Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Din Tai Fung, London, Management, Planners, Planning, R/GA
So today we say goodbye to Martin.
While I’ve only known him for 16 months, he made quite the impression on me.
Not because of his talent.
Nor is it because of his brilliant attitude and hunger to help create great.
Not even because I was the one that got to take him to Din Tai Fung for the fist time.
In China.
Christ … it’s not even because his Mum is from Nottingham and he studied there.
It’s because he was the very first person at R/GA to tell me to “Fuck Off”.
This might sound a bit weird, but I was really happy when he did it.
I’d been here a couple of months and – as it always is the case when you start a new job – everyone was still feeling each other out.
While I can’t remember what it was I said to him – but, let’s be honest, it was probably something unprofessional and mischievous as shit – I do remember he looked at me and laughingly told me “Fuck Off”.
And that’s when I knew it might work out here.
Or at least work out with the team.
Because while we were obviously bantering, I am a big believer in us being able to say what we think to each other.
Of course it has to be respectful to the other person, but it also has to be truthful.
There’s no time for managing up or playing office politics – not if the goal is to do truly great work – and the moment Martin told me to go away in his unique style, I knew we could get somewhere good.
Now of course it’s not just his swearing ability that has made me sad to see him go.
He is – as I mentioned earlier – a genuinely great talent.
Sure he is smart, creative and committed to culture.
But he’s more than that …
He’s authentic, genuine, compassionate and a genuine decent human.
He is focused on the work not his ego and always pushes the work to get to new places rather than what is easy and safe.
In fact, when I started at R/GA, I told someone the moment Martin realises how good he is, we’re all doomed.
Well, he still hasn’t quite grasped that, but my beautiful bastard friends at W+K have and he heads there to let them benefit from his magic.
They are lucky to have him.
They are one of the few places I would let him go.
They know I’ll always be loyal to WK, so if he ever slacks off, they can tell me and I’ll come over and kick his arse.
So Martin, you might be a pie-cheating, Crystal Palace fan who looks like a double-glazing/car salesman on the [very] rare occasions you wear a suit, who is seemingly always on holiday and throws a tantrum when his Nintendo Switch breaks mere hours before having to go on a 12 hour flight to London from Beijing … but you’re also top human with top talent and I’m very glad I got to have you in my team and my life.
Now Fuck Off.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Daddyhood, Family, Love
A few weeks ago, I got a black cab from Camden Market back to work in Shoreditch. As usual, I struck up a conversation with the cabbie and somehow we got on to the subject of our kids.
Out of nowhere, he said he felt he was a huge disappointment to his children. He wouldn’t be able to leave them much when he died and he believed he had totally wasted his life.
I was slightly taken aback but he obviously needed to talk so I asked him why he said that.
He replied he regretted so many decisions he had made through his life. Opportunities he had let go because he was too scared to grab them and now he has nothing because his whole life is spent putting food on the table rather than building something more valuable for his family.
I told him that I thought putting food on the table of your family instead of running off to follow selfish pursuits was one of the most honourable things you could do. I also reminded him that if he didn’t take an opportunity when it was there, he must have had good reason for it and shouldn’t be hard on himself.
Lastly I reminded him that nothing is written in stone and good things can always happen when you least expect it to which he burst into tears and repeated he had wasted his life.
We chatted some more until he came to my drop off point. He had calmed down a bit by then but was obviously still very emotional.
He didn’t want to charge me because he said he’d been a “silly bugger” to which I told him he would only be that if he didn’t charge me.
After paying the bill, I said something I didn’t expect to say myself.
I asked him if he wanted a hug.
He paused for a moment and said he would.
So at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, we both got out the cab and we hugged for a good 30 seconds on the corner of Clifton Street.
I told him his kids loved him and valued what he did for them far more than anything he could leave them and maybe he needs to talk to them about it rather than hold it in and blame himself for things he hasn’t done wrong.
He looked at me, wiped his eyes, told me he needed that and said thank you – to which we shook hands and off he went.
The whole journey probably was no more than 20 minutes but it has deeply affected me. Maybe it’s because I don’t want anyone to feel that way about themselves. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of a very personal and sad time in my life. Or maybe it’s because I thought that could have been me if I’d not had a bunch of luck along the way.
I wish I got his name.
I wish I could check up on him.
But most of all, I wish Mr Cab Driver feels better about who he is and what he’s done because a man who works to take care of his family is worth so much more than a man who gives his kids everything except love, encouragement and time.
This parenting thing is hard work.
Worth every second, but hard work.
So if you are one or want to be, don’t be hard on yourself. What you do is amazing already.
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Just to be clear, the point of this post isn’t for me to talk about my [occasional] acts of decency – which is why I’ve removed the ability to leave comments – but to remind everyone its good to be open and talk, so if you’re carrying a weight of worry on your shoulders – or know someone who is – try and open up about it. I know there will be lots of people who will do what I hopefully did for Mr Cab Driver. Ta.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Business, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Differentiation, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Honesty, Insight, Management, Marketing, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Service
When I was in Sydney at Christmas, I fell ill.
