Bureau

Be obvious! Be everyone else! Be ignored!

Actually, don't do those, please, we plead. Clients who want to be heard team up with ESC KEY .CO, a new media outlet and editorial consultancy by JD Shadel, who can help you with:

• Editorial leadership that helps you earn attention (not demand it).
• Message architecture that gives people a reason to care.
• Digital storytelling that works across channels and contexts.
• Strategic guidance from someone who's led award-winning teams.
• Writing that makes complex ideas clear and familiar ones fresh.
• Vintage GIFs from the early internet era like this GIF of a disco ball:

After seeing that disco ball GIF, you've probably decided you want to talk already, right? If yes, send an email. If not yet, read on for five ways to consult the Bureau and the five “rights” of editorial strategy. Why five of each? Why not?

Intro: Editorial services for clients who get the edge

Ready to hit the escape key, philosophically speaking, on generic approaches to “content” and “content strategy?” Then you might want to bring on JD Shadel as your fractional Chief Editorial Officer (wink). Based in London, Shadel works with media outlets and clients across cyberspace (we're all netizens now, darling).

Meet our villain: boring, generic “content”

The internet is in a growing crisis of boring and synthetic “content.” And is there anything that sounds more boring than “synthetic content,” anyway? Countering that is what the ESC KEY .CO Bureau is all about: audience-first editorial strategy for clients who want to zag, to quote copy legend Barbara Noakes.

Saying editorial instead of content isn't merely semantics. It's about strategically differentiating yourself from everything generic — humanizing your voice and clarifying your point of view so you earn attention.

That's where ESC KEY .CO comes in. After a decade of working with some of the top media brands in the business and leading award-winning teams, Shadel started ESC KEY .CO because they craved a fresh forum to discuss the forces disrupting our lives and creative careers — with a distinct style and viewpoint on the world.

As Shadel grows ESC KEY .CO, they’re opening up availability to a select number of likeminded clients for editorial strategy and creative leadership services. 

In other words, the Bureau is currently a Bureau of one — i.e., Shadel, your nimble coconspirator when you seek a fresh take.

You don't “quick win” attention — you earn it

Independent in spirit but always looking for cool collaborators, Shadel leverages their extensive expertise in journalism, editorial direction and digital strategy to support clients who share this ethos: if you want to earn people’s attention, you have to give them a reason to be interested in you.

Put differently, if you want to cut through the noise, you have to be more original than noise. You can’t “quick win” yourself there, either.

Your, well, escape from the obvious

Clients in lifestyle, travel, tech and social impact sectors work with ESC KEY .CO's JD Shadel for an editorial approach to earning attention.

Email JD

A: Who JD Shadel has worked with

From top-line editorial direction through to trend consulting and writing, Shadel has led and contributed to projects honored by the Webby Awards, US Travel Association, AIGA, NATJA, AMA PDX and others. And they bring their distinct point of view to clients near and far.

Media:

Condé Nast Traveler, Them, The Washington Post, BBC News, Bloomberg CityLab, VICE, Fodor's Travel and others

“JD has an eye for spotting rising trends in travel and breaking them down in a way that really speaks to a young, diverse audience.”
—Amanda Finnegan, deputy features editor at The Washington Post

“JD is the rare journalist who is as adept at serious investigative work as they are at incisive cultural commentary. Their view on the world is never narrow, and I have always counted on them to see that an assignment about, say, discrimination on LGBTQ+ dating apps or transphobic Google results is about more than the queer community — it’s about capitalism, politics and broader currents in society. Their copy is as sparkling as their attitude.”
—Tyler Trykowski, formerly the LGBTQ+ editor at Vice, executive editor at Them

“JD is not only a delight to work with, but they are always at the ready with razor sharp ideas and squeaky clean copy, whether I’m looking for reporting on innovation in the travel industry, or service-y yet voice-y destination guides that are a cut above the rest.”
—Megan Spurrell, associate director of articles at Condé Nast Traveler

Clients:

Good On You, Airbnb, Travel Oregon, Portland International Airport (PDX Next), Adidas, FARFETCH, CrowdDNA, Destination DC, Canvas8 and others

“JD creates editorial strategies that break through the clutter, deeply connect with an audience and drive engagement. The result is always spectacular — and the process a joy.”
—Katie Meeker, comms leader at PDX Next, ex-Wieden + Kennedy

“JD’s expertise in crafting thoughtful editorial strategies across multiple formats brought Travel Oregon’s content to life — seamlessly connecting seasonal campaigns, social storytelling, print and innovative tools such as the Oregon Weather Compass to inspire travelers.”
—Mo Sherifdeen, director of global integrated marketing and publishing at Travel Oregon

“JD has transformed our audience engagement with creative strategic guidance and UX writing — helping us make more elevated editorial content and successful products.”
—Sandra Capponi, Good On You

B: 5 ways to consult the Bureau

Example: Shadel provides fractional editorial leadership to Good On You, most recently guiding the fashion brand rating platform's expansion into beauty — producing an original data journalism report and conversation-starting editorial package in the Good On You Journal. The editorial campaign earned coverage everywhere from Financial Times and Fast Company to Vogue Business and The Business of Fashion.

Example: Shadel defined the overarching messaging and narrative framework for the Portland International Airport's locally sourced new terminal, which opened to rave media coverage in 2024, dubbed the local-est airport yet. The framework, focused on the voices of local makers and Tribal forestry partners, came to life in creative work across digital, newsletters, social, out-of-home and environmental installations, and a photo shoot including Portland drag icon Poison Waters.

