There’s been all sorts of theories on how to get the economy back on the straight and narrow – and the funny thing is, most of the suggestions have come from the very people that put us in this mess in the first place.
I still think this is the best idea of them all … but I don’t think it’ll be allowed to happen.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is that I recently received an email from a mate of mine.
Whilst the subject matter was somewhat humouress, his attached personal comment was deadly serious and he banged on infinitum about how brilliant an idea this was to rid the World of terrorism.
In essence it was this …
Yes … his idea is putting naked women on bank notes.
His reasoning for why this would stop World terrorism is this …
Due to a more globally aligned approach to eradicating terrorism, many terrorist organisations have had their finances frozen.
Because of this they have resorted to counterfeiting … however the idea is that by placing naked women on all currency, radical Muslims would be unable to look at it, let alone touch it because it would breach their religious rules and before you could say “crock of shit” the World would be a happier and safer place.
Now as many of you know, I am quite a big fan of both lateral thinking and ideas that directly influence change rather than just broadcast the problem but this is obviously a load of rubbish.
Before I go on, I should point out that while my friend DOES work for The Sun ‘newspaper’ … he is very smart and articulate … though I have to say I was somewhat bothered by his view and told him so.
Of course he’s not very happy with me at the moment, but even he didn’t have much of a comeback when I pointed out 2 points that kinda dismissed his ‘theory’ …
1/ Terrorism has little to do with religion … that’s just a convenient association to justify unjustifiable actions.
2/ Even if it terrorism was a religious issue, the fact certain individuals can do many things that contravene/reinterpret their religious guidelines means they could easily justify touching a $10 note with some tits on it.
The problem with many of the ideas come up with – be it adland or business in general – is that they start on the assumption people will always act in rational terms and their attitudes/values will never change.
Now I am pretty sure anyone who reads that will agree it’s a silly attitude to have – and yet, day after day after day, we experience countless examples that are counter to that opinion.
I’ve written a lot about my work with the forensic profiler, Paul Britton and how it helped us develop what we call ‘forensic insight’.
Whilst we had to develop a particular process [yes, we do have some processes!!!] to ensure clarity of information, it’s nothing new – in essence is just acknowledges that when you look at the wider circle of societies actions, you can get a better idea of what is really driving them rather than if you just focused on their specific category habits.
[I should point out, we don’t ignore category or brand habits, we just broaden out where we get our information and learnings from]
However, once I moved to Asia, I really started to appreciate the role of culture in decision making and so spent an age looking for a way to link it with our forensic methodologies/philosophies – and whilst ‘culture’ is now becoming quite a buzz word in adland – I can’t help but feel many of them are just paying lip service to the whole thing because when you look at what they produce, you realise there doesn’t seem to be much difference to what they’ve always done.
Of course I’m not claiming we’re the only ones doing real culture based ideas, but I think we’re one of the best and I would point to our ‘mobile signal blocker’ for the Indian hotel chain, the moped designed around a country [Vietnam] and the good karma concrete concept to prove it.
[Please note when I say we’re one of the best, I’m talking about adland … there’s plenty of other industries who utilise this approach to brilliant effect.
Infact one of the best ideas I’ve heard recently is the CIA are sending tattoo removal machines to South America so gang members who want to leave their group, can have their facial tattoos removed and stand a better chance of [1] not suffering deadly recriminations from their ex-colleagues because they won’t be so easily recognisable and [2] have a better chance of leading a better and safer life]
The purpose of this rant is to remind us that people are not rational beings. Yes, I include even accountants.
Sure there may be certain commonalities in our irrationalities … but all too often, the ‘hidden side of life’ is never taken into account when dealing with insight and ideas.
I understand why … given many clients think anything other than a ‘Disneyland insight’ is like a dose of the clap … but I am a firm believer that anger has an inherent energy and if you can find out what people DON’T like or are fearful of or feel guilty about or is a deep and dark secret, you can develop ideas that have far more motivational appeal than the usual happy-clappy kinda stuff.
Oh, and if anyone thinks that leads to PROBLEM/SOLUTION advertising or simply FEAR DRIVEN comms, I’d say you’re very much mistaken and would point you to things like Blackcurrant Tango, SONY Robots and Virgin everything.
The reason we spent so much time developing the cultural and forensic models is that we know most of the time, people aren’t conscious of their irrationality and so would be hard pressed to express it.
By looking at what they really do rather than what they say – and identifying the triggers of influence in those actions – we believe you get to far more interesting and exciting insight and ideas, and that’s why I believe lateral thinking … when based on real insight and information … isn’t that lateral at all, it’s just powerful understanding and anything else is just an interesting thought with an inherent flaw, ala printing money with naked women on it.