The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

No … I’m not a bomb maker, nor am I talking about the AC/DC song … it’s that we’ve just won the TNT logistic business throughout Asia-Pac and it was against 5 bloody good agencies.  

[I put something nasty before – and it was childish so I genuinely apologise to anyone I may have upset! Sorry, I can be an idiot at times, it’s just over-enthusiasm!]

Now I know what you’re thinking … that’s not very interesting … but the thing is, I believe anything can be interesting if you look deep, hard and broad enough [plus work with a bunch of talented folk] and though I say it myself, the idea/campaign we developed was bloody tops and we’re all genuinely excited and happy that we’re going to get to make it come to life for real.

In a week where I got some really shitty news, it’s nice to end on a high!Yes I know this is a self-congratulatory post, but I don’t care … I’m proud of my team and besides, it’s my fucking blog so surely I’m allowed some indulgence? 🙂

 Empty Vessel

NP wrote something a while back about how people who have confidence in presentations, can often come across as boring or lacking passion.

Now while that’s quite a generalisation, I absolutely understand what he is saying because someone who is brimming with enthusiasm is far more interesting to watch than some uber-slick presenter who you feel has said the exact same thing about 100 times before.

However, as long as what Mr/Mrs Slick say is interesting and well thought out it can still be a really enjoyable experience … which is more than can be said for when I attend a presentation given by a Corporate Amoeba.

Corporate amoeba?

Yep, those individuals who have absolutely no formulated view of their own, just express what they have read/heard from other people.

Now I’m not talking about those folk who have ideas ‘inspired’ by others … no, I’m talking about those people who simply consume external information then repeat it verbatim, because they think it makes them look clever and relevant.

A friend of mine told me this story about a guy who made a big speech in the UK which he realised was almost a word-for-word take on what Australian Business magazine, The Bulletin, had written the month before.

Because my mate is a mischievous sod, he decided to ask a bunch of questions taking the absolute counter point of view – however because this guy only had a superficial understanding on this topic, he couldn’t counter the argument in any way so ended up looking nothing short of a fool.

Mike also told me about another guy he met who kept using really weird words in all of his presentations.

What grabbed his attention was that often, this bloke seemed to be using the words out of context.  All became clear when Mike visited a WORD OF THE DAY website and found all the words this guy had used, listed for previous days.

The reason so many of these people get away with it is because I think we’ve all become too polite.

There’s this sense asking a question shows disrespect or ignorance when I believe – if done the right way – it shows real interest and enthusiasm.

There’s a massive difference between duplication and inspiration … so next time you are in a presentation and feel something doesn’t quite make sense [or infact it DOES make sense and you want to know more] ask them a question because you’ll either learn something really good, or you’ll learn how many people in corporateland have no ability to think for themselves at all.

[Tips on how to ask questions without looking evil can be found here]

Because today is a public holiday in Singapore [thus I am sat on my arse watching Series 4 of Peep Show while you read this] … I thought I’d put up this short ‘Making Of’ film to prove the VB Symphony ad I wrote about was totally genuine.

I am proud of this work – sure it’s role was only supposed to be a bridge to the new core idea we’d developed – but we have still managed to make a fundamental shift to the brand after running the same ‘blue collar’ campaign for 40 odd years. 

Given the news of yesterday, I’m just sad we’re never going to get the chance to create what we wanted this all to lead to, but hey – it’s a nice way to go.

Enjoy and I’ll see you Friday.

PS: Incase you were wondering, Ben is NOT Ashton Kusher in disguise, he is just a bloke who happens to like the ‘trucker’ look!

So a while back I wrote about a big meeting I’d had with a client in Australia.

I don’t think it takes a Rocket Scientist to work out who I was talking about, but after weeks and weeks of waiting, we’ve finally got the news we’ve been waiting on.

We’ve been fired.

Despite it not being totally unexpected, we’re obviously totally and utterly gutted [especially for the brilliant team who worked their hearts out to create something we were all very proud of] however when a company you’re associated with decides to sue the client both personally and corporately [allegedly issuing new legal action the Thursday before the main meeting!] then it’s always going to be abit of an uphill struggle.

[Bit of an understatement that last bit!]

I can’t go into specifics because I’m pissed off, disappointed, frustrated and conscious of legal ramifications [and no, that is not being dramatic] … however in the near future I’ll write about one of the weirdest stories that’s come out of adland and it’ll sadly prove my Dad was right – advertising IS full of children playing at being adults! 

The figures don’t seem to make much sense, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of suggesting the reason why South Korean’s are such pioneers of technology is because they need it to watch all their hard-core smut on.

[Thanks to my client Ray, for sending me this. Still trying to work out if I should be impressed or very, very scared!]