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

When I asked her what she meant, she detailed all the stuff I talked about in my presentaphobia post as well as a whole bunch of additional issues ranging from how Asian culture expects women ‘to behave’ within the business environment through to how her clients mainly communicated in English and that was not her native language.

I immediately understood what she was going through and decided I’d do some training on the issue for the women in the office, which I entitled:

“How To Be A Bitch But In A Good Way”
[How to ask & respond to the tough questions without being intimidated]

Well, did that piss some people off.

I was informed that I had offended a number of people in the agency with the title of my training because they felt it was rude … I was advocating ‘being a bitch to succeed’ and by only inviting the agencies women to attend, I was potentially perpetuating the stereotype especially as I was a white male doing the training.

To be fair, they had a point – however in my defense, I was hoping that after nearly a year working with me, they’d know my goal would be to only help the young and talented in the office, rather than hinder … that my range and choice of vocabulary is always highly questionable and that I wasn’t advocating BEING a bitch, but encouraging people to harness the spirit of someone who wants to be heard [but in a good way].

As for why I only invited the women?

Well I’ll be doing training for the guys too, however the fact is around the World, women are faced with massive challenges and prejudices and no more is that prevalent than in Asia. On top of that, I found some photos from an Asian advertising bash and was overwhelmed by how many of the senior agency figures were predominantly white, middle aged and male – and that bothered me a lot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the people in these photos are bad people who advocate gender and cultural stereotypes [afterall I’m kind-of one of them, even if I don’t want to be one of them] it’s just that I found it sad that the industry in this part of the World was so under-represented by people from this side of the World – especially women – and I wanted to pass on some of the lessons I’d learnt over the years to help our talented women feel more confident to express themselves [as well as overcome some of the additional hurdles they face] so their talent can shine and they can help change the make up of adland management over the next few years.

Well I did the training and it went very well.

Apart from the people who attending giving me positive feedback, the couple of people who were concerned it could come across as ‘a man dictating how to behave to the helpless women of Asia’ realised it was simply the tales of a bloke from Nottingham, passing on some of the lessons he’s learnt over the years and that he genuinely had the best interests of his colleagues at heart.

But as much as I was disappointed that anyone I work with could of thought I would fail to be sensitive to the people, gender and issues of the region, I learnt [or re-learnt] some valuable lessons from all this as well.

1/ People make instant judgements and hoping they’ll “get you” should never be taken for granted – especially if you’re still relatively new.

6/ It’s genuinely great – and healthy – when people express their concerns directly and we must continually encourage that attitude at all times and with all people.
[Which this training is also designed to help people do, without the fear of being insulting or causing anger – which I accept must sound weird coming from me]

Anyway, while many of the things I talked about in the training have been said before [by me and by others] … and many people would say it was nothing they didn’t know already … and the examples I used may sound obvious or trivial … I know from personal experience, the techniques I talked about helped me [and continue to help me] a huge amount – not just in meetings, but in how I get others to understand, influence and buy my views – so for anyone out there, especially the younger advertising women in this part of the World [it is also translated into Chinese ], I attach it for you to check out, play with and use it as you feel fit.

Hope it helps. Even a little bit.

SOME NOTES:

Slides 2-14
They are there to explain the reasoning behind the training [as detailed above].

Slides 17-22
They describe scenarios that people will hopefully – in a sad way – resonate with.

Slides 23-33
They describe the techniques to help you handle pretty much every situation – at least in terms of being able to express your point of view without fear of reprise, however contentious you may be being.

Slides 34-38
Give some challenges for you to try and practice your techniques on.

I hate almost everything about it.

I appreciate it has some good points but I can’t help but feel it’s doing it’s best to destroy those too.

I wrote about much of this on my last visit there – however I’ve just heard that the ‘PR Grand Prix’ has been awarded to Australian Bank, NAB, for their ‘Break Up With The Banks’ stunt.

This was where they staged couples breaking up in restaurants on Valentine’s day and viraled the results.

No, I’m serious.

The justification for this campaign was that there was a perception in Australia that the big 4 banks were in cahoots and fixed charges … so what better way than to say/prove otherwise than to complicate a fairly simple message with a bit of contrived communication when all they had to do was change and uncomplicate their fee structure, stick to it and communicate it.

“But people don’t care/believe what their banks say and do”, I hear you say.

That’s right, and it’s because of bullshit stuff like this that is part of the cause.

“But lots of people talked about it and it achieved much more coverage than their media budget could of achieved on it’s own”, you retort.

Sure, but being talked about doesn’t automatically mean you’ve captured societies imagination, it can also mean people think you’re shit.

I talked about this campaign at Circus [admittedly after only seeing one of their billboards] and afterwards, someone from the NAB marketing team came up to me “to put me right”.

Standing 2 inches from my face, he said …

“The problem is you only saw one part of the campaign, so you don’t know the whole picture because if you did, you’d know that we are not like the other banks” … before proceeding to tell me in minute detail everything they’d done for the campaign.

