Hakubutsukanyoku
We're talking about "museum prescriptions", a YouTuber turned mayor of Lima, CEO newsletters, nudge marketing in transport or a bakery gone viral.
Hello there!
It's probably an effect of the good resolutions I made at the start of the year, but at the moment I've got a steady stream of shows. After Gad Elmaleh at the Dôme de Paris (timeless!), La prochaine fois que tu mordras la poussière with Vassili Schneider (impressive for carrying most of the play in monologue) and Cyrano with Edouard Baer (first time I've seen him in a real theatrical role, and that's a big yes), this weekend I tried out Jérémy Charbonnel's stand-up at the Point Virgule (also approved).
And I thought of you because, at the end, he came on stage with a kakemono and a giant QR code... pointing to a poll to get us to vote on THE sketch we liked best in the show and have a free field of feedback to give him. Clever!
In short, I'm going to try to continue sharing these kinds of discoveries with you on a regular basis (with - unoriginally! - a monthly dump of what's made me happy: good addresses, food, series, books...) on Instagram.
On that note, happy reading!
PS: you are reading the English version of newsletter. It also exists in French.
🫡 Kéliane — Mail / Instagram / Linkedin
The boom in museum prescriptions or how to cure ills with culture
In short - Have you heard of the "museum prescription"? It's an idea born in 2018 in Montreal, which consists of offering visits to museums, on prescription, to patients with physical or mental illnesses, who can come alone or accompanied and enjoy the exhibitions independently. The concept is now booming in Brussels, Montpellier, Rennes and the Yvelines.
Why it matters - Because the idea doesn't come out of nowhere: it stems froma British study carried out over 12 years, between 2002 and 2014, on a sample of 6,000 people, which showed that the mortality rate was lower among people who were able to visit a museum regularly. So the effects are real, particularly on blood pressure and stress. There's even a Japanese word for it: "hakubutsukanyoku", which literally means "bathing in the museum atmosphere". A Japanese museologist (the second word we've learned today) went on to measure the effects by conducting an experiment on 1,300 people, and he too noted a reduction in anxiety, fatigue and improved blood pressure. At a time when mental health is being challenged as much as ever, this opens up a whole new world of possibilities: the museologist imagines visits offered to teenagers suffering from depression, or an app that selects the most appropriate museum according to the person's mental state.
To go further - If we take this logic a step further, we could imagine experiments in gastronomy (Ézéchiel Zerah even devised a fun "gastronomic prescription" format for the 1st anniversary of his book "Marseille - Un jour sans faim!") or sport, both of which have proven benefits for mental and psychological health. We could also mention The Poetry Pharmacy in London, a 'poetry on prescription' bookshop, or the WWF campaign to raise awareness of mental health through prescriptions... in nature.
A YouTubeur becomes mayor of Lima for 1 hour
In short - This is the curious idea that came to the Peruvian capital's mayor when the American YouTuber IShowspeed (known on the Internet as Speed), who is currently in the middle of a round-the-world tour and takes advantage of every stop to meet his fans, was broadcasting a 7-hour live show in the streets of the city on his channel (34 million subscribers after all!).
Why it matters- It's a purely symbolic operation (and the influencer didn't seem to be a rocket scientist...) but I do like the logic of taking advantage of his visit to try and turn him into a real tourist ambassador. The mayor saw it as a real free marketing opportunity for his city - he went so far as to invite him, using his personal funds, to stay in Lima for a week (spoiler: the creator refused) - estimating that it would have cost the municipality 1 million dollars (!) to hope to reach Speed's audience.
→ See the mayor's explanations and the influencer'slive in the streets of Lima
When having a car delivered is as easy as having dinner delivered: the Getaround x Hello Fresh collab.
In short - Getaround, the private car hire platform, has launched a new service: you can now have this car delivered straight to your door. How do you promote it? Well, by showing that having a car delivered is as easy as having food delivered to your door! The idea? 1) Pretend to open a fast food restaurant, playing on the codes we're all used to 2) Partner with Hello Fresh, who already reach their target audience (busy urbanites, families wanting to avoid chores, etc.) and encourage them to try their service, with a flyer in their delivery box.
Why it matters - Because it can't be said often enough: being clear about your objective and your target audience is key. By going directly to Hello Fresh customers, Getaround is targeting its market directly: it's not ultra-innovative in itself, okay, but it's clever and effective (and that's what we're asking for!), by chopping up a use, turning it into a medium and managing to mix brand and perf'. In short, this is the kind of collaboration between brands that, in my opinion, should become more common, especially in a tight budgetary context where we need to find organic ways to emerge.
