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

Christ, what do you think I could be talking about?

Well it’s a post in 2 halves – so let’s start with the good news shall we?

There’ll be no blogging next week.

Yes, you guessed it, it’s because I’m going on yet another holiday.

Except this time it’s not for some work trip ‘holiday’ – oh no – this time it’s the real deal because China shuts up shop for a week so an estimated 300 million people can take a trip back to their hometowns to be with their family as part of the annual October holiday.

So that’s the good, so what’s the bad?

Well in a lot of ways, it’s not bad – in fact it’s wonderful and exciting and full of happiness and promise.

Today, after almost ten years, my dear friend, Fredrik Sarnblad, leaves Singapore – and BBH – to start a new life in America as one of the planning heads at Mullen.

I am incredibly happy for him.

Fredrik is a wonderful, talented, caring, gentle, wise man.

For that alone, he deserves nothing but the absolute best … but given this year has been particularly traumatic due to a number of personal tragedies, he deserves it even more.

I first met Freddie at Y&R in 2005.

We clicked immediately.

Maybe it’s because we looked somewhat similar [ie: bald & glasses] … maybe it’s because we shared similar backgrounds … maybe it’s because we both fucking hated a particular individual in the organisation … but we hit it off.

I was incredibly fortunate to be able to work with Freddie for a number of years – which uncoincidently – coincided with a period of unparalleled and unprecedented growth, both in terms of revenue, clients, new business and creative awards.

When he left, which he announced when I was on my honeymoon I hasten to add, I was utterly devastated but I knew it was the right thing for him to do and just hoped our friendship would continue.

I needn’t of worried … though I do think it could have a lot to do with the fact I was the only person who would happily join his regular Mandarin Oriental buffet massacres or that I didn’t mind being seen in his company despite him openly loving Toto, occasionally wearing his pants too high or sometimes deciding to dress up in an outfit that would make Elton John jealous. [which he has wisely removed all evidence of it ever happening]

In all seriousness, Freddie has been – and is – an amazing friend.

If I’m honest, he’s been more of a friend than I could ever of hoped for.

Time and time again, his compassion, companionship, consideration, advice, loyalty and humour have seen me through moments of crisis – from work related nightmares to the happy nervousness I felt when I was going to ask Jill to marry me and then, 6 months later, when I got hitched in front of him and a bunch of my family and friends in Singapore.

In short, we have been through all sorts of trials and tribulations together – and while some have been more challenging than others – I’ve always felt he had my back and that is testimony to the kind of man he is.

Ten years is a long time to live in any country – especially ever-transient Singapore – so if he’s anything like me, he’s going through a whole range of emotions, but as he’s soon going to be reunited with his beloved family [who left a few months before to sort out schools etc], I’m sure any sentimentality is overshadowed by the feeling of happiness and excitement that his family are embarking on a new chapter of their lives together … starting with their first, true [& huge] family home, including gorgeous Weimaraner puppy, Beckett.

I’ve had many long conversations with him about this over the years so I know how long the family have wanted it, which is why I’m so incredibly happy that it is now finally happening for them all.

That said, I will miss him.

I worry terribly that I’ll never see him again … that my meal with him last week will be the last time I ever see him.

I hope not, that would make me incredibly sad.

Singapore will never be the same for me now he’s not there.

Meeting him was, quite simply, one of the best things that has ever happened to me and given that – along with my marriage [which I’m not saying because the rest of this post makes me sound uber-gay] – all took place in the City State, it will forever be a place that holds a special place in my heart.

I am honoured – and amazed – to be able to call this great man my friend.

He is a special in every possible way.

Mullen are lucky to have him, America is lucky to have him, society is lucky to have him.

More importantly, I am lucky to have him.

“My only problem with you is you hate too much. If you hate this industry so much, why don’t you leave?”

It was a fair question, with just 2 issues:

1. He thinks I only have one flaw. Hahaha.
2. He thinks I hate the advertising industry.

The first point I can put down to him being a sweetheart despite being a gruff, rough, Scot … the second, I found really disappointing.

The fact is I don’t hate adland.

How could I?

It’s given me an amazing life – both in terms of life experience and standard of living.

There’s not many other industries that would let me work with incredible talent, talk to incredible people, visit incredible places, live in incredible countries and yet still allow me to be my birkenstock wearing self.

I don’t hate the advertising industry, I just hate what it’s becoming.

When I started out in this industry I was taught that commercial creativity was powerful, influential and transformaitonal … but more importantly, I was taught what you had to do to realise it.

It wasn’t good enough to sit on your arse pontificating about it, you had to get off it and do something about it.

In short, do interesting stuff rather than talk about interesting stuff.

