Content, Curated. – Issue #13

Welcome to issue 13 of Content, Curated, and regardless of whether or not you find it a lucky or unlucky number, this issue is brimming with great pieces.

Let’s crack on.

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

Must-see Content 👀

Do Authors Write Where They Know? 📚

This is a really interesting piece from the folks at The Pudding, looking at whether authors write about where they live or places they’re familiar with. The best 100 books written since 1900 were analysed, and the distance from the author’s residence to the book setting was calculated.

2020 Celestial Calendar 🌌

I included this infographic for nostalgia’s sake, which I stumbled across on Reddit. It got a decent number of upvotes and comments, and is a good reminder that if the content suits the format of an infographic, then absolutely use it. While they generally have a bad rap these days, mostly because we churned them out at an unfathomable rate, this infographic is easy to understand and conveys the information really well (which is literally the point of them).

Reimagined Movie Posters 🏖️

This is a really fun campaign by Holiday Cottages that reimagines famous UK landmarks and tourist attractions as movie posters. Some of them are pretty simple but it works really well, and also maintains a pretty relevant link to the site itself.

Discovered via Digital PR Examples 🕵️

Printing Money 💸

I’ve featured Neal Agarwal’s stuff a few times now. He’s made some great visualisations, and this one’s no exception. It looks at the rate at which the likes of Amazon are making money in comparison to minimum wage, teachers etc. which is a concept that has been done before. However, the visual aspect of this works really well, though it is quite sickening. By that I mean, looking at the faster ones hurts my eyes and literally makes me feel sick.

Discovered via Vince Nero 🕵️

Buildings from Famous Paintings 🖼️

This is a really cool piece that consists of realistic renders of well known pieces of art. I’m not really and arty kind of guy but I found myself falling down a rabbit hole reading up on some these pieces, which were mostly new to me. The comparison slider is also a nice touch.

What’s Inside🔍

I’ve featured ‘exploded view’ pieces before, and I always find them pretty interesting. The concept itself is simply but they always seem to be well received. This one by Dina Amin looks at items that people had thrown away, to reveal just how many materials are discarded in the process. If you like stuff like this, check out Things Organized Neatly.

Car Crime Hotspots 🕵️

Paranoid about your shiny new wheels? With this piece you can gauge the likeliness of it being stolen. Kind of. It’s an index/map hybrid backed by FOI request data, to work out where has the highest amount of vehicle crime. Visually it looks nice, and it’s great that they’ve taken into account how many vehicles are on the road in those locations (something that people often don’t do, so you just end up with the most populous locations on top).

The World’s Best Subway Systems 🚄

We all have our own stories of public transport nightmares, whether that’s a 3 hour delay or someone sneezing on the back of your neck. This piece ranks various subway systems from around the world on things like accessibility, convenience, pet-friendliness and more.

Discovered via Rebecca Moss 🕵️

More Great Content…

PR Stunts

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

Poundland Bling Ring 💍

This isn’t the first time Poundland have rolled this one out for valentine’s day, but it seems to work wonders everytime. If you couldn’t decide on what engagement ring to pop the question with, Poundland’s £1 ‘bling rings’ are the perfect placeholder.

The Hibernation Arms 🦔

To help raise funds for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, Camden Town Brewery were selling tiny hedgehog sized pubs along with a pack of their Hells in Hibernation lager. It seems they sold out pretty quickly, which of course adds to the hype. The actual product page that has some juicy links now just returns a 404. Classic.

Discovered via Libby Masters 🕵️

Amazon Dating 💖

I’m not sure how this hasn’t been slapped offline by Amazon’s legal team yet, but Amazon Dating is essentially a clone of Amazon but with an inventory of singles ready to date. It’s very well done with lots of amusing Easter eggs to find. But sure to check out the reviews.

Must-read Articles ☕

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

But wait, there’s more.

Jess Hawkes recently started a digital PR podcast called OutSpeech which you should check out. There’s only a couple of episodes so far, but they’re a decent length and great for listening to on a commute.

Must-follow Marketer 👑

Who: Jessica Pardoe, PR & Digital Media Executive at Source

Why: As you can see from the recommended articles above, Jessica regularly publishes really insightful and actionable articles around digital PR, the majority of which can be found on her blog. Drop her a follow and be sure to check out her previous articles.

To Conclude

As always, thanks to those of you who sent over content, I appreciate it!

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 occasionally share awesome content examples.

While setting up the email notification, I also spotted that we sailed past the 700 subscriber mark a while ago. I’ve had a lot going on in recent weeks so I had no idea, but it’s another awesome milestone reached.

Cheers!

Mark.

Leave a comment