Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Collegues, Creativity, Culture, Food, Health, Nottingham Forest, Walking
I’ve always subscribed to the view taking what you do seriously, doesn’t mean you have to take yourself seriously.
Not because it justifies my ‘immaturity tendencies’ [though that helps] but because the act of creativity – commercial or otherwise – requires the ability to be silly, stupid and open to the unlikely or ridiculous.
Not because creativity is superficial, but because it enables the possibilities of it.
For new ideas.
For new perspectives.
For new considerations.
For new collaborations.
For new connections.
For new thinking.
Some don’t get this, because they see creativity as a ‘wrapper’ that can be applied at will to whatever they want.
They tend to be the same people who view the creative process as one big ‘inefficiency’, without realising those ‘inefficiencies’ are the very things that can lead to the magic they seek.
This is not entirely their fault, because – let’s be honest – our industry often doesn’t invite them to be a part of it.
But then, by the same token, you can’t blame them when there is often a reluctance to value that process so it ends up being a hinderance.
It’s why I do find Colenso quite the anomaly.
For 5 decades they’ve been pulling off the ridiculous and impossible.
From building a restaurant in a tree to promote the Yellow Pages … to creating a skin cream to encourage women to check their breasts for lumps … to creating a new fuel for cars to sell beer … to developing technology to help dogs get adopted … to getting the public making ads to promote a low-cost telco, Skinny … to getting families to roast each other so they could open up about their mental health. To name very. very few.
Put simply, Colenso has always been about using creativity to solve problems, rather than create advertising to promote the problem – it’s one of the reasons I revered them long before I joined them – and a big reason for how they have been able to do that is their appreciation of the commercial value of happy accidents.
Not holding things so tightly you can’t let other things in.
Not being so precious you won’t share your thoughts with others.
Not being so locked down it’s impossible to evolve, edit or pivot.
That doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of ‘pleasers’ – truth be told, we’re always a bunch of opinionated buggers – it’s simply that by not taking ourselves too seriously, we stop the ‘process’ of creativity becoming so efficient, it impacts and limits the possibilities of how we solve our clients problems so we can do things people will actually give-a-fuck about.
Or said another way …
Not taking ourselves seriously is most serious way we can be a valuable partner to our clients.
I say all this because I recently had my 5th anniversary at Colenso, and they marked the occasion with some gifts that perfectly capture our ‘seriously unserious’ spirit.
First they got me a bridge climb.
And while that will be a magical and memorable experience, the real reason behind it was to unsubtly tell me they would really like it if I stopped walking 20+kms during the day so I could start doing my work meetings in the office, rather than on the streets.
Secondly they got me a weekly home delivery of sourdough and butter.
Amazing. Except it is not because it’s the food I miss the most – since I got healthy – but because it’s the only guaranteed way to make me have a smile on my face.
And lastly, they organized a personal message from Nottingham Forest legend, Mark Crossley.
Not because I love Forest with all my heart, but because their results affect my mood, and this season I’ve basically been a miserable bastard, bar the last few weeks.
See … piss-taking perfect presents.
But even that doesn’t really capture the tone of how we operate.
But this does …
It’s the card from the CEO of Colenso, Ange …
Whose ‘loving’ words show we share a desk and my health consciousness is not good for her hearing, haha.
So to all the rats of Colenso – past and present, thank you.
You’re not serious. But you are very, very clever. [And a bit kind]
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Brand, Communication Strategy, Conformity, Creativity, Culture, Emotion
John Dodds sent me this a few weeks ago:
LLMs reward clarity and credibility. Your brand language should be concise, benefit-led, and evidence-backed. In a world of agentic commerce in which AI mediates consumer choice, trust shifts from being a feeling about a brand to an attribute of its data.
Why he sent it to me is unknown, but he has been doing that for decades and I always appreciate it.
However the key for me in what he sent is specifically this bit:
‘Trust shifts from being a feeling about a brand to an attribute of its data’.
There’s 2 reasons for that:
The first is people are more likely to connect to a brand based on the quality of their understanding on who they are interacting and/or engaging with [ie: the data they hold on the needs/wants/desires/loves of their audience].
Second is it’s pretty much always been the case.
It’s why there’s brands people know and there’s brands people go out of their way to have in their life.
