Filed under: Comment
Sinsight: All businessmen wear suits & ties
So in what I can only assume is some sick joke, I have been asked to speak at an upcoming conference for CEO’s.
Big company CEO’s … not just Bill’s Fish & Chips.
They want me to talk about ‘insights’ … both interms of what they are, where you get them and why they’re useful for business … however because I’m sure the audience will be pretty disengaged listening to some bloke from adland, I thought I’d hire a comedian and get him/her to express my views and thoughts through a stand up performance.
Yep … I’m basically following the principals of Lego, but for boring adults rather than creative kids, haha!
To be honest I haven’t really thought this through – however what I do know is that I want to explain how insights should never be a bland general observation because if that is allowed to happen, we are basically placing an unreasonable over-reliance on the other aspects of business to get the results needed and the chance of failure increases dramatically.
With that in mind, I’d like you to contribute genuine bullshit insights you’ve heard as well as the brand [or category] they were for.
If you want to provide the link to the ads as well, that’s cool … but it’s not necessary … I’m sure they’ll be scary enough without a visual to drive the point home.
To get the ball rolling, here’s one I heard a while back:
“Mum’s love their kids”.
No … that’s not a joke … that was the insight that was supposed to drive both action and differentiation.
I don’t know what’s worse … the fact an agency/planner wrote it or a client accepted it … however that’s nothing compared to this one – where a reason to NOT buy was used as the driving force of a campaign.
Sadly this sort of twatdom is not that uncommon, which is why I want the real powers-that-be to know what’s going on because even though there’s the risk of them wanting to get involved in the whole process, it would at least mean we’re talking/dealing with the person at the top rather than some underling whose main decisions are based on keeping their boss happy rather than moving the business forward.
So ladies and gentlemen – let’s start the insight amnesty [even if you had nothing to do with them] – over to you.
… Zuji!
Why?
Because they recently sent out an email that makes the bandwagon jumping I talked about on Friday, look amateur to the extreme.
As you can see, they feature Earth Hour heavilly, however the bit you need to take a closer look at is the bit that explains Zuji’s involvement.
Are you sitting down? Trust me, you’ll need too.
OK … cop a load of this:
WOW Zuji, that’s brilliant …
You could have said you’d pay to offset the carbon used for every holiday you sell over the Earth Hour period … or you could have put the prices UP over Earth Hour and given the difference to various environmental charities or you could simply have not sent your email out in the first place and saved everyone both energy and time – but no – instead you decided it was a smart move to send out your unwanted, unwarranted and untailored ‘newsletter’ to anyone and everyone who has ever booked something through your website [which you believe automatically gives you the authorisation to bombard them with all manner of shit anytime of the day] and explain that because you’ve used “darker colours so it reduces the bright portions of your screen and consumes less energy” you are in some way an Earth Hour ambassaor.
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
ARE.
YOU.
THINKING?
Seriously Zuji, do you honestly believe people will look at this and think …
“Zuji are so considerate and environmentally conscious. They’re helping the planet and my cheap holiday needs in one swoop. What an innovative and caring company they are, I’m going to book an overpriced and clause-ridden holiday immediately”.
Look I know there’s a load of fools who think Jeremy Clarkson is the voice of the people, but surely there aren’t that many who think a company cares simply because they’ve used darker fucking colours on their ambulance-chasing promotional activity.
Please tell me there aren’t.
Saying that, a huuuuuuge congratulations to whoever was behind this – it’s Olympic Gold bullshit rationalisation – so if things don’t work out with the holiday flogging, there’s always a career at GREY’s research department.
[PS: This post supports Earth Hour by ensuring people don’t need any brain power to read it, think about it or do something with it. Musings Of An Opinionated Sod cares]
Filed under: Comment
OK, so I’m being facetious … but I’m getting a bit sick of all these brands jumping on the ‘social cause’ bandwagon.
Don’t get me wrong, anything that helps those less fortunate is a good thing … but when the intent feels purely for marketing purposes, it makes me feel a little bit queasy.
At least the companies who donate masses of cash to charities so they can write it off against tax don’t run ads saying how compassionate they are … however I’m seeing more and more brands doing campaigns that basically state the same thing:
“XXXXXX* FOR GOOD”.
[* Where ‘X’ is a word linked to their specific category]
However it doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to realise the underlying message is actually:
“BUYING OUR PRODUCT MEANDS WE CAN BOTH PRETEND WE’RE NICE PEOPLE WHEN WE BOTH REALLY KNOW WE JUST WANT TO GUILT TRIP YOU INTO ADDING TO OUR PROFITS AND YOU JUST WANT A FANCY NEW PHONE/OUTFIT/PERFUME ETC ETC”.