I took this in for a few seconds before I said that as far as I knew, the Australian Government had not passed a law stating all its citizens must watch every piece of communication created as part of their advertising campaign and because of this, I’d possibly seen as much of the campaign as the average Australian punter. I also pointed out that even after he had told me what the campaign was about, I still had no desire to consider moving to them and if anything, it made me distrust them because a financial institution that thinks it’s a wise investment to fake relationship break ups in restaurants on Valentine’s Day is not the sort of company I want looking after my money.

He walked away.

When I look at what IDEO did for Bank of America and compare it to this shit, I shudder and the fact it got the Grand Prix at Cannes [albeit in the PR section] it makes me sick.

At a time where so many people think banks are arseholes – I find it amazing they used this approach for their communication. Don’t get me wrong, financial institutions don’t have to communicate like they all have the charisma of Keanu Reeves, but this sort of approach won’t change the way people think of them … fundamentally changing how they behave and operate will change the way people think of them.

You’d think they’d of learnt their lesson, but no – they went and did an interview with me about the digital and advertising landscape in China.

Saying that, I do have this sneaky suspicion that it was all a ruse so that they could …

1/ Attach a blue light thing to my neck to make me look like a robot.
2/ Do something to the microphone so I can sound like a robot.

… but on the brightside, they literally beeped out my swearing.

That’s bloody awesome, that’s never happened to me before and now I feel I can rub shoulders with some of the best – from George Best on Wogan to Roger Mellie, the man on the telly.

Saying all that, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with these interview things.

On one side, I really enjoy being able to express my point of view. Apart from the fact I have the ego of Bono and genuinely want Asia’s people and culture to be treated with respect by brands and business throughout the World, I find it hugely amusing that me – some bald, uneducated bloke from Nottingham – gets asked for his viewpoint alongside far better qualified and looking individuals.

Then there’s the hate bit … which basically happens the exact moment I watch or read whatever I’ve said.

It never comes out quite as I wanted …
It never sounds as strong as I hoped …
I use my hands like a mad scientist …
I get alarmed at just how much I ramble …
… and go off tangent …
And I sound like a fucking robot.

Maybe that’s why I like writing this blog. I get to control what I express more carefully … which begs the question, if this shit is me being more diligent, what on earth would it be like if I just succumbed to typing whatever my brain commanded my fingers.

I shudder to think …

Anyway, here’s my robot ranting rubbish, and yes, I am wearing a Queen t-shirt.

Of course the reaction I’d get from you lot is:

1/ Ignoring it.
2/ Complaining about it.
3/ Ignoring and complaining about it … and then making totally tangent comments.

However the good news [for you] is that …

1/ I have to catch a plane.
2/ I’m already running late for it.
3/ I’ll be away till next Tuesday.

… so I’ll cut with the waffle and just leave you with the pic.

I was recently asked for my opinion on whether adland should have its own code of ethics.

The reason this topic came up wasn’t because a bunch of people started questioning what they were doing to society [though I do know a lot of people who do feel this way, of which I am most definitely one of them], but because a few people felt it was unfair that some brands were able to do – or show – stuff in their ads that other markets didn’t allow and so it automatically gave them an unfair advantage at the ‘award’ shows.

I know … I know … it’s sickening isn’t it.

Anyway, here’s what I said:

_______________________________________________________________________________

While some people think most ad agencies would happily sell their collective grandmothers for a major new business win [the truth is only 37.35% of them would] … the reality is adland already works within a number of highly controlled and regulated standards.

US Advertising professor, Jef I. Richards, sums it up best [albeit with more of an American focus and a slight edit of his whole quote]:

“There is a huge difference between journalism and advertising: Journalism aspires to truth. Advertising is regulated for truth. I’ll put the accuracy of the average ad against the average news story any time.”

However there is a major difference between law and ethics which is why a question that is increasingly being asked is whether the advertising industry should have their own code of ethics.

Well, I’d say on an individual basis – many agencies do.

Of course whether they are ethics the masses would always be in agreement with, is a different matter … however there are definitely ‘lines’ certain agencies aren’t willing to cross that go beyond the government enforced policies.

Should there be an industry wide set?

In theory it would be great but then in theory I look like Brad Pitt because I have 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth … however, as in most things in life, reality tends to cast a different light on things which is why I don’t see how it can happen.

Who would make the decision?

Who would be able to find acceptable common ground when cities [let alone countries] have completely different views on a whole range of subjects and issues … and that’s before you even take into account what is legal in one country could be tantamount to declaring war on another.

And even if someone managed to get through all that, we’d then have to suffer the internal bickering.

Seriously, do we honestly think an agency who handles, for example, a fast food brand would happily accept a ban on advertising to children?

Of course not … and if the industry felt it was ethically wrong to sell overly aspirational imagery, we’d all grind to a standstill.

As much as having a universal code of ethics sounds great in theory, I think it is best to leave it to the laws of the individual land and the ethical standards of the individual agency.