Storytelling with usage data and Vivace's best of 2023

Welcome back to Spark, a weekly newsletter from Vivace Content. We compile news signals from across the business, financial, and cultural landscape, and spark ideas to help you and your business jump on something new to talk about. Send tips and feedback to [email protected].

Welcome to the final push to the end of the year! We hope you’ve got some good time away booked, and will be able to find a bit of respite and relaxation. To that end, this will be the final issue of 2023, but fret not, we’ll be back in your inboxes on January 2nd to kick off 2024.

In today’s issue: Storytelling with usage data, holiday parties, Blackstone’s annual video, Zuck’s Hawaiian compound, and Vivace’s best of 2023

📈 TRENDING NOW

WHAT DOES YOUR DATA SHOW?

One of the most underutilized resources for storytelling is a company’s usage data. Practically every company is a tech company now, which means we are all collecting data on what our users and customers are doing to interact with our services, products, and websites.

It’s harder than it looks to pull off — you can’t put together something creepy (we know what you’ve been up to!) and you have to properly anonymize it, and comb through it to pull out the interesting storylines. Here, we’ve rounded up a few for inspiration.

• Terminal patterns: A new research study shares findings from minute-by-minute Bloomberg terminal usage data for 336 analysts from 42 brokerage firms over 2017-21. The biggest takeaway? You have to “both work hard and fly hard if you want to make it big on the sell side.” (Financial Times)

• Spotify Wrapped: What makes this one so amazing is the personalization. Being able to play back to someone an interesting report based on what they listened to is a real delight and a utility. (Spotify Wrapped) 

• Searching: Google’s annual Year in Search interactive report is a fun one. Who knew so many people cared who Taylor Swift is dating?! (Google Trends)

• What we watched: Netflix has finally released a massive amount of data on what people are watching on the service. It’s a big milestone for the streaming industry, and fun to take a peek at what peaked. The next step is to build it into a live dashboard, please! (Netflix)

• Data on the Data: We first went down this rabbit hole when we developed a content program at Refinitiv called Data on the Data. We worked with brilliant data scientists and storytellers to mine our own data to find interesting patterns and stories. Here’s a fun one we did during the pandemic showing the rise of working from home in financial markets. (Data on the Data)

HOLIDAY PARTIES 🎄

We just hosted our first-ever Vivace holiday party last week in London! Thanks to all our wonderful colleagues and partners who joined in the fun. It was so fun to see so many of you for a festive pint in person.

At this celebratory moment, is there an opportunity to sprinkle a little recognition on your SMEs who are the lifeblood of your thought leadership program? They've undoubtedly had to work extra hours on top of their day job to hit deadlines this year. Maybe an opportunity to recognize their achievements? How about a wrap of some of your favorite articles and posts from the year to finish on a high note?

Speaking of holiday celebrations:

• Blackstone’s annual wacky holiday video is out and they take on Taylor Swift. Just right or a bit off-tone? Send us your vote.

• Did the Grinch come for the office holiday party? Why we might be seeing more lunches.

📰 ELSEWHERE:

• Here’s your quick guide to the outcomes of COP28. Loss and damage, targets, adaptation, carbon markets and more. (Forbes)

• More on 2024: Investors bet on inflation’s retreat as markets head into volatility. Lots of learnings from FT Money’s annual investment panel, as they chew over AI mania, animal spirits, and ‘dry powder.’ (Financial Times)

• Today in relatable headlines: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is building a sprawling compound in Hawaii with an underground bunker and an Ewok village. (Wired)

• Inside Jamie Dimon’s $4 trillion machine. He made JPMorgan Chase the biggest bank in the world. What is it, exactly? (Intelligencer)

• The year Twitter died. If you’re someone who has been on Twitter for a very long time, you’ve probably been mourning the platform you once knew. Make some time for this excellent package from The Verge, putting into context the way you might be feeling. (The Verge)

• John Oliver takes on Elon Musk. Bookmarking this for later. (Last Week Tonight)

OFF THE CHARTS

FTSE Russell’s annual assessment shows that G20 nations’ current 2030 targets imply a 2.6°C temperature rise, which means their ambitions remain off-track.

