👋 Hello curious minds,

Here are this week’s headlines:

Here’s wishing you an awesome week!

Angelique

Picture this: Last week, I'm in a boardroom watching R&D and Marketing have their 47th version of the same debate. R&D's muttering about "impossible briefs." Marketing's eye-rolling about "tone-deaf innovations." Both sides entrenched. Both sides right. Both sides completely missing the point.

It reminded me of this dive bar in San Francisco's Mission District, circa 1997. The cocktails were terrible, until they hired this bartender who'd been a chemist at Clorox. Suddenly, the worst bar in the neighbourhood became the most interesting. Not because she made better drinks (though she did), but because she saw possibilities where everyone else saw problems.

👉 That's when it hit me: What if innovation's biggest problem isn't what we don't know, but who we don't invite?

Here's what nobody tells you about breakthrough innovation: It doesn't happen in conference rooms with sensible people making sensible decisions.

It happens when you put a perfumer in a room with a data scientist.

When you ask a choreographer to redesign your supply chain.

When you let a 7-year-old tell you why your product is boring.

I call it the Inside-Out/Outside-In method, but really it's just organised chaos with a purpose.

Inside-Out is when you finally stop treating departments like rival gangs and start treating them like ingredients in a cocktail. R&D's technical genius mixed with Marketing's consumer instincts, shaken with Finance's reality checks, garnished with Legal's... well, Legal can watch from the corner (for now).

The point is, your biggest competitive advantage might be sitting three desks away, but you'll never know if you keep them in separate rooms.

Outside-In is where things get properly weird. And by weird, I mean profitable.

We once brought a Wiccan botanist into a session for a FTSE 100 brand. Everyone thought we'd lost it. Six months later, they launched a new line that's now their fastest-growing category. The botanist saw what the MBAs couldn't: that ancient plants have modern relevance for mind and mood shifts (and also taste amazing).

The secret isn't having all the answers. It's knowing how to mix the right questions with the right questioners.

When Coca-Cola asked us to bring 'Open Happiness' to life through packaging, we didn't just workshop it. We brought together people who'd never been in the same room (Insights, R&D, partner agencies) and showed them a thousand packaging examples from completely unrelated industries.

The collision? They realised the lid was their moment of truth. That simple insight sparked campaigns that earned 60M+ impressions and a Cannes Gold Lion (learn more).

Most companies say they want innovation but what they really want is certainty dressed up as innovation.

But here's what 22 years has taught me: The best ideas live in the space between "that's insane" and "that's obvious." You just need the right bartender to help you find them.

Because innovation doesn't come from one way of thinking. It comes from the beautiful chaos of collision. From the misfits at the mixer. From the bartender who used to be a chemist.

And if you're wondering who's going to shake up your next innovation session, well... we've been mixing impossible cocktails since before molecular mixology was cool.

Join Future Possible® this month and receive The Pleasure Zine—an exclusive collection of 42 sparks designed to inspire, provoke, and delight. From couture condiments to mindful rituals, it’s a curated dose of cultural foresight you won’t find anywhere else. A little gift from us, to make your September sweeter.

Future Possible® isn't another PDF of predictions—it's 2,400+ actual brand innovations, updated weekly, searchable instantly. This week alone we tracked 23 exciting brand moves across 14 innovation opportunities. See what everyone else is missing for £95/year.

These finds explore the power of belief, creativity, and raw materials to shift how we see the world, and ourselves.

These brands are at very different stages of their life cycle, but each has found a unique way to make its mark in culture right now.

Challenge To A New Generation

Nike flips its most famous line to win back a sceptical Gen Z. With LeBron James front and centre, “Why Do It?” reframes greatness as a choice, not a given, emboldening a new generation to decide what their own “Just Do It” looks like.

A Blank Space, Refilled

In a sign of the times, Blank Street are chasing the matcha moment. Their new Wolff Olins identity doubles down on cultural hype as they look to elevate themselves from caffeine stop-off to lifestyle brand with bigger cultural ambitions.

0% Hype, 100% Effective

Coats takes a scalpel to beauty’s hype culture and ‘miracle serums’ with “0% hype, 100% effective.” To prove the point, they invented Jellyfish Sting Serum, a satirical fake product applied with a “Stinger Gun” promising 8,347 micro-stings per second. A genius idea, and I hope they’ve patented the stinger, as I’m sure there’s a market for it!

Budweiser Meets Tokyo Energy

Budweiser Japan’s latest campaign feels more like an art drop than an ad. Shot by London filmmaker Kelvin Jones and skater-artist Haroshi, the four-film series fuses global swagger with Tokyo’s creative charge. Surreal visuals, street culture, and cross-border collaboration turn a beer spot into a gallery-worthy celebration of individuality and cultural collision.

I came across this Instagram account from thisisoiland - it’s full of beautiful (and mostly pink) images that take a wry look at life’s harder moments; whether it’s “boneless & pointless” anxiety, 0 f**ks, or a little spilt milk. A gentle reminder that, in times of trouble, it’s always looking for a bit of light relief.