“
First we build the tools, then they build us
”
Marshall McLuhan
Twisted Toast Digital excels at storytelling, mostly on your behalf to achieve your own business and brand growth goals, but also for our own creative expression. Usually we write the articles and stories that appear here about media and marketing trends, but sometimes we venture into our own personal life experiences too.
RECENT ARTCLES
With a team well versed in storytelling, The Toast offers its own diverse perspectives on our professional world of brand development in communication, media trends and life in general
Freedom, in balance
As I reflect on April’s whirlwind of long weekends and celebrations, freedom has been front of mind. South Africa recently celebrated Freedom Day, commemorating our country’s first democratic elections on the 27th of April 1994. This year, the bonus holiday on Monday meant I could enjoy an extra-long birthday weekend off — YAY!
Reflections from Freedom Day weekend
April presented an extraordinary opportunity for a heady mix of leisure mixed with work, not just marked by a series of significant public holidays, but also for me, by unforgettable experiences in the waters around Cape Town. Freedom Day weekend specifically, provided a powerful backdrop for reflection, as I had the privilege of participating in a series of remarkable surfski paddling events.
Lighten the load, turn up the toast!
Have you noticed that a quarter way through the year, less seems to be more in 2025? (Not always a good thing when it comes to things such as road maintenance, hospital funding and the like – but that’s a topic for another day). Perhaps it’s the Baader-Meinhof effect (also known as the frequency illusion) in full swing, but once I started thinking about dropping the things I don’t need in my life, the universe (and my ever-diminishing closet) began cheering me on.
A toast to The Toast
14 years of freedom Fourteen years ago, Kim Browne and I took a leap of faith, leaving the security of corporate media life to embark on an entrepreneurial adventure. We envisioned a creative hybrid brand marketing agency that would seamlessly blend traditional strategies with innovative digital solutions. Thus, Twisted Toast Digital was born—a name symbolising our intent to put a unique spin on conventional marketing approaches.
Change in the air
There’s a certain crispness to the breeze lately, isn’t there? A whisper of something shifting, something new unfolding. It’s been a while since we last sent out the Toast Tribune, our little monthly love letter to you all. Life, as it does, got in the way—busy days turned into weeks, then months. But here we are, recommitting to this rhythm, dusting off the typewriter (or, well, the laptop) and pouring fresh energy into sharing our stories with you again.
The latest in LLM AI
Imagine you’re facing a tight deadline—campaign ideas aren’t flowing and your inbox won’t quit. It’s a grind I’ve seen wear down marketing teams time and again. The latest wave of large language model (LLM) AI, such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini and xAI’s Grok—can lighten that load. But here’s the catch: Raw tech isn’t enough. At Twisted Toast Digital we’ve been mastering this since ChatGPT first hit the scene and our expertise turns these tools into super results you can’t get on your own. We’re in an AI surge right now. OpenAI’s GPT-4o and various reasoning models juggle text, images, deep search and voice with slick speed. DeepSeek’s R1 offers budget-friendly reasoning. Claude 3.7 Sonnet keeps it safe and polished. Gemini 2.0 Flash blends words and visuals.
