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

You’ve gone through copious amounts of focus groups and internal workshops to end up in a place where all the main stake holders are in agreement.

You run tens of millions of dollars communicating your advantage to the masses via a highly planned integrated brand campaign.

You’ve invested ridiculous amounts of time and money to ensure all markets and staff are ready for the inflow of enquiries.

Then an earthquake happens and it all turns to shit.

Years of work and millions upon millions of dollars down the drain in an instant.

Instead of communicating in the style of your ever happy ads … the reality is now a none-stop stream of bad news.

News that tells people they’re not going to get what they want.

News that can’t tell people what to expect.

In other words, no news … just a standard response that says nothing and commits to nothing.

A response that undermines everything … every research group, workshop, staff meeting, ad and positioning document.

The brands who win are the ones who live via values and philosophies, not speak from powerpoint decks and straplines.

They are the ones who can adapt to change because they are the ones who know you can never ever dot every ‘i’ or cross every ‘t’ in this constantly evolving, ever changing World.

And that is why unless you’re God, creating a strategy in a corporate vacuum is always susceptible to destruction … because a brands success isn’t built on following a 1000 page document, it’s about doing stuff that reflect who you are, what you believe and what you want achieve in a manner that is resonant with peoples requirement and relevant to where the World is.

Which is why I am deeply saddened how few companies in the travel industry have been able to turn the nightmare of the Icelandic volcano eruption into reasons why people should trust them with their travel needs for life.

Reputation is built more in bad times than good … and yet so few have embraced that opportunity.

Their loss.

… but if keep working at it, then one day you might just find you achieve this:

A very, very, very happy 5th Birthday to the lovely, wonderful and ever-beautiful Lucy …

Huge hugs and kisses sweetheart and remember to listen to your Mummy and Daddy … but never Uncle Andy.

“If it isn’t the always controversial Robert Campbell”

Now even though I have a reputation as being a bit of a grumpy bastard – the reality is I’m actually quite laid-back, however that greeting really fucked me off.

Maybe it’s my definition of the word, but as far as I am concerned, I am NOT controversial and I hope I never will be.

Controversial means going against popular opinion for the sake of it.

It’s got little to do with intelligence or opinion and all to do with ego and being the centre of attention.

Now I know I sometimes can have views that are contrary to accepted points-of-view, however it’s never for the sake of being controversial … it’s because I believe there’s a valid counter argument/trend that, at the very least, deserves discussion/exploration … and that’s what pisses me off about adland at the moment, because if you disagree with the majority, you’re instantly labelled as ‘controversial’ which not only is untrue, but undermines the validity of your perspective.

However there’s an even more dangerous implication to this condescending attitude …

If people who have alternative views are constantly ‘shut down’, then unless they’re arrogant/egotistical/bullish/resilient bastards like errrrrrm me, then eventually they’ll decide keeping their thoughts to themselves is the easier option and yet if ever there was an industry that needs to embrace multiple views and opinions, it’s adland.

Of course just because you have a different point of view doesn’t mean you’re automatically right … there’s a whole host of criteria that it would need to be judged against … however if you say something and can provide fair and balanced reasoning for that view, then I don’t think it’s right to be immediately labelled as some sort of crack-pot – especially given some of the fuckwit decisions that have been made by the supposed ‘elite’ of adland in the last 20 years.

Enfatico anyone?

Media separation anyone?

Grey’s Eye On Asia anyone?

Look, I’m clever … and I’m often proved wrong … but the reality is that in our industry there’s rarely a fundamentally ‘wrong’ way to do something so if we only promote and celebrate ‘single-approaches/processes/attitudes’ … we’re not just screwing up our industries relevance, we’re ultimately undermining the whole premise and value of creativity.

Whilst I may be alone in my view, I don’t believe all publicity is good publicity and to give you an example of that, I’d like to show a clip from US television show, Top Chef.

Before we get to that, let me give you a bit of background:

Top Chef is basically ‘survivor’ for chefs.

It’s hosted by the absolutely delectable Padma Lakshmi [Salman Rushdie’s ex!!!] and each week the contestants are given a culinary challenge that helps the judges decide whether they get to cook for another day, or are sent to the pig-scraps bin.