It’s also why there’s arguably been a reduction in the amount of brands that people ‘love’ – probably because instead of focusing on who they are, who they’re for and what the culture around their category is doing or care about, they’ve fallen for the lowest common denominator, paint-by-numbers, repeat-for-every-category-and-audience, self-interest, outsourced-for-profit schtick of ‘guru’s’ who have never built, worked for or created communication for brands that people adore and care deeply about.
Or said another way …
Here’s another example of someone championing ‘new’, without realizing they’re just rehashing the old. Probably because they don’t know it, understand it or know what to do with it to make it magical rather than just even more functional.
The old adage I always return to is this:
If you want people to give a shit about you, maybe start by giving a shit about them.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Collegues, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Process, Provocative, Relationships, Resonance, Respect, Strategy, Technology
A few months ago, the lovely James Welch [stupidly] invited me to have a chat about my perspectives on creativity, technology and process.
Why? I have no idea … maybe he was being charitable.
Whatever the reason it ended up – surprise, surprise – being a ramble about why I’m a nightmare to work with, an ‘acquired’ taste and absolutely not an idea megalomaniac.
The good news is only one of these character evaluations came from James … which, on second thoughts, may not be such good news after all.
Anyway, I thought I’d post it …
Not because I have a career death wish, but because if someone out there is finding it hard to sleep, listening to it will help them drift off in no time … albeit having to endure some horrific nightmares along the way.
Not because of what I say – even if some of the perspectives are pretty bleak – but because you’ll hear my dulcet tones saying it.
You can watch it here.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you …
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Curiosity, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Egovertising, EvilGenius, Experience, Facebook, Influencers, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Popularity, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Ridiculous, Strategy, Stubborness, Technology, Toxic Positivity, Trust, Truth
When I was growing up there was a newspaper cartoon called ‘Andy Capp’.
Andy was a cliche of the working-class – albeit he never actually works – and lives in Hartlepool in the North East of England.
Andy is married to his long suffering wife, Flo – and despite her working – they are almost on the verge of poverty because apart from Andy being unemployed, he lacks any motivation and thinks he can ‘beat the system’ because of his smarts.
By that, think early stage manosphere but replacing the sexualization of women with more pure sexism.
Anyway, the reason I say this is because I remember one cartoon where Flo told Andy that they were in debt to the tune of £1000.
To which Andy replied something like:
“I told you Flo, if you owe £100 you’re a failure. If you owe £1000 you’re an entrepreneur. If you owe a £10,000 you’re a businessman and if you owe £1,000,000 you’re a government. So what this means Flo, is we’re on the way up!”
I don’t know why I remember that cartoon among the millions of things I’ve seen over the years – but it has always left a lasting impression on me, which may explain why I’ve tended to only seek – or listen to – the advice I’ve got from people who either failed trying or succeeded by doing. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? Yet everyday I read/hear/watch people spouting unsolicited advice about subjects they have almost zero right or credibility to do – mistaking opinion as fact, interest as knowledge, knowledge as expertise or ego as cleverness.No wonder a famous football manager once told me to always learn from winners, not players.
Look, I get we all do this to some degree, but there’s a big difference between spouting an opinion or perspective and acting like you’re the indisputable, all-knowing, God-of-all.
The point is, regardless what Andy Capp says, we would not take his proclamations as fact.
We might accept it’s what he thinks is fact, but not what is true for all.
And yet, more and more, I’m witnessing business blindly follow the statements and proclamations of people who are the real-life, modern version of Andy Capp.
Kinda.
Because while they DO have jobs … and while they have even been successful in them … they are now telling people how to succeed in areas they have absolutely no right to talk about.
Not just because many have never worked in those areas, but they have a track record of making terrible choices when developing ideas outside of their core area of knowledge.
Enter Mark Zuckerberg.
I’m not doubting he’s smart.
I’m not doubting he loves technology.
I’m not even doubting his successes.
However, why are so many people listening [and investing] in his version of the future when not only is it designed around his ego and need for power and control – not to mention his desperation to be talked about in the same breath as Steve Jobs – this is a person who spent/blew/lost US$80 BILLION on the Metaverse??
EIGHTY. FUCKING. BILLION. DOLLARS.
I get innovation is expensive.
I appreciate all technology needs time to evolve.
I acknowledge that I have two of their Quest headsets.
But 80 billion?
