Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Creativity, Culture, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, England, Family, Goodbye America, Happiness, Home, Imagination, Innocence, Jill, Love, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
Yes I know today is the day where all the ghosts and ghouls are supposed to come out and play, but I thought I’d inject a bit of love and positivity into the World.
I know … who the hell am I?
Unsurprisingly, this new side of me is connected to my past life in LA.
While we are absolutely loving being in England and London, there are things about LA we miss.
One of them is Otis’ amazing preschool.
As I have written before, it’s an amazing, creative, inclusive place of learning and we were so happy he was there.
But leaving was always going to be hard – especially given we were leaving the country – so we asked the school if we could buy a piece of furniture for them on behalf of Otis.
Not just because it’s a school where the lessons are conducted outdoors but because we wanted Otis to know that while he was in America for a short time, his presence mattered to the community and the community mattered to Otis.
I’m so grateful they said yes which is why, while we’re thousands of miles away in the cold of England, there is a bench in sunny Manhattan Beach that allows Otis to always be in a place he loved while also letting his friends – and future students – always enjoy being in the environment they find themselves in.
The point of this post also relates to the people I’ve been lucky enough to call colleagues around the World, but that’s a post for another day [and does not relate to leaving stickers and badges around the place] so with that, I just want to say a huge thank you to Manhattan Beach Nursery School, the kids and parents who go there and LA as a whole.
Take that Halloween.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Culture, Marketing, Marketing Fail
I used to know this person who everyone liked.
Always smiling. Always laughing.
They were the life and soul of every party.
But then, when I spoke to people who actually worked with this person, the response was kind of different.
The common reply was something along the lines of:
“They’re nice as a person, but working with them ….”
And there would be this pause as words they didn’t want to say out loud, were said in their silence.
What they were trying to say was the problem they had working with this person was they wanted to be popular.
Sure, we all want that to a certain extent, but this person was obsessed with it … to the point they would always give whoever they were talking to, the answer that person wanted to hear.
Never saying the word “no”.
At least to people who they felt were – or could be – important or influential to them.
And while that is fine in general – or private – conversation, it causes huge problems when it comes to making great work because different promises get made to different people which means everyone is working to different goals and expectations.
Worse, it means when shit hit the fan – which it always will – this person will constantly blame someone else for the issues rather than take responsibility for what has happened.
Of course this shouldn’t be a surprise because their focus was never really been about the work – despite what they might say in public – it was just about their personal relationships.
Look I get it … no one likes conflict.
No one likes to tell someone no, especially if you like that person.
But when you let your ego be more important than the work, everyone loses.
As I wrote before, to get to great work you’ve got to accept it will leave scars.
That doesn’t mean the teams need to work in an atmosphere of toxicity or aggression – far from it, you generally feel the joy the teams have had making great work – but it does mean the tough conversations have to be had openly and early to not just ensure expectations and standards are agreed by everyone involved, but to give the teams the space, time and safety to make work that is fearless and infectious.
Popularity seekers scare the crap out of me.
Sure, they’re nice to have a cup of tea with, but to work with them is horrific.
Not because they lack talent, but they lack integrity and like all relationships, if you can’t trust the person by your side, you can’t have a relationship that can lead to exciting and new places.
But if more evidence was needed, I’d say this.
Tough conversations may not be nice, but not only do they increase the odds of getting to great work … they build stronger trust, respect and relationship between client and agency.
Not having tough conversations may be easier, but I don’t know of any great work that has ever come from it. And eventually, that leads to relationship breakdown … because if there’s one thing I know about this business, when things go good – everyone claims ownership – but when things go bad, most clients tend to point the gun at the agency.
See that picture?
Looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape with aliens and a volcano doesn’t it.
Well it’s not.
It’s the back of my eye.
Admittedly my bad eye, but if anything sums up a cold winter Monday in London, it’s that.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Advertising [Planning] School On The Web, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, China, Confidence, Crap Campaigns In History, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Embarrassing Moments, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Nottingham Forest, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning
So today was supposed to be the APSOTW results, but I’m still waiting on one more bit of feedback. I really, really hope that will come in soon so we can put everything out next week.