Anyway, like most reality shows, this one dedicates quite a lot of each episode to revealing the story behind each contestant and this is where the clip comes in.

What you are about to see is one of the contestants, Hosea, talking to his sister about their father who was/is fighting cancer.

Now even though you may be thinking, “What the hell is he doing on a show if his Dad is seriously ill”, Hosea explains his Father wanted him to try out for the program because he understood what a huge opportunity this could be for him.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the situation isn’t serious – infact, being away from a parent when they are so ill could be viewed as being even harder for all involved – so watch how T-Mobile, subtlety integrate their brand into this moment of family tenderness and love …

[Don’t worry about the sound, like Playboy, it’s just the pictures you need to look at!]

Fuck me, how bad is that eh?

Talk about exploit people’s tragedies for the benefit of a brand.

However I don’t know if that blatant product placement works for T-Mobile.

Here’s a man talking to his sister about their ill father, and all you see is a great big fucking close up of some shitty phone … a close up so detailed, that you can almost make out the serial number.

Now if I was T-Mobile, I’d be kinda pissed about that …

Let’s be honest, most brands these days tend to communicate to the masses with a tone-of-voice that wouldn’t be out of place at so even if T-Mobile decided they wanted to be different, I doubt they’d actually choose to associate with human suffering exploitation … but then the segment ran, so what do I know!

I appreciate content costs a fucking fortune to produce – and finding alternate revenue streams is a viral part of the business – but this in-your-face style of product ‘placement’ does no one any favours, because whilst I might remember the T-Mobile brand, the chances of me wanting to actually buy it got disproportionatly smaller, and I’m someone who changes mobiles like Elizabeth Taylor changes husbands.

Another byproduct of this corporate obsession with brand exploitation / product placement is that many American shows now ‘blank out’ any logos that appear in their shows which aren’t official sponsors.

It could be a NIKE swoosh on a persons hat or an Apple logo on the front of a laptop … however the stupid thing is, this ‘blurring’ is so obvious that you spend half your time trying to work out which brand they’re trying to hide rather than [1] witness the official sponsors products [2] pay attention to the actual show.

Saying that, as bad as this situation is, it’s not as bad as the way SONY handle shoving their brands into James Bond films – but it’s only a matter of time – and whilst the ad industry celebrates this strategy as genius, it may be worth them remembering that in these brand-at-every-turn times, the future of great media planning won’t be where you place your message, but where you don’t … at least interms of blatant and flagrant exploitation.

Who the fuck do Citibank think they’re kidding.

Actually ignore that, what the fuck do Citibank think they’re doing.

Are they really trying to say that having [read: spending] a Citibank credit card is going to make you like Andy Warhol?

Do people want to be like Andy Warhol?

My guess is the answer would be no … they’d like to have his success and acclaim … but not be him, not interms of what he looks like or did which leads to the question, do people – people in Asia – even know who he is?

Putting that aside, let’s look at the headline:

Live To Inspire

Sorry, but I don’t think Andy Warhol lived to do that … maybe I’m wrong but I was under the impression he lived to do whatever the fuck he wanted which, let’s face it, becomes much more difficult when you owe money to a bank because the blood-sucking bastards stand over you demanding payment like they’re 1960’s standover men from the East end of London.

Mind you, despite Citibank continually demonstrating an amazing ability to make fucked-up judgements … the reality is if some bloke walked into a branch looking like Warhol, they’d be more likely to be removed from the premises than given a bloody credit card.

OK, they’d be given a credit card – banks never let a chance to screw someone pass by – but they certainly wouldn’t show the person any respect.

This sorry excuse for a campaign draws parallels with VISA’s god awful “Go” campaign – another load of bollocks that tries to equate getting into debt with happiness and achievement – which is why I believe all this campaign can ever achieve is helping anyone with genuine creative talent &/or tendencies more easily identify which status-obsessed, delusional bastard [ie: someone who has this card in his/her wallet or purse] should be stabbed in the eye with a screwdriver until they collapse on the floor to which we can then collectively piss all over their wounds and laugh in their face.