Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Before Fame, Brand, Comment, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Design, Emotion, Entertainment, Gaming, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
When I was starting out in this whole advertising business, I would often find myself sent to Derby to meet a client who was based there.
Because of that client, I was introduced to some of his friends who had started a gaming company – who were also based in Derby.
They were very small, but because I was around their age and also in love with gaming, I would occasionally pop in and say hello.
One day – months after I’d last been in Derby – I passed this gaming companies offices and saw something different.
Cars.
Lots of them.
Fancy as fuck.
Now I’d obviously seen fancy cars before – even in Derby – but not at their offices, so I decided to pop in, say hello and see what was going on.
It was there I learned that a game they had spent years working on had become a success.
Not just in sales, but in its impact on broader culture.
A game I’d heard and read a lot about … but didn’t know it was from them.
And – to be honest – a game I probably would not naturally associate with them.
It was Tomb Raider.
A game that changed everyone in that companies life – for better and, in some cases, worse.
A game that featured a character – Lara Croft – that became the subject of sequels, TV shows, magazine covers, movies, books songs and young boys fantasies.
Tomb Raider – especially early Tomb Raider – was definitely of a time, but at the time, it was a revelation … which is why this image of the script scale of GTA really highlighted the change of games and the change of technology that enables them.
Look at it!
And that’s just the change between GTA 3 and 4.
So imagine what the impending GTA 6 script is going to look like.
More than that, imagine what the revenue is going to look like.
It’s already the biggest selling game and franchise in gaming console history – with over US$8 billion sold.
What’s also impressive is that they’ve been able to keep all of their ‘unsavoury’ elements and maintain their popularity. Given we live in such political times, that’s quite the achievement … and something the guys who own the Tomb Raider franchise must hate given they got left behind, despite trying to ‘modernise’ Lara.
That said, I was doing some work with Rockstar – GTA’s creators – a while back and mentioned how the context of the times meant they could really fuck with the authorities in a fascinating way and was interrupted by their lawyer who said:
“We are not going to be doing that”.
Which is almost as much of a high point as being fired by the Chili’s.
But that aside, the image above – at least to me – captures a moment when console games [and games as a whole for that matter] moved from escape to entertainment … even though the seeds of that change were made by a few particular people and titles … including one from some blokes in a building at 55 Ashbourne Road, Derby.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Before Fame, Cannes, Content, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless
As you know, I spoke at Cannes last month with the wonderful Martin Weigel.
While the talk seemed to have gone down very well, the best news was when an old colleague of mine [hello Maria] pointed me towards this …
Yes … that’s a picture of me and Martin ON GETTY IMAGES!!!
Better yet, there’s more than one of these online … there’s a whole range of them, all taken from our WARC presentation at Cannes.
Now as fun as appearing on getty images is – even if they called me the head of stratefy, rather than strategy – that’s not why I’m so happy.
As some of you know, there is a guy who appears in a whole host of stock photos who looks rather like me.
This is him …
If you still question whether we look alike, have a look at this …
See …
In other words, this guy is literally profiting off my – errrrm – looks.
Well, now I am appearing on Getty myself, I get to fight back.
Well I say that, but the idiot who thought it was a good idea to put me on Getty has shown just how mad they are by having the audacity to try and charge €475 for the pic.
EACH PIC!
Hahahahahahahahaha.
Even my Mum wouldn’t pay more than a fiver – and that would be for both and she would still expect change – so while I’m pleased I’m finally giving my doppelganger a taste of his own medicine, it’s disappointing to know even the most insane billionaire in all of billionaireverseville would never buy these so I’m not robbing him off anything.
Damnit.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Before Fame, Comment, Culture, Digital
Given my age, I remember when the internet went from a university thing to a public thing.
Because of that, I remember when so many of these companies launched.
What’s slightly concerning is that I worked on many of them and in the main, they’ve either disappeared or just fallen away which means the biggest threat to these companies is not data breaches or government interference, but me.
