Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Childhood, Comment, Family, Fatherhood, Happiness, Innocence, Jill, London, My Fatherhood, Otis
So we swapped living next to the beach in LA to living next to a park in London … and because of that, we spend a huge amount of our time there … hanging out while he goes off to explore.
Watching him is awesome.
The way he throws his entire energy and enthusiasm into everything.
From the swings and slides to the way he interacts with the other kids … bonding over nothing but the fact they’re around the same age and want to play.
Recently I caught him at the top of the slide with a couple of kids he had just met.
They weren’t talking.
They were just staring.
At a leaf …
Sure it didn’t last a long time, but for a moment, that single leaf held the attention and wonder of 3 kids …studying its shape, it’s colour and guessing which tree it had fallen from.
No electronics.
No lights.
No sounds.
Just nature showing she still has it … exemplified by Otis looking at it like I look at gadgets.
Long may that continue.
Thank you park.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Crap Campaigns In History, Creativity, Differentiation, Innovation, Marketing, Marketing Fail
Maybe it’s because I only have one working eye.
Maybe it’s because I’m an complete and utter idiot.
Maybe it’s because they’re both basically in black and white.
But when I saw the above ad at a local tube station, I thought it was all for the same product and couldn’t work out why the fonts were all different.
On the plus side, it made me take a closer look which means it’s immediately more effective than most of the ads I see underground.
As I said recently, tube ads are terrible.
Boring and rational as hell … with some occasional loose ‘riding the tube’ reference.
Boring while pretending to be wild and wacky … with some occasional loose ‘riding the tube’ reference.
Boring because they think they can get away with writing the longest, long copy ads in history, regardless that they make it feel like watching paint dry.
For such a captive audience, you’d think agencies and brands could find a way to enhance the passengers journey rather than letting their ego get the better of them and make them think they’re sitting their patiently waiting to read about another app launch that does exactly the same as the other 10 apps rationally explaining their role with some ‘crazy’ visual attached. Seriously, when the only reason I notice an ad is because I thought a whisky brand had made a milk product, you know it’s time we look at what ‘engagement’ means in our industry.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Egovertising, Marketing Fail, Scam
I have written a lot about scam in the past.
How it is destroying the credibility of our industry.
How the main culprits are the agencies behind the bland wallpaper we see each day.
How these scam places are devaluing the agencies who make amazing work for real clients.
Recently John Hegarty suggested that agencies found doing scam should be banned from award shows like athletes are banned from competing.
I absolutely love this idea.
I don’t think it will stop it happening, but it will severely reduce it.
But I’d go one step further.
Years ago Andy told me the judges of the awards are complicit in scam happening.
He said that they were so focused on being associated with great work, they didn’t care if it was real work.
I think he has a point which is why rather than just banning the agencies who do it, I’d ban the judges who award it.
Of course, the judges could say they acted in good faith and assumed the people behind the competition had evaluated it’s appropriateness.
And that’s fair, but the award competitions need entries and the horrid reality is that scam has paid the bills for many of them for too long so to expect them to rigorous in their validity might be a bit too much to hope.
But here’s the thing, scam isn’t even hard to spot.
Part of the reason for it is – as I mentioned – because it comes from agencies who are more known for their blandom than their pragmatsism.
The other reason is that in their quest to be provocative, the agencies often overstep the mark because they know judges love this sort of thing.
Have a look at this …
It’s about as perfect an example of scam you can get.
A visually driven idea [because unless the copy is in English, it will stop judges liking it]
A clear point of view.
Embracing topical events to make their point.
On face value, it all makes perfect sense – but apart from the fact that idea is as old as the hills – the use of a Muslim woman highlights the desperate attempt of the agency and creative team to be ‘award worthy’.
Sure, all the pictures reflect people following some sort of ‘ideology’ … but a skinhead walking away from other skinheads in a riot and a soldier walking away from other soldiers on their way to unleash war on some nation is very different to a Muslim woman walking away from a group of other Muslim women who simply appear to be Muslim women.
Talk about making a massive and insulting comment to women of the Muslim faith.
The implication that they are all blindly following an ideology designed to cause destruction to others – as seems the theme given the other executions – is both wrong and frankly irresponsible.
But who cares about that when there’s an award to win.
But then, those who enter the dark world of scam don’t care about anything.
Including thinking if their ‘idea’ actually is consistent or makes sense.
Name them.
Ridicule them.
Ban them.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Marketing, Marketing Fail
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1936/44675996164_54e897c44b_c.jpg
I saw this at Fulham tube station.
What were they thinking?
Oh I know what they were thinking … they thought this made Aviva look like a company who wanted to help ‘the little people’ be like the successful pin-stripe suit brigade.
But the fact is, when it comes from a company run by the pin-stripe suit brigade, not only does it lose any sense of authenticity, it feels patronising, condescending and as judgmental as hell.
And if you think I’m being a dick, the fact the last line is a cold, hard and harsh ‘capital at risk’ … you know the real goal of this ad is to get more commission than to spread the wealth.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Empathy, Entertainment, Freddie, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Nike, Queen, Resonance
So a few weeks ago I went to the premiere of the Queen movie, Bohemian Rhapsody.
But it was more than that … I went with my best mate Paul and was surrounded by 6000 Queen fans, the band and the actors from the film.
It turned a movie into a wonderful celebration of an amazing band.
To be honest, while Rami Malek is amazing as Freddie – as is Gwilym Lee as Brian May – the atmosphere from the audience was better than the movie.
To be honest, it was always going to be that way, but as a piece of my personal history – including the re-enactment of so many concerts where I was actually there – it was an amazing thing to be a part of.
Of course this movie is not going to change the opinion of anyone who wasn’t a Queen fan already. And even for them, it’s not going to tell them anything you didn’t already know … but what the movie has done is get the media to conversations with people who were part of the Queen history that previously, had rarely said much about it.
One of them is fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.
She was the person behind the look that – in many ways – defined Freddie and the story she tells in the interview is wonderful, especially the bit where she describes him as a ‘hidden revolutionary’.
Of course she is referring to him in this way because back then, Queen was just starting out, because the idea of Freddie Mercury ever being hidden is quite amusing.
But that is the thing we often forget … that new is always going to be uncomfortable and yet we judge those with new ideas by the standards of the established. Literally trying to kill new thinking before it has a chance to even catch light.
And that’s why we all need to be more open to the unknown and the unexpected.
See where it could take us before we tell it where we want to take them.
Because when we hear people or companies say they want to be like NIKE, APPLE, Freddie Mercury or countless others we forget that to get there took time, patience and letting go … of the old rules, the old expectations and the old answers.