D.S. Moss on Death, Brands and the Stories we Choose to Follow
We’re all going to die. But don’t be alarmed.
For D.S. Moss, that statement isn’t a threat; it’s a liberation. The writer, director, podcast showrunner, and frequent collaborator with the Mayda Creative Co. has made a healthy habit out of facing up to mortality. In fact, his own podcast (The Adventures of Memento Mori) was named by The Atlantic as one of the 50 best out there, and it charts the host’s journey as he “learns to live by remembering to die”.
For D.S., considering one’s own death is a philosophy to live by. Not only that, but it also contains some relevant wisdom when it comes to how we might better communicate with one another – including how we advertise. It informs a fascinating worldview which has helped underpin savvy, human, and engaging content for brands as well as provide the basis for a profound profile in the New York Times earlier this year.
“Confronting death isn’t about living each day as if it’s your last, which I feel is quite an unhelpful – and certainly unrealistic – cliche”, he explains. “It’s more about freeing yourself to live meaningfully for the rest of your life. Your time is finite, so you must fill it with meaning.”
Focus, and deliberate choice, is a recurring theme with D.S.. Not just when it comes to philosophy and mortality, but in the realm of communications as well. The Adventures of Memento Mori podcast has pulled off something that countless brands are striving for – it’s built an engaged and passionate audience. Having won the attention of its listeners, the podcast has earned the right to be heard amidst a noisy media backdrop. Asked whether this is something that a brand could ever hope to replicate, D.S. is optimistic.
“Yes, a brand can absolutely do that, but it needs to get a number of things right”, he says. “What I’d recommend, and I know how hard this is, is that you have to let go of ROI. You have to stop caring about benchmarks, at least for a while. It takes patience to grow an audience from nothing. You have to be sincere, and work with people who are sincere in trying to make something great. If a brand can do that, people will listen because people are ultimately attracted to passion”.
Happily, D.S. has come armed with a near-perfect example of this approach working in practice for a brand. The Black Kitchen Series, created in collaboration with Mayda and Wieden+Kennedy on behalf of Heinz, has succeeded in precisely those aims. Setting out to tell the stories of Black America’s culinary culture, The Black Kitchen series has not only cultivated its own following but picked up a coveted James Beard award along the way.
“It’s a huge credit to Heinz that they had the courage to assign part of their marketing budget and entrust it to a podcast which was fundamentally not an ad campaign”, says D.S.. “The Black Kitchen Initiative website is clearly branded by Heinz, but this podcast - and the accompanying short documentaries - have only the faintest trace of their fingerprints. It was allowed to live and breathe on its own terms, and I have no doubt that this is what made it a success”.
D.S. has a knack for helping brands alight upon the stories that people want to hear. From consumer goods like Heinz to financial services such as Plaid, there’s a diversity to the brands with which D.S. works that suggests that this is a magic trick any company could perform, provided they found the right subject and swagger to do so.
Cutting through the wall of constant media noise is, D.S. acknowledges, a challenge. But it’s a surmountable one. “Earning the right to be listened to is about making sure that you’re telling the best stories – so ask yourself how to do that”, he posits. “It’s almost a Buddhist exercise. You start by being silent and staying out of the noise. Let the noise be the noise, whilst you’re the one who is patient and getting on with something that’s sincerely meaningful.”
In practice, that’s tough when we’re bombarded with so much quick, instant content that demands our attention. “But”, says D.S., “the people and groups who are going to be remembered and idolised from this era of society are the ones who break free from that model of ‘six-second-content’”.
For creatively-minded people, part of the problem is the way we use the word itself: ‘Content’. D.S. bristles at the term, like a Michelin-starred chef who’d just been described as a ‘cook’.
“I think a helpful way to reframe this is to stop calling everything ‘content’”, he says. “Just say what you’re making and be proud of it. A podcast. A short film. An article. Saying ‘content’ doesn’t mean anything – it’s bland and forgettable by definition”.
In fact, for D.S., there’s something in the way the industry discusses ‘content’ which brings to mind his own relationship with death. “Maybe we say ‘content’ because it’s too uncomfortable, or low-key embarrassing, to say ‘a TikTok’, ‘a Tweet’, or ‘a YouTube video’. But in that case, why do we find that uncomfortable? What’s going on there, in terms of our own anxiety and hangups?”, he asks. “I think that’s the same psychology at play as when we talk about death only in the context of an afterlife, or “what happens next”. It’s too hard to face the thing itself, so we only talk around it - but that becomes very limiting”.
Looking at the creative output from the brands D.S. has worked with, the results are anything but limiting. Whether it be Plaid, Heinz, Nike, Jordan, or General Motors, there’s a sense that creativity is helping to make these brands bigger – more welcoming, tangible, and ultimately relevant through their storytelling.
That’s the power of a great storyteller: They are the people we choose to follow. In a world full of noise, they are the signal. It takes bravery, and copious amounts of skill. But D.S.’s career is littered with examples of brands who cut through and forged connections by telling stories that mattered. And that’s no coincidence. For someone so fascinated by the idea of death, D.S. has worked out how to tell the stories that make life worth living.
