Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Complicity, Conformity, Content, Context, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Delusion, Differentiation, Distinction, Diversity, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Emotion, Empathy, Focus Groups, Inclusion, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Process, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Standards
Recently I had to interview a relatively well known singer songerwriter.
While their major successes were in the 90’s, they’d always had a place in popular culture – albeit British culture.
I went into the call only knowing what I had read up about them and what I had thought about them when they were making hits … so while I was intrigued to chat, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to go.
Fortunately for me, I had a secret weapon and that was a Mum who had instilled in me to ‘always be interested in what others are interested in’.
What this means is your job is simple: listen to them and follow where they take you.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions.
Nor does it mean you can’t challenge them when you feel their answers contradict each other.
However, rather than go into it looking for faults or specific answers, your focus is simply to understand how they think and see the world.
And I am so grateful for that because the conversation was amazing.
Not just in terms of what was discussed, but how much I understood and – even related – to many of the choices and decisions they made on their journey.
A reminder that whoever you are … whatever plans you have … or wherever you’re from … we’re all bumbling along trying to make sense of the stuff we experience and are exposed to, while trying to keep on some sort of path we feel we can manage or hope to navigate.
I came out of our chat with a totally different perspective of this indivudual – both as a musician and as a human.
More than that, it allowed me to look back on my perceptions and realise how much I had let prejudices, associations and media [mis]shape my point of view. Or said another way, how I had chosen to ‘tune out’ their reality and ‘tune in’ to the noise surrounding them.
Noise created by people who often didn’t know them and certainly didn’t know what they were going through.
We all have experienced a version of that in our life. Now imagine it on a national and international scale?
Which is why that chat not only helped me see their choices and career through an entirely different lens … it made me feel deeply ashamed of myself.
Of my prejudice.
Of my judgement.
Of my wasted energy.
And I told them and they were incredibly kind and gracious about it. Far more than I deserved, let alone expected … but I can honestly say, I now look at who they are and what they have done – and do – with deep respect rather than judgement or ridicule.
That doesn’t mean I suddenly love their music – I don’t – but I do now completley understand where it came from and what it represented. Especially to them. And that – ironically – has allowed me to connect to them as an artist and a human far more than I ever imagined was possible … amplified by their openness, warmth and willingness to be vulnerable about moments in their life that were most definitely not easy.
I say all this because I think where I started prior to the interview represents what our industry is doing day after day.
Relying on cherry-picked data points, shortcuts and convenient answers, rather than going out their way to truly understand the textured lives, perspectives and challenges of the audiences they want and need to connect and engage to.
What’s making this even worse is how many research companies are now outsourcing ‘data gathering’ to AI driven bots … reinforcing that business increasingly values speed, convenience and efficiency over depth of underrstanding.
And the result of all this?
False perceptions.
Self-interest driven solutions.
Increased category convention advertising.
Or, to sum it up even more devastatingly … Maxwell House idiocy thinking.
It’s why I’ve always seen strategy as an outdoor job more than a desk job.
It’s why I’ve put-out books about what society is thinking over what marketing is claiming.
It’s why I’ve always favoured working with people like On Road and Ruby Pseudo over the conglomerate research companies.
And finally, it’s why – when told by planners they don’t have time to go out and talk to people – I’ve said that even if they talk to 3 people in the streets, that’s likely 3 more than anyone else. Because as much as it is always the right thing to make time for more understanding, the point isn’t about scale of opinion, it’s about scale of the nuances you will discover … because when you’re open to that, you’ll not only learn how much you never knew, but see how much your creativity can now impact and achieve.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Class System, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Consultants, Contribution, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Meetings, Music
There’s a company I work with that has 14 employees.
Of that 14, 4 are specialists and the remaining 10 are very smart, informed, experienced, generalists.
And they make US$100 million dollars a year.
PER YEAR.
Part of the reason they make so much money is the speed in which they make decisions.
Sure, with only 14 people, it’s much easier to achieve that … but that’s not the whole story behind their success.
Because while all their competitors employ 5+ times the amount of people as them [even though their revenues are a fraction of theirs] the driving force behind their speed is down to 3 things.
1 They understand who they are, what they believe and what they do.
2 They only hire truly exceptional talent with experience proven over years.
3 They trust their team so they can make decisions with minimal consultation or debate.
Or put even more simply:
Opportunities don’t get delayed, diluted, dismantled or discarded by ‘heirarchy management’.
And the result of this trust, taste and experience?
They’re not only regarded as one of the most influential and highly regarded companies in their field across the entire World … they’re viewed as being the most successful company in the history of their category.
Hopefully it is obvious why I say this …
But if it’s not, this quote from Dave Trott – I think – sums it up.
