Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Relevance, Resonance, Talent
I still remember buying a movie soundtrack only to discover none of the songs had actually featured in the movie.
When I looked at the cover, I saw “songs inspired by the movie” … in other words, the film company couldn’t get the rights to release the actual music, so they got some two-bit band to write some nondescript music supposedly after watching the film.
It wasn’t as bad as those albums where they got a covers band to sing a well known song – rather than the actual artist – but it was close.
The reason I say this is that I’m seeing a bunch of ‘write-ups’ of ads that seem to adopt the same position.
“Inspired by”.
“Influenced”
“Reinterpreted”.
Now there’s nothing really wrong with this … it’s something that’s been done by all manner of industries for centuries … however while there’s a common belief that ‘genius steals’, the counter to this is ‘lazy borrows’.
I know … I know … I’m being deliberately assholey, but the beauty of our industry is when we allow creatives the freedom to create.
To allow their crazy minds to take us all to crazy intriguing places.
But instead … thanks to budgets, timelines, dictatorial research, corporate fear, layers of management – and countless other things – we don’t.
Which is why we see so many pieces of work that are replications of a film, a meme, a song, a TikTok idea … basically a version of an album of popular songs that haven’t been played by any of the original artists.
Our industry is capable of brilliant things.
But we’ve sold creativity down the river in a bid to make things easier for people who don’t even value the power of creativity.
Nothing smacks of madness as much as that.
Meanwhile, culture leads change of behaviour, attitudes and choices through its endless energy to explore and express.
So while being inspired is one thing, duplicating is another and when certain brands expect people to spend hundreds or thousands on their products, it blows my mind they want to under-invest in the way they actually present themselves in their communication.
Oh they won’t see it that way.
They’ll talk about the celebrity they hired to front the campaign.
Or the music they licensed.
But underneath it all, they’ll they’re taking shortcuts.
They’ll kid themselves it’s working with charts on optimisation or efficiencies … but the reality is they’re trying to work out how long they’ve got before it all falls apart, because the difference between leading and chasing is not about spend, it’s about attitude.
Or said another way …
You either make music or you’re just a cover band.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, Colenso, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Differentiation, Distinction, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Experience, Fake Attitude, Focus Groups, Honesty, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Only In Adland, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Relevance, Resonance, Stubborness, Uncommon, Wieden+Kennedy
So many ads today end up just being fancy sales brochures.
A nondescript, stylish image that either has some meaningless line thrust upon it or a literal lift of the proposition from the brief to become the headline.
Clients love it because they think there’s no wastage.
That there’s no ‘thinking’ that the audience has to do to ‘get the message’.
I remember years ago – when I was working on SONY – the client kept referencing Mr Bean.
No, I’m not joking.
They kept saying Mr Bean is understood by all. Loved by all. Communicates a message without saying a word. They were really trying to push this until I pointed out that while that’s the case, no one would spend thousands buying a TV made by Mr Bean.
Then Balls got made and undermined my argument for years. Hahahaha.
And while I hate looking backwards, I can’t help but think the past was far more interesting creatively than where we’re at today.
These days Audi talk about ‘Future is an attitude‘ when once they talked about Vorsprung Durch Technik.
We have Chivas Regal going on about ‘every taste is an experience’ when once they talked about ‘giving Dad an expensive belt‘.
Heineken now ‘open your world‘ when they once ‘refreshed the parts other beers can’t reach‘.
We have countless other brands who were once so powerful with their brand voice who have now become bland.
[Nothing sums it up like this Audi ad for the same car with pretty much the same line]
What really gets me, is we have the talent in the industry to change this.
We have the hunger as well.
But while there are exceptions – and I mean it in terms of agencies who consistently bring the work rather than the odd bit of work getting through – somewhere along the line, we seem to have chosen a path of complicity.
Without doubt the research techniques becoming more and more favoured by companies plays a part in this. As our clients who are more focused on not making a mistake than making an impact. But it cannot be ignored that agencies have a lack of desire to stand up for what they believe is right. Preferring to be complicit rather than respected.
