Outside Perspective Y25W35
Our goal to showcase strategists from across the community, ITV's cultural influence, meet Tea Maffei, and the usual gigs and curiosity stream from across the stratosphere.
Show, Share, Listen, Learn, Connect.
Self-employment has its perks, but also its drawbacks. Many of us might have been used to being sent to events on the company dime, being interviewed after an internal marketing team set something up, asked to comment as a strategy leader of an agency or award winning team. Those platforms can often be harder to access when you’re doing it on your own.
One of the positive benefits of gathering some of the worlds most brilliant independent minds here is that we’ve amassed some 2.5k subscribers on our substack, almost 4k followers on LinkedIn, and some 20k+ visitors to our website over the past 12 months. It’s a mix of independent and perm strategists, hirers, clients, agencies, brands and beyond.
That’s an audience which we’re offering to any of our fellow independent thinkers to speak to. This Community Edition, from day one, has had the goal of helping you to share your ideas, thinking, work, provocations and inspiration.
Over the coming months, I’ll be emailing all of you individually, to see if you’d like to use this platform for your work - but if you want to jump ahead, email me - and we’ll give you the opportunity to share an op-ed. You can either pitch me an idea, hit the “topic roulette” and get given a title to write to, or simply write a journal entry sharing what you’ve been up to recently.
And, in the immediate short term, we’re hosting a SHOW AND TELL huddle on September 23rd - an open-mic opportunity to share some of the recent work you’re proud of. Details below.
September 23rd, 4pm BST: We’re inviting all Outside Perspective members to our September SHOW & TELL huddle.
Bring a piece of work, thinking, provocation or inspiration and share with your fellow community members. Max ten minutes to share what you wish.
It’s a lovely opportunity to talk a little bit about something you’re proud of, or just get to know your fellows.
If you’re keen to take part - leave your details here, and I’ll send you all the details, but if you’d like to come along and listen, register here.
Pop, goes the culture.
ITV is 70 years old next month - and has influenced much of the british cultural landscape for decades. ITV’s Cultural Strategy Lead, Lucy Irving, speaks about her team’s work and their new newsletter “Pop Theory”.
Lucy, you’re ITV’s Cultural Strategy Lead - tell us a little about you and your team’s work.
The cultural insight team is part of our client strategy and planning team. The team is there to work with advertisers and agencies to help them make the most of their investment into ITV. This can include advising on campaign planning, measurement, creating partnership ideas for brands wanting to integrate with our shows and properties, as well as sharing insight on everything from viewing behaviour to creative strategy and all things culture. Some recent examples of our work include Hun Culture, and our ‘70 years of…’ series which we’re doing as part of the celebrations of ITV’s 70th birthday. And of course our ‘What Unites’ series
I assume that ITV sees itself as both able to spot culture and shape it - through your content and programming? Can you share a little about the impact of culture, strategy and planning within ITV?
We use insight into ITV’s audience and mainstream popular culture in a few ways within ITV. Firstly to inspire and shape client briefs - for example recently our Hun culture work has directly fed into our work with Very and ITV daytime, featuring Alison Hammond as the Very Godmother. Secondly, we provide inspiration and direction for commissioners, schedulers and ITV’s internal marketing and creative team - internally our work has influenced everything from ITV’s brand positioning to how our news and weather teams cover climate action.
You’ve recently started a newsletter Pop Theory -what are you hoping to share, and how will your readers benefit from subscribing?
Few organisations have the breadth of perspective ITV has. As a national broadcaster, we’re in the unique position to look at the nation as a whole, allowing us to step back and look at popular culture through a wide angle lens.
This means the trends, insights and learnings we share will always have a mainstream perspective. We hope that readers of Pop Theory will gain insight into the cultural shifts taking place in the towns, villages and suburbs across the UK, not just the trendy urban pockets.
What are three signals that feel the strongest in 2025, that anyone invested in cultural strategy should be looking to invest more into?
1/ Strategic gameplay is a huge signal that we’ve seen in the world of TV - with the likes of The Traitors and Fortune Hotel spawning a multitude of cut throat reality competitions in 2025. The popularity of this type of content speaks to a wider shift in the national mindset that we identified in our 2025 mood of the nation piece called ‘me against the world’. With more Brits than ever taking term time holidays and forgoing builders to take on their own DIY projects - brands should be thinking about how they can empower consumers to make decisions on their own terms.
2/ A rise in folklore and spirituality is something we’ve been tracking. 74,000 Brits in the recent UK census identified as Pagan (up by 17,000 since 2011) and 13,000 as Wiccan. Although at the more niche end of pop culture this is indicative of a wider societal shift. Post-covid we’ve seen a big shift towards Brits getting in touch with the land, nature and its history as a means of grounding themselves - in our What Unites A Kingdom research we identified ‘Knowing your roots’ as an emerging pillar of British identity. For brands, it’s worth being mindful that we are speaking to an audience that are looking to feel grounded through nature, in provenance and craftsmanship.
