The Fighting Temeraire and the New Marketing Playbook

One of my favourite paintings is Turner's Fighting Temeraire in the National Gallery. It’s of a grand old warship being towed off to be scrapped by a little steam tug, the sun going down behind it. The old giving way to the new. 

I’m drawn to it for many reasons (including a James Bond reference - if you know, you know). But feels particularly relevant at the moment as the old B2B marketing playbook doesn’t work anymore. Polished brand accounts, generic content, sales teams doing the outreach — is all on the way out. 

And it’s giving way to the new way: trusted, authentic voices with personable, expert-led content. Real people sharing their lived experience. Leaning into “CEO magic” — content that reaches more people, 50%+ connection acceptance rates and being able to book conversations with senior decision-makers at your dream companies. 

You have to adopt the new playbook to win in today’s market. 

This month at Triangle

A post we built for a client gained 500K impressions. Similar message to a post that had been shared on their brand account, but we wrote something from their CEO. 500X the number of impressions. 

In just a week, we booked calls with Sony and Virgin Media, for a client, that equated to ~$250k in pipeline. None of it came from a sales team but a human conversation on LinkedIn DMs. 

Spent some time at LinkedIn HQ this month. Chatting all things ROI from content, what we’re seeing work on the platform, our ecosystem approach, and employee-generated content. 

This month personally

I managed to get a week's switch-off time in the South of France — my favourite place for the summer. Plenty of reading, morning swims, great steak, sunshine, secret coves, hikes with views, and loads of good vibes. 

Cassis in the South of France, very easy to re-charge and switch-off in a place like this! 

Also been out running with a couple of Run Clubs I’m a part of — running past Buckingham Palace and around St James’ Park gives you a completely different perspective of London — it’s great. 

Also been reading a fair bit — The Kite Runner is my current read. And have recently finished Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, and Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. I’ve found reading has led to a huge improvement in my focus, and I’m also reminded how great long-form storytelling is.