Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Cannes, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Data, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Relationships, Relevance, Research, Resonance
The big conversation in marketing right now is around data.
So it should be, it’s insanely valuable and important.
But the irony is, while it can absolutely help us have deeper understanding about our audiences behaviour and habits – information that can lead to more powerful and valuable creativity – it’s alarming how many companies who claim to be experts in this field express themselves in ways that are the opposite of it.
Here are 2 ads I saw in Cannes …
Really?
You think that is going to convince people the data and technology you have is going to lead to better work?
You think that represents the language of your audience?
Sure, I know it’s Cannes and so there is a certain sort of person who is attending there at that moment – but they’re still bloody human.
Quite frankly, this is more an ad for celebrating ‘the old way’ rather than the new.
As Martin and I said in our presentation – if companies think creativity can be reduced to an engineering problem, then they don’t understand how society actually works.
Sure … you want consistency if you’re doing surgery.
Or making rockets.
Or producing food.
But society as a whole, is a mish-mash of complications and hypocrisy.
A group where their passions extend to far more than what they transact with … but how it integrates with their life.
Their fashion. Their music. Their games. Their language and imagery. Their context.
If you remove this from the process, you are simply creating the answer you want, not the answer that actually stands a chance of moving cultural behavior and attitudes for the long term, not just the short.
Or said another way, making brands successful in ways culture wants to stick with.
As I said, data has a huge and valuable role to play in all this.
I’m fortunate to have an extremely good data partner at R/GA … someone who not only knows what she’s doing, but appreciates it means nothing if it doesn’t help create better work.
And that’s the thing … great data doesn’t want the spotlight.
I see too much work where the brief seems to have been ‘show this data point’.
Or worse, too many briefs where it is the data point.
Great data – like great PR – is, in a lot of ways, invisible.
It liberates creativity rather than dictates it.
Revealing opportunities to think laterally not literally.
Helps you make work that reaches audience in more powerful ways.
Whether that’s where you play or how you play.
Put simply, data is an incredibly important part of modern marketing but – and this is where many people fall down – it can’t do it all.
It needs help to help make great work.
It can guide … it can reveal … it can lead … it can do so much, but it can’t do everything.
For data to truly show its full potential, it needs the nuances of culture added to it. Not purely for scalability, but for resonance.
As I’ve said many times, we need to stop looking to be relevant and start wanting to be resonant.
Making work that feels it was born from inside the culture, not from an observer.
Or said another way, work that doesn’t patronise, condescend or bore people.
Are you listening IBM and Neilsen?
Data with culture opens up more possibilities for creativity.
Allowing ideas to grow and go in places we might never have imagined.
Ideas that feel so right to the audience rather than explain why they should feel that way.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Culture, Embarrassing Moments, Experience, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, R/GA
Yes, that’s me.
It’s not totally random because a few weeks ago, the planning department at R/GA held an impromptu Elton John party.
Though I’m not quite sure why we did it to be honest.
Anyway, we went to town with it …
Elton glasses … Elton inspired drinks … Elton boa’s … Elton masks … even an Elton John impersonator.
I’m not sure which was my favourite part of fake Elton’s performance.
On one hand, it was pretty hilarious when he loudly announced through the PA system “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Elton John to the stage” and then we saw the post room door [which was doubling as his dressing room] rattling madly as he tried to get out without realizing he had to press the unlock button.
Though – all things considered – I probably prefer the moment he ran out of Elton John songs and decided to start singing The Proclaimers. [See the video below]
But back to that photo …
While you might think the sight of me on a stepladder wearing an Elton John mask is the worst thing you can imagine, let me remind you of the time I wore a mask of the Queen for my first ever photo with my son.
See, nowhere near as bad.
That said, I acknowledge it is pretty tragic which means – in comparison – your Monday is far less horrific.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Anniversary, Authenticity, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, Empathy, Love, Loyalty, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning
So last month, it was my birthday.
Because it was my first birthday in the UK for 25 years – not to mention R/GA – I decided to do something a bit special [read: daft] that culminated in me sending this all office email the day before my big day.
Yes, I really did buy that many Monster Munch and so while I thought I was going to have the last laugh on my birthday, my wonderful team decided to trump me by making me this cake.
What you are looking at is a Strawberry Jam Sandwich cake.
Literally layers and layers of jam sandwiches.
Despite having the sugar content that could bring all dinosaurs at once – it was strangely tasty – though I did only manage a slither, which the pricks took great delight in videoing.
And yet this act of evil genius was very moving to me.
While some might think I’m mad because what they did was an act of hatred – an attempt at murder – I see it differently.
Maybe it’s because in addition to the cake, I was given a bunch of cards and presents [Highlights include: Erika’s 1.25 liter of Diet Coke, Severine’s ‘Shut The Fuck Up’ bell, Ed and Rob’s test pressing of their new album and the teams ‘complaint letter’ to HR all about me ] … but even without any of those things, their act of birthday evil [or, as one person called it, the presentation of a white trash cake] was, for me, a demonstration of giving a shit which left me feeling very touched.
I’ve been super fortunate with the teams I’ve worked with.
Almost universally, they have been a bunch of brilliant people blessed with exceptional talent.
OK, not all of them … but overall, they’ve all been amazing even though they have also been mischievous shits. Which is why one day – and I appreciate no one would ever want this to actually happen – I’d love to have a party where everyone who has had the misfortune to work with me, comes along.
Not so they can compare war stories – though there would be a lot of those – but because in the main, they have made me a better person for the experience and I would want to thank them.
