Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Culture, Food, Italy, Jill, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis
Yes, what you’re looking at is a piece of chocolate inside a bread roll.
Also known as my dinner.
Now I appreciate this might make you feel ill – it made Jill actually gag – but I bloody loved it and I don’t mind admitting it.
I have a strange relationship with food.
Basically, my pallet is rubbish … as I find everyday grub far tastier and more enjoyable than the nice stuff I get served when I go to a fancy restaurant for work.
I have a theory behind it …
You see my Mum and Dad ensured I grew up eating healthy, nutritious food.
Given we didn’t have much cash, there was no eating out except for birthdays and a treat was a once-in-a-blue-moon trip to the fish and chip shop.
Then – when I was old enough to go out on my own – I discovered a World of shitty food. A World of choice where I could have anything I wanted as opposed to my World being whatever my Mum and Dad wanted me to have.
In some respects, shitty food was my act of rebellion given I didn’t ever try cigarettes or drugs.
I still remember the look of disappointment my Mum gave me when I bought a can of Heinz Spaghetti Bolognaise from Asda … though on that one, she was well within her Italian rights and I’m grateful she didn’t disown me.
Which leads to how I live …
Asking for economy food on a plane even when I fly at the privlidged pointy end or, as the picture shows, thinking a piece of chocolate in a bread roll has Michelin star potential.
Of course I am not a total lunatic.
I know I can’t live like this all the time.
I’d like to … but I can’t … especially if I want to see my son grow up and set him on a path of healthy eating for the rest of his life.
So while I’ll eat tons of greens and lean meat and vegetables of every description, the reality is that every time I chew, my brain wishes it was a chocolate sandwich.
Christ I’m pathetic.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Cannes, Chaos, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Experience, Honesty, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance, Unexpected Relevance
I love chaos.
Always have.
In fact, my approach to work can be summed up in 3 words.
Culture. Chaos. Creativity.
And yet, I do appreciate the importance of some sort of process … some sort of systematic thinking in terms of approach … because ultimately we are in the commercial creativity business, so we need some guide rails to ensure we’re heading in the right direction, even if I am removing any specific destination.
Where things go wrong is when people care more about the process than what the process is supposed to create.
Where systematic thinking goes from direction to dictation.
That’s when things go wrong.
That’s when potential and ambition are killed in the quest for control.
But here’s the thing …
For all the processes talked about.
For all the proprietary tools hyped.
The system agencies tend to end up adopting – even when they’re hidden inside a beautifully constructed, clearly planned out, client facing framework – is this.
This is not a criticism.
To get to somewhere new … somewhere interesting and intriguing … you have to take a leap of faith at some point, even in the most well-organised, well thought-out of processes.
Some people don’t like admitting that.
Some people don’t want the pragmatism of creativity to overshadow the ego of their process.
Some people don’t even want to accept creativity rarely follows a straight line through the entire process.
And yet it is creativities ability to solve problems in lateral ways that makes it so valuable and powerful, which is why for me, those who are comfortable with uncomfortable are the ones who create the most enduring ideas for brands, business and culture.
And the ones who aren’t?
Well they tend to be the ones who use words like operationalize or optimise or codify or, the old classic, ‘proprietary tools and processes’ a lot … the ones who want to feel in control, despite the fact what they’re actually saying is they want to replicate creativity rather than ignite it.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s always some element of process in any development of creativity – whatever form that manifests – but there’s also messiness and chaos and to remove that, not make room for that or go around that is either a lie or an act against the incredibly infectious possibilities of creativity.
As Martin and I said at Cannes, chaos creates what order can’t.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Childhood, Comment, Confidence, Culture, Honesty, Imagination, Innocence, Perspective
So I’m 49.
By any stretch of the imagination, that’s pretty old.
Sure, I still might have the dress sense of a 15 year old and the immaturity of a 12 year old, but the reality is I’m still 49.
Which leads me to the point of this post.
Recently I read this quote from Confucius:
“We have 2 lives and the second one begins when we realize we only have one”.
