Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Clients, Complicity, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Efficiency, Professionalism, Reputation, Speed Dial, Standards
Do more.
Be faster.
Think quicker.
Create more.
Be more efficient.
Be more effective.
Give me more options.
Give me more answers.
Give me less questions.
Read my mind.
Do what I say.
Cut costs.
Cut time.
Go faster.
Deliver now.
Be agile.
Be ready.
Sound familiar?
What I find increasingly hilarious is that more often than not, the people who bark these demands are the opposite of ‘efficient’.
In fact, it seems the obsessive focus on speed is more to make up for time they’ve spent/wasted on indecisions … internal process … stake holder ‘management’ … or just not getting round to what needed to be done.
Look, I get stuff happens.
I also get we live in a fast-moving, competitive world.
But while there are times where speed can be a commercial advantage, what about quality???
Do I think everyone is like that?
No.
But by the same token, I’m increasingly hearing speed being talked about as the ‘goal’ rather than standards or quality.
It’s why there’s almost constant chatter about the need to embrace AI.
Or companies smashing themselves together to ‘increase efficiency and value’.
Or the creation of single creative groups, regardless they’re inhabited by talent born from agencies with totally different ethos and standards.
Maybe it’s because the people asking for this stuff – or selling this stuff – believe quality is inherent in their request and/or offer, however there’s 3 key issues with not openly talking quality:
It conveys speed is the ultimate priority.
It positions ‘care and craft’ as ‘nice to have’ but not necessary.
It minimizes the opportunity for an upfront conversation where issues regarding taste, standards, expectation and time can be discussed and aligned on.
This last point is especially important because the time allegedly ‘saved’ just getting on with stuff, often ends up taking even longer than if you’d been given the time to sweat the details in the first place, because what happens is the work is pants and it ends up in an endless review loop to confirm it.
Though there is an even worse scenario.
And that’s when the work gets approved and put out into the world … because then not only does it enter into the public domain, it hurts the brand, hurts the customers and hurts the industry as a whole. And if you think that doesn’t matter, then you’re revealing you may talk about customers, quality and value … but you haven’t got the faintest idea about any of them.
Increasingly the most important job in agency and clients is ‘quality control’ … but sadly, in both agency and clients, they’re no match for the allure of speed.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Bank Ads, Brand, Brand Suicide, Clients, Comment, Confidence, Context, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Customer Service, Finance, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Relationships, Reputation, Service, Standards
So, I have been a customer of ING Bank in Australia, for over 30 years.
THIRTY.
Given I have moved countries so often, I have had to update my country of residence many times – so when I received an email in December, asking me to ‘check my information’ for the banks legal requirements, I took it all in my stride.
Unsuprisingly, my information was – having updated it when we moved to NZ – was up to date and when I confirmed, I got a notification telling me all was good.
So imagine my surprise when in January, I received this …
I have no idea why my ‘document’ was not accepted, when [1] at the time it said it was and [2] it is the same one they have had on file for years – but I went to the website, as they requested, to provide another only to find this when I logged in.
ACCOUNT INACTIVE.
The bank, without letting me know in advance, had frozen my bank account.
Ice cold. Can’t access my money. Can’t spend my money.
What the actual fuck?!
To make matters even worse, they didn’t have any place where I could ‘update’ my information and so I found myself on hold for THREE HOURS.
Now, I appreciate there is anti-money laundering rules that need to be maintained but there’s 3 things I don’t understand.
Why did they freeze my account before asking me for other paperwork?
Why wasn’t my paperwork accepted given it has been fine for decades?
Why don’t they get their own shit in order before bullying their customers …
What do I mean by that last point?
2018 Dutch Settlement:
ING paid €775 million to settle charges with the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service for allowing clients to launder money for years, citing serious flaws in their counter-terrorism financing systems.
Systemic Failures:
Prosecutors identified instances where accounts were used for illicit activities, such as a lingerie trader laundering €150 million, which the bank’s systems should have flagged.
Regulatory Action:
The Dutch Central Bank oversaw corrective actions, and ING accepted responsibility, vowing to improve compliance.
