Did you know that countless fruits and vegetables are needlessly thrown away every day by mass producers, yet the only thing wrong with them is that because they are disfigured, ugly or misshapen they are deemed unworthy and out of the norm? In reality, they are just as delicious and just as good for you as the "pretty", perfectly shaped ones. This is why French supermarket company Intermarché decided to do something about it. They launched a film, print, poster and radio campaign called the Inglorious Fruits&Vegetables, promoting the beauty of not-so-perfect fruits and veggies and so fighting food waste.

French consumers can not only enjoy healthy, fresh foods, but also save money as the previously deemed unfit for consumption fruits and veggies are offered at 30% less. The French supermarket chain buys the foods from farmers who would usually throw them away. This way the company also supports local production.

The overall aim of the campaign was to send an important message: it's not what fruits and veggies look like, but how they taste that matters – disfigured, hideous or ugly fruits and veggies are just as delicious and should not be tossed simply because of their "looks".

Every brand has a story to tell, but not every brand has mastered the art of telling its story in a way that is meaningful, attention-grabbing and long-lasting.

Just as people, some brands have a "way with words" – they are natural storytellers – while others find it a little bit more challenging and need to acquire the relevant skills first. Learning from the best in class is one step ahead at becoming a masterful storyteller.

But who are those brands that we can learn from? Who are the masters of storytelling? What do they stand for and what is their purpose?

That's what a recent study by Aesop tried to find out. It surveyed 2,000 consumers in the UK, asking them to rate companies against nine key storytelling elements:

• unique character/personality
• clear opinion
• vision/purpose
• intrigue (that urges us to learn more about them)
• credibility
• unique world
• shareable, worthy to talk about content
• entertainment
• memorability

The combined ranking result is enlightening:

Global warming, extreme weather events, resource scarcity, food and water crisis, instability of financial institutions – these are all interconnected global risks that we are facing today and that require us to act as fast as possible as they have major systematic impacts. But do you ever wonder who is going to solve these issues? Is it governments? Or companies? Or non-profits? Or regular people? I'm afraid I don't have the answer, but here's an interesting suggestion – it might be a whole generation.

Meet Generation Z – the bold rebels with the cause to save the world.

Gen Zers are the ones born after the mid 1990s. They now account for more than a quarter of the world's population, with that number rising steadily.

In many ways, Gen Zers are the opposites or extreme versions of Millennials, aka Generation Y – the previous generation.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ and about a hundred more social networking sites... The choice is overwhelming and expanding by the day. Smart marketers and communications professionals know that establishing a social presence on the right platforms is crucial to successful social media that adds real value for business. But how do you make that choice? How do you determine the right social networks for your business or client?

The first step towards deciding which network to be active on is defining your target group – that's Marketing 101. So, who is it that buys from you? Who is it that are you doing business with?

Once you've defined your audience, you need to get to know it – what is it that your customers like, do, talk about, where do they congregate online, how often, for what purposes? How do they make purchase decisions? To what extent are those decisions influenced by what people are saying, liking, sharing on social networks and on which platform exactly?

Every day I come across an interesting study and I want to dive into it to learn more about the research findings and then write a blog post with the key takeaways and my views. Unfortunately, I do need to sleep too. Indeed, from a professional's perspective it's hard to keep up with the tons of valuable research studies and analyses that are being released all the time. Information overload is our reality...

This is why when I saw the following infographic from the Institute for Public Relations I thought "Wow, this is spot on!" The infographic summarises the latest key issues and trends from the industry's top social media studies – one infographic, many studies.

This is something I would've found very useful when I was doing my research for my dissertation.

I would've had an overview of the top social media for PR studies in one place as a great reference for me to dig deeper in each study if I wanted to. Just knowing that those studies existed would've saved me a lot of time trying various keywords on Google search and bouncing from website to website for days to find the relevant and trustworthy sources.