I appreciate the irony given I talk about a lot of stuff on this blog, but none of what I say is interesting so it doesn’t count.

Anyway, while there are still a bunch of people – and a few agencies – that live by that mantra, I can’t help but feel it’s getting less and less.

When I look around, I can’t help but feel the industry is focused more on talking about creativity rather than doing it.

And doing scam ads to win a few awards from judges who let it happen because they [1] haven’t got the balls to call it out or [2] want their name associated with good stuff, even though it’s not real and – arguably – not good, doesn’t count.

The sad fact is a lot of agencies out there now make more money from the ‘process’ of managing advertising than actually creating it.

How mad is that?

How sad is that!

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate we have to bring in the cash to pay all our salaries, but to allow the value of ‘creativity’ to be devalued just amazes me.

And yet, despite all the proof that what we do is being valued less and less by society and business, we go around with our noses in the air and our heads in the sand, pretending we’re superior to the masses and that everyone appreciates our genius.

But we’re not and they don’t.

It’s time to wake up.

We have amazing people with amazing talent and can achieve amazing things but some of the first things we need to do is stop acting like clients and stop viewing our competition as advertising agencies so we can get back to infecting and affecting culture.

As I said previously, client don’t want us to act like them, they just want us to start listening – and acting – on their needs … not just ours.

Secondly, as horrible as it might be to admit, companies like Google or Facebook or HBO have done more to affect popular culture than pretty much all of adland put together … and what I hate is that as an industry, we seem to have chosen to either ignore that fact or seemingly not be bothered by it.

As I wrote a while back, adland should have come up with Square … the talent and capabilities are certainly within most agencies … but for some reason it didn’t happen.

There’s a bunch of reasons for it – some ours, some not – but what bothers me more is that rather than appreciate what things like Square achieve and represent, we decide to bestow all our praise on ‘ad campaigns’ like the National Australia Bank who spent countless millions promoting the fact they weren’t like other banks.

Don’t get me wrong, that campaign was good – and effective – but it just bothers me that we used to want to use creativity to change the World and now we seem happy with just getting a few newspaper headlines. For a day.

Yes I am being dramatic and no, not everyone acts the way I’ve just described – as I said, there’s some great agencies and a shitload of top people out there [many of which, are not in great agencies], of which I am incredibly fortunate to work with so many directly – but I suppose I just am frustrated that an industry of such potential is seemingly more happy to talk to itself, seek the praise of itself and slap eachother regulary on the back rather than do stuff that forces people outside ‘the inner circle’ to take notice of what we do.

What set this all off was that I saw this tweet from Australian advertising magazine B&T …

Seriously, is there any other industry that would send out a message where you would nominate yourself as awesome?

OK, so idiots that appear on reality TV shows might, but a whole industry?

“Hey, I’m fucking awesome and under 40 so include me” said absolutely no one with an ounce of humanity.

I am tempted to offer B&T cash to give me the names of anyone that nominates themselves so I can send someone over and hit them with a brick.

Adland wants to be rockstars.

Adland wants to be famous.

Adland is becoming Liz Hurley … famous for being famous rather than for doing things that are interesting.

It’s tragic and the sooner we drop all the pretense and posturing and get back to being as great as we can be – and fighting for that acceptance with business rather than selling meaningless processes and cheap everything – the better.

So Steve, I don’t hate adland.

I don’t want to leave adland.

I think we’re still a million times better than a lot of branding companies.

I just want us to stop acting like all is great while everything collapses around us and get back to proving how great we can be in ways that affects more than just our colleagues, peers & award shows.

In fact, given they get away with charging clients outrageous amounts for what constitutes nothing more than a logo redesign, it can be argued that they’re way smarter than most of adland.

But the thing is, adland – for all it’s ego and delusion – doesn’t churn out a slightly redesigned brand logos and claim they will fundamentally change the way the organisation behaves and succeeds.

OK … OK … so that’s a bit unfair as well because they tend to say their new logo is simply an articulation of all the changes they have helped develop for their clients but as a designer once said to me,

“If a brand wants to be seen as bold and innovative, why don’t they make their products bold and innovative?”

Now that’s a good question … though we all know the answer don’t we.

In these share price obsessed times, brands want the glory without the risk or the need to invest huge amounts to change – but that’s a post for another day.

The purpose of this post is because I recently found out that a brand that I have an irrational affection for – C&A – had their positioning for China done by one of these branding organisaitons.

For those who don’t know who C&A are, they’re a low cost “fashion” chain – though it’s more like Asda’s ‘George’ than Uniqlo or H&M.

Anyway, while they have departed the UK, they are in other markets of which one is Shanghai.

