Content, Curated. – Issue #37

Somehow it’s 2023 already, and even more shockingly, we’re already halfway through January.

If you’re looking to map out your content plans for 2023, this issue will help inform and inspire your ideations.

Be sure to check out the must-read articles because there’s some corkers in there.

Made something you’re proud of? Interested in becoming a sponsor? Drop me a note: mark[@]searchvalley.co.uk.

Content, Curated is now over 3 years old, and consists of 35+ issues of exceptional content campaigns, PR stunts, must-read articles and more.

If you’ve ever found it useful, whether that’s for inspiration or because I’ve helped pump up your client’s backlink profile, consider buying me a coffee!

Must-see Content 👀

Scream VI Poster 🔪

Starting off with something a little less traditional. Scream VI is due out this year, and from the trailer it suggests it takes place on the NYC Subway. Each of the coloured tracks in the above poster represents a Scream movie, and the stops are the names of the characters that died. It’s one of the best promotional posters I’ve seen for a long time.

Christmas Superstitions 🎄

This fun piece illustrates some of the weird (and borderline disturbing) Christmas traditions from around the world.

AI Generated Country Villains 🦹‍♂️

As far as AI content pieces go, this is a pretty unique idea that asked Midjourney to turn each country into a villain.

Discovered via Patrick Langridge 🕵️‍♂️

Country Population Density Maps 📊

Terence Fosstodon regularly pushes out the country population density maps, which are both interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

Discovered via Rich Arrowsmith 🕵️‍♂️

The Most Popular Christmas Music in Shops 🎵

Did you know that most shops have highly specialised playlists that subconsciously incentivise you to spend more time and money in them? This piece crunches the data around Christmas music specifically, including which tracks are played and when.

Discovered via Vince Nero 🕵️‍♂️

The rising cost of Thanksgiving 🦃

The cost of everything going up isn’t news to anyone, but this straightforward and well visualised piece explores how much the cost of a thanksgiving meal has gone up due to things like inflation, supply issues and weather.

Discovered via Georgina Radford 🕵️‍♂️

AI Furnishing Ideas 🪑

This is a good example of how to experiment with multiple AI platforms. Guy Parsons used ChatGPT for creative furnishing ideas, and then pasted the resulting descriptions into Midjourney.

Pinterest Predicts 2023 📌

Every year Pinterest release their round up of trend predictions. Impressively, 80% of their previous predictions have come true over the last 3 years, so it’s definitely worth exploring.

Asteroid Launcher ☄️

Slightly depressing, but if you ever wanted to visualise the blast radius of asteroids of varying sizes, speed and angle, you now can! Neal Agarwal has featured in this newsletter many times due to his fun interactive pieces, so be sure to drop him a follow.

Dark Web Price Index 2022 🕵️

A few different outlets put together dark web price indexes, and they’re always pretty interesting. They map out the various costs of different products and services if acquired through the dark web, such as IDs, hacked accounts, malware and more.

Loved & Hated Billionaires 💰

This is an interesting piece that looks at the most loved and hated billionaires, crunching data from Twitter and using sentiment analysis.

What Different Eye Conditions Look Like 👀

A good example of a simple but effective piece, that racked up 57k upvotes and 2.5k comments on Reddit.

Classic Paintings Reimagined 🎨

A well worked ‘reimagined’ piece can do very well when it comes to coverage. This example from Quentin Devine, in partnership with Samsung, uses classic paintings to highlight today’s pressing issues.

Cheapest Pint on the Tube 🚇

It’s likely that this is already wildly outdated thanks to today’s financial climate, but the research and presentation of this piece is impressive. It maps out where to find the cheapest pint at every tube stop.

Discovered via Mike Porter 🕵️‍♂️

Famous Locations Without Pollution 💨

This is a great use of sliders, illustrating what famous locations around the world would look like without ‘visual pollution’, such as billboards, cables, litter etc.

Discovered via Patrick Langridge 🕵️‍♂️

But wait, there’s more…

PR Stunts

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

Miniature Cinema Bat Box 🦇

NOW teamed up with the Bat Conservation Trust to create a miniature cinema that doubles up as a bat box. Coinciding with the launch of The Batman on NOW TV, they offered the chance to win one of 100 of them.

This piece is remarkably similar to the McDonald’s McHive from a few years ago, and while this type of idea tends to work pretty well for big brands, I don’t see why it cant be used more. It looks like they just got Ben Fogle to climb a tree and then photoshopped it in, which makes you wonder how many they actually have.

Must-read Articles

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

To Conclude

That rounds off issue #37! Thank you to those who send over campaigns, and if you ever want to share something please do get in touch: mark[@]searchvalley.co.uk

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Thank you!

Mark.