Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Black Lives Matter, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Cynic, Diversity, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Experience, Honesty, Insight, Perspective, Planners, Planning, R/GA, Relevance, Resonance, Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
My last day at R/GA was great.
That might sound weird, but it was.
Part of it was because I started the morning with the brilliant Brixton Finishing School listening to a bunch of students answering a brief I gave them with passion, mischief and possibility and part of it was because I got to spend significant time with my brilliant planning gang to say goodbye.
But there was another reason, which is that the first thing I did when my life at R/GA was over – literally within 30 minutes of being officially made unemployed – I was doing an interview with Faisal Ahmend about diversity and inclusion in adland.
And while it is an issue I am very, very passionate about …
And while I continue to feel the industry only gives a superficial response to it …
And while my headphones and wifi makes me sound like I’m Darth Vader speaking from a tin box with intermittent wifi …
…. even I’m slightly suprised how upbeat I sound on such a significant day in my career.
But then, as I said in the post that announced it, not only was I glad this happened to me rather than a person of colour, a woman or a youngster starting out in their career – who are often the first victims in these situations – the reality is the last time this happened to me, it led to the most exciting and creative time of my career and so I felt no reason to feel anything other than optimistic about the future.
Now I admit with hindsight, that may have been naive of me – especially with all the shit going on in the World with pandemics and political fighting, not to mention my old, old, old, old, age – however based on all that has happened to me since that I announced I’d been made redundant, my hunch has been proved to be right.
So far. Hahahaha
Normally I hate listening or reading things I say.
I spend the whole time slapping my head either muttering, “why did I say that?” … “why didn’t I say that?” … or “why am I jumping about and rambling like I’m a loon?”
However this one is a bit different.
Sure there’s things I wish I rephrased.
Sure there’s things that I might have got slightly wrong.
But at the end of the day, I say the one thing that I feel had to be said … the one thing to counter the excuse I continually hear why there is not more diversity in adland today.
When asked how do I find the people to add diversity to my team, I respond …
“You don’t have to ‘find them’, they’re everywhere … you just have to want them.”
You can listen to it here.
You can listen to far more intelligent and articulate people here.
And, as usual, I huge thank you to all the people who have – and continue to – help me on my journey to being a much, much better human. Especially Maya, Breanna, Chelsea, Lani, Hannah, Amar, Omar, Erika, David, Sue, Jorge, Karrelle, Jason, Tahaab, Charinee, Leon, Debi, Tina, Kate, PQ, Rodi, Jay, Akua, Yaya and Bayyina.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, China, Corona Virus, Culture, Cunning, Empathy, Equality, Linkedin, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Point Of View, Prejudice, Presenting, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance, Social Commentary, Social Divide, Social Media
So a few weeks ago, I saw a tweet that asked about ‘most awkward’ presentation.
Given I’d just read a terribly superficial [and out-of-touch] document they’d written on China, it reminded me of something that happened with me and McKinsey in China a few years ago.
So I wrote this:
As soon as I posted it, I knew it had hit a nerve as my phone was continually buzzing – but whereas it normally stops after about 4 seconds, this carried on. In fact it got more intense. So intense in fact that within 48 hours, it had achieved this:
22,000 likes.
5,500 retweets
300+ comments
In addition to that, I got contacted by people in the US, Mexico and China who said I had set off a vibrant debate in their respective countries via their respective versions of Linkedin, Instagram and Twitter.
Hell, I even got contacted by Consulting Humour [which is apparently ‘a thing’] who wanted to post it.
MADNESS.
But what’s even more mad is that almost everyone who commented was nice to me.
Even the people who disagreed with what I’d written.
And yet, despite all that, I found it overwhelming … like being in a car that’s on the edge of going out of control.
It got so uncomfortable that I had to delete my Twitter for a few hours so I could catch my breath.
But what was obvious was a lot of people have a lot of issues with McKinsey and consultancies as a whole.
The main issue seemingly being they get paid a fortune for their advice but don’t have to take any responsibility for what they recommend.
This was the message a huge range of people working in a huge range of industries said … from small businesses to multinationals to entrepreneurs to ex-McKinsey consultants.
Now I am under no illusion that McKinsey won’t give a shit about what I said – and I don’t blame them – but I do think they should be a bit nervous that an innocuous tweet could create such a shitstorm of commentary and engagement.
However on the off-chance that last sentence encourages the McKinsey lawyers to come after me, I should point a few things:
1. The talk I referred to in the tweet was not a presentation claiming advertising was better than consultancy. It wasn’t even about advertising … more about how cultural innovation can achieve more distinctive brand growth and business optimisation. I think.
2. And while it looks like I pissing on the value of consultants, I wasn’t. I accept, in the right situation, they offer incredible benefits to business … however, when they have no skin in the game – or are offering analysis on cultural behaviour without ever actually interacting in culture – then the effect of their advice can be called into question.
3. But most of all, while I was a cheeky shit in the presentation I gave in Shanghai all those years ago … I definitely said it with a twinkle I the eye and the audience knew that … rather than looking at me thinking I was purely an antagonistic bastard.
Emphasis on ‘purely’.
So while this viral situation was an interesting adventure, I learnt something even more valuable than ‘consultancies’ are the silver bullet to influencer status.
I’m not talking about the grudging respect I might have gained for social media influencers.
Nor the fact I am worried so many people aspire to be one, without maybe realising the mental anguish they will face and the pressure they will place on themselves to perform even better.
No, it’s this …
There are so many people out there who face abuse, judgement and prejudice just for being who they are.
