Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Clients, Colenso, Colleagues, Consultants, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Planners, Planning
A few weeks ago, I was writing the Colenso strat gang plan for 2026.
What we want to do.
What we want to change.
What we want to break.
What we want to create.
In doing that, I wanted to reference what we had experienced in 2025 against what mates at other agencies around the World had gone through. Not to compare necessarily, more to understand their perspective of what was happening.
Now, despite the fact I have a reputation for never being satisfied, I knew we’d had a pretty good year.
Not maybe by the measure others value, but by a lot of things I do.
Of course there’s things we can, should and need to improve – and we will – but overall, we’d built a foundation of interesting things that was good by any criteria.
Or so I thought …
You see, I spoke to a friend of mine in the US and when I told them some of the stuff we’d done, they kept saying …
“How did you make that much stuff?”
At first I thought they were either being kind or mistakenly believed that because NZ is so small, it’s impossible for the entire industry to produce more than one thing a year … but that wasn’t it at all.
Despite them working in America.
Despite them working in a big agency.
Despite them working on a massive client.
They’d produced nothing.
Nada.
Zero.
Zilch.
Actually, that’s not quite right … because they did tell me they had produced something.
In fact over 60 somethings …
Presentation decks.
For the same idea.
Which the client still didn’t buy.
Now you may assume with that many presentations, my friend is a fucking idiot. But you’d be wrong because she’s utterly brilliant. But – as I’ve written before – this is where we’re at these days. Endless presentations to endless people in endless departments just to get the smallest bit of work through.
But as mad as that is, it’s not as mad as this …
Despite no one making much work, they told me how everyone is as busy-as-fuck.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think they’re just creating, shuffling or editing papers”.
Now I’m not saying we’re immune from writing the odd needless presentation at Colenso …
Nor am I saying we’ve not beem asked to present the same deck to different ‘stakeholders’ within the same organisation a multitude of times over the years …
And if the reason for it is because the client spotted or questioned things in the agencies thinking that the agency hadn’t so they had to go back and keep updating it to re-present it … I get it.
But over 60 times?
For the same campaign?
That never moved forward?
If that’s the case, either the client is bad or the agency is.
Who is paying for this shit? Why are we letting this happen? It’s not just utterly inefficient, it’s utterly soul-destroying.
Worse, it also is completely destroying the value, reputation, purpose of our entire industry.
I get consultancies can operate this way – because ultimately, they get paid to offer advice rather than apply it – but we are an industry made for making, creating and doing.
That we are often positioned by business and procurement departments as ‘costly and unprofessional’ while they happily pay salaries to whole departments who never move anything forward or to consultancies who never take any responsibility blows my mind.
So while hearing the situation my friend found themselves could have made me look at the things we achieved in ’25 with a slightly more positive gaze, it served more as a cautionary tale. Because what we’re seeing is the marketing industry potentially turning more and more into the worst of the legal industry … where the goal isn’t to get the right result, but to keep the problem going.
Not because – as is the case with law – it keeps the money rolling in.
But because it keeps mediocrity feeling important and looking busy.
Hell, with this news, I may be nicer to my clients and colleagues from now on.
Emphasis on ‘may’. Hahaha.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Business, Clients, Colleagues, Leadership, Management, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Technology
It’s March. Bloody March.
And it’s also Monday. How much change can one person deal with?!
Anyway, when I was young, I had 3 ways to be sociable.
1. Go outside and see who was there.
2. Go to a friends house and knock on their door.
3. Ring my friends house and see if they were in.
That. Was. It.
And you know what … I did the second one most of all.
Didn’t matter what day it was.
Didn’t matter what time it was [as long as it wasn’t at ‘dinner time’ and/or after 8pm]
Didn’t even matter where they lived. I did it … and so did every other kid I knew.
And it’s because of this, we were OK with whatever the outcome was … mainly because we went with hope rather than expectation. So even if they were in but weren’t allowed out, you’d of had some sort of physical interaction to work out where you stood.
I say this because someone recently sent me this …
… and I wondered if people even know how to do this anymore, let alone do it anymore?
Yes, I know you only have to like an update on Linkedin to get some fucker sending you an unsolicited message … but I’m not talking about those pricks, I’m talking about people who put themselves out there and engage someone in person, rather than hide behind emails, text messages or DM’s?
Maybe you think that because my generation are the last who HAD to do this, we’d still be OK with doing this … but truth be told, if someone so much as knocks on our door unannounced – be it friends or family – most of us would have to be physically restrained from calling the Police on their ass.
On one level, I get it … why put yourself in a position of awkwardness when you can find other ways to do it that are less confronting or confrontational. Except by outsourcing our interest to technology – or an intermediary – we lose something.
A way to show the other person matters.
A way to show you’ve really thought about what you want to say or do.
A way to show you’re willing to fail to say something you hope they’ll value.
I have a client who only deals in the face-to-face.
Sure, you can make an appointment to see him, but his attitude is if someone goes out of their way to come and see him, they’re worth more than those who only engage behind tech.
