Friday Thing/k: Mom Thought That My Last Post Was Too Long

Hi, all.

Hope you had a good week.

Welcome to Friday Thing/k — a brand storytelling canvas where I’d like to share with you smart, creative, inspiring, engaging, cool, and innovative content marketing ideas that take my digital marketing breath away once a week.

“It took too much time to read.”

Those were my mom’s words when she messaged me on WhatsApp last week.

I can understand her —  who has time to snack on 617 words these days?

Time is a scarce resource, especially when we live in a ‘skippable era’ where grabbing one’s attention is hard work. It’s actually quite crazy what it takes to convince viewers not to skip a Youtube ad.

As a marketer, I often feel like a thief. Even with this week’s thing/k, I’m kind of stealing your precious time.

There used to be a legendary Swedish digital ad agency by the name of Farfar (they closed back in 2010 after becoming part of the Aegis’ Isobar digital network),  and as my digital creative idols referred to themselves as “a group of bandits who steal people’s time.”

Their motto was…

Time is non-refundable, and a special commodity that should be treated with care. So we provide engaging entertainment in exchange for people’s time.

Amen.

In their honor, and following my mom’s request, this will be a short post about short stories. Because size (attention) matters.

I discovered Leitura de Bolso (pocket reading) on Sprinwise.com. It’s a new initiative which was built on the fact that Brazilians read fewer books but spend more and more time on mobile consuming snackable content, especially when they commute.

The service offers five-minute reads for free via Whatsapp for those who register on the website using their phone number. Then, each Wednesday, subscribers are sent a literary extract which can be read in five minutes or less so not to not disrupt your routine.

Here’s a quick video, and breakdown below:

Still in commuting mode…

French publisher Short Editions created eight vending machines in the city of Grenoble that dispensed short stories to bored commuters last year. The free stories are available at the touch of a button, printing out on rolls of paper like a till receipt. Readers are able to choose from a timeframe of one, three or five minutes of fiction.

See below, which I discovered on The Guardian.

Time’s up.

See you next Friday.

As always, feedback is more than welcome, and needed so please leave comments below. Additionally, if you have anything/k in mind, I would love to discover it.

Just call me Joe.