Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Consultants, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Friendship, Happiness, Insight, Linkedin, Loyalty, Marketing, Membership, Relevance, Resonance, Social Commentary, Social Divide, Social Media
Many years ago, Toby Young wrote a book by the name of this post.
It was a journey through his bad decisions, bad timing and bad acts.
And while there was a lot of genuinely funny moments in it, you couldn’t help think he was a bit of a twat – which was confirmed with many of his later actions, decisions and behaviour.
I say this because recently I had a dalliance with someone who could best be described as Toby Young, without the humour.
Look, I work in advertising so I’m used to working with twats.
There’s actually a lot less of them than people like to think, but the ones who are there are generally stupendous at twatdom.
But this interaction was not someone I work with … it was someone on Linkedin.
Yes … Linkedin. The platform that is to community what Boris Johnson is to leadership.
Now even though this person and I are not ‘connected’, I do kind-of know him.
He was in Asia when I was there and had a reputation for grandiose statements that rarely could be backed up.
Anyway, I hadn’t heard about him or seen him for literally years, so I was surprised when a few weeks ago, he suddenly came into my life.
He did this by writing a comment under a Linkedin post I’d put up about one of the biggest mistakes a planner can make.
He asked:
What’s the difference between thinking and planning according to you? And is there a difference? And how do you see modern day account planning influencing business and corporate strategy which is really what CEO’s want to see – they’re not interested in ads or creativity unless its making them money?
I answered as best I could … saying I felt he was implying some planners didn’t care about the impact creativity had on the clients business, just their ego and if that’s the case, maybe he’s spending time with the wrong planners, clients and creatives.
In the blink of an eye, he responded with these 2 gems:
First this …
“I’m not implying anything- I’m asking a question. I be;lieve that’s valid on a social media platform. What I’ve foudn theough Experience s that sometimes it’s better to just answer instead of reading too much into it.”
[Spelling mistakes were his, not mine]
And then this …
“You really don’t get social, do you? You can’t be focused and social at the same time. I’ve been studying clinical psychology and the mind for 7 years. It’s two ends of the same frequency . Planners are focused (head) creatives are social (HEART). Open your heart my friend before a surgeon does the job for you. Good luck. You’re mucking around with someone with a lot of medical knowledge and experience.”
That second comment was bizarre.
Judgemental. Condescending. Patronising. Almost threatening.
I have to be honest, I was quite impressed. It’s been a long time since I’ve come across such a prick who can get so personal and so insulting so quickly.
But then it got weirder, because he then sent this:
Seriously, what the fuck?
From slagging me off to interrogating the most stupid shit [like my bloody camouflage background????] to then asking me to give him free information and advice so he can win a client and charge them money for his ‘help’.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because Linkedin is full of people who think they can just ask or say whatever they want as long as it benefits them. I’m sure we’ve all had headhunters contact us for names of people they should talk to – when they’re literally being paid by clients to know people who they should talk to.
But there’s something about this persons manner that pisses me off.
Maybe it’s the contradiction between acting superior but still wanting stuff.
I can’t help but feel he is someone who read Neil Strauss’, ‘The Game‘ [who also wrote Motley Crue’s, admittedly great, The Dirt … which tells you a lot] and saw it as a philosophy for how to live rather than the exploitative, manipulative and destructive book it actually was.
Part of me really wants to name and shame him.
If he’s doing that to me, what is he like to others.
Women. Or juniors. Or anyone to be honest.
But I won’t because who knows what he’s going through however – as I mentioned in my final response to him – for all his alleged expertise in clinical psychology and social platforms, he sure hasn’t got the faintest idea how to communicate with people.
So I’ll leave him be but if he does comes back [again] I’ll simply point him to this post and hope he understands the responsibility for clarity of communication is with the communicator, not the recipient. Something tells me, he wouldn’t.
But what all this shows is a mistake that companies, platforms and agencies continually make with the idea of community.
I get why it’s so interesting to them, but the problem is – what they think is a community, isn’t.
A community isn’t where you go to continually satisfy your own needs.
In essence, that’s the total opposite of a community.
What a real community is something built on shared beliefs and values … where you want to work together to help push or achieve a common goal. It absolutely isn’t about personal benefit at others expense, it’s about something much, much bigger.
And while it’s power and influence can be enormous …
Linkedin doesn’t get this.
Agencies flogging membership and community doesn’t get this.
And this ‘competitive strategist’ doesn’t get this.
Because the key rule for a real community is about adding to it, not just taking.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Consultants, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Honesty, Innovation, Insight, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Membership, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Virgin Atlantic
When Phil Spector died, I went down a rabbit hole of his life.
On that journey, I spent some time looking into the life of Lana Clarkson, the woman he murdered.