Which may explain why so few of them believe it is worth investing in finding out what is really going on in culture – preferring instead, to either outsource it or just accept the viewpoint of whichever ‘paid for’ 3rd party the client has hired to do the work for them.
What brought this all up was seeing an old Honda ad from the late 70’s/early 80’s.
OK, so Honda have a long history of doing great work – especially from Wieden London – but it’s always been a brand that has run to its own rhythm with its own idiosyncrasies. But even they – these days – are falling into the trap of rubbing off the edges that defines who they are to become like everyone else.
This ad – like so many of the truly great early 80’s ads – came from Chiat/Day.
My god, what an agency they were.
Sadly I say ‘were’ because as much as they still have great people in there and pull off the occasional truly interesting bit of work, when you compare them to what they were like decades ago, there is no comparison.
Brave. Honest. Distinctive. Creative as hell.
Hell, even when they lost, they did it in a way where they would win.
Every single person in adland – especially at C-Suite level – should read this brilliant article by Cameron Day, son of Guy Day … one of the founders of Chiat.
‘How Big Till We Go Bad’ is a fantastic guide on how to build a truly great agency. And then destroy it.
Anyway, I digress.
The Honda ad I saw of theirs was this …
No, your eyes are not deceiving you.
Once upon a time, car manufacturers – or at least some of them – understood equality.
No cliches.
No pandering.
Just treating their audience as adults and equals.
It’s not really that hard is is, but if you compare it to what we see today, it feels we’ve regressed. [Read more about car ad devolution – with a few exceptions – here]
I do not want to look in the past.
I believe my best creative work is ahead of me.
Or at least the potential of it.
To paraphrase Death of a Salesman – or the equally brilliant Nils of Uncommon – we shouldn’t be interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, you understand? There’s a big blaze going on all around.
But the problem is, people have to see the woods are burning and I worry a bunch of the fuckers think it’s a sunset. Then again, it will be … because if we don’t push forwards, it will be the sunset on our industry and that will be the ultimate insult, because the past should never be more exciting and interesting than the future.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Colenso, Confidence, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Positioning, Relevance, Resonance, Rick Rubin, RulesOfRubin, Standards, Uncommon, WeigelCampbell, Wieden+Kennedy
I don’t understand what some people are thinking.
We have got to a point where ‘the idea’ is seemingly regarded as a superficial bit of nonsense.
A wrapper for marketing.
Something as interchangeable as a phone cover.
For some utterly imbecilic reason, ‘the idea’ is now seen as optional – a potential distraction to purpose, eco-systems, frameworks and anything else designed to elevate an idea rather than be the idea.
No wonder our industry is in such a state.
Not only have we sold the value of creativity down the river, we now have a business model based on selling condiments rather than meals.
This post isn’t about dismissing the different and the new.
There’s value in a lot of them – despite the fact most of them aren’t new, just in possession of a new name.
This is actually about being stubborn with the priorities …
Because an idea isn’t wrapping, it’s the fucking present.
Have a good weekend … we have Monday off here, so see you Tuesday.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Colenso, Comment, Consultants, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Happiness, Honesty, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Metallica, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Politics, Premium, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Rick Rubin, RulesOfRubin, Standards, Uncommon, WeigelCampbell, Wieden+Kennedy
So I know I said last week was the last of the Rules By Rubin … but then I did also say there may be some more in the future.
Well consider this the future.
Shit isn’t it?
Don’t worry, it’s just for today and tomorrow then we go back to normal.
So just as shit. Sorry.
Anyway this is about the state of the creative industry.
Whereas once, it was filled with companies all wanting to create wonderful things to put into the world – regardless of their individual discipline or expertise – the emergence of consultancies has led to the industry now falling into 2 groups
Those who can’t help finding ways to put creativity out into the world in interesting ways and those who seemingly do all they can to never put anything out whatsoever.
While I sort-of understand the theory why agencies would like the idea of being like a consultancy, what I’ve found especially bizarre is that in doing that, they’re seemingly happy to dismiss making any actual creativity at all.