The human virus.
Now that’s an accolade. Or so I keep telling myself.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Audio Visual, Before Fame, Childhood, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Freddie, Happiness, Jill, Love, My Fatherhood, Otis, Paul
Happy 2019!
I hope you had a fantastic time with loved ones.
I also hope 2019 is a very special year for you all, for all the right reasons.
While I’ve been back at work for 3 days already – which were spent in bloody Miami – I have to say I had a wonderful time, even if I didn’t get as many gadgets as I hoped I would.
That said, I’m not making any plans for the year ahead.
I’ve seen too many best intentions get ruined before the end of the first week of a new year to fall into that trap.
But it’s fair to say I do have some hopes for 2019.
Some are professional, but most are mainly personal.
More than that, they’re personal because it involves people I love rather than for myself.
I know … I know … who the hell am I?
The reality is I’m doing OK.
That doesn’t mean I don’t still have a huge drive to go further, but right now, my hopes are for others for the year ahead.
Of course the main people I’m focused on is Jill and Otis.
In September Otis will start ‘proper school’ and we just hope he gets into one that follows the values his Mum and I believe in. We never realized finding a school for him would be so hard … but when you don’t want to go private, don’t want religious associations and don’t want the focus to be so academic his creativity is impacted, I guess it was never going to be easy.
So we have our fingers crossed and will deal with whatever happens.
Which is why I am also focused on Jill.
As much as Otis has impacted my life in so many wonderful ways, it’s Jill who will experience the biggest change once he goes to school.
It’s Jill who has stayed with him throughout his formative years.
It’s Jill who has spent the days with him every week, playing and educating and just generally looking after him.
Their bond is a beautiful thing to witness and I know she feels being a mother has been the most fulfilling thing she has done in her life.
So now what does she do when she leads him to the next stage of his life?
Of course there will still be loads they do together, but I want to give her the backing to find something that fulfills her, whatever that may be.
I know it won’t be the same as helping raise our bundle of energetic joy 24/7, but I am excited to see what she will do.
She is extremely talented, creative and compassionate – and while I know she doesn’t want to start her amazing cake company again – we have discussed some things that she is excited by and I’ll be backing her all the way for whatever she chooses.
I say this because I recently saw the photo at the top of this post.
It’s a photo of Queen drummer, Roger Taylor, looking at the Freddie Mercury statue he has at the bottom of his garden.
The statue that was on top of the London theatre when their musical, We Will Rock You, was performing.
I have to say, I found the photo very poignant.
Apart from the fact it’s wonderful he wanted to keep the statue of his old friend – I can’t imagine what it must be like to see it every day.
Does he look at it and think about all the amazing things they did together?
Does he look at it and mourn the loss of someone he loved like a brother?
Does he look at it and feel the sadness of memories he will never experience again?
Growing old has many benefits – including not giving a damn what others think of you – but it can also act as a bitter pill when the things around you … the things you brought into this world … start taking on a life of their own.
At these points you can either sit back and focus on the change or lean in and explore the possibilities.
For the past 30 years of my professional life, I’ve been fortunate to always embrace leaning in to the possibilities – possibilities that has seen me live around the World and meet an endless stream of wonderful, creative individuals.
While I have no intention of stopping that approach to living, I do want to make sure that in 2019, Jill gets the drivers seat because apart from her generosity in letting me do so much of the steering, the reality is she was the one who helped us navigate to where we currently are so I know by handing over the driving to her, she will go to somewhere wonderful and fulfilling and no one I know deserves it more.
She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.
So happy 2019 to all … I’m excited to see where we all end up in the next 12 months, even if my blog posts will continue to bring the excitement of possibility down to a slow, painful crawl.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, AC/DC, Advertising, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Bands, Before Fame, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Career, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Consultants, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Delusion, Distinction, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, EvilGenius, History, Honesty, Interviews, Leadership, Legend, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Meetings, Music, Perspective, Prejudice, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Status, Stories, Stupid, Success, Teamwork, Trust, Truth
Once upon a time, a man – who lived and worked in Newcastle, England – got a phonecall.