That’s one of the best insights I’ve ever read.
It’s brilliant … not just because it’s undeniably true, but when you have just gone through this, it hits you in the chest like a freight train.
While I will never probably act my age, I am now more aware of my situation than I’ve ever been.
That I am more than likely past the half way point of my life.
As well as in the final phases of my career.
Given I have a young child, a wonderful family and a mortgage to pay – that can be quite intimidating. And yet it is also liberating.
It means I don’t let little things at work get in the way of what I need to do to feel I’m being useful to the creative work. It means I ensure my team – who ultimately deliver my success – always feel supported and encouraged. It means I practice tough love with my clients because ultimately, the best demonstration of how much I care about their success is by being honest with them about their situation. And it means I won’t let the family I love with all I’ve got, feel I’m not present and invested in their lives.
In many ways, I’d like to think this is how I’ve always been … but when you realize you truly have one life, it’s amazing in how it focuses the mind.
Separates distraction from action.
Keeps you hungry rather lazy.
Growing old has a lot of negatives … A LOT of negatives … but the great irony is that while many think it means people are past their sell-by date, it tends to be a period where you are more productive than you’ve ever been, albeit in different ways.
Of course being young is amazing.
Sharp.
Open.
Fearless.
Bringing an energy and viewpoint others may never have or never see.
Being young is a wonderful gift that ironically, you only truly appreciate when you are no longer young … but it’s not all doom and gloom because the moment you realize you only have one life, that’s when you actually start living.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Jill, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
A friend of mine who is gay is writing a book about how straight people would react if their child told them they were gay.
I wrote this:
If my son turns to me and says he’s gay, I would hug him and tell him I loved him and that I hope he finds someone who makes him happy.
If my son told me he had found a man that made him truly happy, I would hug him and tell him I am so excited for him and can’t wait to meet him.
If my son told me he had met the man of his dreams and told me he wanted to get married, I would probably cry tears of joy and say I am proud
I mean every single word of that … and yet, despite it being 2019, the LGBTQ+ community continue to face constant harassment and exclusion.
This scares me to death because as a parent, I would never want my son to suffer for his sexual preferences. And no one should.
While society has come a long way, we haven’t come far enough which is why being an ally to those who are forced to live in the shadows has never been so important.
You don’t have to become their best friend.
You don’t have to spend all your time together.
But letting them know you see them as a peer and believe in their right to live without oppression will help the progress we’ve made, keep moving forward so that one day, if my child – or yours – announces they are gay, you can celebrate them for being true to who they are rather than worrying about how others will treat them for who they are.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Fashion, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relevance, Resonance
I saw this person on the tube recently.
I don’t know who they are.
I accept I have no right to talk about fashion or shoes.
But a pair of brown crocs with some glittered-up stones glued to them feels the sort of things by a Blue Peter host would have come up with circa 1982.
What makes it even more confusing is they were carrying an LV bag.
And while I haven’t seen such an odd pairing since I saw Cate Blanchett and her husband, I have to say I loved it.
It was quirky.
It was individual.
It was the sort of thing that pushes ‘fashion’ and could either crash and burn or open up a new chapter of it. And given we live in a world that tends to play safely in the middle, the people on the edges are the ones we should be looking at and celebrating.
When Martin and I did our Cannes talk for Warc, we talked about ‘the edge effect’.
It’s a genuine term – associated more with nature than planning – but the point is still valid. If you want to move brands forward, play to where culture is heading not where it is and to do that, seek out the people on the edges not smack bang in the centre.
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UPDATE:
Since I wrote this post, I discovered these shoes weren’t the work of a children’s TV presenter, some Pritt Stick glue, some stones from the garden and a couple of tubes of glitter but a real live bloody shoe designer.
Christopher Kane to be precise.
And what’s more, they cost £325.
THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE POUNDS.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Suddenly my wifi cup, remote control ball and basically 99% of everything I’ve ever bought looks a wise investment in comparison.
So to Mr Kane, your career might be done but you made me feel better about myself.Ta.