Not just in social media, but in every aspect of their lives.
I can’t imagine having to deal with that level of scrutiny … hell, I couldn’t even deal with 2 days of it and my experience was good.
This not only highlights their strength, but also my privilege.
Of course I knew I had that – but this situation helped me understand it in a way I could feel rather than just understand.
I honestly think it would be worth every white, middle class person to experience … especially the Karen’s of this World, who have the audacity to claim being in their comfortable homes to protect them from catching a deadly virus is equivalent to slavery.
You think I’m making that last bit up don’t you?
I know, it sounds utterly insane to think that could be true.
But in America, insane is often normal.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Cunning, Devious Strategy, EvilGenius, Fake Attitude
I am doing a project about land ownership.
I know that sounds horrifically boring, but it isn’t.
Anyway, as part of my rabbit hole reading and research, I came across one of those sites where you can buy ‘titles’ … like Lord and Lady of the Manor.
And then I saw this …
Have you read it?
No, I don’t mean the bollocks testimonial, I mean the line near the top.
Yes, the one that basically says, ‘these testimonials may all be a pile of utter bullshit’.
Amazing eh?
I have to admit, I love their use of the word ‘illustrative’ … it’s as if they’re trying to say they want to add flair to their product story rather than just admit they’re writing lies.
Let’s face it, if you have to make up your ‘references’, you don’t have any references.
Believe it or not, the ad industry is more closely controlled than the newspaper industry … and while the owners of this company openly admit their references are illustrative rather than real, it still highlights how someone who wants to fuck with the system can fuck with it, regardless how closely regulated people may think it is.
But then even that doesn’t matter, because as I wrote in my post about Bernie Madoff, the people who fall for these scams are often – but not always, especially if they’re the elderly – complicit in some way.
Because as Bernie once said …
“I succeeded because when you offer people a deal that’s too good to be true, they never want to look too hard into the facts.
They say it’s because of trust. I say it’s because of greed.”
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Context, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Differentiation, Entertainment, EvilGenius, Experience, Innovation, Luxury, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Positioning, Pretentious Rubbish, Toilet, Wash Your Hands You Dirty Pup, Women
The fragrance industry is fascinating.
I’ve written a bunch about this in the past [here, here and here for example] but nothing reinforces my view than the new fragrance bottle from Moschino.
Have a look at this …
On one hand I admire how the industry uses creativity to design distinctive bottles and packaging – mainly because the smelly liquid inside has little value – and I love the fearlessness they tend to embrace all they do, but there’s few industries as pretentious as the fragrance industry. Hell, they’re even more pretentious than a Swiss finishing school run by a Victorian father.
Now I accept some are being ironic – or have evolved to be that way, like Gucci for example – but the vast majority continue to have their heads so high up in the clouds, that even the biggest dope smokers couldn’t reach them.
I’m not sure which side Moschino are on, but anyone who makes a perfume bottle to look exactly like a disinfectant spray and proudly puts the words ‘toilette’ on it, suggests either the biggest misstep or act of fragrance genius I’ve seen in years.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, China, Chinese Culture, Comment, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Embarrassing Moments, Insight, Management, Marketing, Planning, Point Of View, Relevance, Resonance, Shanghai, The Kennedys Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
I have always loved pitching.
I love the drama, the nervousness, the tension, the creativity.
I also love that it’s a chance to reinvent how the agency is seen every single time.
Because of this, I’ve always embraced using a pitch to try new ways to present your work.
I’ve done a lot of stuff over the years.
Some has – without doubt – been an unmittigated disaster, but far more often, it’s been successful.
Not because we’ve used gimmicks or theatre, but we’ve found an interesting way to get our point across without [hopefully] repeating what every other agency they’ve seen has said.
Some of my favourites have been when we won the launch of Disneyland Shanghai when we were the 18th agency to pitch and I had inadvertently insulted the head of procurement when I accidentally wrote ‘retards’ instead of ‘regards’.
Mind you, they got their own back when they fired us after 2 years – and just before some truly amazing work was going to be made.
Then there was the time we won the SONY global business based on a photo I’d taken of a sign they had in their HQ.
It was an arrow pointing to the right to show you where reception was … and I used that as the basis for our pitch which basically said SONY spent so much time looking at what their competitors were doing, they’ve forgotten the need to forge their own path.
And then there was our winning pitch to Virgin when they were going to start their F1 team.
The reality was they were unlikely to ever win a race – or maybe even a point – given the gulf in investment and technology between them and their competitors.
So our strategy was to model themselves on tennis player Anna Kournikova … because even though she never won a grand slam, she was one of the most recognised, supported and wealthy tennis players in the tournaments.
That was fun.
But recently I found a photo that reminded me of a time we were pitching for BEATS by Dre.
I was at Wieden Shanghai and we had a meeting to talk about the China market.
Instead of a presentation about culture or music or fashion, I had one slide that said, “If You Don’t Define Who You Are, Someone Else Will’ and then I gave them all a set of the fake headphones that are the photo at the top of this post.
And we won.
Some say what we did was ballsy … but it wasn’t really.
When you realise the client is going to be sitting through a bunch of meetings that often say the same thing – or worse, just talk about the agency rather than the client – you realise having a strong POV that can form the foundation for work that will resonate with culture is the most sensible thing you can do.
Of course it takes just as long to come up with that as it does writing the 1000 page decks of boredom, but when it comes to delivery … it not only helps you stand out, it helps ensure they remember your point of view rather than get confused with countless pitches that talk a lot but say nothing.