I have to be honest, I can relate to this … and what makes this even worse is I’m one of the lucky fuckers, because I generally only work – and have only worked – with clients and colleagues who have the taste, experience and ambition to do what it takes to create good, interesting and original shit day after day after day.
Which begs the question, what the hell is it like for so many others?
I swear the problem is too many companies care more about building empires than producing excellence.
Where the prize is quantity not quality.
Size rather than craft.
KPI’s over creating real change.
Pride in conformity rathe than standards.
And so we end up in this situation where we have countless levels of middle management … where each one dilutes whatever is in front of them to ensure they don’t risk being negatively judged by the level above.
Empowered to only ever say no and never yes.
Resulting in opportunities being killed by either a thousand comments or delayed by a thousand meetings.
Which is why productivity has little to do with which operational model you embrace.
Nor does it matter if you operate with a flat-org structure or an agile approach …
If you want to be killer rather than filler, collapse the layers and elevate proper talent.
No wonder the brilliant Simon Pestridge once told me:
“Middle management want to be right …
… but [good] senior management want to know how to be better”
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Ambition, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Effectiveness, Planning, Process, Strategy
I come from a family of lawyers.
My Italian Uncle was a prosecutor against the Mafia and my Dad was a Human Right’s barrister who specialized in fighting corporations and governments who chose to label certain groups/people as ‘irrelevant’ or ‘unimportant’.
I – on the other hand – am not a lawyer. I neither had the brains or the patience … though I did get a distinction in law at college, albeit because my Dad helped me massively – hahahaha.
But the thing is, you can’t be around that level of legal brain without it having some influence over you and one of the things my Dad and Uncle really shaped for me was how ‘details matter’.
Now I appreciate law and advertising are VERY different, but one of the areas where they are very similar is the ability to make complexity, simple.
Unfortunately, a lot of our industry seems to have forgotten that … preferring to either celebrate complexity or make things embarrassingly simplistic, but when we do things right, we do things really right.
Of course it takes a lot of hard work to make things simple.
You have to read.
You have to explore.
You have to go down rabbit-holes.
You have to chat, challenge, and consider.
But not only does this approach mean you get to the core of issues, problems, understanding and opportunities … you are more likely to put something out that makes a real difference to people and the business. So I find it fascinating how more and more companies are giving less and less time for this hard work to be done.
Wanting the process to be at a ‘sprint’.
Wanting costs and people to be ‘trimmed’.
Wanting the agency to accept what ‘they say’.
But we don’t push back on this to be awkward, we push back on this because we give a shit about their wellbeing. We want to do things that add value to what they do, rather than open the door to challenges or questions. And while I appreciate there is a narrative that ‘the general public don’t really care about advertising’, the reality is a bit more nuanced than that.
1. They don’t care about SHIT advertising, but they do care about, what they care about.
2. They definitely care about not being fucked over by companies who try to fuck them over.
And if there’s one thing companies should know by now … social media often finds the stuff they want to hide. The stuff that challenges the narrative they like to project and profess. And while I appreciate that may have led to many companies making ads that basically say nothing – in the twisted belief that if they bore audiences to death, they’re protected – the reality is there will always be someone out there who delves into the details.
I’m not talking about conspiracy theorists.
I’m not talking about the populists and non-conformists.
I’m talking about individuals who want to make sure the companies who want them to give a shit, give a shit in return.
And you know what should scare companies even more?
AI allows everyone to do this quickly and easily. Suddenly the tool some companies have adopted as a way to ‘slash costs’, is the tool that allows society to work out if they should give them any time, let alone money.
And why am I talking about this?
Because in the last few weeks, there’s been a couple of posts that show the importance of ‘the details’.
A couple of posts that show a company that loves to claim they care about what you need, care more about what they need.
A couple of posts that are fucking breathtaking in their ‘findings’.
Who am I talking about? Uber.
Cars and Food delivery.
Now I appreciate what is detailed below may not be entirely accurate – different markets operate by different needs and requirements – however if you use Uber in any way, and I do, it’s something worth reading.
Because at the very least, if the information is not completely right, Uber can then tell us and show us how good they really are. And if the information is correct, then it will force Uber to change or face the consequences.
Details matter.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Auckland, Community, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Emotion, Empathy, Environment, Experience, Humanity
I appreciate that in the first month of 2026, I have enjoyed 2 national holidays … which is on top of the almost ONE MONTH Festive Holiday than many in NZ get to enjoy.
Which leads to the title of this post.
The good [for you] is I don’t get any more national holidays for almost 6 whole, bloody months … so you can revel in my obvious pain and discomfort.
Which leads to the Bad News, again for you.
As I don’t get any more national holidays for almost 6 whole, bloody months, there’ll be no break from blog posts.
