APG Sideways
About our guest: Emily Farrugia
Hi, I’m Emily!
During the work week you can find me over at FUSE Create living out a pretty fun time as a Creative Strategist. After hours you can typically find me curled up with a book (either reading or writing my own), cuddling my dog, or indulging in whatever my current “need to know everything about this obscure topic” is.
Brilliant Weird Best
Planners are curious folks so we asked Emily to tell us the most brilliant, weirdest and best things she’s come across recently.
BRILLIANT: Zillow for Warcraft
Unexpected brand collabs that defy the odds are always a fave. WoW launched in-game housing, so what better way to celebrate than by partnering with Zillow on a microsite that showcases real homes in-game? This touches upon a very interesting insight; for many WoW is truly a sort of “second home”, with real friendships and a lot of pride in what they achieve. While there’s of course a bit of a tongue in cheek-ness, the partnership also shows an understanding that for a lot of consumers, in-game changes can feel just as real as irl.
WEIRD: Taste the Rainbow Series by Skittles
I remember seeing these as a kid and being so weirded out, and the feeling’s stuck with me to this day. I love how Skittles (knowing how most candies have similar RTBs) just went “fuck it”, abandoned any sense of logic, and went all in on whack. To this day I still don’t know what the point was. And you know what? Maybe that was the point.
BEST: TagWords by Budweiser
This will forever be one of my favourite ever campaigns. Not only was it a perfect storm of knowing both brand and target, but it involved a legal workaround that added vs subtracted to the campaign’s effectiveness. A simple insight done superbly well, with a built-in mechanism for consumer engagement.
Top Guilty Pleasures
Not all of our consumption habits can be academic. That's why we asked Emily to give us the sources to her creativity.
Solo Walks
I love being out in nature, and few things help replenish my creative inspiration while also allowing me to decompress like a walk. The reason I count this as a guilty pleasure is because there are times I will blow off all other plans and important things that I actually need to get done in order to get a 2 hour long walk in. Walk & eating instant ramen for 3 days > grocery shopping.
Marathon Reading
My ideal Friday night during the winter is digging into a book/series and ignoring 80% of the world until I’m done. My personal favourite genres are fantasy and sci-fi, as I feel that they’re able to provide thought provoking (and often brutally honest) commentary on culture and the human condition that more traditional fiction is too limited for. Plus, I love me a good map. A couple recent faves: The Everlasting, Dark Age, and Reamde.
This month on Slack
Over on our Slack, strategists are supporting, debating, and shitposting. Click on a link to see the full convo.
The Iran War Is Showing Up in Unexpected Places. Like Your Crisp Packet.
Michelle Lee shared this piece about Japan's biggest crisp maker switching to black and white packaging because the war with Iran has disrupted supplies of petroleum-based printing inks. It's a small but vivid illustration of how geopolitical conflict moves through global supply chains in ways that don't show up in headlines until something familiar and everyday suddenly looks different on a shelf.
Most In-Depth Interviews Stay on the Surface. This Playbook Fixes That.
Ivan shared this guide from Nadya Bykova, a journalist turned strategist, and the framing is what makes it worth saving. Most in-depth interviews stay on the surface because they're structured to collect answers rather than uncover contradictions. The playbook makes the case that the real skill is sitting with silence and asking the question behind the question, which sounds simple until you try to train someone else to do it.