writer Spencer Hardwick notes:
"This trend has been noticed across a large swath of industries such as automobiles, interior design, fashion, makeup, storefronts, and films ... recently, in interior design, a turn to Minimalism and Modernism has occurred. This switch may be kickstarting the switch tom neutral colors. Gray represents pure material of steel and concrete, a key facet of modernism."
This adoption of a more neutral color palette has perhaps been accelerated by the "sleek gray" vibe of expensive devices combined with an everyday focus on the mundanity of resale value (especially for cars and houses) rather than prioritizing the expression of personality. It turns out this isn't just an anecdotal observation.
In 2020, researchers at the UK’s Science Museum Group "analyzed the colors in over 7,000 photographs of everyday objects in their collection dating from 1800 to the present day" and uncovered that from about 1900 onwards the color palette of these objects grew progressively more gray and less diverse.
For some historians, this phenomenon is an example of cultural imperialism where "the perceived loss of color and character in modern design could be seen as a manifestation of the cultural transformations brought by the spread of Western cultural influence."
More than anything else, most cultural critics observing this shift lament the symbolism it carries. A world where people are afraid to live in full color through the colors they wear, the cars they drive or the homes they inhabit is one where our individualism is slowly eroding in favor of a blander existence.
The Most Powerful Silent Keynote In History
This past week at the Hay Festival, author Sarah Wynn-Williams was invited to keynote and then sat in her chair and didn't say a word. It wasn't her choice, but rather in response to her lawyers advising her not to speak "because of ongoing legal action brought by Meta." For avid readers of this newsletter, you may remember a few months ago I had profiled her book Careless People and also selected it as a winner in last year's Non-Obvious Book Awards.
The book is a masterpiece of corporate whistleblowing, told from the perspective of someone who was in the room working alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg for nearly a decade. The stories she shares in the book are eye opening, shocking, believable and infuriating. It's no wonder Meta desperately wants to silence her.
The beautiful thing about this appearance, though, is what happened while Wynn-Williams just sat silently. Next to her, investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and academic Tim Wu had an entire conversation about her book and her work.
Introducing the panel, Cadwalladr said: “I think this might be a Hay first, in which we have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if [Mark] Zuckerberg is an asshole.”
At the end of the conversation, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation and the message to all conference-goers and anyone else reading the story of the appearance was clear. There are things Meta doesn't want you to know. They are true. And you can read about them in Careless People. If you didn't have enough reasons to buy and read this book before, this is the moment.
Can Communal Knowledge Be Automated?
In many countries across Central and West Africa, women known as "mammies" are a fixture at local markets, selling food to families in open air markets. The process to become a mammie isn't so easy:
"Becoming a successful market trader takes years of hard-won experience: learning to price correctly, manage stock, control portions, and maintain cash flow. For younger women entering the trade, that learning curve is steep, and low literacy levels and limited internet access make it steeper."
In a new campaign from Nestle seasoning brand MAGGI, this knowledge is translated into an AI-powered business advisor trained on the expertise of experienced mammies who were interviewed in person and recorded offering insights and answers to commonly asked questions from new mammies. Without relying on computers or wi-fi access, the entire platform is delivered via a toll-free number anyone can call in their local language to get advice.
Aside from being a great idea, the brand tie-in is clear and not obscured. In many West African countries, 75% of the sales of Maggi's seasoning packets and other products depend on these mammies. As their brand video shares, MAGGI needs mammies just as much as mammies need MAGGI.
This may be the biggest insight from this rare advertising campaign that's actually doubling as a social enterprise supporting the community. Just because something is advertising and created by an ad agency, it doesn't have to be entirely self-serving or manipulative. Sometimes a great marketing idea can actually deliver life-changing impact.
Correction: Equestrian Olympics Story From Last Week ...
Last week several of you emailed to let me know that I had mischaracterized what was actually happening to Equestrian Jumping in the LA28 Olympics. Many story headlines were extremely misleading, so I mistakenly thought the event was being eliminated. To clarify, they are eliminating this event as one of the elements within the Modern Pentathlon ONLY and replacing it with a Ninja Warrior style obstacle course. Jumping WILL still be part of the separate Equestrian event at the Olympics.