📆 UPCOMING DAYS & EVENTS

• Dec 18: International Migrants Day (Unesco)

• Dec 27: International Day of Epidemic Preparedness (UN)

• Jan 9-12: Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024

FRIENDS OF VIVACE: NEWS & VIEWS

• Matt Toole joins CNBC to discuss the global M&A outlook for 2024.

• Congratulations to Jessica Zall, who was recognized by NYC Fintech Women on their annual “Inspiring FinTech Females” list for 2023. We couldn’t agree more!

• Bloomberg’s Jennifer Bissell-Linsk was part of the team behind this data deep dive showing the stress small U.S. colleges are facing. Many are rethinking the economics of higher ed.

• Joyce J. Shen spends a lot of time thinking about the future, and working with entrepreneurs to develop what comes next. Her words of advice for us all? Keep Going! 

• Michael Smith shares his final post from Promoting Useful Knowledge of the Year, complete with a handy Ace of Base reference. It’s a must-read for us for a quick snapshot of what’s happening in markets.

• Tim Nixon shares reflections from his time at COP28, joining the Estonian Pavilion for a couple of compelling panel discussions.

Send us your shout-outs, strong opinions, and headlines to include in next week’s edition.

VIVACE’S BEST OF 2023

We couldn’t resist joining in on the fun. Here’s some of our favorites from 2023.

Ryan’s Top 5

• Best brand campaign: Amex Gold's “Keep Doing You” dual-screen view campaign really caught my eye. You may have seen it? It's a "Spot the difference" style split-screen. The twist is that it’s the exact same moment playing out side-by-side. The only difference is the words “don't change your spending habits, just get rewarded for the things you buy anyway.” I thought it was perfect for the Tube as it featured lots of cool people doing what they love most in fashion, music, travel, food etc. It felt quite uplifting in a packed tube on Monday morning!

• Best social media post: I think it has to be Sherry Madera's 'Little Macron Magic' LinkedIn post from COP. A simple but impactful post that made me feel good that we are getting the right people pushing for change at the right levels.

• Best work moment: Has to be when Joel said he wanted to form the world's best content marketing agency with me! Second best moment is when I spotted Joel's idea for the Vivace name. High tempo..Italian cool..it was just meant to be.

• Best client project: I'm really enjoying working with the content team at a global FinTech on a predictions piece due to hit in early 2024. This newsletter made that happen. Power of content marketing indeed!

• Best tip given to me: Just wake up every morning thinking, “How can I make my client's life better today?" I think that's really the essence of Vivace Content.

Joel’s Top 5

• Best movie: It has to be Barbie for me, not just because the movie was great, but what a fantastic marketing and culture-grabbing moment it was. I loved it so much, I did an entire article and conference talk on it!

• Favorite TV shows: Poker Face and Succession.

• Favorite interview: One of the great joys this year was bringing to life my podcast, Connection Request. It’s extremely hard to pick a favorite interview, but one that springs to mind immediately is my conversation with the Gates Foundation’s education advisor.

• Best podcasts: The Wedding Scammer and Land of the Giants: The Twitter Fantasy

• Best apps: It’s been a while since I’ve gotten excited about new apps, but this year three nudged their way into my daily routine: Superhuman (email client), Paired (relationship app), and Queued (keep track of what you are watching).

What are your best of 2023? Hit reply and let us know.

Thanks for joining us this week. Anything we missed? Something we should include next week? Please send all ideas and feedback to [email protected]. 

Spark is a production of Vivace Content, where we help our clients navigate what to say and how to say it every single day. Get in touch if you’d like to have a no-hassle consultation about how we can help you too. Have a great week ahead, and see you next Monday.