See, be careful what you wish for.
Talking of what you wish for, recently I stopped in a small town and and saw this:
I have to say, not only did it catch my attention, it made me feel quite emotional.
Given I had never been to this place in my life, that might sound a bit weird – it IS a bit weird – but it was also lovely to see a community looking out for its greater good.
For someone who feels he can only breathe – and find peace – in the chaos of big cities, I’ve increasingly come to appreciate the value, importance and warmth of community.
Maybe it is the relatively small size of NZ, but I’ve really come to understand it – and its role – here than anywhere else I’ve ever lived … including the very small village we moved to in England during COVID, a place so small that it consisted of 2 pubs and an [in]convenience shop – so named, as it never had any fixed opening times so it was always a lucky dip.
Don’t get me wrong, people looked out for each other, but you knew that their needs always came first.
Maybe that’s the same in NZ, but it doesn’t feel like it. Not with everyone, anyway.
And that’s why I liked this sign – or what this sign was trying to do.
To help the town evolve, innovate and be more useful to more people.
Both in terms of those who live in the town and those who could come visit.
At a time where it feels governments and business are increasingly seems out-of-touch with people’s reality – or worse, actively not giving a shit about it – it was just a nice reminder that ‘hope and optimism’ is born as much from feeling you’re not out on your own, as it is about seeing a path forward.
Maybe certain ‘marketing science experts’ would be better encouraging practitioners to see audiences and communities on their terms rather than as walking wallets who are waiting to hand over their money as soon as you have exposed them to the same efficient distribution of formulaic brand assets that they’ve told every brand to blindly bombard them with.
Just a thought, especially on Super Bowl day … where we will see tens of millions spent on sponsored [Dad] jokes and celebs-for-hire appearances.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Consultants, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Creativity, Culture, Kickstarter
I know I work in marketing.
I know everyone likes to think their ‘thing’ is a ‘unique’ thing.
And I know people like to ‘big up’ whatever it is they do to sound even bigger than it is … like claiming a solid marketing 101 course is a ‘mini-MBA’, which is made even more amusing by the fact the person behind it has developed a caricature of being ‘no nonsense’ … but the problem with this ‘blinkers on, always look straight ahead’ attitude is that while you’re spouting your ridiculousness, we don’t see the people around us laughing and pointing.
Self-awareness is increasingly becoming one of the most important and valuable attributes in business – and yet, too often, anyone who points out a problem is met with distain, as if they are trying to destroy an organization when all they’re trying to do is protect them.
At this point, I could point to that utterly horrific Ritz Cracker Superbowl ad … or that Maxwell House/Apartment abomination … but no, I found something even more potentially insane.
This.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate people have favourite notepads. It may be influenced by paper stock quality, design or number of pages … but selling a notebook on its ability to lay perfectly flat?
It’s a notebook for fucks sake, not a bloody Toblerone.
This is up there with the sort of bullshit hype you see on most Kickstarter pages … except on Kickstarter, they at least try and claim they’ve added some sort of innovation that marks it out from traditional approaches, whether true or not.
But a notebook that lies flat?
That’s where we’ve got folks.
That’s where the marketing industry is.
Where it is no longer good enough to simply be good at what you do, everything needs to have some sort of hype ingredient … even if it induces ridicule more than aspiration.
It’s not even fucking targeted to a particular audience who may – just may – value the aesthetic of multiple notebooks placed together more than what they put in the notebook.
If you take away the fact this ad is desperately and blatantly attempting to suggest it’s for a premium product with an innovative feature … this may actually be the most generic piece of generic communication ever created.
And before someone says, ‘but you noticed it and wrote about it’, I would remind people the opposite of good isn’t bad, it’s apathy and there’s more of that being triggered than ever before – driven by systems, processes and ego’s that care more about elevating the self-importance of the creator than addressing the realities, needs and contexts of the recipient.
What we do can be important.
Not life-changing important, but important all the same.
Let’s not forget we can emotionally move people, impact economies and categories and create different futures for millions in ways few other industries could ever dream of achieving.
But if we carry on with our blinkered, arrogant, tick-box, Emperor’s New Clothes attitude, we will eventually discover – as will the clients, pundits and peddlers who either buy into this approach, encourage it or flog it – that the only people who are listening, is themselves.
Of course, as an industry, we should always be open to the new and the next.
But that should never be at the expense of forgetting, ignoring or devaluing what we do and how great we can be at doing it.
Sadly, somewhere along the way, it appears we have … and are now our business model appears to be chasing whatever we think makes us look relevant to the procurement department in business rather than doing things that are valuable to the actual business.
Resulting in us having more tools but making less valuable stuff with it.
Or said another way, we’re increasingly becoming a division of Temu.