… because as you read this, I’ll be flying to China for pretty much the whole week.
Which means no more posts for this week.
Peace. Silence. Calmness.
How about that for a great Monday!
Oh, and to my friends in Shanghai who are now fearing for their lives now they’ve heard about my impending trip – don’t worry, I’m not going to ruin your Monday – I’m going to be in Beijing, so you’re entirely safe.
You’re welcome.
See you next week, I’ll leave you with this:
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Context, Experience, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Planning, Premium, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance
So I was talking at event recently about ‘loyalty’ and mentioned how when the Amazon Dash button came out, one of my clients was ecstatic.
In their mind, it meant they were going to see sales grow because instead of having to risk a shopper buying a competitive brand, they would press the button and the sale would be there’s guaranteed.
In my talk, I went on to say how I told the client that was great in theory, but there were 3 things they had to think about.
1. The real winner is always going to be Amazon.
2. It was going to be a huge race to see who could get the most ‘buttons’ into homes.
3. The result would be the destruction of their hardly fought – and expensively bought – premium brand value status.
At the end, a gentleman asked me why I thought turning a brand into a commodity was a bad idea as it meant more sales and that meant more money for the brand and the shareholders.
I must admit, I was quite taken aback by this response and pointed out that being a commodity might generate more sales, but it loses profitability and – more scarily – leaves you open to a competitor deciding to either launch a price war or disrupt the market with a new product.
He wasn’t convinced and kept going on about commodity value and how soon all brands will end up following that route.
I must admit I was a bit rude to him so after the event, I sought him out to have a chat.
Turned out he worked for a car insurance company and highlighted his category was driven purely by price.
When I asked him what he meant, he said:
“As long as your company name is generally known in a generally good light, you will get business”.
It took all my strength not to laugh in his face, so instead I simply replied,
“So you do believe in brand value or you wouldn’t care if the company name was generally known in a generally good light”.
You could see him look confused, so I decided to just finish the job off by saying …
“And if you believe everything is a commodity, why are you wearing an expensive watch when a Timex does the same job?”
He smiled a ‘fuck you’ smile at me, said goodbye then left.
It was a good evening.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Cannes, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Data, Differentiation, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Insight, Marketing, Point Of View, Relevance, Resonance, Standards
So Cannes sent out a ‘wrap up’ of things learnt from this years festival.
There was a lot of talk about authenticity and audience … great, intelligent speakers with genuinely fascinating perspectives on how we get closer to audiences without them just feeling like ‘the data told us what to say and how to do it’.
Again, this is not an anti-data thing. Far from it.
But for creativity to infiltrate, invigorate and ultimately move culture and business forwards, it needs to be resonant to the audience [and the brand] rather than be some semi-relevant message that has been designed to actively disregard the very things that makes us human.
For that I mean the messiness, hypocrisy, fears, complexity, loves, passions, habits and nuance of how we think, what we think and how we live … the stuff that gives us individuality … the stuff that is very different to just focusing on transactional data points that have ultimately been designed to give specific answers to specific questions that forgets the importance of context.
Great data folks understand the need for this.
Great planning folks understand the need for data.
Sadly, we still treat them as an either/or, which highlights our industry seems to be more focused on the ego of power and control rather than what can liberate the most interesting creativity. Ironically, while I think my attitude shows me in the most professional light that I’ve ever been, I recently got called a ‘corporate anarchist’ – which kind of reinforces my point – however all this is immaterial, because imagine the utter disappointment of the people who spoke their brilliance at Cannes and discovered in the wrap up, almost half the pages dedicated to this subject come from a ranty, sweary Nottingham lad.
Their loss.
The industries shame.
My unbelievable, unashamedly wonderful gain.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Bangkok Shakes, Childhood, Culture, Education, Experience, Happiness, Queen
When I was in my late teens, I would go to Rock City, every Friday night.
Rock City was a mecca for heavy rock music fans.
From 9 till 2am, it would play none-stop tunes at eardrum-busting volume.
There would be the classic songs by the classic bands – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, Whitesnake – but the best bit was when they would play something that was just breaking over in the US.
It was at Rock City I first heard Guns n’ Roses, Cinderella, Love/Hate, Badlands and countless others.
Eventually, Rock City gained an international reputation and so bands would not only send them copies of their new album before they were released, but they would ensure they visited and played at the venue as part of their World Tour.
I went to that smelly, sweaty, cramped and pulsating venue for absolute years.
Starting at the Tap and Tumbler pub round the corner before queuing up for entry in the sort of clothes a stripper would balk at before hanging around the edges of the club to say hello to the friends and acquaintances you knew before finally working your way through the heaving, throbbing masses to get into the middle of the dance floor so you could be swept up and pushed around by the intense energy of hundreds of people all loving the same thing at the exact same moment.
They were, quite frankly, some of the best times of my life.
I made friends.
It forged and influenced my love of music.
I discovered what being part of a community was really like.
It pushed me to experience and experiment with things I may never have done.
Which is all my way of justifying why – when I heard they were changing the floor after
40 years and were selling the old one off in pieces – I happily paid them £40 so I could own a piece of my history forever. [See pic at the top of this post]
Yes, it’s tragic.
Yes, it’s pathetic.
But as mid-life crises go, it’s less expensive than a Porsche.
Or an affair.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Corporate Evil, Culture, Cunning, Finance, Money
When Trump came to power he made a big deal of lowering tax for everyone.
Of course, what he really was doing was lowering tax for himself – which is weird, given he doesn’t pay any.
Anyway, when I left the country I was still waiting for my tax return to be processed.
A couple of weeks ago, I received this …
Yes, that’s a cheque for $1.
A cheque that probably costs more than $1 to produce.
But better yet, the bloody cheque is void because you only have a year to cash it and that passed on January the bloody 1st.
Given I have another US tax return in the system, I guess I should prepare to live groundhog day in about 12 months time.
You’ve got to admire Trump … he makes big promises that catch the headlines then makes sure they can’t actually happen to which he then blames the people in charge of the operation. The people that he forgets, he is the boss of. Tosser.