When he picked up, he heard a woman with a German accent on the other end, who asked “Are you Brian Johnson?”
He replied in the affirmative, to which the mystery caller said,
“You need to come down to London for an audition next week”.
Now Brian was a singer. In fact he’d once had a hit record with his band Geordie – but now he had his own business fitting car windscreens so it was a pretty left-field call to receive. Still, he was intrigued to which he asked the caller, “Who are you and who is the audition for?
There was a pause before the German voice informed him they worked for a music company – who had to remain nameless, just like the band he was told he had to audition for.
Brian was getting a bit fed-up at this point so pointed out in his thick accent,
“I’m not going all the way down to London for an audition unless you tell me who it is”.
Immediately, they were told that was not possible.
“Can you give me a clue … even if it’s just the initials of the singer or band?”
There was another pause – as if the caller was weighing up which would get them in more trouble: giving them a clue or not having Brian come to the audition – before they said,
“OK … here are the initials of the band, but I can give you no more information whatsoever. The initials are A, C, D, C”
The rest is history.
Brian did go to London and he did audition to replace the recently deceased Bon Scott, as the singer of AC/DC.
He got the gig and the first song he wrote – in fact the first song he EVER wrote – was You Shook Me All Night Long.
Then he wrote his second ever song, Back In Black.
Then his third, Hell’s Bell’s.
And not only did all these songs appear on the first album he recorded with the band, it went on to be the best selling album of the bands career. In fact it get’s even better than that, because the album, Back In Black, sold so many copies it become the best selling album OF ALL TIME [at that time] and even now – 46 years later – still ranks the 2nd best ever seller, with 50 million albums sold.
All this because Brian – through luck and persistence – got a key piece of information that made the difference between him choosing to go down to London or telling some random German female caller to “Fuck Off”.
Now it’s fair to say AC/DC were a known quantity at the time. A relatively successful quantity at the time. But who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t done the audition.
We wouldn’t have those 3 songs for a start … 3 songs that are not just iconic for AC/DC fans, but iconic fullstops.
The point being, one of the most important things you can do, to increase the odds of success is be transparent.
Transparent on where you are.
Transparent on what is needed.
Transparent on who is involved.
Transparent on the facts, timing and money.
Transparent on roles, rules and responsibilities.
Transparent on what the definition of success is.
I say this because there is not enough transparency right now – if anything, we operate in a world of opaqueness, which not only fucks up the potential of what can be created together, but breeds distrust and unhelpfulness.
Sure, things can change.
Sure, not everything may be known at the time.
But the more you hold things back, the more you’re not just fucking others over, you’re fucking yourself.
The greatest demonstration of respect in any partnership is transparency … so if your ego, need for control or fear stops you from doing that, then it doesn’t matter what you claim or who you blame, you’re the problem.
That doesn’t mean everything will fail, but it does mean you’ll never create history.
Or said another way …
If that German woman who rang Brian Johnson way back in ’79 had refused to give him any information on the name of the band she wanted him to audition for – as were their orders – then AC/DC may be a band few people would remember and Brian Johnson would be the graveliest-voiced car windscreen repairer in the North of England.
Of course, there will be some who say if that had happened, we’d never know what we’d lost.
And they’d be right, but they’d also be something else: someone incapable of creating or achieving anything truly significant.
In fact it’s worse than that … they’d be someone incapable of even aspiring to something truly significant and would actively goes out of their way to stop others from achieving it, claiming they’re ‘just looking out for the business’ when really it’s about their fear, ego, power and/or control.
No wonder my dear and clever friend George calls them, ‘commercial assassins and happiness vampires’.
Don’t stop someone finding your Brian Johnson because you think transparency is weakness.
It’s not, it’s rocket fuel.