To put it in context, the iPhone is said to have cost anywhere between $150 million and $3.2 billion. The creation of Google Maps is said to have cost around $1 billion to initially develop. Even the A380 aircraft – the biggest passenger aircraft in the history of aviation – ‘only’ cost around $25-35 billion to build.
And to add even more context …
80 billion dollars is the equivalent of being the 90th placed country in the World by GDP.
OK, so Zuck’s 80 billion was spent over a long period of time compared to how GFP figures are calculated, but still …
In fact, this suggests Zuck is someone who stubbornly believes he is always right.
Or at the very least, refuses to acknowledge where things aren’t working or where things need improving.
Sadly, we see this same sort of arrogance in our industry …
Where someone is successful in a particular disciple or with a particular agency or with a particular piece of work or with a particular promotion… and then suddenly, they believe they are more knowledgable, more successful and more authoritative than every other person in every other industry regardless of their actual level of experience and expertise.
And what is worse is they get away with it …
Because like Zuck, too many people hang onto their words like gospel, even though in many ways they’re speaking the same delusional clap-trap as Andy Capp, which suggests 2 uncomfortable truths.
1. The real problem with ego is not the person spouting the nonsense, but the people who choose to believe loud confidence over real experience.
2. Andy Capp may have been right because it does seem in business. ‘the more you lose, the more people believe you’re a success’.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Complicity, Confidence, Conformity, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Experience, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relationships, Relevance, Retail, Technology
I was going through some old photos when I saw this …
That’s right, Banana Republic used the pandemic as an opportunity to shame people who were struggling to work from home – while trying to also care for the people in their home, including having to teach their kids their schoolwork – to look better for their work calls.
Oh I know some people will say this was ‘good marketing’ … seizing an opportunity to drive their business at a time where commerce was expected to suffer [when we know the opposite was true] … but it’s not, if anything it’s ambulance-chasing marketing. Where the only consideration is ‘can I make money out of this person, regardless of their situation.
And that’s the thing between good and shit marketing … the knowledge that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
The fact they literally call these scarves ‘video chat accessories’ is so overt it’s breath-taking.
And sickening.
But to be fair, they weren’t the only one adopting this ‘strategy’.
I remember a UK-based kitchen company that suggested you should go thousands into debt to have your kitchen ‘updated’ so you can do your future work calls in a room that presented you in a more ‘professional, wealthy, successful light’.
The big problem with a lot of our industry is our disregard for customers.
Actually that’s wrong … it’s our ability to pretend we’re doing everything for our customers.
The reality is though many companies don’t know who their customers are or even what industry they’re in … they simply believe that people – all people – are lining up to buy whatever it is they want to sell, whenever they tell people about it.
I once worked at a place that was obsessed with D2C – direct to consumer.
They were heavily pushing ALL their clients to follow suit … claiming it was what customers wanted, how a modern brand behaved, where retail was heading.
And, to be fair, there was a lot of that happening at the time and they were well placed to leverage it … but I, and more than a few others, weren’t convinced. Mainly because the brands who did it well were very clear on who they were, what they did, who they were for and how long they intended to be around whereas they were trying to force it on organizations who were the antithesis of this. Worse, they were the antithesis of this but were being told that didn’t matter … it was what the future was all about.
I kept bringing this up … highlighting this was not a blanket approach for all and there were serious implications on the brand, customers and category over time. Or at the very least, we shouldn’t be advocating clients let go of all they have done and built and stand-for just so they can exploit a new opportunity for cash.
And I was told I was a dinosaur.
Harking back to a time that was no longer relevant.
That technology was changing everything and they were at the forefront of it.
And while they were a good company, they were lost in their own ego and greed … refusing to look beyond the world they had created, because it was a world that positioned them as visionary rather than acknowledging this was a temporary wave where they were well equipped to benefit from.
Don’t get me wrong, we have to continually innovate.
We have to identify the possibilities, opportunities and waves of change.
But it only works if you know who you are, what you do, who you are for and what they value and want.
It also needs self-awareness, objectivity, honesty and transparency and the realization everything and everyone evolves – regardless what you wish people did.
Which may explain why many of the clients they had, are now brands who are a case-study for what not to do.
A warning that when you think the things that define you, guide you and build you are superfluous, then you can – and probably will – fall for everything.
Just ask Wework.
And Nike.
And The Line.
There’s a big difference between making money and building a business. Sadly, today, few seem to care about what they can become, just what they can get now.