Filed under: Rob's LinkedIn Reference
This is not a blog post, this is my LinkedIn profile – or should I say, it would be if LinkedIn didn’t cap the number of characters you can use to a miserly 2000.
Anyway, there’s nothing to see here – though I do congratulate you on your Sherlock Holmes skills, because this post is meant to be hidden amongst all the ranting, only to be found by those individuals poking around my LinkedIn page.
To pretend this didn’t happen, click here, and everything will be normal again.
If you don’t know me and are going to decide whether I’m worth talking to based only on what a website says, then quite frankly, I don’t know if we’re going to get on … however to help you get a shallow understanding of who I am, I can currently – till they realise what a terrible mistake they’ve made – the Regional Head of Planning at Wieden & Kennedy [www.wkshanghai.com]
Obviously they are utterly wonderful and brilliant and if you – like my wife, friends and past colleagues – are wondering how on earth I got there, let’s go right back to the beginning and take you on a highlights/lowlights journey of discovery …
[Cue moviesque dissolve effect]
Session guitarist for some of the worst 80’s popstars in history
… but I only played the songs, I didn’t write them. Thank God.
Creative Planner at Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury [HHCL]
… where they taught me the importance and value of all communication disciplines – hence when people talk about retail, design, NPD, media, packaging etc … I don’t look at them with distain, but excitement.
Founding Partner & Creative Planning Director of cynic [www.cynical-world.com]
… the Betty Ford clinic for the disenfranchised ad person where over 7 years, we had 140 uber-talented people in 3 international offices [NYC, SF & Sydney] doing a huge range of weird and wonderful stuff – from designing interiors for 747’s, thinking up non-harmful military hardware, developing mopeds for a country rather than a rider, positioning NASA [yes, THAT NASA] and creating the odd award winning campaign to name but a few.
Regional Head of Planning for Y&R Asia
… hired by the irrepressibly brilliant Chris Jaques to help him make the network a creative force once again across Asia. Thanks to a bunch of great people, some hard work, a bit of clever thinking and some luck, we not only achieved our goal, but did it with clients we had no right to win including SONY, MTV, Discovery Channel, Schweppes and VB Beer.
Founding Partner of Google’s Cultural Engineering Lab
… after Google purchased an interest in cynic in 2008, we helped develop their ‘cultural engineering lab’ – a unit dedicated to identifying and developing [with Google engineers] culturally relevant product/tools and services that could demonstrate the company’s commitment to ‘doing no evil’. Some of the services/products/brands we helped develop were the flu tracker and the venture capital arm of Google – though there are still 5 key projects in development that all have the potential to positively and fundamentally benefit society through a reinterpretation and innovation of the education & finance industries. Big talk I know … but it’s not because I’m in adland, it’s because it’s possible. And needed.
Founding Partner & Creative Planning Director of Sunshine [www.hellosunshine.asia]
… rehired by Chris Jaques [who was now the CEO of M&C Saatchi Asia] and asked to develop a creative planning company that could aid M&C in being a better strategic and creative agency. In the 18 months I was there, we not only aided M&C win regional business including telco AXIATA, National Geographic, AIA Insurance & Crown Casino, but we developed our own portfolio of clients including Microsoft [Asia-Pac], Coca-Cola, Molson Beer and Virgin Racing.
Oh, and on top of all that, there’s been periods where – either fulltime or as a consultant – I’ve been a creative planner for MOTHER, Special Branch [a short-lived HHCL rip-off backed by WPP], The Marketing Store [a global BTL agency who taught me great retail & promotions are more about brand ideas than starbursts], SRVT [one of Australia’s creative hot-shops] and then – after SRVT went through a series of ‘mergers & acquisitions’ Aussie planning gods/dinosaurs [delete as appropriate] PRINCIPALS.
So there you go, that’s how I did it … but the reality is whilst I think I’m pretty good at what I do, the reality is luck played a much bigger part in it.
OTHER SHIT:
Bunch of awards … both for effectiveness and creativity and quite often, they’re the same campaign – who’d of thought!!!
Co-run the Global Advertising Planning School on the Web [A[P]SOTW]
Co-founder of homeless charity/lobby group Human_2
Developed new techniques for research and insight generation with internationally respected criminal profiler and author, Paul Britton.
Spoken at loads and loads of things from PSFK through to Music Matters.