I know you may feel that is karma, but it was pretty shitty.
So after going to the doctors, I went to the local chemist and it is there I saw this …
Proud To Be Cheap.
Words you don’t hear very often.
Either because everyone is trying to come across as ‘aspirational and premium’ or they’re repositioning price to mean ‘smart and discerning’.
And yet, not only did those 4 words stand out from everything else, they made me smile.
It owned its truth.
It said exactly what it was.
It was, quite literally, proud to be cheap.
There is something incredibly refreshing about that.
But more than that, there is something incredibly valuable about that.
Not just because – as I mentioned earlier – it stands out.
Nor is it because it allows them to minimize their investment in store experience.
[Though, the service I got was brilliant, and not just because I was expecting shite]
And not even because by saying it, they rob the competition from trying to diss them for it.
The reason I think it’s valuable is because it immediately feels more inclusive and approachable than so many of the ego brands out there and so attracts a certain sort of customer rather than trying to constantly chase or seduce them.
It’s a bit like Dolly Parton [yes, I’m going there].
She is very self depreciating …
When she said, “It takes a lot of money to be this cheap”, she was proudly owning who she was and accepting her tastes were not what society likes.
OK, so she was talking about her cheapens from the sense she has a lot of money whereas this chemist is talking about themselves from the perspective they don’t cost a lot of money … but owning their truth has immediately separated themselves from the sea of competition.
Years ago I wrote about an approach to strategy that I had which I called unplanning.
I’ve talked about this a lot – from James Blunt to Eminem – but really this about authenticity.
Knowing who you are.
Being true to who you are.
Living by the values that shaped who you are.
And accepting that in a World where brands are often shaped more by what the competition force you to do than what you want to do, by being yourself you will be different.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corporate Evil, Crap Products In History, Culture, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Immaturity, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Pretentious Rubbish
So as you read this, I’ll be in Sweden and not back till Wednesday.
As I won’t be writing a post tomorrow, I thought I’d write a post today where the impact of it would easily last 48 hours/
So have a look at that picture.
A close look.
Seriously, isn’t it terrible?
It looks like it should be the poster for a porn movie rather than a show about an international actress who is appearing on an international streaming service.
And then there’s that line.
Christ almighty …
Do they think we don’t get what the image is supposed to reflect?
But then Gwyneth doesn’t do subtle does she …
I’m not just talking about her over-the-top Oscar speech or her ‘conscious uncoupling’ pretentious divorce language … I’m talking about this.
Yes, the candle that smells of her vagina.
From Goop, her company that makes up complete medical lies.
And while it would be easy to laugh at all this stupidity, the fact is that candle has sold out and Goop is supposedly worth $250 million which has led me to 3 conclusions.
1. Brands need to stop thinking humans are logic operated.
2. Market valuations are about as trust worthy as politicians.
3. I’m losing my faith in so much of humanity.
See you Wednesday. If you’ve recovered in time.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Culture, Daddyhood, England, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
I know it’s ridiculous to feel sad about a store closing … especially a store I hardly ever went in and when I did, it was obviously catered for women rather than men, but the news Mothercare has closed has made me sad.
I don’t know how many times I entered that store.
I definitely remember walking in the one in Victoria Centre, Nottingham, with my Mum when I was a very small kid … but I probably never entered another store until 40 odd years later when I was going to be a dad.
Ironically that was in Nottingham as well, even though we were living in Shanghai at the time.
But there’s a significant reason why this store means so much to me, because that’s where I found out I was going to be having a baby boy.
We were in the UK on holiday and my kind, wonderful wife wanted my Mum to feel part of the journey. Her idea to do that was to have a scan that would tell us the sex of the baby and have the doctor write it down, put it in an envelope and let my Mum tell us over a nice lunch.
That morning, before the scan, we were having breakfast and trying to come up with names. We were finding it much, much harder than we had anticipated and were pretty happy that if it was a girl, she was going to be named Eden, Edi for short.
Excited, we went off to a non-descript industrial park where Mothercare was. Inside the store was another company that could scan pregnant women and tell them the babies gender.
It was there my Mum saw her grandson for the first time. She was transfixed by what she saw on the screen. Not just because of who it was but because she had never seen a scan like that in her life. When she had me, it was all “find out when they come out” but here she was, sitting in a room with her son and daughter in law, watching her grandchild move around while still inside their Mum’s tum.
It was an incredibly moving moment for all of us and I will always love my wife for having that idea and always treasure that day.
And it’s for this reason I’m sorry to see Mothercare go.
I know there are a ton of reasons for its failure – but it’s also where I got to share a moment with my Mum that I’d never had before and will never have again. A moment that, were she alive, she would remember as clear as day.
A pivotal moment.
A moment where she got to witness the evolving of her family in front of her eyes.
A moment where the legacy of her and dad would forever continue.
But for me it’s something even more than all that. Because while we didn’t know it at the time, it was a moment where my Mum met Otis for the first time. The only time.
And for that, I’ll always be grateful to Mothercare and sad to see it go.