Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Nike, Sport
Look I get our job is to help companies be successful.
I get that tends to mean encouraging people to choose spending their money with one brand over another.
I also appreciate a lot of people have given up trying to be financially responsible, because not only do they not have much hope for what their future holds, but they believe that if they try to save up for the things they want, by the time they have got the money – everything will be even more expensive than it is today.
But … but … even that doesn’t excuse this shit, does it?
I believe in our industry.
I believe in the talent of our industry.
But this shit is the worst of everything we are and do.
I get some people will point to some evidence that states this is what people already do.
I get in these competitive times, you have to look for every advantage you can get.
But when do we hold ourselves responsible to standards and values?
Are we now at the point that anything goes?
If that’s the case, when will we start using data to blackmail people into buying?
Saying that if they don’t buy [insert product X] we will publish embarrassing data/photographs/information on people.
I get NIKE are so fucked right now they will do anything to get their numbers up. And I appreciate JD are all about trying to run at the speed of culture. But there’s a fine-line between representing that generation and exploiting them and right now, I feel this shit means we’re no longer representing society, we’re enemies of it.
And that’s shit, because we’re not just better than that, we’re smarter.
Or at least we used to be. Before everyone was run by people who only see the money, not the implications.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Airports, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Children, Embarrassing Moments, Experience, Marketing Fail
So I was recently in Baltimore and when I was heading back, I found myself at the airport with time to kill.
Given my new healthy regime, I thought I’d take the opportunity to get my steps in, so I started just walking all over the airport.
Eventually I came across a kids ‘play area’ which stopped me in my tracks.
Not just because it was tucked down a pretty depressing corridor.
Not because it felt a bit like a ghost town of a time gone past.
But because it had this …
Now I don’t know about you, but that looks awfully like the plane – which is not just any plane, but AIR FORCE ONE – has crashed into the ground!!!
Putting aside no one – especially kids – needs to have that sort of image in their head before they fly, I guess – depending on your political persuasion – it is either a perfect example of brand experience gone wrong or brand experience gone brilliantly.
Guess it is fun for the whole family. That is if your family are maniacs.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Content, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Innovation, Management
Early in my career – albeit I’d been doing it for quite a while by then – I was given the book Eating The Big Fish.
I cannot tell you how much is spoke to me. A mixture of feeling seen, taught and inspired.
Even now – 12,000 years later – it is still one of the only marketing books I rate as highly today as I did when I first read it. But then books from Adam Morgan – the author – tend to do that.
Adam is – to me – one of my professional hero’s. I do not say that lightly. Or often. But he has not only done it all, he’s also done it in a way that helps others learn how to do it without ego, self-interest or arrogance.
I mean … what sort of idiot does that? Hahaha.
While I’ve interacted with Adam over email over the years, I recently got to meet him – and Olivia, his equally brilliant colleague – in the US.
I got to hear him talk.
I got to be part of one of his workshops.
And I got to spend some time with him and Olivia just chatting and getting to know each other.
They say don’t meet your heroes but I did and they were everything I hoped for and more – even when their talk featured similar themes and a few specific examples that I had planned to use in mine.
[Fortunately I had the chance to change them as my talk was the day after Adam and Liv’s – though my motivation for changing them wasn’t duplication, but the knowledge I would have come across as a Temu Adam]
The point of this post is five-fold.
First …
Follow people who have made great things rather than just talk about it or – worse – just talk about what others have done.
Second …
Don’t get so lost in theory you forget it’s all meaningless unless you do something great with it.
Third …
Put effort into continually exposing yourself to the best in the world, not just what’s best – or easy – in your World.
Fourth …
Always judge the creativity, not the age or background of who is behind it.
Fifth …
Read everything from Adam and the Eat Big Fish crew. It will not just change your life, the lessons with help and last your whole career. Even if/when you change industry
Bloody hell, I may have written a useful post for once.
Or should I say, Adam and Liv have helped me write one.
Either way, have a great weekend – and if you read any of their stuff, I assure you it will be.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Childhood, Children, Chocolate, Comment, Complicity, Conformity, My Childhood
Recently I saw a photograph that reminded me how I grew up in crazy times.
OK, ‘crazy’ is a bit over-the-top given it was Nottingham – but how else can I describe this:
For those wondering what the hell that is, it’s carpentry tools.
