Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Food, Immaturity
I admit I have terrible taste.
I don’t mean in fashion or music, I mean in food.
The food I like is the food foodie people, hate.
It’s so bad, that on the occasions I get to fly business class, I ask for an economy meal. That is unless it’s the Chicken Satay on Singapore Airlines, then I will definitely have that.
Pathetic?
Oh I know …
Which is why I’m about to hit peak ‘first world problems’ with this post.
A few weeks ago I found myself in Melbourne.
I’d just enjoyed an ENOURMOUS Chicken Kiev – or, as it should be known, a Chicken Kyiv – when they offered me the dessert menu.
Among all the poncey, fancy stuff was a trifle.
A TRIFLE.
Trifles for me were a childhood party staple.
Strawberry Jelly. Custard. Sponge Fingers. Cream.
When you served it, it would make a sound like a Wellington Boot being pulled out the mud. It was glorious, gratuitous splodge and I bloody loved it.
So of course I ordered it and waited with glee.
My first clue should have been the dish it was served in.
It was fancy as fuck.
It’s the one at the top of this page.
My second clue was that it looked like a complete trifle rather than the road accident the typical served trifle resembled.
But if that didn’t get me, the taste did.
Instead of being transported to my childhood, I was taken to a place I didn’t belong.
Refined tastes of ingredients that don’t ever belong in a trifle.
Lemon.
Coconut.
Rose water jelly.
And don’t even get me started on the custard.
More insipid than a Tory councillor at election time.
The whole experience was this blend of bland and sour … literally ruining trifles and my childhood for ever.
I’m sure people with a evolved palette would love it.
However for people from Nottingham … it was edible violence.
But then, I do love Angel Delight, butterscotch flavour and Viennetta.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Cats, China, Comment, Culture, Martin Weigel, Paula, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Revenge
As it is the first of August, I thought I’d change the tone of the posts from the rather heavy ones of July to something a bit more ‘light’.
Which is why today I’m writing about cats.
As you know, I love those feline sods.
Specifically my feline sod … Rosie.
The things I’ve done for her.
Taken her around the World.
Got an import licence in China so we could get her her favourite treats.
Built custom ‘penthouse cat houses’ for her, so she could enjoy the outdoors in safety.
Got a company to make a bloody stuffed toy version of her for us.
In fact, it’s so realistic a client once thought she was stuck on a wardrobe during a zoom call.
And what do I get in return?
Complaints.
Demands.
Distain.
And a distinct lack of love or emotion.
Oh I know she loves me really.
Not as much as we love her, obvs … but there is affection there. Deep down.
However I recently saw something that not only summed her up, but summed all cats up which perfectly explains why some people hate them, and why some – like me – are at their mercy, will and command.
If humans treated humans this way, it would be considered an abusive relationship.
But cats powers of manipulation has managed to reframe that as ‘personality’.
Seriously, if you want to know the art of strategy, forget the Weigel’s, Bloodworth’s, Ritson’s and Collin’s and just study cats.
They’re bastards. But they’re brilliant bastards … as demonstrated by this photo that, for me, is the best encapsulation of cattidude you will ever see.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Digital, ECommerce, Environment, Social Media
Social media.
Or for some, digital marketing.
Oh the terms and the tropes.
The guru’s and the chancers.
The rules and the frameworks.
The DTC brand successes and the DTC product commodification.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of social media marketing. I think – done in the right way – it can powerfully drive brand, business and fandom in ways many other forms of marketing can’t hope to reach.
There’s countless amazing examples out there, but underpinning all of them is the inconvenient truth that they’re based on an idea. It may not always be what the ad industry likes to call a ‘big idea’, but it’s an idea all the same.
Something that holds all it does together. Guides it. Shapes what it does. Gives it a reason to exist and add to culture rather than continually try to steal from it.
But the problem is these brands are still in the minority because the vast majority still practice what my beloved Martin Weigel refers to, “the continuous production of social landfill”.
There are countless reasons this occurring …
The belief it gives them ‘free’ advertising.
Their fear they may be left behind or left out.
The attempt to look and act relevant to the times.
But without doubt, the worst reason is ‘people really are interested in who we are and what we have to say’.
Oh my god, that’s the worst of all.
A deluded state that manifests itself into some of the worst behaviour and marketing you can get … liked and supported by those who either work for the company or want to.
So what we end up with is an ever-increasing production of sheer shit.
Pointless, mindless marketing filth that doesn’t so much scrape the barrel, but is the scrapings of the barrel.
Things like this …
What. Is. That?
Seriously, how deluded and desperate must you be to think this is the sort of content the World is waiting for.
Yes, I appreciate they have almost TWO MILLION followers but come on …
And they’ve even incorporated a way to ‘vote through emoji’ to allow their ‘fans’ to interact with the content.
To paraphrase a comment once made to me by a client … sometimes, the people who like your stuff are the people you don’t want liking your stuff.
Pity the poor social media people who have to manage this stuff.
I say pity, because surely they can’t think this is good?
Surely they are the human equivalent of a battery hen … held in a small room and told to keep finding ‘ideas’ to churn out as content.
Stuff that is the very embodiment of social media landfill.
An always on strategy that turns people off.
But my god, what if they think this stuff is good?
What if they believe people wait with baited breath for the latest piece of content they literally are churning out?
What if the client thinks it is driving ‘powerful user interaction metrics’?
I know Colgate Palmolive make many products.
Some of which have become brands that are very, very popular.
But maybe someone needs to tell them that just because people buy them, doesn’t mean people care about them … certainly outside of the environment they inhabit or in the detail Colgate finds fascinating.
Or to paraphrase another old client of mine:
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.