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

Imagine my surprise when I got handed this …

Yep, it’s a can of Diet Coke pre-promoting a movie that came out waaaaaaay back in May.

Now I have no idea how long Diet Coke can be stored for – presumably ages – but getting given something that was at least 3 months old [if not probably older as the promotion would run in advance of the movie coming out] didn’t make me feel too good.

To be fair to Diet Coke, it’s not their problem … but the restaurant who served it, it is.

OK, so the place was nothing fancy – just a cheap and cheerful Thai place – but happily serving 3+ month drinks means customers may start to question just how ‘fresh’ the ingredients of their food are.

Yes, I’m being petty and picky … but it’s these little things that can leave a big impression on customers … and all they actually have to do to counteract it is simply open the can, pour the contents into a glass and serve the customer – who will be none the wiser and have no reason to write crappy little posts like this.

People are complex beasts … and like NP and Gareth have said many a time … it’s all very well going on about the ‘big idea’, but quite often it’s the little things that make the biggest and most powerful impression. More clients, ad agencies, creatives and planners should start thinking about that!

Without doubt Microsoft would be a hard beast to manage – plus I appreciate this is the first of a ‘set’ of ads that aims to make the monopoly more ‘people friendly’, but unlike some who say it isn’t enough about Microsoft, my beef is that it’s just a very bad script with a very weak idea.

Hell, when Bill Gates comes across better than Jerry or even Keanu, you know there’s something dodgy going on and as much as much as I congratulate the company founder for ‘having a go’, the net effect is that Microsoft’s perception changes very little at all – infact it could be argued it makes them look even worse as they are obviously trying so hard to be cool, that it automatically makes them look uncooler than the most uncool thing in the World.

OK … OK … so perception change of this magnitude is not going to happen overnight and interms of tone, they are miles away from where they once were – however just like the SIA ads I’ve ‘talked about’ in the past, the disruptive effect of these ads is not positive [at least at this point] which begs the question, why did the ego-maniacs at Crispin [ 🙂 ] make the bloody thing because even they don’t come out of it looking good.

And why Jerry Seinfeld?

WHY JERRY “I’m not funny or relevant anymore” SEINFELD?

It all smacks of people with too much money fulfilling their egos and their pension plans.

A while back I slagged off Microsoft for their awful launch campaign for Vista and you know what, as bad as that was – and it was fucking terrible – this spot has not altered my attitude towards the brand one jot, which is very bad news for Microsoft/Crispin but possibly great news for McCaan’s who can say they achieved the same level of apathy for a fraction of the millions this little episode has cost.

The mark of a great agency – at least for me – is when people are genuinely excited to see what brave brilliance they are going to come up with on an old and tired account. Sadly, like BBH’s campaign for British Airways, I am left wondering what the hell happened because what should have been great has come out so bad.

OK, so I know this is going to be a hugely unpopular post … plus I know not everyone I am about to describe is like this … however I am getting abit scared of planners who have only worked in the medium of digital.

There, said it.

It’s not that they are evil or anything – it’s just that the media they work in is so formulated for immediate gratification, that they seem to have forgotten all about the importance of emotion, subtelty and/or intimacy.

Now it’s important you realise I’m not saying these guys are stupid – they’re devilishly clever – it’s just that there’s been more than a few occasions where I’ve read a comment/blog by a Digital Planner and been shocked how cold and clinical they are – which may explain why so many online campaigns/thinking feels executionally led rather than emotionally and value driven.

Am I talking bollocks?

Quite possibly … and as I said, I know I’m making a huge generalisation with this comment, not least because a couple of my mates are digital planners and they most definitely are intune with humanity … however one of my colleagues made the point that when television came about, media people [ie: radio buyers] weren’t suddenly joined by a whole new team of people who only specialised in the television medium, they went out and learnt about the new technology and adapted their skills to work with that medium too.

Of course you could argue this approach ends up limiting the potential of the channel because it creates jack-of-all-trades rather than ‘masters of one’, but I think ‘medium segregation’ is ultimately stopping people from being able to appreciate and develop across multiple platforms – and in a time where clients are demanding more and more idea/media neutrality, it’s going to be very hard if the people they rely on have a myopic approach to communication development.

With this in mind, I feel the best solution for digital agencies would be if they hired traditional creative planners to work alongside their digital counterparts – not because one is better than the other, but because I believe the results would be far more interesting and powerful than yet another ‘technology over human’ strategy.

Hey, they may even learn a thing or 2 from eachother.
 

Oh, and before someone starts shouting that my ramblings are that of a communication dinosaur – I would like to point out this has nothing to do with age, it’s all about attitude.

If people still believe the net is the sole medium of the young then they need their head kicking – and even then, to suggest the younger generation are immune from the power and manipulation of emotion is ridiculous. Lets not forget the gaming industry have been using values and emotion to create more powerful user experiences for years so why so many digital planners [not all, just quite alot] seem to ignore this and just focus on the ‘instant gratification’ is beyond me.

Digital is an amazing medium … it has almost single-handedly brought back creativity into the consideration set of clients … however if adland continues to treat online users like they are emotionless freaks [accountants and lawyers excluded], then the true potential of the net may never be truly seen.

One of the many things that’s interesting when you start a company and have people working with you, is addressing the ‘principals’ and ‘philosophies’ you talked about putting into place before you opened your doors.