Executive Liability:
While the large fine resolved the organizational charges, Dutch prosecutors later dropped criminal cases against former executives, including CEO Ralph Hamers, due to insufficient evidence for criminal liability, though they noted insufficient steps were taken.
2025:
ING faced new scrutiny in early 2025 over its role in a case involving former EU Commissioner Didier Reynders, with investigations into whether the bank failed to report suspicious activities related to him.
Other Jurisdictions:
ING Spain also received a fine in March 2025 for serious AML failings.
Yep, the bank that wants its customers to comply with money laundering rules has consistently failed to comply with money laundering rules … except where mine was a paperwork issue, theirs was an illegal activity issue.
Financial institutions consistently like to present themselves as ‘caring about their customers’, but the reality is the vast majority only care about themselves and their richest customers.
In that order.
Is it any surprise so many people are turning to things like bitcoin?
Sure, the risks are high but at least there’s a chance you could strike it rich whereas with so many financial institutions, they use fees, interest rates and access to keep so many exactly where they are.
Or worse.
Now I appreciate I am generalizing here.
I get many of the people who work in banks are decent people who are caught in the same situation as many out there. [And the person I dealt with at ING was very helpful and understanding … even when I took her through all of ING’s ‘mistakes]
But when people feel they are forever being spoken at, rather than listened to … there’s a point where people have as much interest in financial organizations as they offer their customers.
Which, according to a letter I received from ANZ Australia, is 0.01%.
The banking system operates on trust and confidence. What a shame those principals don’t extend to how banks see customers. Especially customers who have never done anything wrong for 3 bloody decades.
Well, ING lost one today.
Not because they wanted more paperwork from me but because they made a decision – that could have had a huge impact on me – without even discussing it with me. And if they can do that over a relatively minor issue, which – let’s not forget – their system had told me was ‘upto date’, then why would I ever believe I can trust my money is safe with them?
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Pitch, Reputation, Respect, Teamwork, Trust
I love pitching.
I love the feeling of possibilities and potential.
I love being around people where we’re all focused on how a problem can be tackled in an interesting way.
I love the debate and the pushing of working out what’s the real problem we need to focus on.
I love watching the journey from everything to something …
Possibilities to a defined point of view.
It’s the thing that still gives me the most excitement … that triggers my insatiable desire to win better.
But – and it’s an important bit – that only works if we’re all are leaning in, because one thing I absolutely fucking detest is the backseat driver.
The people who are never short of opinion but always short of getting their hands dirty with the rest of us.
Who ask for meetings but then ask someone else to send the invite.
Who sit in reviews but do everything except what they’re supposed to do.
Who watch everyone working their ass off but never offer to help beyond a half-hearted enquiry as they are about to go home.
Who make their comments the morning after because they didn’t stay with everyone the night before to discuss the decisions.
Who sit around distracting everyone but not doing much for anyone.
Look, I get these things can happen occasionally and I also appreciate pitches often impact your life in ways that they shouldn’t – or you hope wouldn’t – but the people I’m talking about can be described by the very simple trait that they expect everyone to serve them rather than ‘muck in’. They convey an air of superiority regardless of their experience or level. And yet – should you succeed – you can be sure-as-hell they’ll be one of the first to insert themselves into any celebrations, acclaim or award, even though no one can actually define what exactly they did.
It’s why I love what someone told me they called them when I lived in Singapore.
Tai Chi Experts.
Not because of their calming influence.
Nor because of their clarity and control.
Because they are masters at one thing and one thing only.
Deflection. Deflection. Deflection.
Which is why for all the systems and processes the industry likes to claim it operates by, the reality is it’s driven by what I call ‘co-ordinated and synchronized sweat’ … which is why the people who ‘perform’ may still experience the kindness and care of their colleagues, but not the trust. And if that happens, then you’re probably fucked.
Which is why the best advice is to never be known as the Tai Chi Expert.
That doesn’t mean you have to destroy yourself to prove yourself, but it does mean you have to add to the process rather than just commentate on it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Anniversary, Australia, China, Dad, Death, Family, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Otis
I think my Mum would be strangely happy that I almost forgot to write this post today.
And I did … only realizing last weekend today was the 11th anniversary of my Mum dying.
It’s not even the first time this has happened …
So how come I nearly forgot today – one of the worst days of my entire life – and why do I think Mum be happy about it?