→ See the video of the fake fast food and the flyer in the Hello Fresh box
Use dog poo bags to clean up public areas
In short - What is the logic of having the reflex to pick up your dog's faeces ... but then walking quietly over plastic waste washed up on a beach? Why shouldn't we have the same reflex for our own human waste? With this in mind, Neil Walshe, an Australian creative director, has taken the design of the famous black "poo bags" and created "Human waste bags" with this provocative slogan to raise awareness of the scourge of plastic pollution: "it's time for humans to clean up their shit".
Why it matters - Because it's always clever to start with an object and design that's part of our everyday lives, and use it in a different way to raise questions. And because the designer has made the design open source... and sent it to all the elected representatives in the coastal towns of New South Wales, so that they can deploy them on their beaches.
→ See these famous human waste bags
Small talk, the POV podcast from three children
In a nutshell - Jorge Cuevas has launched Small Talk, a podcast-style series on Instagram... 100% between children, in which his three daughters, Zara, Billie and Margot, share their daily lives and their thoughts, through the prism of a very sweet child.
Why it's interesting - He explains that the idea for this format came from a desire to document "that really special and fleeting period of life with your children". It makes for refreshingly unfiltered and spontaneous (and with a Wes Anderson grit) signature content... which we'd really imagine would be great for a kid-friendly brand.
→ See a preview of the podcast
Demonstrating the urgency of climate change through the plate of the future
In short - During the last COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates pavilion presented Dinner in 2050, an interactive culinary experience where visitors gather around a table and have to speak into a microphone their favourite dish. An AI will analyse the ingredients of the dish and replace those with the highest carbon footprint with relevant alternatives specific to the Emirates' climate. For example, lamb is replaced with grasshoppers and millet (a drought-resistant cereal), broccoli with seaweed or beef with lab-grown meat.
Why it matters - The AI then visually projects the futuristic version of this dish onto a plate: a way of showing how climate change will alter our everyday culinary lives.
→ Watch the experiment on video
Bonus - A simple idea to get your bakery off the ground
This is the story of a bakery near Nice that decided to offer a baguette to every customer who came into the shop... while dancing. The result? For an average of 15 baguettes a day, the bakery has pulled off a clever, inexpensive publicity stunt that's sure to put a smile on anyone's face, and has even been featured on the 1pm news programme on France 2, with an Insta account that has now passed the 12k mark.
IT MAY SEEM LIKE A DETAIL TO YOU, BUT...
📰 La gazette des communicants - A group of creative people were given 5 days to come up with a visual identity for a communications competition at their school: the result is a stunning gazette.
🏃 Running for 24 hours to promote an album - More than 3,000 people gathered on site, a YouTube live stream with 170,000 simultaneous viewers... This is the sporting and artistic performance of Rilès, who ran for 24 hours in a row to promote the release of her album, Survival Mode.
📦 Targeting comedians - The Ramdam Social brand (which has often been mentioned here for its creative and clever communications operations) took advantage of the Fous rires festival in Bordeaux to send artists their products "to help them set the stage on fire", explaining in the process their solidarity mission (to donate part of the profits to charities). Bim: they spontaneously shared on their social networks.
✈️ What if you printed photos of your travels on your plane tickets? - It was something to think about, and the result is really cool and makes it possible to keep a personal record. A good idea for an activation or partnership for a player in the travel industry...
👩💻 Making the most of dead links - The use of inclusive writing online creates hundreds of URLs every day... that lead nowhere. So a Canadian charity has bought them up to get more women into tech.
💌 CEO newsletter - Lisa Gachet, the founder of Make My Lemonade, is (re)launching Boss with Me, a newsletter in which she shares her daily life as a business leader, behind the scenes of creating a collection and the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship. The 1st issue is promising (and I'm convinced that there's a real opportunity for managers who take up this format...).
🤔 How do you stop people leaning against tram doors - that was the brief received by this agency. Their idea? To use visuals of cacti. Simple, basic.
🚌 Nudge marketing in public transport - Light temperature, sound design, colour of metal bars, texture of seats... France Culture has dug into the impact of design on user behaviour (and on territorial marketing) and it's fascinating.
🤓 Questions pour un champion in the RER - For a year now, Luka Ropa has been organising filmed happenings inspired by the TV game show on Parisian transport systems, with videos that can reach up to 1.7 million views on TikTok. We hope that RATP has offered him a partnership...
🌳 When billboards play with the urban environment - In India, Britannia has come up with a poster campaign that plays with nature, with billboards that bend and curve around urban trees... to talk about Britannia's commitment to sustainable development. I really like the way the agency tells this case study.
🎯 Promoting a newsletter in book boxes - This is the very clever move of my friend Diane, who writes Chapitre: she designed a pretty bookmark promoting her newsletter and went to place it in book boxes... targeting her audience where she is.
🎾 A brand world imagined thanks to AI - A creative has projected what a Lacoste country club could look like. It is indeed hot.
That's all for today! See you on Tuesday 4 March for the next issue!
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