Content, Curated. – Issue #10

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Welcome to issue #10 of Content, Curated., and the last issue before Christmas🎅🏻!

If you’re brave enough to pursue a Christmas themed idea this year, you’ll most likely be finalising your outreach lists and fine-tuning your pun-filled subject lines.

‘You Wont Believe Ho-Ho-How Many People Will Get Breathalysed This Year’

Etc.. (you can have that one for free). I wish you luck on your quest to stand out from the noise and many, many other campaigns at this time of year, and look forward to seeing what content people were receptive to this time around.

Made something you’re proud of? I’d love to see it! Send it over to markprtr@gmail.com 💌

Must-see Content 👀

London’s Most Polluted Tube Stations 🚆

Tube maps backed with interesting data always seem to do pretty well, and have been featured multiple times in this newsletter. This most recent example looks at the measured PM2.5 value of each tube station, to highlight which stations are the most polluted.

Discovered via Oliver Holmes 🕵️

2D Rotation Periods of the Planets 🪐

This is a really unique idea that looks at the rotation periods of planets shown to relative scale. I personally had no idea how fast planets in our solar system rotated in context to Earth, and this is a really effective way to show it.

Laughing OnLine 🤣

Like clockwork, The Pudding once again make the newsletter with a new piece that looks at laughing online. This 3 stage series looks at how people really use words such as ‘hehe’ and ‘rofl’, and the prevalent growth of ‘lol’ over the years.

Train Station Car Park Index 🚆

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a big fan of indexes. If they’re built upon reputable data with a transparent methodology, they can do incredibly well, with multiple outreach angles that can be pushed over the course of a few months. This most recent example from Veygo looks at the cost of parking at train stations around the UK, which is a relevant and emotive topic that seems to get people riled up.

Movie Mortality 🎥

If someone were to ask me which actor is killed off the most, I’d instantly go with Sean Bean, mostly because of this video. Turns out that’s not the case, as revealed in this piece looking at which actors are killed off the most.

Why Obama-Trump Swing Voters Like Heavy Metal 🎼

This is a really cool collaboration between The Economist and Vivid Seats, looking at the correlation between people’s musical tastes and their political stance. Like all of Economist’s work, the aesthetic and graphical presentation is top notch.

Discovered via Digital PR Examples 🕵️

The World’s Hardest Working Musicians 🎤

It turns out that Lewis Capaldi is tours a lot. The most, in fact, as revealed in this ranking of the hardest working musicians. Not only has this piece attracted widespread coverage recently, the man himself even tweeted about it..!

Secret Spots 🤫

This is a great idea that looks for hidden gems on TripAdvisor, finding destinations that sit within the bottom percentiles for number of reviews, but have a high percentage of 4 or 5 star reviews.

Best Cities for Wellbeing 🤗

Another index, this time looking at the best and worst cities for wellbeing. Metrics include living costs, childcare costs, happiness and safety to rank over 70 major cities, with really nice presentation. Being quite critical here, I’d say there are too many data points from Numbeo, which is something to be cautious of, especially considering Numbeo have similar rankings on quality of life themselves.

Discovered via Caroline Noades 🕵️

More Great Content…

PR Stunts

The below campaigns may not have been intentional PR stunts, however they did attract substantial attention from the media.

The GAME Christmas Tinner 🤢

GAME’s Christmas dinner in a tin is back, but with a twist. Vegan and vegetarian gamers will now be able to indulge in the layered monstrosity, allowing you to consume a 3 course meal in the space of 4 minutes.

F*cking Meetings Candle 👩‍💼

Unnecessary and time-sucking meetings are something we all have to deal with from time to time. Thankfully the folks at Whiskey River Soap Co. have come up with the perfect solution in the form of a candle. It’s the perfect passive-aggressive move to hurry the meeting along. Sadly the original product page now 404s, which is a shame considering it’s attracted some nice links.

Labour’s Free Broadband 📡

After Labour announced their plans to offer free broadband, BroadbandDeals.co.uk came up with this awesome reactive PR. Being able to put things together quickly is essential for stuff like this, so if you getting assets added to your site is an arduous process, you could be missing out on lots of fun opportunities.

Discovered via Digital PR Examples 🕵️

Must-read Articles ☕

Below are some articles that are absolutely worthy of a read during your coffee break:

Must-follow Marketer 👑

Who: Laura Hampton, Head of Digital PR at Impression.

Why: If you work in content/digital PR, I highly recommend you drop Laura a follow. She regularly shares interesting campaigns and pens insightful posts on the Impression blog. As well as this she’s a seasoned speaker, so if you do have the chance to attend one of her sessions, it would definitely be worth doing so. Follow her here!

To Conclude

As always, thanks to everyone who sent in interesting campaigns, and may your holidays be full of of warmth, cheer, food, booze and links. 🎅

If you’re not yet subscribed, feel free to do so in order to be notified of future issues, and follow me on Twitter where I often share awesome content examples.

Cheers,

Mark.

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