Well, let’s do the practical reasons first …
I write this blog weeks in advance and so sometimes I don’t even think about the date they will appear, I just load them up to be automatically put out. That said, I’ve never nearly forgotten when it is Dad’s anniversary … however that’s a bit different to Mum’s in so much as he died in mid-January and so that tends to be one of the first posts I write every year, coming out the festive holiday season.
But that’s more of an assumptive rationale …
The fact is both my parents blessed me with an amazing childhood and upbringing. I’ve written so much about them over the years – from their endless encouragement to their demonstration of what love really means – and the loss of them was, without doubt, the hardest and biggest challenges I’ve ever had to face and deal with in my life.
But Dad died first – 16 years before Mum – and while I’d experienced the death of people close to me before, that was the one that was the most direct in terms of impact, importance and shock. It meant it took me years before I could think of Dad as the Dad I grew up with … rather than the person he became after his stroke robbed him of who he was and how he was.
But Dad’s passing opened up the ability for Mum and I to talk about death … and we did. A lot.
Not in an ‘impending doom’ kind-of-way … more in terms of the reality of what we’d faced and had to accept and learn.
It meant this was very much top of mind when Mum was going in for her operation. Maybe not spoken about openly, but definitely something that was in eachother’s minds. In fact, it was only after Mum had died – when the operation to extend her life, sadly failed due to a childhood issue that had gone undiagnosed – that I discovered just how much Mum had been thinking about it.
That she had written me ‘notes’ in case the worst happened – featuring information I’d need to make organizing her estate easier – is still one of the most powerful demonstrations of unconditional love I’ve ever seen. Though it still breaks my heart how she must have felt writing them – knowing that she was having to face her own mortality, on her own, while I was on the other side of the planet.
That said – as I wrote the morning she died – we’d found a lovely rhythm in the final few years.
We’d always had a wonderful relationship but there was a period where a few niggles had entered our interactions … nothing much, just a little tension caused by me wanting to take care of her and her wanting to fiercely protect her independence and have me look after myself and my future more. But we’d got past that by realizing both us were coming from a place of love … so we made allowances for each others needs, which meant she let me put money in her bank account every month and I didn’t mind that she never spent a penny of it. Haha.
And while the days leading up to her death will be forever burned in my mind, my memory of Mum has never been stuck in that period, like it was for Dad for all those years. I don’t know why but I’m grateful for it.
Maybe it’s because I became better equipped emotionally after Dad died?
Maybe it’s because Otis was born 3 months before Mum passed and so that period was consumed with happy thoughts throughout that time?
Or maybe it’s because I’d seen Mum a lot before she died – every month for 6 months or so – and so saw the impact of her heart condition on her health – meaning it was less of a surprise to me, even though I thought the operation was going to make things better?
Who knows … but while today will always be significant in my mind, it’s not the main thing that immediately comes to mind. Instead I think of the conversations we had when I came to visit … the pasta she would lovingly make for me … the look of happy surprise on her face when I turned up unannounced from Australia … the tennis she’d play with me on the patio in the back garden in summer when I was a small kid … the joy on her face when she learned she was going to be a Grandma … the stories she would tell me of the films or comedians or concerts she’d gone to see … the quiet contentment we felt when we were in the same room together, even if nothing was being said.
I think of those things WELL before anything to do with her dying.
I think of her grace, her kindness, her love, her curiosity, and her compassion.
I think of how much I wish she could see the grandson she never met, but adored.
I think of how she will never know I lived in America and back in England and now NZ.
I think of how she would react to Bonnie. [And the news of Rosie]
I think of how she would react to ‘healthy me’.
I think of how lucky I was – and am – to be able to call her my Mum.
And that’s why, I am sure Mum would be happy that I almost forgot to write this post …
Because it means her memory is alive and present in my life and that means she achieved what she hoped for most in her life.
That she was a good Mum.
And she was. And still is.
I miss you Mum. I hope you’re with Dad, holding hands.
I love you.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Clients, Colleagues, Comment, Communication Strategy, Community, Confidence, Conformity, Content, Context, Contribution, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Education, Effectiveness, Equality, Experience, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Otis, Parents, Research, Respect, School, Standards
As many of you know, Otis has dysgraphia.