CLIENT EXPERIENCE INCLUDES:
Virgin [working with Richard Branson & key directors regarding brand, product & comms]
SONY [Product Development & Communication]
IKEA
NIKE
Coke [Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Powerade]
Microsoft [Product Development & Communication]
NASA
Converse
Tango [Orange/Apple/Blackcurrant]
Nokia
Apple
Google [Product Development]
Nestle [Smarties, Aero and KitKat]
Barclays Bank
AA [Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous]
Pot Noodle
Diageo [Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Bundy Rum and Guinness]
Tabasco Sauce
Egg Bank
Tiffany’s
Old Spice
Unilever [Organics, Dove, Salon Selectives, Calvin Klein]
Hummer Cars
MTV [Product Development & Communication]
Discovery Channel
Mini
BASF Chemicals
iShares
Victoria Bitter
Prada
Schweppes
Triple J Australia [Advertising and NPD]
Diesel
Umbro
Piaggio [Product Development]
Ben & Jerry’s [Product Development]
Chupa Chups
Example of work – where possible – available on request
Filed under: Advertising [Planning] School On The Web
If any of you are doing the A[P]SOTW assignment, could I ask you to send/re-send it to rob2@cynical-world.com because we’ve had abit of an ‘incident’ with our server and basically can’t be sure some haven’t been errrrrrm, accidently deleted. Whoops and sorry!
For those still working away, remember the deadline is tomorrow [June 12th] @ 11:59pm.
Filed under: Comment
![Oprah...An angel on Earth [read me]](https://i0.wp.com/farm1.static.flickr.com/136/320703393_e82a11ea4f_m.jpg?resize=240%2C154)
I am sure Bob Jeffrey is a lovely man, but this article is the equivalent of an Oprah interview … sycophantic, shallow and skirting over the real issues.
Just changing your name may be a public declaration of shedding the old – but you need to do more than that if you want to reinvent yourself into a lean, mean fighting machine and why that issue wasn’t taken up with him is beyond me.
That’s not to say that everyone – or every campaign – by JWT is bad or boring or bad … however the ‘great’ is still in the minority to the ‘average’ … and it still pisses me off they massacred one of the truly great global campaigns when they won HSBC.
The thing is, Bob … and every other network CEO … should be scared, very, VERY scared – because not only are smaller creative networks starting to win real, major business, but with opencast creativity centres like OpenAd.net springing up, they could soon be relegated to nothing more than being ‘the UPS of adland’.
Thanks to Gareth [for the Guardian article] … it made me angry, which makes me happy!
[And not forgetting Marcus for the OpenAd link. You can stop sulking now, Ha]
Filed under: Comment
I’ve given Starbucks a hard time over the weeks and months [Example one, two, three, four] but that is all forgiven as today, they gave me and some of my colleagues a little party for my special day. YAY!
Cake, balloons, cards, laughter and errrrrm, coffee!
Then of course there were the pressies I received [not from Starbucks, they are only so generous, ha] … and whereas I didn’t get anything as exciting as a BMX Tuff Burner, I did get amongst other things, a Voodoo Doll, Trick Track, Football Set [including goals] and one of those brilliant Arcade ‘Crane’ machines – you know the sort, where you guide the arm to try and pick up a prize.
Even though I have ‘unlimited goes’, I still can’t win …
All in all, a top day … and I still have tonight, my birthday rocks! [abit like the chair I’ll be living in within a few more years, ha!]
Filed under: Comment
37 years ago at 22:10GMT, the first … and only … child of Roger and Fiorella Campbell was born.
5ilbs 5oz of screaming jaundice.
Apparently I looked so dodgy my Dad wanted the hospital to ‘double check’ I was the right kid.
It obviously affected them deeply because they lost all hold on their senses and decided to call me HOWARD!
HOWARD!!!
However an angel stepped in the form of a passing nurse … who having heard what my hour-old parents said, told them, “I don’t think he looks like a Howard”
Within seconds, sanity was restored and they decided to lumber me with the far less bully-friendly ‘Robert’ instead.
I owe so much to that nurse.
I’ve written loads about how great my childhood was and without doubt, my birthday was always a highpoint of the year.
I would get so excited about ‘the day’ that I’d not sleep for days prior – which always went down well with my parents as I am sure you can imagine, ha.
I’d get really, really cool stuff … one year it would be a Raleigh BMX Tuff Burner [with original skyways] the next a [admittedly, bloody small] snooker table … then of course I’d always have a really great party with my nearest 15 friends [ha!] – eating sausages-on-sticks, tizer, monster munch and ham sandwiches before heading off to see some cheesy blockbuster at the Nottingham ABC or maybe going to the 10 Pin Bowling Alley. [Which I stopped doing when Chris Bird kept winning, ha!]
Then the curse of great presents happened. I hit double digits.
Suddenly friends would no longer buy pressies, they’d simply hand over some cash or [God forbid] a crappy WHSmith book voucher. Infact for years, my best mate Paul [who is 4 days younger than me] would give me 5 quid, only for me to give him the exact same note back 4 days later.
Oh the innocence of it all … though I have to admit it did cross my mind to only give him 2 pounds to see what he’d do! Ha.
Anyway, those great, great days are now in the past – I’m 37 today – mature, responsible and wiser [ahem] … so can someone out there please explain why I’d still kill to be surrounded by nicely wrapped electronic shite that’ll fall apart within 2 days of playing with it … or at the very least, shoving a Sherbet DibDab in my gob and then pretending I’m frothing at the mouth?
Actually on second thoughts, don’t tell me – I can guess the answer.
Mr Mature!