Articles
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Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.
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Howard Luck Gossage, also known as “The Socrates of San Francisco“. Just like some of us, he was a paddler too who once joined a friend to paddle a canoe for 1 500 miles along the Mississippi river. And he discovered the media theorist Marshall McLuhan.
We write about marketing, media, South Africa, AI, the creative life and whatever else happens to keep us up at night. These aren’t “thought leadership” pieces written to game an algorithm. They’re honest observations from people who’ve spent decades in publishing, branding and digital marketing and who still find the industry fascinating enough to have opinions worth sharing.
RECENT ARTCLES
The Toast’s own perspectives on brand development, communication, media trends and life in general.
Butter side up
A toast to 15 years of twisted thinking On 1 April 2011, two people who had spent just over a decade publishing magazines for a living launched a digital marketing agency. No investors. No business plan worth the paper it wasn’t printed on. Just a ridiculous name, a shared belief that great content could sell anything and a stubbornness that, looking back, was probably our single greatest asset.
Rostersmith: Intelligent Roster Scheduling, Built by Twisted Toast Digital
COMING SOON We have been quietly building something we are genuinely proud of. Rostersmith is a SaaS platform purpose-built for healthcare practices that need to eliminate the pain of roster scheduling. Think pathology labs, radiology groups and multi-site medical practices - any environment where complex shift patterns, regulatory compliance and provider availability collide in ways spreadsheets were never designed to handle.
Hustle and jive
How South Africa's robot culture drives an economy Last Thursday, at the corner of Winnie Mandela and Republic in Sandton, right across from the Pick n Pay, I watched a man without a face mime for tips. Not metaphorically. Actually, without a face. Just glasses, a fedora and a long trench coat covering what I can only assume was a talented human being perched somewhere inside. His invisible head extended from the back of the coat, with a hat balanced impossibly on a thin wire, defying physics and common sense in equal measure. Oh, the nowhere head had glasses, too. The mid-morning traffic idled. Some drivers looked bemused. Others reached for change. A few filmed it on their phones.
The secret to genAI is “always on”
The case for generative AI is using it The term AI native may soon start replacing digital native for marketing and tech companies. A new digital divide is forming, one that separates those who embrace AI tools and use it for everything and those who don’t. People who understand generative AI tools have integrated it fully in their lives, for work and personal use. They don’t need to think about when and why to use genAI systems based on large language models. It’s obvious to them that these tools have already reshaped human existence and they are on board. They’re all in.
Serving an ace: Our new campaign for Waterfall City
Game, set, match. Padel isn’t just the fastest-growing sport in the world. It’s the new boardroom. Recognising this shift, we are chuffed to announce the rollout of our latest out of home (OOH) campaign, conceptualised and executed in close partnership with Attacq’s Waterfall City brand team.
The ebb and flow at the end of a year
On 1 April 2026, Twisted Toast Digital turns 15. It’s hard for me to believe. I’m not sure why but lately both our history and future have been on my mind. We’re lucky to be busy with work from a wide and diverse client roster across many different industries. This made me think about all our various clients with whom we’re sharing our journey, as well as our agency’s ebb and flow.