Which led me to this …
Find the perfect Lana Clarkson death photos!!!???
Seriously, what the fuck?!
I know they don’t mean to be so disrespectful.
I know it’s a standard Getty Image response to any image search – except I was looking for Lana Clarkson, not Lana Clarkson death photos – but this is what happens when you automate a process to maximise your profit potential.
And while I get Lana’s photos were topical given the death of Spector so many media outlets may be looking for them … it doesn’t make them look good. And god knows how it would make Lana’s family feel, if they saw it.
For all the talk about brand experience, it’s amazing how much bullshit is said.
Do I think experience is important? Absolutely.
Do I think experience is done well? Not that often.
For me, there is one overarching problem.
Brands would rather be OK at a lot of things than stellar at a couple.
Before people have a meltdown, let me just say this.
I am not questioning the value of experience.
Believe it or not, it is not a new concept … it has been practiced by great brands and strategists for decades.
However experience loses its impact when the goal is to be OK at everything rather than amazing at some things.
Oh I know what people are going to say …
“But every interaction should be an experience of the values of the brand”.
Yeah … maybe.
It’s great in theory but doesn’t seem to be realistic in practice.
I mean, how many brands really have achieved that?
Let me rephrase that.
How many brands that have a clear, desirable position in culture have really achieved that?
I would say it is a handful at most.
Now compare that to the brands who have focused on doing some things in a way that is exceptional and memorable?
I’ve written about the Virgin Atlantic Lounge before.
Imagine if Branson had said, “Create an experience that is commensurate with the values of the brand for the business class customer” versus, “Create a lounge people will want to miss their plane to stay in”.
Do you think they would have got to the same place?
Do you think the former would have helped drive the brands economic and repetitional success as well as the latter?
Don’t get me wrong, Virgin Atlantic have a lot to do to improve their experience.
Their booking and loyalty schemes are a fucking mess for a start. But while I appreciate I am biased, I would gladly sacrifice that for the lounge experience that makes me look forward to every trip.
An experience that is distinctively memorable, not just corporately comfortable.
The reality is there are more highly profitable, highly desirable brands who offer an inconsistent brand experience than those who offer a consistent one.
More than that, brands that offer a consistent brand experience across all touch points do not automatically become a brand people want to have in their lives.
Part of this is because their version of consistent tends to be using their name or colours or slogan everywhere.
Part of this is their version of ‘brand experience’ is the absolute opposite of what the word experience is supposed to mean.
[Seriously, can you imagine the sort of parties they would have?]
And part of this is because they want to talk to everyone which means their experience appeals to no one.
Because while it might not be fashionable, great brands are built on an idea.
Something they believe, stand for, fight for.
This is very different to ‘purpose’.
Purpose – at best – is why you do something.
Belief is how you do it.
The sacrifices you make. The choices you make. The people you focus on.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean great brands shouldn’t want to ‘fill the gaps’ that reside in their experience eco-system, but it does mean it should only be done if each element can be done brilliantly and distinctively.
Anyone who has read the book ‘Why I Hate Flying’ will know the vast majority of brand values are basically the same – which means the vast majority of brand experience strategy ends up being predominantly the same.
However the brands who command the most consistently vibrant cultural interest and intrigue are the one’s who have a point of view on what they do and what they believe. They have a real understanding of who they’re talking to rather than a generalised view of them. They have values that step out of the convenient blandification that so many companies love to hide behind – where the goal is to look like you care without actually doing something that shows you care. And they absolutely know it’s better to do some things that will mean everything to someone rather than lots of things that mean little to everyone.
The obsession with 360 brand experience is as flawed as the 360 media approach from a while back.
Frankly conveying the same message everywhere felt more like brainwashing than engaging.
Experience is a very important part of the strategic and creative process.
Always has and always will be.
It can make a major difference to how people feel about a brand and interact with a brand.
But like anything strategic, sacrifice is a vital part of the process.
While in theory it is nice to think every interaction will be something special and valuable, the reality is that is almost an impossible goal.
Different audiences.
Different cultures.
Different needs.
Different times.
Different budgets.
Different technologies.
Different interactions.
So anyone who thinks experience should be executed ‘down to a level that allows for mass consistency’ rather than ‘up to a standard that allows key moments to be exceptional’ are creating another layer to get in the way of making their audience give a shit.
Or said another way, you’re adding to apathy rather than taking it away.
OK, I accept that for some categories unspectacular consistency can be valuable – hospitals for example – but the reality is in the main, audiences care less about consistent brand experience than brands and their agencies do.
That doesn’t mean you can’t make them care by doing something great – like Tesla did with their ‘dog and insane’ modes for example – but you need to understand you’re playing as much to your audience standards, as yours.