You see it’s very easy to come up with all sorts of ideas about how you want your company to operate but when you realise what the implications of your decisions could be, it’s another thing altogether whether you actually bite the bullet and do them.

I make no apologies for the fact we had to think long and hard about our planned maternity/paternity policy – because as much as we think it’s wrong companies subliminally bully people into not having children because of financial constraints, it’s tough for a small company to cover the sorts of costs we were talking about incurring.

However despite not being legally obliged to do it, we went through with it [thank you Mary!] and whilst there’s been a couple of occasions where we’ve looked at eachother and said “ARE WE MAD???”, the loyalty and positivity we have received in return made it totally worthwhile.

Another thing we felt really important was holidays.

Infact we felt they were so vital to the mental and physical wellbeing of our people – as well as ourselves – that every 3 months, we had/have a mandatory long weekend.

I absolutely hate how people don’t take holidays … I hate it … and whilst there are many supposed reasons for it, I believe in the main, they’re all bollocks.

If a client can’t live without a member of their agency for a couple of days, then they’re either not very good at what they do or they need to pay the company a hell of a lot more money for their work.

If the agency can’t live without an employee for a couple of days, then they’re either really badly managed or they’re going to get a resignation letter from one of their staff very, very soon.

OK so I’m being sarcastic – however as much as I accept there may be the odd occasion where taking time off could be difficult, it should be the exception not the rule and certainly not get to the point where you have multiple days left to take by the year end.

Work Overload by Khawaja

When I first moved to Oz, I was amazed that some companies paid out holiday time that had not been taken.

Now that might sound great in theory, but the fact is some people regard this as potential additional income so purposefully work and work and work.

This is a false economy for everyone ….

The worker becomes less productive because of tiredness and stress – which often leads to mistakes and illness.

The client has people working on their business that are not as sharp or open to opportunities as they need to be.

It is because of these reasons that we do not pay out for untaken holidays [unless we are the cause for it happening, which to this day has never been the case] and are continually monitoring where people are with their holiday allowance.

Of course it can be awkward when they all want to be on holiday around the same time – but our view is that it’s their holiday – to take when they please – not when it suits us.

OK, so things like school holidays and Christmas need abit of openness and fairness to ensure everyone can enjoy the moment rather than just Mr/Mrs Super Organised, but in general if someone wants to take a holiday and has given more than a couple of weeks notice [unless certain circumstances dictate otherwise] then they have it.

Photo: Max Sauter

I remember when Fred had 4 weeks off when baby #3 came around.

It was without doubt the worst possible time because a couple of our team were already away but what was I going to do, tell him no?

Apart from the fact [1] we’d known it was going to happen for 9 months and [2] he would quite rightly of told me to fuck off … the fact is family is more important than work – and if a client/company doesn’t understand that, then they need a reality check pretty damn quick.

I cannot tell you how much I hate how business has created a work ethic where people feel obliged to give all their time and energy to a company.

Working 8 hours a day is no longer enough – they expect even the most junior of people to put in 12 hours + a day and not complain when they’re called in at the weekend. Hell, if you somehow manage to go home on time they make you feel like you’re cheating the company, it’s outrageous.

OK, so if you’ve been pissing about [writing blogs, ahem] or you get paid an absolute fortune, I can understand you may have to work later than usual, but companies shouldn’t expect everyone to work these hours – especially if they’re not going to recompense them for it.

Which brings me to another point … why can’t adland be a 9-5 industry?

Lets face it, clients rarely work till 9, 10, 11 o’clock at night so why do their agencies consistently have to?

Of course it’s because the powers-that-be have sold the value of creativity so far down the river that the only way they can make a buck is by under-resourcing on staff whilst positioning themselves as a ‘service industry’ … however here’s the thing … adland is not [or should not be] a service industry, infact it’s more related to the manufacturing industry than anything to do with service, which is why everytime I see some network CEO stand up and declare his/her staff as their greatest asset, I laugh myself silly.

Photo: Miss Advantage

Anyway back to my point …

The problem with this ‘total ‘effort’ expectation within organisations is that it’s not just affecting people’s job satisfaction and loyalty … it is affecting the fundamental dynamic of society.

Not only are families spending less and less time with one another, but they’re losing their ability to communicate and relate … hell, it’s even affected why people go on holiday – it’s now more about recuperation than discovery and even then the poor holiday maker is at the mercy of the dreaded blackberry!

[I don’t mind admitting that I’m dreading the day mobile phones can be used freely on all airlines. One of the reasons I love flying is that for the time I’m in the sky, I’m shielded from all the problems and demands of work. Infact I have made it a policy that whenever I go on a plane, I never do anything work related at all. Sure that means I have more to do when I land, but I treasure that that time in the sky so when phonecalls can be made/received at 38,000 feet, my last sanctuary from work is officially over]

Anyway, the real reason for this rant is because a friend of mine has just been told they may have to cancel their holiday because their boss is going to be in NYC for part of [not even all] the time they’re away.

It shouldn’t matter if their boss is going to Timbukfuckingtu, the fact is my friend gave the company masses of notice [ie: months] … they need a break because they’ve had to manage a global account with little or no assistance for the past year [despite their agency having account people coming out their arse] … they’ve had to contend with a pretty major family crisis going on at home and … possibly the best bit … it’s not even a real holiday, they’re doing a fucking climb up the Himalayas for charity.

Yeah, agencies really give a damn about their staff don’t they?

Seriously, I thought the LOWE principals incident was bad, but this is just beyond belief.