Sorry.
Fortunately, I can fill this post with something else …
Not as good – or as wanted – as the APSOTW feedback, but pretty mind blowing all the same.
When I lived in China, there was an unspoken rule that if a company did something successful, there would be hundreds of copycats in the blink of an eye.
I wrote about this a bunch of times with possible this one being the finest example of it.
Well, while it hasn’t happened quickly and it’s only been copied once, it has come to my attention that a planner in China has paid me the ultimate compliment by blatantly copying my old blog header [designed by Jill] for their own thing … including the name of it.
Take a look at this …
I suppose I should be offended but I think it’s bloody fantastic … though I do worry about the ramifications for this persons career.
Not because someone who is paid to have original thought has shown they would rather steal, but because to openly and publicly associate with Queen, Birkenstock, Nottingham Forest and me is basically ruinous.
This is not the reason why I haven’t mentioned their name in this post – though if you work in advertising in Shanghai, you might recognize this senior positioned, big named agency planner by her face – it’s because their posts are way better than mine [even they draw the line at copying them] and I don’t want to lose the last 3 people on here who come along to insult me.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, Honesty, Imagination, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Social Media
So following on from yesterday’s post about how to create content that people actually want to watch rather than run away from, here are the remaining 6 lessons.Remember, they’re not from me, but from a friend of a friend who started a YouTube channel [Kyra.TV] last year that has turned them into one of the most interesting and fastest-growing content creators in London.
Be grateful for that, because this is my version of good content.
Here.
Here.
And Here.
Exactly. Now settle down for the remaining 6 points.
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LESSON SEVEN: This audience loves ‘YouTubers’
When we first started making content for Youtube, I confess we used to turn our noses up at the “YouTubers”.
We learnt that made us idiots.
We couldn’t understand why young people loved them so much and just put it down to one of the mysteries of the internet.
Your Jake Pauls
Your PewdiPies
Your David Dobriks
Your Zoellas
We had watched some of their content, we thought we understood it and we made our minds up. We assumed their audiences came from getting to the platform first and I can’t tell you how wrong we were and how much respect I have for them and their teams now.
What we’ve come to understand over the past year is that some of these creators are nothing shy of complete genius. They are media powerhouses with intricate and refined strategies that are driving levels of engagement never seen before in our industry.
Take Logan Paul.
Say you what you want about the controversy, let’s look at the facts.
In December he generated 320 million video views.
He creates a 15 minute TV Show every single day.
Even his dog has 3.4m Instagram followers and generates 500,000 likes per post …
Let’s take another example.
KSI gained more subscribers than Complex, Vice, Buzzfeed and Vox COMBINED in the last 30 days.
These are some of the most innovative people in the media industry and unlike the past, they’re beginning to realise it as well and are now beginning to seriously monetise it. Every media house in the world right now should be paying attention to them, watching and learning from them every single day.
I know we are.
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LESSON EIGHT: This audience listens to and values people over brands
Leading on from that point …
Since the dawn of media, individuals and influencers have always been at the forefront of entertainment.
Think David Beckham, the Spice Girls, Gordon Ramsay …
Beforehand these figures needed media owners to reach their audiences but today that is definitely not the case.
The Kardashians … the Paul brothers… these are people and media giants rolled into one.
Just two months ago Will Smith started vlogging and has already amassed a huge audience of close to 1 million subscribers on his channel.
I’ve learnt that this generation expects to connect with influencers directly, and if you can facilitate that connection, you will win.
A lot of our business strategy at Kyra is centred around putting people at the forefront of our content proposition.
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LESSON NINE: Your audience is a manifestation of the content you produce
This one is glaringly obvious, but I find it pretty interesting.
If the content you publish is negative, you will breed an audience fuelled by negativity. Haters in the comments. Low sentiment ratios.
If your content is positive, uplifting, inspirational, aspirational, you’re likely to receive the same response from the audience.
If your audience is intelligent and thoughtful, you will see intelligent, thoughtful people gravitating towards it.