Now I appreciate I’ve gone off on one, given this post was originally about a search engine response to a murdered woman’s photograph rather than brand experience … but while they’re very different in many ways, there is one thing that is the same.
They’re all focused on satisfying an audience need … and while standardised processes can help ensure we are ‘dumbing up’ with our approaches to the challenge, when that manifests into a standardised experience, then you are dumbing down the value of who you are and who you can be.
For the record Getty, this is what Lana Clarkson looked like.
There’s no ‘perfect’ photos of her death.
But there’s plenty to signify the person she was.
Today is Australia Day.
However, on March 3rd, we leave England to move to wonderful New Zealand.
So even though my wife is Australian …
[And Canadian, but let’s ignore that for now]
And my son is Australian …
[And British and Canadian, which we will also ignore]
And even I have Australian residency …
[Which the Australian’s wish they could ignore]
… it’s [probably] a condition of entry into the my new home nation that I actively and publicly ignore the celebration of their closest neighbours and talk about something entirely different.
So I will.
Have a look at this picture.
It has nothing to do with New Zealand or Australia.
It is not me attempting to be cultural or sophisticated.
It’s to simply say, the moment you see the Cookie Monster, you’ll never unsee it.
You’re welcome. Or something.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Food For Thought, Health, Honesty, Influencers, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Prejudice, Relevance, Resonance, Social Commentary, Social Divide, Social Media, Standards
I’ve been watching a lot of movies that made a big impression on me in the late 80’s/early 90’s.
What a massive mistake.
Apart from Die Hard, Terminator and Point Break … everything else has been pretty horrific.
Seriously, either we had really, really, really low standards back then, or someone was putting something in the water.
Face/Off, Bad Boys and The Rock are particularly bad.
I LOVED those movies when I was younger. I thought they were amazing … but zoom forward 30 years and you want to scrub your eyes and brain with a wire brush.
It’s not the bad effects – I can understand them being rubbish – it’s everything else.
The lack of subtlety. The horrific dialogue. The insane levels of over-acting.
It is obvious that directors back then thought audiences were as thick as shit because the way they signpost every moment in the movie with overt ‘clues’ is insane.
From clunky dialogue that attempts to explain the implausible, to off-centre camera angles to highlight the ‘bad guy’, to music that blatantly tries to communicate how you’re supposed to feel or what you should be ready to experience.
One of the worst of all the moves I’ve seen recently is the 1991 Julia Roberts movie ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’.
I remembered this movie as one that tackled domestic violence at a time where it was hardly ever discussed.
That might be the only bit of it I remembered correctly.
Quite simply, it’s pants.
Filled with more holes than Edam cheese and more over-acting than an episode of ‘Crossroads’ from the 70/80′ … the only positive elements are the name of the film, Julia Roberts amazing smile and the house that features heavily in it.
What makes it all worse is the trailer doesn’t give any of that away.
I know trailers are designed to do exactly that, but the difference between what they set up and what you get is dramatic.
Here’s the trailer.
OK, so you either have to trust me this is setting you a false experience or you have to watch the movie for yourself and know it with all certainty … but none of this is actually the point of this post.
You see when I watch movies, I have this annoying habit of having to investigate their history while watching it.
The thing that caught my eye when I was watching Sleeping with the Enemy was that house.
Look at it.
So grand. So imposing. So much a symbol of wealth.
And while I saw places like that when I lived in the US, I was surprised to learn it was made just for the movie.
Of course I know this happens, but they tend to be on a set, not on a real beach … but here we were, with that exact situation.
And while it looks the home of the wealthy from the front, when seen from behind – it left a different impression.
That’s right, it looks like the sort of rubbish they used to make on Blue Peter with some cardboard and sticky black plastic.
And while this shouldn’t surprise me, it does highlight how much of life is an illusion.
From the social media we read to the pitches we embark on to the relationships we forge to the jobs we covet.
Of course, not everything or everyone is like this.
Some are like the famous Steve Jobs quote, “paint behind the fence”. … where their standards, values and attitude means they will do things others may not ever know or see, but is important to them as it not only gives them confidence of a job well done but let’s them feel they’re working for a company they can believe in.
However they are sadly the exception, even if they should be everyone’s ambition.
So as we enter 2021 with our hopes and dreams, it may be worth remembering so much of life is like the Sleeping With The Enemy house. Where what we are asked to see is not a true indication of what it going on.
And while that doesn’t mean it’s all bad, it does mean you can go into things with open eyes, you can avoid disappointment, you can set some boundaries, you can identify the real opportunity that will excite you, you can stop feeling bad if you have questions or doubts and you can be OK if you’re not living up to what others claim they’re living up to.
Because when we talk about a healthy work/life balance, it’s worth remembering it’s not just about time, it’s about attitude.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Culture, Devious Strategy, Empathy, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relationships, Respect
Just before Christmas, I was asked to help a company understand what they were doing to stop attracting talent.
