Antonym: The It's Not About That Edition
Hard times! But: Semantic Error: The Movie, Zombie Detective, and why audiences are like cats
Dear Reader
In case we take ourselves too seriously at work, it helps to have a colleague like Shiv Roy at your side to remind you that it isn't as important as you think it is.
The hard times just below the surface
At Antonym, we usually focus on happy-go-lucky and upbeat vibes. However, I recently came across something that requires a serious face for a few moments. Don't worry though, I'll follow it up with something lighter.
In the UK, the effects of the pandemic, Brexit, and deep uncertainty over geopolitics and macroeconomics are becoming increasingly clear. Despite this, business people on social media rarely speak about the difficulties they're facing. As the owner of a small and medium-sized company, I've found that 2023 started positively but has since become more and more challenging.
It takes courage to admit how difficult things are.
This week, Stephen Waddington, a former agency boss who now advises PR companies, gave an accurate and generous analysis of what he's seeing and shared it on LinkedIn. The comments section reveals that many small companies are facing similar challenges as we head into the summer.
He lists several factors impacting businesses, including:
Projects that would normally lead to ongoing relationships aren't doing so. Stopping and starting work is expensive and makes those projects less viable.
Decisions are taking longer. A proposal that might have been decided upon in a few weeks can now take months.
Companies are taking longer to pay (many large companies pay us 90 days after we complete work, while staff, contractors, and specialist experts in video production, and the like need to be paid much sooner).
Many large companies are freezing hires, restructuring, making redundancies, or all three, which means projects with smaller suppliers are put on hold.
All of this creates a strange mix of emotions in the spring: hope and deep unease. The beautiful weather outside and the upcoming Bank Holidays, including the new King's Coronation in May, and the summer holiday season not far beyond it, are supposed to be a time for relaxation and celebration after a long, cold winter.
However, with blurry memories of lockdown restrictions still so recent, our instinct is to be full of the proverbial joys of spring. But the time off and slowing down of decisions in the summer will be painful and even terminal for some businesses. There's a reckoning in progress, and I hope it will be short and not cause too much suffering. After keeping businesses going through lockdowns and the aftermath, there are still hard times to come.
Hit the escape button
With things a little grim out there, you can forgive yourself for wanting a bit of televisual escapism.
With wonderful and bewildering movies and shows like Semantic Error: The Movie, Deep Sea Mutant Snake, and Sex Is Zero the East Asian-focused streaming platform Viki is about as far away from anything that will remind you of the real world that you can get.
I returned to Viki for more of the 30-part Three Body. We’ve mentioned it before on Antonym but for newer readers, its a faithful adaptation of the Ciu Xin Liu trilogy – a story so epic in scale and ambition it flattens out your brain and remakes it as a Möbius strip. Netflix is making a version which will be out later this year, but it won’t be as odd as this high-budget piece of brilliance.
An honourable mention for high-concept young adult series Duty After School which is pitched as:
The students and teachers at Sungjin High School receive a terrifying shock when they witness the start of an alien invasion. [...] In desperation, the President announces that mandatory conscription will begin – and that all third-year high schoolers – male and female – must join the armed forces.
Also Zombie Detective is another couldn’t-make-it-up-but-someone-did example. Expect at least 50% of these to be remade by Netflix or Amazon in the next 12 months.
At £3.99 a month, VikiRakuten is a complete bargain. No, I’m not getting paid to say that.
Wrexham: Content strategy as a business
Let’s continue with streaming media hits as a theme. Wrexham FC, the third oldest football club in the world, was promoted to the EFL for the first time in 15 years, after being bought by an two American actors. I don’t know what the achievement means, as I don’t follow football, but in plot terms it’s a macguffin delivered in time to save the day. The whole thing is Ted Lasso meets Moneyball meets reality show. It works because it is real and an unbelievable dream-come-true all at once.
Not being a football fan, I’m not aware of the detail of the rise of Welsh football team Wrexham under the ownership and significant investment of Personal Branding Incarnate, Ryan Reynolds and It’s Only Sunny In Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney. However, it’s clear that they have been very clever.
Simon Moore, a tech recruitment expert, posted a respectfully concise and straightforward explanation of the strategy on LinkedIn, including a bit about “what’s in it for Wrexham”:
Bought for $2.5M
Produced docu-series on FX
Added 1M+ social media followers
Tripled season ticket purchases
Signed sponsorships with TikTok, Expedia, etc.
And now they've been promoted back to the EFL for the first time in 15 years.
The point is that it’s not a cynical play, but it is a very smart business on – being a heartwarming comeback story for an obscure football team is both the play and the point.
Two quotes for reframing challenges
I’m just going to, as the internet trope goes, leave these here. If you’re having challenges, I hope they help you as much as they have helped me this week
Stewart Lee on audiences
I went to see Stewart Lee perform his "Basic Lee" stand-up show this week. I've been going his shows almost every year for more than a decade now. The audience demographic is mostly male and getting older. "There are no queues for the ladies during the interval at my shows," he said at one point. Lee mercilessly mocks his audience, especially those who are late or new to his work. "I don't like new people," he says, and tries to narrow down his fanbase to a smaller, more hardcore group, but with no success whatsoever. However, fans get to feel like they are part of a hardcore group until Lee deflates any hint of pomposity with lines like:
People who like me think I'm a genius. And they think they are geniuses for liking me.
One classic joke with special significance for any purpose-driven marketing professionals is:
For a longer exploration of his anti-audience comedy, watch this short documentary from Comedy Without Errors: "Stewart Lee: The Audience Is the Problem." However, you probably won't watch it because it doesn't suit your thumb-scrolling, desperate need for quick dopamine hits.
You’ve gone haven’t you?
Note to self: more AI and books next week.
Antony