Most of what is written about “great communication” is anecdote. A clever ad. A surprising stunt. A leader who said the right thing at the right moment. The anecdotes are not wrong — they are accurate descriptions of memorable moments — but they tend to leave the reader without any tools for repeating them. Reading them is like watching a magician without ever learning the trick.
These case studies are different. Each one is a moment in which a communicator, knowingly or not, navigated the three gates and engaged the five drivers in a way that produced disproportionate attention — and held it long enough to matter. The point of reading them is not to admire. It is to learn what was actually done, in framework terms, so it can be done again.
The case studies
- Case Study 01 Volvo Trucks — The Epic Split Jean-Claude Van Damme, the splits between two reversing trucks, and the engineering claim that travelled the world. A masterclass in how restraint earns more attention than noise.
- Case Study 02 Spotify — NATURE as a Featured Artist How a precise change to platform metadata made a rainforest into a credited artist, and turned ambient listening into conservation funding.
- Case Study 03 Operation Fortitude Inflatable tanks. A Spanish fantasist with twenty-seven imaginary friends. A disgraced general lending his reputation to a phantom army. The largest misdirection in history.
- Case Study 04 Cadbury’s Gorilla No chocolate, no product shot, no voiceover. Ninety seconds of a gorilla, a drum kit, and Phil Collins — and the rehabilitation of a brand in crisis.
- Case Study 05 The Kennedy–Nixon Debate Same words, same arguments. Radio listeners thought Nixon won. Television viewers thought Kennedy won by a landslide. How the medium changed which drivers mattered.
- Case Study 06 Jaguar — A Cautionary Tale In November 2024, Jaguar killed its own logo. Attention spiked. Sales did not. A study in confusing noise with signal.
- Case Study 07 International Orange The colour that refuses to be ignored. The Golden Gate Bridge, the X-1, NASA’s pumpkin suits — and the colour you’re reading right now.