While I must admit I found this request a bit bizarre – especially as they have a huge HR division – I knew it would be fun.
The good news for them is they do a lot of things right.
However there were a few things that were fucking them up and one of the biggest was their inability to understand why any employee may be cynical to their actions and claims.
As I said to them, their surprise indicates either naivety, arrogance or utter privilege.
Probably a bit of all three.
Of course this situation is not unique to them, I wrote about it here … however there was one point that really shocked them and it was their unlimited vacation days policy.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know when they instigated this a few years ago, it was for all the right reasons.
As a company, their original vacation policy was not the best and this was an attempt to put things right.
However, like many good intentions, the implications of that were either not considered or disregarded.
Because unlimited vacation is not an act of corporate generosity.
They may say it is.
They may have wanted it to be.
But right now, in most places offering it, it’s anything but.
Unlimited vacations benefit companies far more than employees.
There, I’ve said it.
There’s many reasons for this.
First is no one actually means ‘unlimited time off’.
If they did, you could take a year off and still get paid.
We all know that wouldn’t happen, just like we know if a company thinks we are taking too much time off – they’ll question if the role is still needed.
So the first issue is there’s no such thing as unlimited days … it just sounds good, especially when accompanied with some contrived public statement claiming to ‘our staff are our our greatest asset’.
Then there’s the fact that too many companies still think vacation days are a gift not a right.
So it doesn’t matter how many days you can take off in theory … if they don’t want you to have them, you’re buggered.
But what is the really devious thing about unlimited leave is employees end up being their own worst enemy.
You see when you’re told you can have any amount of days off, the value of taking them gets diluted. Of course you still want them, but you become more open with when you take them.
The urgency just isn’t there so we end up being more focused on ‘what is coming up’ versus ‘when will I go’ … and before you know it, we have taken even less vacation days than the times we had a limited number of fixed days.
Now you could argue this is our own fault – and it is – but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest this is a common, negative occurrence of unlimited leave … and yet even armed with this information, many companies stick with it.
And this is why so many employees don’t trust the companies they work for.
Because unlimited leave has a number of great commercial benefits for the company.
The first, as I just wrote, is the amount of people who take LESS time off rather than more.
The second is vacation times no longer have a commercial value attached to them.
If there is no limit to the number of days you take, there is no need to carry an value of them on your balance sheet.
No value on the balance sheet means no payout when you leave the company.
No value on the balance sheet means no payout if you are made redundant.
No value on the balance sheet boosts the value of the balance sheet – helping companies achieve greater profit without having to lift a finger, while being able to smile at their employees and claim ‘your wellbeing is our priority’.
And if you need more proof of this, then you just have to look at how many companies messed with their employees vacation days over COVID, trying to force them to use them up … even though they couldn’t go anywhere. While the good organisations were doing it for mental health reasons, a bunch were doing it because they didn’t want to carry that amount of ‘value’ into next years liabilities and then still had the nerve to dictate when – and how long – it could be used for.
Look I get it, money matters – especially in a pandemic – but it doesn’t feel right when you are bullied into doing something on someone else’s terms rather than your own … especially when it revolves around something that is your right to decide.
Now I am not suggesting this is why unlimited days were created.
Nor am I saying all companies who offer it, do it for bad reasons.
But what was originally claimed as empowering employees to have more time out of work has resulted in the absolute opposite.
There are alternatives.
Maybe the best is a minimum leave policy … where you HAVE TO take a certain amount of time off each year.
But even this has issues, given there are people who rely on the ‘value’ of their vacation days as a way to save [and if a company is paying you so little you need to use your holidays as savings, then there are bigger issues with that company] … but what is clear is companies can’t do something for good reasons and then stick their head in the sand when problems reveal themselves.
I know that’s the way many companies operate these days – exemplified by Boris Johnson and his inept government – but it is hardly surprising there is so much skepticism from employees when they see policies change without consultation and then enforced in a way where all the rhetoric of it being ‘a better way’ proves not to be.
Now of course companies don’t want to piss off their employees. Many try really hard to make them feel valued and secure. And I genuinely don’t believe any company sets out to be bad.
But distrust occurs when decisions are made – often without warning – that feel more for corporate PR than employee value.
Unlimited vacation days is a perfect example of this because whatever way you look at it, it’s simply not true.
If you want to build trust, practice honesty.
No hype. No populism. No contrived rhetoric. Honesty.
Listen to your people.
Communicate with your people.
Consult your ideas with your people.
And finally, do things with transparency, openness and a willingness to change if it doesn’t turn out as you hoped.
It’s not hard – especially that’s how you build all relationships – but it is seemingly rare.