Podcast of the Month with Zetteler
After running a series last year, where we asked our artists to recommend their favourite podcasts, we decided to follow up on its popularity by running a second series. We’ve thrown the net a little wider, asking some of our clients and other friends what they choose to listen to in their spare moments. So far, we’ve had Lecture in Progress, Jennifer Higgie from Frieze, and for our April edition it takes a slightly different format, as our guest is not an individual, but rather a whole team, who we love: Team Zetteler.
Plus at this time we know how podcasts are even more important to help look after and feed our minds.
Set up in 2012 by Sabine Zetteler, Zetteler is a communications agency offering expertise in PR, strategy and film to a range of businesses and clients. They’re so much more than that, though, as they’re passionate, hands on, sincere and have a unique and individual approach, which is hard to come by. They describe their essential aim as ‘being extremely bloody useful to our clients and, ultimately, to making the world a better place’. And we at Breed totally agree with this.
So, here are the personal podcast recommendations from the crew at Zetteler:
Emily Ward, Marketing Manager – The Boring Talks
Behind every boring thing, there’s something more boring. The Boring Talks explore this to the deepest levels to find things that do become interesting (promise!). Such as why you don’t want your soft-serve ice cream to droop (to those in the know, this is the dreaded ‘brewer’s droop’), why we don’t have lamp-post consistency over the country and diving the deepest depths of the Argos catalogue. Only boring people get bored.
Jess Meyer, Head of Operations – The Knowledge Project
Rupert introduced me to The Knowledge Project and I’m hooked. It’s run by Shane Parrish from Farnam Street (FS) whose goal is to help you master the best of what other people have already figured out. I use every long car journey to deep dive into thoughtful insights from experts on all kinds of diverse themes.
Anthony Leyton, Editor – Revisionist History
I’m very conscious of the fact that this is very much the normcore centrist dad’s podcast choice, but I am addicted to Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History, just because of the sheer range of topics it covers – from the best way to score in basketball to the fat in McDonald’s fryers. Perfect fodder for skittish brains who like to bore their friends and family with unrequested trivia about Bob Dylan’s approach to songwriting and the 1943 Bengal Famine.
Chris Hayes, PR Coordinator – Otherppl
If you struggle to enter a bookstore without picking something up, do not subscribe to Otherppl with Brad Listi. These personal interviews bring a whole new light on independent authors – typically producing more experimental works with small presses, it’s a welcome refresh from the somewhat scripted conversations other book podcasts tend to deliver. I really value encountering adventurous literature from names you’re not going to encounter everywhere else. But make sure you have some bookcase space ready before you hit download.
Ellen Williams – How to Fail
How To Fail with Elizabeth Day is my all-time favourite podcast – the first one I started listening to. It’s a podcast that celebrates the things that haven’t gone quite right. Every week a new interviewee explores how their failures taught them about how to succeed better. You learn a lot.
Andy Dunn, Film Director – The Kodakery
My recent podcast discovery, which resides squarely within my admittedly niche echo chamber of choice, is The Kodakery. Interviews with people making photography and movies on film (as opposed to digital) and other stuff circling in the broader analogue realm. If you loved Bait! or Jeff Bridges’ Widelux photographs, you’ll dig this. If you like craft ale, vinyl records and the smell of the darkroom, The Kodakery could be for you… Don’t let your Jpegs grow up to be Jpegs kids!
Sabine Zetteler, Founder and Managing Director – Talking Politics
Choosing a favourite is seriously hard as mood, global crisis or time available plays a huge part in what I press play on. But when forced to choose (and I literally imagined deleting all of them but one), the podcast I look forward to most is Talking Politics with David Runciman. David is the Head the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, and he has a deeply engaging and generous way of bringing experts in to have a conversation about whatever is most pressing either now or throughout history (there’s always a link to contemporary politics) and he brings no arrogance along on the ride. In addition to the creative podcasts I listen to for fun, insights or to find new avenues for our clients, this is the podcast that feels both so much bigger than my work or life, while also directly linked to everything I/we do.
Rupert Evans-Harding, Head of Strategy – Scaffold
There’s a brilliant podcast on architecture and design that not enough people know about: it’s called ‘Scaffold.’ Matthew Blunderfield presents with a sense of intellectual calm that verges on ASMR. Definitely subscribe or, if you want to dip your toes in, start with episode 21 with Tom Emerson of 6a. I was surprised to hear one of my favourite writers, Georges Perec, crop up in that conversation.
This image was taken by Teklan, courtesy of Camille Walala