For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a condition that means – while his capacity to learn is the same as everyone else’s – the way he learns is different.
I’ve written about how his school has tried to accommodate him and how grateful we are for that, but the reality is – understandably – most schools are designed to cater to the masses, not the edge … so as much as Otis did well, it still meant he was being taught [and measured] to a standard more than his potential.
Anyway, this year – because he was due to change school having turned 11 – we decided to take the plunge and enroll him in a specialist creative school that follows an educational model that has been specifically designed for kids who have ability, but learn differently.
I am massively against private education, but within minutes of walking in – I got very emotional because I knew this is what he needed. What would help him thrive. Not to be better than others, but to be better for himself.
Within a few days of attendance, he proved we were right.
On about the 3rd day, he came home and told us why he knew this school was right for him.
It wasn’t because there’s only 90 kids in the entire school
[when previously there were 70 just in his class]
It wasn’t because the building feels more fun ad agency than place of studious education.
It wasn’t even because it’s next to a beach which the whole class goes to every day.
No, it was this: He doesn’t need to charge his laptop every day.
Now you may think that means he’s not doing much learning … but you’d be wrong. In fact, you couldn’t be more wrong.
You see, at his old school, all he ever did was use his computer.
Part of this was because dysgraphia affects your ability to write with a pen, so he did everything on a laptop. But the other part of this is because his teachers – in a bid to keep him busy while also needing to give attention to the rest of the class – gave him endless worksheets to fill in.
In essence, his education was more about data entry than learning.
That’s not a diss, we understand the situation they were in and were very grateful for the genuine interest in trying to help … however in just a few days, Otis has discovered what education really is about … what it really means … how it really feels.
And while he has stated he finds this harder … he’s not just happy about it, he’s happy about how he’s being encouraged to approach it.
Learn not follow.
Think not repeat.
Experience not reference.
Inclusive not exclusive.
Engaged not left to type.
Which is why the fact his computer only needs charging once-a-week rather than everyday is so noticeable and powerful.
Not just to him, but to his Mum and Dad as well.
It reminds me of the time I was doing a project for Coca-Cola in Indonesia.
We’d launched the Open Happiness work and I’d been sent to Indonesia to talk to kids about what optimism meant to them.
I remember talking to some kids – about 15 years old – when one of them took me to the other side of the street and pointed into the distance.
All I could see was a skyline filled with tall buildings and cranes that were building even more tall buildings so I asked him what I was supposed to be looking at.
“The cranes”, he said. “I’m seeing my future being built in front of my eyes”.
I loved it. I loved how they’d just communicated something pretty fluid and morpheus in a way that suddenly was clear-as-fuck. Something I didn’t just understand, but felt … while somehow also ensuring I was very aware of the context, conflict and challenge they’d gone through leading up to that point.
Like with Otis’ and his use of the battery % on his laptop to help me truly appreciate the journey he’d been on, the comment about the cranes made a lasting impression on me.
Which highlights a really important point.
People very rarely connect, project, express and see meaning in things in ways that reflect how we want them to communicate to us.
That doesn’t mean they lack ability, it means we lack the ability to translate them.
Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values convenience over nuance. Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values answers over understanding. Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values the functional not the emotional.
Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values what the clients want to say more than what the audience want to hear. Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry obsessed with the ‘science’ of marketing, not the people it’s for. But most of it’s because we’ve become an industry that places greater value on audiences repeating a specific set of words based on our communication than having them express its impact on them through their individual feelings, emotions and behaviours.
My son … and that kid in Indonesia … not only helped me understand what education and optimism meant to them in ways that no focus group or data set could ever achieve, but they gave me access into their world.
How they see it.
How they interpret it.
How they live within it.
How they cope inside of it.
How they hope to experience it.
The more we open our eyes and ears to what is going on in our audiences world – rather than focus on what we want them to specifically repeat in their world – the more we not only can make a bigger difference to our clients in the work we create, but the more our clients will make a bigger impact on the people they need.
Or as my friend Andy once said:
“Just because someone repeats what you want to hear, exactly as you want to hear it … doesn’t mean they believe a fucking word of it”.