Given China has commanded the interest and focus of most brands – especially fashion brands – you’d expect a company like C&A to come out with a clearly articulated positioning so the hungry-to-try-&-buy Chinese audience will view them as both desirable and a viable alternative to the countless other options available to them down most Shanghai urban high streets.

So what did they come up with?

C&A: FASHION YOU CHOOSE

What the fuck?

What the hell does it mean???

And before you ask, that is NOT a ‘back translation’ translation, it’s what they have over their door.

IN ENGLISH!

Seriously, ‘Fashion You Choose’ … as oppose to Fashion the Government choose?

I know China is communist, but even they haven’t gone so far to dictate what you can and can’t wear in 2012!

Maybe if it said, ‘Fashion Your Mother/Wife/Father/Husband Chooses’ would be better [it certainly would be more appropriate] but seriously, in a country that has a hunger for brands and a desire to explore and experiment in an attempt to help define themselves, is that all they could come up with?

And who came up with that masterpiece?

FutureBrand.

And probably for a humungous fee.

That makes me angry, incredibly angry.

Not just because it’s a pile of utter shite that isn’t worth a penny, but because I happen to like C&A.

No, it’s not because I dress from there [though it looks like it] it’s because it’s one of those brands from my childhood that was always ‘there’ and to see them being shafted like this makes me mad.

I know C&A aren’t Uniqlo or H&M but neither are they a poor-mans Marks & Spencer’s – and while some people out there will go on about how the Chinese will view any international brand as an aspirational brand – that doesn’t mean you should treat them, or the audience, like they don’t matter.

Sure, I know they’ll never be a super-cool brand – and nor should they be – but I honestly believe they have something unique and the way they are currently presenting themselves in China doesn’t capture that.

OK, so I’m calling FutureBrand out on this and that’s not really fair.

Well, in this particular instance it is, but overall it’s not because the fact is, every agency and individual will have something in their portfolio that isn’t exactly as good as they would want it to be.

There’s a whole heap of reasons for that – some justifiable, some less so – however what bugs me so much about branding consultancies is that so many of them act like they are the Gods of Gods when in reality, they are as flawed, myopic and delusional as everybody else when held under a microscope – or in the C&A case – when they put their ‘work’ out on one of Shanghai’s busiest streets.

“Hello Campbell. What about this for a brand proposition?”

Underneath that heartwarming message, was this:

To be honest, it left me in a bit of a pickle.

Not because Andy sent it to me … nor the fact Andy must have been looking at some weird shit to come across it [no pun intended] … no, what bothered me was whether it was a good proposition or not.

Without doubt, it has a clear point of view that will peak the interest of many, but – and it’s a big but – who would want to go to a website to hook up with ugly women?

Alright, there are a whole host of other, bigger issues than that – but for the sake of focus, let’s just stick with that.

Isn’t a proposition like that basically saying:

1. Your face &/or personality is so horrific that you can’t attract a nice lady by yourself.

3. You’re such a sexual deviant, you don’t care who you shag as long as you shag?

In other words, if you click on the link, you are basically admitting you are a character with huge flaws – be they physical, mental or sexual.

Or all 3, probably.

And then there’s the issue of the women who sign up to get laid by these monstrosities.

Seriously, who would do that except the mentally ill, the victims of human trafficking or the sexually questionable?

Or – to be fair – the incredibly, brutally honest.

Anyway, without wanting to take this post down the road of ethics, I am utterly perplexed whether this is – as Andy implied – a proposition of unplanned, planning greatness or utterly mental.

Well, obviously it’s mental and also incredibly sad [both in terms of who would do it and why they would have to do it] plus I’m pretty certain the people who would sign up for such a thing probably doesn’t give a toss what anyone thinks of them [though I doubt they shout what they have been up to from the treetops … unless they’re Tommy Lee] … but seriously, what do you think?

Is this …

[A] An utterly clear proposition in terms of who it’s targeting & what they are offering?

or

[B] The sort of madness you’d expect from a Landor/FutureBrand proprietary positioning system … ignoring the fact that this is no way near ambiguous or bland enough for them to have come up with?

Rather than express my pointless point of view about something that is really is of no consequence or value to mankind, I’ve posted some random video or picture with almost no commentary whatsoever.

While I’m sure this all meets with your approval, I think it means I’m:

1. Becoming lazy.
2. Running out of things to say.

However, rather than fight against it, I’ve come to appreciate that sometimes, it’s just best to go with the flow which is why I continue my ‘trend’ of [even more] pointless Monday blog posts with this, the heavy metal naming system.

All that leaves me to say is:

1. It makes more sense than any Landor/FutureBrand proprietary naming system.
2. I wish it was around when my band, Bangkok Shakes, was choosing its name.

Yours sincerely,

Bleeding Rage.

[Which is scarily appropriate for me, don’t you think?]