Even for Jam Sandwich birthday cakes.
Jesus, who am I?!!!
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Insight, Interviews, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Resonance
Purpose.
Planning.
Both have had a lot of debate about them in the past few years and both have their cheerleaders and detractors.
The reality is they both have incredible value but – and it’s a big but – only when used responsibly.
Of course, what ‘responsibly’ is, is often in the eye of the brand owner and that’s where the problems starts … because too often, the focus is appealing to the ego of the company directors rather than the pulse of culture which is why we’re seeing more and more ‘purpose work’ that communicates in the corporate monotone of egotistical, bland, business-speak.
The client doesn’t think that of course, they think they’re doing an amazing thing and that people will really believe Hard Rock Cafe’s want to stop hunger or a plastic lighter company in HK wants to save the rainforest [which is true, but I can’t find the post about it, mainly because it was back in 2010] or – hold on to your hats – this …
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Yes, that really is an umbrella company claiming their purpose is to offer lifestyle solution and protection for the public.
Are they insane?
Even if that was true – which if it is, means they’re bonkers – then the way they’ve written it means the umbrellas are to save you from marketing bullshit raining down on your head.
Purpose has a really important role for brands … but you don’t just ‘make it up’.
I am utterly in shock how many companies sell ‘purpose’ to brands and yet never investigate the soul of the brand.
Go into the vaults.
Look inside every single box.
Discover what made them make their decisions.
Understand the values they lived by and fought for.
Talk to the people who have worked there or shopped there since the earliest of days.
Basically discover their authenticity rather than what they wish their authenticity was.
And yet a lot of companies are paying a lot of other companies to literally make up a bullshit story about them.
Something they think makes them sound good.
Something they think will make people want to choose them.
And while we are definitely seeing more and more people choosing to associate with brands that live by a set of values and beliefs, the thing the brands who ‘invent a purpose’ fail to understand is that this audience seeks truth, not bullshit and so what they’re doing with their make-believe is actually achieve the absolute opposite of what they were trying to do.
Purpose matters.
Planning matters.
But the moment you let ego drive your ambitions rather than your authenticity, you end up being a brand that is flying extremely high on the Planning Purpose Twatosphere.
Remember brands, by being yourself you will be different.
Stop inventing bullshit and start acting your truth in interesting ways.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Cannes, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Insight, Marketing
As you know, I recently went to Cannes.
It had been 12 years between visits and I must admit I’m quite conflicted with how I feel about the experience.
OK, so I was always in the skeptical camp.
I appreciate the need and value of celebrating ‘the best of creativity’, but I have long felt Cannes was less about that and more about celebrating the celebrity of advertising.
That said, while there were some differences, some had scarily remained the same.
The biggest difference was who were the big boys in town.
Last time I was there it was the big network agencies.
Massive venues.
Big Boats.
Grandiose parties.
And while all those things were still there, they were the domain of the tech giants … with agencies now occupying the odd beachside suite or – more typically – an Airbnb venue in one of the backstreets.
Don’t get me wrong, there was still some “look at me” statements from adland, but compared to what they were – and what the tech industry was doing – it was much more of a whimper than a roar.
This ‘tech industry doing a good impression of 80s adland’ was even more visible when it came to the evening festivities.
On the first night I was there, I found myself at the Carlton Hotel.
As usual, it was packed with people in jovial mood – either because they were catching up with old friends or were bullshitting network colleagues in a bid to look good to them.
Every now and then, you’d see a magnum of champagne being taken to a table. A fucking magnum?! Given my average burger and fries with a diet coke had cost me an eye watering €60 when I had it earlier in the day [not on expenses, so keep your rolling eyes to yourself], I literally daren’t imagine how much this cost.
But who would buy such an overt display of wealth and arrogance?
You guessed it – probably because you know ad agencies can’t afford that level of excess or expense anymore – it was people from our tech and media brothers and sisters … living and acting like it was still 1982.
There were plenty of other signs that revealed the tech companies were becoming the beasts they were meant to slay …
From the insanely big, patronising, condescending and delusional ego-driven ads that were all over Cannes [congrats IBM, that will be the only award your agency will win] to the gift bags handed out at every opportunity that were universally filled with Amazon rainforest worth of paper through to the overtly misogynistic atmosphere that permeated the air in the night.
This last thing upset me the most.
It’s bad enough that women had to deal with men propositioning, groping and touching them in the past, but the fact it is still going on – in this era of #MeToo – is breathtaking. Actually that’s not what is breathtaking, it’s the fact they felt comfortable doing it in public, at a global industry event, surrounded by peers and colleagues.
Nothing shows how prevalent sexist, predator behaviour continues to be in our industry than that.
One of my colleagues, Iain Preston, spotted a particularly unpleasant episode and thankfully stood in. You can read about it here.
As you can tell, I’m not a fan of Cannes.
Actually, let me be more specific. I’m not a fan of the behaviour of Cannes.
There are some amazing people there.
There are some amazing talks you get to listen to.
There is some amazing work to be inspired by.
I’m glad I went but happier I got to leave within a few days however I did come away with a very good reminder that the greatest gift you can give a client is the gift of honesty.
Honesty of the situation.
Honesty of the audience.
Honesty of the business or brand.
Honesty of what needs to be done.
Honesty of the creativity … in terms of encouraging the creatives to craft somewhere new not repackage and rehash something old.
Sadly this reminder came from witnessing too few agencies giving it &/or too few clients valuing it.
So to all the winners who wanted to make a difference in a way that was different, I don’t just say congratulations.
But thank you.