And so on, and so on…
It sounds obvious, but for me it was somewhat of a revelation.
In a world where so much is reliant on the kind of audience you attract, this has been a key factor to our success with advertisers and has a huge impact on the kind of content we produce every day.
The proof is out there, go and have a look at video publishers and their comments, I think you’ll agree that their audiences are a direct mirror of what they put out into the world.
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LESSON TEN: Long term value comes from consistent and regular programming
When we first started, we were constantly hunting for a viral hit … the mythical unicorn of the internet that everyone strives for.
But after creating and publishing hundreds of pieces of content consistently for a year, the question I am still asking myself is “does it really build long term value?”
I’m unconvinced.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that what will ultimately win, is creating quality content CONSISTENTLY and incrementally building a passionate army of fans that are unwavering in their loyalty and affinity to your brand, channel or content.
I’d take 200 videos with positive, steady growth over one big Gangnam Style hit any day.
What I’ve basically learnt is: viral hits do not build community and that is essentially all that matters.
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LESSON ELEVEN: This audience has REAL spending power
So many Brand Managers ask me ‘but how much money do these young people really have?’
For PAQ, we set up a Pop Up shop in London and put out some posts online the day before inviting them to come down and check out the shop.
Now to put this in perspective… I had no fucking idea what was going to happen. Up until this point, everything … the followers, the comments, the engagements were just pixels on a screen, ones and zeros.
So I was 100% ready to turn up the next day and find a ghost town.
Well at 7am we had 100 people already queuing outside the shop.
At 9am when we opened it was up to around 500, lines of people queuing around the corner to meet the people they watch every week on our show.
People flew in from Germany, Sweden and even Malaysia just to come to the shop.
My learnings from this were so valuable:
This audience has access to money and they are very much REAL.
I learnt that digital audiences can transcend into real world purchases very easily.
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LESSON TWELVE: Length doesn’t matter to the audience, it matters to the advertiser
I remember when we started producing content, speaking to dozens of people to try and understand what length our videos should be.
So many people told me so many different things.
But here is what I’ve worked out myself over the past 6 months:
It doesn’t matter if your video is 30 seconds, 5 minutes or half an hour.
If the content is good, the audience will watch it.
We have the same view through rates across our content, no matter what the length.
However, the length of the content is very, very important when it comes to making effective branded or sponsored content.
The bottom line is this: The longer you can engage an audience, the more right you have to show them an advertiser’s message.
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Again, there may be stuff in here you knew and stuff you disagree with … but I personally found all this stuff interesting.
The key – as is the case for all successful communication – is know your audience.
Not in terms of just what they do, or where they do it … but why.
That little thing that seems to have fallen out of vogue and yet in the right hands, can still make the difference between good and great.
Of course, the ‘why’ – or the other name for it, insight – isn’t good enough on its own.
For it to really unleash its power you need creative people who are given the time and space to explore, experiment and just be creative … and yet it appears to me that the approach favored by most people in addend – and their clients – is to only make content they want their audience to like rather than what their audience actually wants to watch.
As I wrote ages ago, engagement is not about relevance, but resonance.
Of course, it always used to be that way.
It’s why kids loved Beavis and Butthead but adults hated it … to name one out of a thousand possible examples.
But somewhere along the line, the networks started to focus on scale – meaning they made shows designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Hence we got juggernauts like Friends – shows that were kind-of relevant to everyone without being specific to someone.
This was fine until the internet came.
Then choice was handed back to us.
No longer did we have to put up with the general interest, mainstream TV … suddenly we could choose the things that reflected us.
Our individual tastes, interests, viewpoints.
The content creators who are making things that are changing things get this.
They know their audience and they double down on it.
The content creators who are making rubbish like that Nescafe ‘thing’ that caused this whole stream of posts, don’t.
If adland and clients really want to have a position in culture, then the thing they need to get back to doing is knowing their audience … not in terms of a demographic or even a psychographic … but really know who they are, what they do, what they hate etc etc, because while ‘appealing to everyone’ may sound good to the board of directors, it doesn’t really work then that means you mean nothing to no one.