Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Context, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Emotion, Empathy, England, Experience, Imagination, Innocence, Perspective, Prejudice, Relationships, Relevance, Research, Resonance
I went to Brighton recently and I have to say, I quite liked it in a try-hard-to-be-cool kind of way.
And while there was a bunch of things to see and explore, one thing stood out from all of them.
This …
I have to be honest, while I am all for sorting out your rubbish, a public bin just for BBQ food is pretty spectacular.
Especially as I didn’t spot a single place selling BBQ food anywhere near it.
But as I wrote about the bins in LAX airport, by not labeling it simply as ‘rubbish’, it did stop me in my tracks.
Made me look more closely.
Made me think.
Which begs the question, for all the logic we are approaching the challenges of the environment – maybe the best way to get people to actually think and reconsider is not to bathe them in facts about our self-created, impending apocalypse, but to use language and imagery that cracks the firewalls we have put up around ourselves to manage this sort of information on our own terms.
It might be counter-intuitive, but as the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Doncaster County Council grit machine campaign showed, sometimes the most sensible thing we can do to create change is to embark on utter madness.
Just like my Boaty McBoatface argument that I am absolutely not bitter about in any way, even thought they completely ignored it and dismissed it out of hand.
Oh no.
When will authorities appreciate that humans are hypocritical.
That common sense is often in the eye of the beholder rather than their being some uniform fire of how everything should be.
This is why we have rubbish ads, rubbish politicians and rubbish products … because while I appreciate we need certain benchmarks to move forward, so many of the things we rely on are as fake as the Emperors New Clothes.
Designed to hide our truth rather than to reveal it.
That doesn’t mean you should stop talking to people, far from it, it actually means you need to spend even more time with them so you can get even closer to them. Understand their realities, their contexts, their truths and dramas and all the nuances and personal rabbit holes they go down to manage what they think and decide to do.
People are fascinating, but it needs more than a fucking focus group or poll to discover it.
As I’ve said before, if you want them to respect your clients brand, start respecting them~.
15 Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
From a trash can in Brighton to humanities behaviour. You can connect things together in ways Sherlock Holmes would admire.
Comment by Bazza October 24, 2019 @ 6:22 amGood examples in the post though. And you can’t say that very often.
Comment by Bazza October 24, 2019 @ 6:23 amI got the landfill labelling you talked about at LAX but I am not so sure about the BBQ of Brighton. But then it would have stopped me in my tracks as it did you which has to be better than throwing trash on the floor. Which I suppose is the bigger point you’re making in this post. Logic is illogical. Illogical is logic.
Comment by George October 24, 2019 @ 6:51 amCould it be Rob is pushing “illogical is logical” because he is attempting to stop his thinking being laughed at?
Comment by Bazza October 24, 2019 @ 7:06 amIt would explain why I agree with him.
Comment by George October 24, 2019 @ 7:22 amYou said it.
Comment by Billy Whizz October 24, 2019 @ 8:01 amGentlemen. There are times to be self depreciating but this is not one of those. Celebrate your brain, it has achieved a huge amount for you.
Comment by Lee Hill October 24, 2019 @ 9:24 amTennessee just declared war on Brighton.
Comment by Billy Whizz October 24, 2019 @ 8:02 amI agree Billy. Brighton is for rock, not BBQ.
Comment by Lee Hill October 24, 2019 @ 9:23 amI don’t think that receptacle was designed for grey autumnal days.
As for getting people to think, that’s a hopeless task. The best you can do is make them feel.
Comment by John October 24, 2019 @ 9:23 amThat bin is not for BBQ food waste. It’s for BBQ grill waste. Like the kind of waste that is hot burning embers leftover from having a BBQ on the beach. The kind of waste you don’t want people putting in plastic waste bins.
Aside from that, your points are on point.
Comment by Trevor October 24, 2019 @ 1:59 pmDo people have BBQ on UK beaches?
Comment by DH October 24, 2019 @ 3:57 pmDoesn’t the wind stop any fire happen?
Whatevs, they need a better naming strategy.
No clue. But people everywhere seem obsessed with these single use disposable bbqs that they sell in shops – little foil trays with charcoal chips and a metal screen sitting on top. I agree, naming is shit.
Comment by Trevor_L October 24, 2019 @ 10:05 pmIn that case. why wouldn’t they put it on the beach rather than expect people to carry it to the promenade?
Comment by George October 24, 2019 @ 6:52 pmI assume it saves the steps on waste removal.
Comment by Trevor_L October 24, 2019 @ 10:06 pm