Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Confidence, Marketing Fail
… if you watch the fakest ‘off the record’ video of all time, you might think he is.
And if not that, he’s absolutely desperate to be the next member of Dragon’s Den/Shark Tank.
Suddenly my post about him – and other successful people – seems even more accurate.
Which makes a pleasant change.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Bank Ads, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Culture, Cunning, Insight
I work in an industry that spends billions of dollars per year looking for insight.
You’d think for all that cash you’d discover some absolute corkers – but we don’t.
There’s a whole host of reasons for that.
Part of it is because this industry still mistakes insight for what people do as opposed to why.
Part of it is because some clients believe some insights may stop sales opportunity rather than open it up. [Hence the rise of ‘global human truths’ despite their fatal flaw of ignoring the importance of local context]
Part of it is because some believe that unless an insight is positive, the work will be negative. [Which is obviously bollocks, unless you use insights literally rather than laterally and even then, that doesn’t mean the work has to come out like that]
Part of it is because some in the research industry act like the legal industry and realize there is more money in keeping the question going than actually answering the question.
There’s a whole bunch of reasons, and while I believe insights can come from anywhere – I still believe those that reveal people’s beliefs, motivations and behaviours are often the most powerful of them all.
As anyone who has ever worked with/for me will know, I call these ‘dirty little secrets’, because in my experience, they tend to reveal far more than just why people do things, but the circumstances that led to this belief.
It’s not easy … it’s not always perfect … it always requires other work to validate, explore or exclude it … but I will continually push my lovely colleagues to investigate and discover, because when you reveal a dirty little secret, you are already on the road to making work that will be different and powerful.
The reason I say this is because I recently read about Ponzi-scheme King, Bernie Madoff.
While he comes across as a cold, calculated, sociopath … his intellect can’t be disputed.
When asked how he pulled off the biggest financial fraud in history, he said this …
“I succeeded because when you offer people a deal that’s too good to be true, they never want to look too hard into the facts. They say it’s because of trust. I say it’s because of greed.”
There’s a lot of truth in those 2 sentences.
There’s a lot of creative opportunity in those 2 sentences.
I don’t mean to make work that exploits even more people, but to make work for [say, a bank] that can build the sort of conversation that gives them a real chance to prove they have their customers best interests at heart.
But it won’t happen because too many clients think ‘negative insights’ leads to negative work [which is utter bullshit] and most banks already know what Mr Maddoff said, because that’s how they continue to screw the taxpayer out of cash to line their own pockets.
Shame, because a financial institution that decided to be utterly transparent and then communicated, “the reason we tell you everything is we don’t want you to blame us for anything” might be quite a refreshing change.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Management, Marketing
One of the problems I have with adland is their belief that they must resemble the client.
Not just in terms of the client’s business, but in how they speak, dress and act.
They’re wrong.
The whole point of an agency is to be objective.
Of course to do that means you have to know the business.
Have to know the agendas and goals of the individuals and the company as a whole.
And have to know the competitive and social landscape.
But our skill – beyond making work that captures the imagination that makes the business work – is to see the World differently to our clients while being totally aligned to the goals we’re all working towards is.
I’m hearing more and more companies forgetting this.
I’m hearing of more and more situations where people are being evaluated less on the work they do and more on how they present themselves.
Literally.
I cannot tell you how angry and upset this makes me.
Putting aside the fact that people should be allowed to be themselves – especially in the creative industry – the fact is, if you only have people who think like you and agree with you, then you end up in a situation where your value is basically diminished and the role of the agency is nothing more than simply an extension of the marketing department.
Contrary to what you think, this is not my attempt to justify how I dress.
I know I have a ‘unique’ approach to fashion, but it’s not because I want to be noticed, it’s because I have a ‘unique’ approach to fashion.
It’s who I am.
It means I am comfortable in my own skin.
It means I will be utterly honest to my clients and colleagues.
That doesn’t mean I’m always right, but it does mean I’ll always be honest.
It also means my clients are judging me on the work I do, not the clothes I wear.
Which is exactly as it should be.
Sure, first impressions count but in my experience, good clients place far more value on first interactions because they understand they’ll never get anywhere great if all they do is surround themselves with people who think, act and see things the same as them.
As one of my old senior Nike clients once said to me …
“Middle management don’t like to be challenged because they want to keep things the same. Senior management want to be challenged because they want to keep things improving”.
Of course not everyone acts or thinks like that – and often there are reasons for it that are due more to company culture than individual beliefs – but in his particular case, if we weren’t pushing or challenging his beliefs or ideas then he would question why we were there, which is why he was one of the best clients I ever worked with and learnt from.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, BBH, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Cars, Comment, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Insight, Marketing
So I know yesterday I basically slagged off big ad campaigns by highlighting the cheeky brilliance of the Narcos ambient campaign, but every now and then there’s a big ad campaign that reminds you who brilliant it can be.
Given I slagged BBH off recently for an Audi print campaign, it gives me great pleasure to say the piece of work I love is also by BBH and also for Audi.
Have a look, it’s brilliant.
Love it.
But here’s the thing, if you strip it back, the strategy isn’t that unique.
I’m guessing it would be something like, ‘Road safety is ultimately defined by how you react to how the drivers around you. The progressive and adaptive safety features inside modern Audi’s are designed to help drivers react and respond to the unexpected actions of those around them’.
I bet that sort of thing has been written a bunch of times for a bunch of cars.
But if, as I imagine it, the brief was summed up with something like …
[Audi designs their safety features in the knowledge … ] ‘The roads are full of clowns’.
… then it’s pretty obvious to see how they ended up with work that elevates itself above the usual car safety feature ads.
Of course maybe it had nothing to do with the brief, maybe it was all down to a great creative team, but BBH have always been brilliant at finding great strategic ways to elevate work so I’m hopeful this is a sign that the BBH I have always loved is back to being the BBH that made them so fucking good.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Human Goodness, Management
My mate recently sent me this photo from Australia.
Given how I once was in a meeting where someone asked the then CEO of Y&R whether HR stood for Human Remains, maybe this company is of the same view.
That, or it could be because many people are so frustrated with their HR departments protecting the management team rather than the people, they end up going to the loo and crying their eyes out.
I’m fortunate I’ve worked/work with some genuinely good HR people in my time, but in my experience, they’re still the exception rather than the rule.
And for the record, it’s no coincidence I’ve written about this subject on Halloween.
You might be going out tonight dressed as witches and skeletons, but if you really want to be scary, you should think about dressing up as your company HR representative.