Of course Bono’s Project Red was/is probably the poster boy for this sort of approach – and as much as I think there’s some major flaws with the approach – at least Mr Irish realised the opportunity to develop an umbrella scheme to basically attract money from the champagne socialists / label whores out there.
However I’ve come across possibly one of the worst examples of this approach and it’s from my favourite brand extension developers, Mont Blanc.
SINGATURE FOR GOOD!
SIGNATURE FOR BLOODY GOOD!
Are they fucking kidding???
But hang on, there’s more …
Mont Blanc believe the ability to read and write is a fundamental human right and they’re deeply committed to the culture writing.
On one hand that’s pretty obvious given the fuckers make pens … however if they really gave a shit, why the hell would they make their stuff so bloody expensive rather than bring out a ‘BIC’ which could be given to school kids around the World?
Oh I know why, because they don’t really give a fuck … because let’s face it, as much as a million bucks may sound a lot, when one of their pens costs SEVEN HUNDRED AND THRITY THOUSAND DOLLARS, it’s not really that much to give at all.
As I said, I accept that any help is good help, but as I wrote here a while back, it doesn’t take much scratching to realise many of the words and platitudes being spouted by these socially conscience brands are closer to the work of a conman, than a carer.
Filed under: Comment
No, I don’t mean this one:
And I don’t mean this one:
[Though he did allegedly take cash to lend his name to certain corporations goals. Ahem]
I mean this one:
The thing is, I kinda like it … certainly waaaaaay more than the Gucci “shock and bore” above.
Maybe it’s because it’s just a bit charming … maybe it’s because water and vegetation are underpinned by ‘nature’ or maybe it’s because it was outside a French restaurant … but it got my attention, made me smile and made me think of drinking Perrier which is more than they can normally manage.
Ambient garden media … appearing on a media plan near you soon.
Filed under: Comment
I know this is not new, but I find it quite amazing how the entertainment industry can breathe new life into certain ‘brands’ when the creator has died.
Actually let me rephrase that … I find it quite amazing how the entertainment industry leverages the name of certain ‘brands’ creators, even when they are long gone.
A perfect case in point is the new[ish] Jason Bourne book …
Yep … despite Robert Ludlum dying in 2001, we have a book that isn’t just based on the character developed by the author, but is supposedly written in the style of him as well.
What next?
William Shakespeare to release “Romeo & Juliet 2: This Time It’s Personal”?
The issue I have with this approach is that ultimately it is dependent on a serious amount of post rationalisation … and in my experience, when someone tries to understand the reasoning and rationale of another person’s actions and decisions, they often fail to recognise the little details that either drove much of its development or gave it its uniqueness or – worse still – is a rationale for something that had no rationale for it.
____________________________________________________________________________
“Our most beloved products were developed by hunch, guesswork, and fanaticism, by creators who were eccentric – or even stark raving mad”
Jack Mingo, How the Cadillac Got its Fins
____________________________________________________________________________
There’s many examples however there’s two I’d like to talk about … AXE/Lynx and Singapore.
I am a massive fan of the AXE/Lynx work.
It’s not just because it’s one of – in my opinion – BBH’s best campaigns, it’s because it literally revolutionised the category.
Previously to AXE/Lynx, it was all about 24 hour protection … and whilst at HHCL we did try and do something similarish with SURE … their campaign just clicked.
Now whilst many people may think it was all about ‘Spray On Sex’ it was much more subtle than that – it was about seduction and the ability to turn good girls naughty – however over the years thanks to different agencies getting involved in different territories, the subtlety that made the campaign so good has slowly but surely been wittered down to the point that it’s now seen as ‘SHAG SPRAY’ … and whilst many will say that change is a reflection of the different time and the different cultural cues, the reality is the people who developed this unsubtle version either failed to spot the little details that made that campaign so good or wanted to be indulgent with an idea that basically writes itself.
The other brand that I feel has suffered because of simplistic rationalisation is my beloved Singapore.
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I believe LKY had a dream for Singapore that was driven by vision, passion and pragmatism … but if you were to ask people today, they’d credit him with the ability to attract business – and whilst that was part of the strategy – it was a means to an end, his goal was never for Singapore to be the bitch of Western business and yet now, if you look at the things that the Government is spending it’s time and efforts on, they often fail to have the depth, sophistication and down-right ingenuity that their founding psychological genius utilised to kick start the country to where they currently enjoy.
Post rationalisation exists in most industries – especially adland – but if you only look at the output of the work created and ignore the backgrounds and circumstances of the people who developed it, you may find you have failed to include the secret herbs and spices that enabled good to be awesome.