Even more so, if they only engage when they ‘want something’ – albeit wrapped up in the claims of ‘opportunity’.
Sure, it’s pretty old school, and he’s pretty old … though to be fair, the artists I work for also want their core team present for the big meetings rather than be on zoom etc – but that’s not why he does it [and I assume why they don’t either] because for him it’s all about trust and respect. By that I mean ‘earning it’ and ‘proving it’.
And maybe that’s the biggest difference between then and now.
Because back then, you knew you had to earn the right to have a chance of letting good happen. Now, too many expect it.
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, 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.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cliches, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Complicity, Conformity, Context, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Life, Linkedin, Luck, Mediocrity, Popularity, Relevance, Reputation, Respect
As we approach the end of the first month of 2026 – and I have to be up very, very early – I thought I’d drop this now and end ‘January’ on a rant. Except it’s a rant of hope, rather than pain. Maybe – hahaha.
Life is tough.
It’s demanding, challenging and expensive.
Some are dealt a very good hand, most have to deal with what they’re given.
It’s because of this, we look for things that let us feel we’re doing something right.
It might be putting food on the table.
It might be buying fashion or tech.
It might be progressing your career.
I am not here to judge anyone on that, we’re all dealing with our own shit and what gets us through, gets us through.
However, where it does bother me, is how this is increasingly being presented on platforms like Linkedin.
When I look there, it feels the ambition is to achieve ‘ultimate professional clout’.
Now I get ‘clout’ is old terminology … but it seems to capture the attitude of many, perfectly.
Be THE leader.
Be THE role model.
Be THE most popular.
Be THE judge of what matters.
Be THE most successful person.
To be honest, I find it all a bit repulsive – especially as it seems to be all about celebrating attitude, behaviour and bravado over anything more tangible and meaningful – but again, if it works for them so be it. After all, this need for pedestal posturing is hardly a new phenomenon, as I wrote about it – albeit not related to Linkedin – way back in 2012.
However, where it does become a problem to me is in terms of the message it sends out to the upcoming colleague.
Especially the next gen of marketing/advertising colleague.
In some ways, they’ve got their shit much better worked out than I ever did – as demonstrated by the ‘great resignation’, that was really the ‘great reset‘. However, as I wrote not that long ago, there’s a hell of a lot of people out there who think ‘success’ is far more about acting like a ‘thought leader’ than doing and making stuff that makes people think.
It’s not their fault.
The platforms celebrate it.
The industry champions it.
The companies promote it.
Hell, the only training companies seem to do these days is generic, one-size-fits-all approaches everyone does … so they’re designed to make you fit in, rather than develop you to be able to stand out.
Which is why I want to sound the oldest fuck in the entire universe by leaving anyone thinking of working in my industry with this.
The marketing and advertising industry can be an incredible place. It has given me a life I could never have imagined. I’ve been able to work, collaborate and learn from people all over the World who are unbelievably talented and creative. It has provided me with chances and opportunities that have allowed me to expand who I am, without demanding I change who I am. And while I started in it before many of you were even born, it is still possible. Not easy, but still possible.
But while it is understandable you want to feel you fit in. While it is understandable you want to move up the ladder as quickly as you can. While it is understandable you want to increase the chances of success. While it is understandable you think you have loads of time to do all you want … the way to achieve it is not the way you are being told by everyone else.
Because the secret to this industry is to live the fullest life you can.
Not your work life, but your life. And there’s one major reason for that …
Because creativity – whether we’re talking about strategy, production, media, account management, design – is born, nurtured and crafted through your exposure to experiences.
The people you meet.
The places you go.
The stories you hear.
The concerts you see.
The food you eat.
The books you read.
The museums you visit.
The history you learn.
The lessons you try.
The shit you get up to.
Because all of it – every single bit – somehow comes together and help forge YOUR opinion, rather than mimic everyone else’s.
Basically, the bigger the life, the more you’ll breed your own originality, independence. ideas, craft and voice.
Please note I’m not saying you can just piss about and it will all work out. While openness and spontaneity has a role to play, it’s a deliberate act. You are making a conscious choice. Because whoever you are … growing, learning, expanding and just doing fun and interesting shit takes a lot of hard work.
That doesn’t mean I’m saying you should work all hours in the office, but by the same token, you shouldn’t have the attitude you’re only going to put in effort to better yourself when someone is paying you for it. Sure, companies should absolutely be helping people develop outside of their generic, outsourced, annual training program … but if you don’t want to aid to your own development – by that, I mean exposing yourself to the biggest life you can [as detailed above] – then you’re not denying your potential, you’re undermining it and, without wishing to sounds a total prick, you deserve what you won’t get.
Which is why, if you read only one thing I ever write – and I’ve written a fuckton about this sort of thing over the 19+ years I’ve been churning out this blog – it’s this.
The secret to success is defining it on your terms, not on the Ranters of Linkedin™.
Here is the model on how to get there …
