Is storytelling broken?

We look at the movements in the world of advertising and marketing this week, featuring Apple's Project Titan, we ask whether storytelling is broken, and Donald Trump saying China! (a lot).

Twitter has alarmed some in the technology space for buying a virtual reality startup, which seems to take it some distance from its core brand.

The whole storm in a teacup and Marmite on toast has come and gone. See how the Brext battle between Unilever and Tesco played out, but as inflation in now starting to rise, this should be just the first in a series of scuffles as the pound remains deflated.

Japan has decided to lead a fourth industrial revolution to make it hypercompetitive in the new economies of the Internet of Things and the connected world.

One project that would have relied on the connected world is Apple's 'Project Titan' to produce electric cars. According to this detailed piece, Apple has scaled the project back significantly.

Watch this dark tale, made by two Pixar animators in their spare time:

Borrowed Time from Borrowed Time on Vimeo.

Guardian editorial tackles the digital economy bill, which is says will effectively exempt government from the restrictions of data use that the commercial sector will need to stick to.

Meanwhile this article ponders the peculiar state of affairs where The Guardian buys its own ad inventory, with as little as 30% of programmatic spend going to the publisher.

Staying with newspapers, The Telegraph is now on Amazon's Echo, just without clear use for it yet.

Both could have prompted self-styled ad contrarian Bob Hoffman's ire.

For a glimpse into a different world, take a look at AMV's classic work for Sainsbury's, which elevated it frm something like Aldi into something like Waitrose, but before either existing in the UK. “It wasn’t so much Sainsbury’s selling the food, it was the food selling Sainsbury’s” With more than a little nod to the classic work at DDB in New York, AMV’s work for Sainsbury’s revolutionised advertising in the sector

A great ad for the Canadian charity SickKids:

You may remember a few weeks ago we featured an ad made by IBM's AI computer Watson. Google's competitor, Deep Mind, can now learn without human input. Which might spook anyone who has seen Terminator.

Storytelling

A controversial topic that some adore, some despise in the ad community. This blog explores why ‘storytelling’ is in pieces.

Revered designer Stefan Sagmeister agrees (warning, contains strong language):

You are not a storyteller - Stefan Sagmeister @ FITC from FITC on Vimeo.

Meanwhile, there has been some considerable success in 'storytelling' by the editor of Vogue Italia Francesco Carrozzini, who has turned the portrayal of fashion inside out, to stunnning effect

The internet has accelerated the world's consumption of itself. This week an 18-year-old Pakistai chaiwala (tea seller) was elevated into celebrity and model in a matter of hours. His picture leads this article.

Meanwhile, those Kickstarter inventors spend so much of their time perfecting are copied and undercut by fast turnaround copycat companies in China.

Brexit news: Marks & Spencer unveils the Croloaf, a ‘croissant-loaf hybrid’.

Finally, a quick look at the US election. PayPal founder Peter Thiel (the man who broke Gawker earlier this year) is a Facebook board member and left many agog as he donated $1.25 million to the Trump campaign

On the other side cards against humanity creator has made a series of unintelligible ads targeting hardcore gamers in a campaign against Trump.

Finally, you really should hear prospective presidential cadidate say 'China'. A lot.