Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Consultants, Effectiveness, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Research, Respect, Standards
A company in the UK was recently invited to be part of a big pitch in China.
A very big pitch.
Because I know the founder of the company – and she knows my history with China – she asked if I could cast my eye over what they were proposing.
She’s a good friend so I said yes.
So over a few hours on zoom, they took me through all their work.
They’d been very busy …
Huge amounts of research.
Huge amounts of analysis.
Huge amounts of thinking.
It was really good, there was just one problem.
It was all wrong.
Not because what they’d discovered wasn’t true or accurate, but simply because they’d fallen for what I call, the planners achilles heel: What you think is interesting and new, isn’t interesting or new for the audience you want to engage’.
Look around and you see it happening everywhere.
From people who think they’ve discovered a new brand that’s been around for years, to consultants who proclaim they’ve invented a new business model that other industries have been using for decades to adfolk spouting theories their predecessors were applying before they were even born.
And while I get there can be innocent reasons for this happening, the inconvenient truth is it’s driven by a pinch of arrogance here … a sliver of laziness there … and a big dollop of the issues that continue to undermine the value and potency of the discipline of strategy within business and agencies.
There is craft in what we do.
A set of practices, standards and values that are designed to help us do better and be better.
Practices, standards and values that were developed over time by brilliant women and men.
Now that doesn’t mean we can’t add to it … play with it … challenge it or reinvent it …but it seems the goal for many is less about what is created and more about how they appear.
Hey, I get it …
We all like recognition and right now, the industry rewards that more than it rewards those who create the work that gets the recognition. Which is utterly terrifying.
But while I would never want to stand in the way of people making a truckload of cash, the desire to satisfy our ego is having an adverse, negative effect on the work we make and the audiences we serve.
Put simply, we’re boring them to death.
Because what we think is cutting edge innovation – whether in creativity or consideration – has been seen before, done before, known before and replaced before.
Or said another way …
Regardless what we want to believe, dDuplication is not innovation and degrees of change is not revolution.
I genuinely believe this industry can be great, innovative and valuable.
But it won’t happen if we continue to ignore rigour and reality in favour of believing if it’s new to us, it must be new to everyone.