Example: in a former life, Shadel worked as the lead editor at MEDIAmerica, then one of the leading media companies on the West Coast, where they managed a wide range of established magazine journalists, shaped multimedia stories in support of campaigns with Wieden+Kennedy and Travel Oregon. Their work won awards, but the thing they enjoyed the most was championing creatives of different stripes to tell their most original stories to date (which, yes, included Shadel hiking with a Bigfoot hunter in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon and repelling from a helicopter onto a cargo ship in the Pacific and riding to shore with the Bar Pilots).

Example: in January 2023, Shadel started writing the Future of Travel series for Condé Nast Traveler, a regular feature taking a balanced look at the bold ideas and powerful forces reshaping the world around us and how we move through it. Since launching the column, they've covered everything from hotels in space and ChatGPT's launch to dating apps' travel features and the growing carbon impacts of commercial aviation. Shadel has spoken about their work in the column at Condé Nast's 2023 Points of View event in New York City and the inaugural Points of View UK event in London in 2024.

Example: Shadel led UX copywriting for Good Measures, the first comprehensive transparency tool for fashion brands, launched by Good On You x FARFETCH in 2022. Now used by leading luxury and independent brands, the SaaS tool required both clear interface copy and compelling messaging, which earned coverage from Vogue Business to The Business of Fashion.

1, 2, 3, 4 or 5? Let's talk.

C: JD Shadel's editorial philosophy

Reality check: people don’t pay attention to boring 

Thought experiment: if you wanted to scale up your content operations with loads of synthetic “AI” garbage content, then you’d quickly prove our guiding principle: most of the people you want to reach don’t read, watch or listen to boring. They do, of course, read, watch and/or listen. But not to boring.

In fact, most audiences don’t care about your “AI” whatever — they care about what’s relevant and interesting to them. And, of course, they care about cats! “AI” boring stuff won't be interesting to them. But synthetic “AI” generated cats will still be, I regret to admit. Even early internet GIFs of cats peering through a page blinking will be of interest to audiences throughout internet history.

Never say you've got something for everyone unless by something you mean cats and by everyone you mean the internet. It's how the web works.

While you might see some initially positive numbers as your generic synthetic content games the algorithms, this will be a game of diminishing returns, even if you're a synthetic cat influencer on Instagram (this is a prediction, first published November 2024, that synthetic pet influencers will see some success, which is kind of gross but it proves this point about what's interesting and relevant to people on the web). On top of all that, you’d be contributing to the decay of quality human creativity on the internet (and cat creativity on the internet). What you won’t be is remembered (unless you're a cat). 

Ironically, we’ve reached a point in the history of the internet where the wisest approach is a return to the fundamentals of being relevant and interesting to the right people. Arguably, the key to growth in this climate is focusing on what's real.

In other words, unless you’re a cat — or maybe a human selling water — “something for everyone” will only get you so far. (And even in the water vertical, look no further than LinkedIn's favorite consumer brand, Liquid Death, for proof on how dialed-in and consistently executed voice helps earn attention.)

There’s a reason that digital media companies that built their businesses around social media algorithms and massively generic audiences have floundered in the mid-2020s. There’s a reason that the digital media ecosystem is splintering like a shattered windshield into niche interest groups, often formed around individual creators people come to identify with. There’s a reason once-powerful media outlets and brands stuck in a 2000s or 2010s approach to “content” are struggling to orient themselves in this moment.

And it’s all reason to rethink how you play the long game at a foundational level.

Keys to effective editorial strategy

Across Shadel’s work for major media, as well as with like-minded brands and agencies, there’s a consistent through line: clients who don’t want to ruffle any feathers rarely soar.

That chatty “conversational” millennial startup voice won’t cut it anymore. Bland keyword loaded “content” won't do, either. Now, all of a sudden, “authenticity” is again the buzzword du jour. But the answer is not a pivot to what you perceive to be Gen Z or Gen Alpha — or Gen Zalpha — slang (and thereby, more often, appropriating it in a way that makes your brand read like Steve Buscemi).

There’s a reason the best feature journalism, the best socially conscious art and the best film from the mid-20th century still feel fresh in the 21st: it’s because the creators had something strikingly original to say — something that was both timely and told in a timeless way. But let's be super clear: nostalgia isn't the point.

As we see in a contemporary context, even as we’re all overrun by emails, there’s a reason we immediately open one or two independent newsletter writers who’ve earned our trust and therefore our ritualized attention. I'm sure you can count a dozen niche examples of timely work that has a timeless appeal in your own life. If that's not the reach goal for everything we do, then why, folks, are we in this line of work?

While there’s no shortcut, there’s some shorthand that underscores the value in aiming for timely and timeless (and, where relevant, cats). That’s what Shadel means when they talk to clients about, ahem, the five “rights” of editorial strategy: 

1. the right story 
2. told for the right reasons 
3. with the right words 
4. in the right tone of voice 
5. and in the right contexts. 

The keys to effectively delivering on an editorial strategy like that are defining your story in relation to your audiences’ attention diet; having a clear “villain” in your story, no matter how silly (and know that you’re also the “villain” to somebody’s “hero”); consistently delivering on your core premise (which might simply be a dancing banana); and being realistic about the fact that people won’t pay attention if it’s not interesting and relevant to them.

Relevant + interesting = timely + timeless.

Conclusion: You make contact

Email JD Shadel with a quick summary of who you are and what you want to achieve.

Email JD