Made of chocolate.
No, that’s not AI … it is the sort of twisted-as-fuck shit you would get back when I was a kid.
As a gift.
That you would then eat and be ridiculously happy about.
And while ‘novelty chocolate’ may not seem the most left-field thing … why the hell would anyone want to make chocolate in the shape of everyday household tools?
I tell you what, whoever came up with that concept either possessed the most brilliant creative mind of our generation, or the worst.
Why tools versus – say – a toy car?
Or a bicycle?
Or a fucking coal mine for that matter.
And yet I both love it and wish they still did it. I mean – maybe they do – but I’ve not seen any for decades and I know I definitely would not of forgotten it if I’d seen it.
But more importantly, I wish I knew why they’d done it.
Was it a chocolate manufacturer who loved carpentry?
Was it a chocolate manufacturer who thought it would make kids like carpentry?
Was it a chocolate manufacturer who was a lunatic?
Whatever the answer, it is more interesting and arguably, more memorable than all the parity shit our over-reliance on frameworks and systems are producing. Not that I’m anti any of that, just anti the blinkered adoption and outsourcing to all that.
But lets leave it there so the chocolate keeps a nice taste in your mouth.
Till tomorrow … hahaha.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Career, Children, Comment, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Love, Loyalty, Mental Health, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, R/GA
This is my last post for a week because I’m away for the next 10 days.
I know. Again.
And as ridiculous as my travel itinerary has been this year, this trip is the most ridiculous of them all.
Not for where I’m going, but why.
And with whom I’ll be rubbing shoulders with.
But that’s for another day – especially as this post is earnest-as-fuck and my trip is arguably superficial-as-hell [even though it’s not] – so I’ll see you a week on Tuesday and until then, remember that sometimes the best way to show you care about someone is to not do anything special for them.
Read on, it will hopefully explain all …
So as toxic as social media is, there are still moments where good things shine through – and I saw one of them this week.
It’s this:
Now whether this is a real message or not – I’m not sure. But what I do know is it not only reflects the sort of situation many people are experiencing right now, but it’s how I hope I’d respond if Otis ever found himself in a similar situation.
Too often – especially with parents, or more specifically male parents – we try to ‘fix’ problems that our loved ones face. And while it no doubt comes from a good place, sometimes all we need to provide is reassurance that we love them, we’re proud of them and we empathise with the situation they face but don’t judge them for it.
No pressure.
Not expectations.
No forcing yourself into their situation.
Just love, empathy and – I can’t stress this enough – normality.
If you’ve done a good job with your kids, they will hopefully work it out for themselves or ask for some help if they can’t. And while being interested in what they’re interested in is important – that doesn’t extend to making demands of them or adding additional pressure to them.
This is even more important when a child is in a situation they didn’t ask for or hope for … of which losing a job is one of those situations.
Too often redundancy suggests the individual failed, rather than the company.
This is not by accident.
Companies love to suggest this narrative as it means the focus of attention is on the individual rather than the organization and the shame attached to redundancy keeps the person quiet so the company can act in public like all is well.
I talked about this in The Observer Newspaper back in 2020 when when I found myself being made redundant by R/GA … and while my ex-employer generally treated me OK, I still heard comments from people that seemed to suggest I should feel embarrassed I lost my job and was being professionally irresponsible speaking so openly about it.
Look, no one wants to lose their job, but it happens – and it’s going to happen a fuckload more as corporates increasingly value short-term profits over long-term trust and responsibility – which is why my attitude at the time was the more people knew I was on the market, the more likely I would find someone who wanted to take me off it.
And I was lucky because that is exactly what happened.
But a lot has changed in the past 4+ years in terms of how companies operate … and given I have a young son who will one day need to find his own career path, I guess that’s why that Twitter/X message made such an impression on me.
But the real lesson in it is that it doesn’t matter how old you are … everyone needs to feel there is someone out there who sees – and values them – for who they are, not what job they have or what things they own.
That doesn’t mean you provide blind faith.
Nor does it mean you offer false promises or hope.
It simply means you know when the best thing you can do to show how much you care, is to do absolutely nothing special for them.
Because at a time where there is so much ‘performative’ compassion, sometimes, the greatest gift you can give someone is ‘mundane normality’.
Something I now realise my parents were also brilliant at doing.
See you on Tuesday the 27th.