Happy Friday! Thanks for reading today.

This week’s Must Read’s looks a little different. You will notice there is a headline, my commentary in italics and new 🏷 showing where to click to read the full story. Let me know if you like the new format here 📧.

The Must-Read Stories Of The Week

Joker: The department joker is an essential part to your company success ♥️ 🏷 Read the full story

To Do: Why that annoying to-do list item never leaves your to-do list ☑️ 🏷 Read the full story

The Giving Apps: Charities have been disrupted by app companies Cash app & Venmo 🫂 Having worked for four years in the peer to peer and fundraising space, giving to people directly over a charity is something that will continue to happen, personal stories always resonates over generic unpersonalised asks. 🏷 Read the full story

Community Power: How Peloton became the latest brand cult 💦In an upcoming Brand Book 2021, I worked with a number of super-smart brand leads, we call out how essential brands can be coupled with community, this combination (alongside a great product) has been a secret ingredient to Peloton’s success 🏷 Read the full story 

The Brand Partner: Travis Scott’s historic Twitch concern made him $20m. Travis Scott’s positioning and transition has been fascinating to watch, he is the new must-have brand partner, partnering with so many brands, including that recent McDonalds collab 🍟 🏷 Read the full story

Calm Leadership: CMO Joanna Lord’s approach on leadership really resonates with me 🧘‍♂️: “Mindful leadership, to me, is deeply intentional. It means you show up—you’re present and open to what your teams need from you. It also means you empathize with them”🏷 Read the full story

Unconnected Strategy: Muji - The no strategy brand? Or the strategically deliberate company 🤷‍♂️ 🏷 Read the full story

The Future of Retail 🛍 How the future of retail is going to very different from how they do today. Think of storytelling at every touch point and focused around experiences. 🏷 Read the full story

Apple Is Now 4th Choice? Apple have fallen to the fourth most sold smartphone brand in the world. 📱 Apple is the ‘inspiration & aspiration brand’ but are being beaten on smartphones sales by Android devices manufacturers; Samsung, Chinese handset provider Xiaomi and everyone’s villian, Huawei. Apple won’t be concerned but markets like 🇨🇳 and 🇮🇳 if they keep slipping even Apple won’t be able to not be concerned. 🏷 Read the full story

Special Delivery? How a three-year-old pizza got delivered in LA. 🍕 This is a story about how third-party sellers are impacting two businesses, one is the delivery companies, and the marketplace they buy through. This has happened across marketplaces, particularly the likes of Amazon when the order is not from Amazon Prime directly but a partner on their marketplace. 🏷 Read the full story

Reddit Thread of the week: What was a fact that you regret knowing? 👁 🏷 Read the full story

🚨 Saturday Must Reads: On Saturday mornings on mustreads.co.uk I release the most popular 5 stories alongside 3 reads for the weekend. Check on by or message me 💬 and i’ll send a link directly to you.

➕ Deeper Dive ➕Vodcasts

Guest Appearance: I joined friend of Must Reads Kevin Gibbons on his Resignal podcast (or as the industry (pod) people call them vodcast (video podcast), on how to make the move from a specialist role like SEO into s Senior Leadership Role and how to add be deliberate in making the move and a little bit on Focus. 🏷 Watch Or Listen Full Vodcast

Quote Of The Week:

Thanks for reading today, have a great weekend and I’ll see you next week.

Danny Denhard

The Must Reads newsletter is your weekly brainfood newsletter filled with Must Read Articles. It takes me hours every week to find, quality check, and create your favourite weekly newsletter. About My Work: I am on a mission to fix the broken world of work with Focus. I have spent two decades in Marketing and Growth leadership, from before Google dominated search and Facebook controlled ‘Social’ & I was on the leadership team at JustGiving & currently I am an interim CMO and company advisor. Happily email me for consultancy.