At first I was really confused how they thought they’d stay in business.
I mean, there are as many competitors as there are in adland.
Their entire model is designed around making actual creative work.
The lack of C-Suite engagement is more individual than entire industry.
Then I thought maybe I was completely wrong.
That they did want to make work.
After all, why else would their excellent strategists continually write 100 page decks filled with charts, ecosystems, frameworks and playbooks to every single client meeting?
Surely that is a sign of a company actually wanting to make something.
But then on closer inspection, I saw a lot of those decks had no creativity mentioned in them whatsoever.
And the conversation around audience was simplistic, generalist and utterly contrived.
In essence, they talked a hell of a lot but actually said very little.
“What the hell was going on?” I would ask myself.
And then on a cold night one Wednesday, I worked it out.
Those planners aren’t writing strategic decks, they’re creating remuneration landfill.
Thank fuck for the others.
The ones who know who they are.
The ones who push rather than pander.
The ones who create opportunities not wait for them.
The ones who run to the edge rather than run on the spot.
The ones who finish interesting things to start making more interesting things.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, China, Chinese Culture, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Insight, Marketing, Nike, olympics, Resonance, Shanghai, Sport, Wieden+Kennedy
I have now had time to get over the Euro finals.
While my Italian/English heritage meant I was going to ‘win’ regardless of the result – and while the result, at least to me, was probably fair – I was gutted for the England team.
Ironically, the disgusting behaviour of the fans after the match – fired up by the equally disgusting behaviour of the British government – kind-of made me happy they lost.
It’s at these moments teams – or brands – can fall away and so what happens next becomes unbelievably important.
It reminded me of 2008 when Chinese hurdler – and gold medal contender – Liu Xiang, broke China’s hearts by injuring himself during the race.
Remember, this was the year the Olympics was held in Beijing and in many ways, it was the governments ‘coming out’ party to the rest of the World. A chance to showcase the nations abilities, talent, skills and sophistication. A declaration a new superpower was here.
While that might have been news to the rest of the World, for the people of China, they had known this for a long time which is why when Liu Xiang faltered through injury, people – like in the UK – started to turn on him.
While he did not face the disgusting and disgraceful racist abuse certain members of the England team have encountered, he did face claims that by pulling out mid-race, he had not tried hard enough, had embarrassed China and sold the people false hope.
Because Liu Xiang was a NIKE athlete, overnight W+K Shanghai created an ad that aimed to reframe the loss for the people across China.
To shift emotions from anger to pride, love, support.
The next morning, this ad ran in most of the papers …
It is still widely acknowledged as one of the pivotal pieces of communication.
Not just by the industry.
Not just by NIKE.
Not even by Liu Xiang.
But by people across China who woke up to that ad the next morning.
Turning anger to sympathy.
Turning abuse to respect.
Turning sport into culture.
I say all this because on the day England finished runners-up in the Euro’s, the English FA released – what I consider – the modern version of our Liu Xiang ad.
I hope it works for England and their players.
But mainly the players.
Because they did bring something home …
Every one of them.
Pride. Unity. Hope.
Until those racist fucks robbed it off them … off the rest of us.
And while the media may like to suggest those responsible are a small minority of hooligans, the reality is it’s not a small minority and hooligans are not some cartoon villain.
In fact the problem is these pricks live amongst all of us. They are invisible because they look, live and work like so many of us. They’re fathers. Sons. Brothers. Uncles.
They’re also racist scum.
Exemplified by their hate towards the 3 England players who missed their penalties.
These 3 brilliant and inspiring men are young.
Hell, Bukayo Saka is 19.
NINETEEN.
At that age I couldn’t even ask out a woman who worked on the till at Asda, West Bridgford … so anyone who gives him shit when he’s playing for the England national football team, in the final of the Euro’s, at the most intense and pressured moment of the entire tournament, with billions watching can just fuck off.
Winning FIFA 2014 on Playstation doesn’t make you a winner, it makes you a fantasist.
And to them I am glad football didn’t come home.
I just wish football could take them far away from it.