3/ Hun culture has had a huge past few years, it shows no signs of slowing down. But the ongoing popularity of the hun persona and hun meme pages speaks to a wider rejection of middle class pretension and formality. A recent YouGov survey found that more Brits are identifying as working class in 2024 than in 2019. We just have to look at the recent Jet 2 Holiday and Ibiza Final Boss memes to see that we’re embracing a form of naff Britishness. This is an important reminder for advertisers to not take your brand too seriously.
» Subscribe to ITV’s Pop Theory newsletter.
Curiosity Stream
» Jaguar’s MD on the “controversial” JLR rebrand earlier this year - good to hear from the actual people inside the business, rather than endless uninformed commentary.
» Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino on the case for better environmental signage.
» Wolff Olins on why Japan and Korea are outsmarting western brands with mascots (thanks Nabila), and it reminded me of this gem of a documentary on brand mascots.
» nshnv on why KitKat dominates in Japan.
» Emily Segal on the End of Trends from FWB Fest 25
» Social probably can’t be fixed. “We're probably doomed to endless toxic feedback loops unless someone hits upon a brilliant fundamental redesign that manages to change [the] dynamics.”
» Akin reports on the ‘loss of the shared cultural moment’.
» Emily and Joel are running a positioning masterclass, based upon their Fully Saturated research earlier this year.
» The trough of disillusionment on AI is approaching? Some of the air is being let out of the bubble, but hype curve followers probably know what this means.
» Everyone: Dating apps are dead … Also Everyone: 2.5m people on dating app waitlist.
» GambleAware ads having reverse effect, new research is showing.
» Market of One - Giles has been reading this take on building consulting businesses, along with “Six of the most common symptoms of Meh, along with tips on how to spot them”
» Nabila is reading “Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading”: “Super interesting in the way virality, gatekeeping and the attention economy are explored”
» Positive news for independents in the UK, tax hikes and changes in law are shifting hirers to increase the number of contractors they’re working with.
» School phone bans leading return to ‘analogue’ fun in schoolgrounds.
Meet an Outsider - Tea Maffei
👋 Hello I’m Tea,
I’ve been self-employed as a Senior Insight Consultant since March 2024, after several years working in agency roles at C Space in London and remotely from the US. My work focuses on market research and brand strategy—designing and delivering qualitative and quantitative research that helps brands understand their audiences, identify new opportunities, and shape strategic direction. I’ve partnered with global clients including Visa, YouTube, Air France-KLM, and Virgin Atlantic, often advising at the C-suite level.
One of the projects I’m most proud of was a brand transformation initiative for a major airline. We blended deep consumer insight with strategic foresight to guide the evolution of their loyalty programme. What stood out was how nuanced emotional insights—like how people ritualise travel—ended up shaping not just marketing, but also product development and customer experience. It was a powerful reminder of the strategic value of empathy and storytelling in business.
I’m looking to take on more work that lives at the intersection of insight, strategy, and culture—particularly projects that explore shifting identities, behaviours, and communities. I’m especially interested in brand strategy and innovation work that taps into deeper cultural or anthropological dynamics. I love helping teams move from ambiguity to clarity, using research to spark meaningful change.
Three things I’m consuming right now:
1/ Anthropology and social spaces – I’m revisiting some of my roots in cultural studies and looking at how digital and real-world communities evolve.
2/ Helping the community – I’m building a surf community for girls who want to learn and connect through the ocean—early stages, but growing fast!
3/ Surfing – When I’m not at my desk, you’ll probably find me in the water (or planning a trip to be).
» Connect with Tea on LinkedIn, or via the community.
Gigs.
Briefs discovered and curated from across the stratosphere.
Promote your brief - or tell us if you’ve found work via the project.
Freelance Brand Strategist with milan food exp (UK)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250829-milan.htmlSnr Manager Brand Strategist (12 mo Parental Cover FTC) (UK)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250829-lego.htmlFreelance Strategic Comms Planner (UK)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250829-hunterlodge.htmlfreelance marketing strategist with GTM exp (US)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250828-tinywins.htmlFreelance Brand Strategist (NY,USA)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250828-nynbrand.htmlTourism Brand Strategist (US)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250828-glp.htmlFreelance social strategist and creator wanted (CA)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250828-foodtastic.htmlFreelance Strategist (campaigns) (US)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20250823-dt.html
That’s all for this week.
mk✌️
This vídeo about “the end of trends” is amazing! Thanks for sharing!