Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Brand, Communication Strategy, Conformity, Creativity, Culture, Emotion
John Dodds sent me this a few weeks ago:
LLMs reward clarity and credibility. Your brand language should be concise, benefit-led, and evidence-backed. In a world of agentic commerce in which AI mediates consumer choice, trust shifts from being a feeling about a brand to an attribute of its data.
Why he sent it to me is unknown, but he has been doing that for decades and I always appreciate it.
However the key for me in what he sent is specifically this bit:
‘Trust shifts from being a feeling about a brand to an attribute of its data’.
There’s 2 reasons for that:
The first is people are more likely to connect to a brand based on the quality of their understanding on who they are interacting and/or engaging with [ie: the data they hold on the needs/wants/desires/loves of their audience].
Second is it’s pretty much always been the case.
It’s why there’s brands people know and there’s brands people go out of their way to have in their life.
It’s also why there’s arguably been a reduction in the amount of brands that people ‘love’ – probably because instead of focusing on who they are, who they’re for and what the culture around their category is doing or care about, they’ve fallen for the lowest common denominator, paint-by-numbers, repeat-for-every-category-and-audience, self-interest, outsourced-for-profit schtick of ‘guru’s’ who have never built, worked for or created communication for brands that people adore and care deeply about.
Or said another way …
Here’s another example of someone championing ‘new’, without realizing they’re just rehashing the old. Probably because they don’t know it, understand it or know what to do with it to make it magical rather than just even more functional.
The old adage I always return to is this:
If you want people to give a shit about you, maybe start by giving a shit about them.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apple, Attitude & Aptitude, Auckland, Brand, Brand Suicide, Clients, Clothes, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Craft, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Design, Details, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, Fans, Fashion, Film, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Media, Mediocrity, Metallica, Netflix, New Zealand, Premium, Privilege, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Respect, Standards, Steve Jobs
For 50 years, I never dressed particularly fashionably.
I had a ‘style’, but it was never one people looked at and thought, “I want to dress like that”.
Questionable t-shirts, ripped jeans and a pair of birkies tend to have that reaction.
Part of this is because growing up, I was never exposed to anything ‘fancy’. Despite my Mum being Italian and going to Italy a lot … my version of designer clothing was stuff from Burton’s and C&A and nothing more.
But over the years, I got more and more exposed to the high-end fashion houses.
Projects with Prada and Chanel introduced me to people, stories and experiences that taught me there was far more to who they were than big prices and even bigger pretentiousness. But even that was not enough to convince me this was something for me.
Hell, I still remember the utter shock I felt when I heard a mate tell me they’d spent 70 quid on a t-shirt.
Sure, this was a 1000 years ago, but back then I didn’t know how that was even possible.
T-shirts were 3 for a few quid from Asda so what on earth could justify 70 pounds for a single tee???
And that was how things carried on for decades until 2 events happened in my life:
I got healthy and I started working for the most successful and influential luxury and street-fashion investor on the planet.
And with those 2 things, everything changed …
I got to go behind the scenes of the highest level of the industry.
I got to talk to the creative directors of the houses and labels who define global fashion.
I got to meet the people who create, curate and craft the experiences that define how fashion makes us feel.
But most of all, (1) I could now actually fit in their clothes and (2) my client sent me shitloads of them for free.
Of course, I appreciate how lucky I am for that – and I massively appreciate that they were doing it to ‘keep encouraging me on my health journey’. But – and I say this with utter love and respect for them – I can’t help the real reason is because they didn’t want me turning up to their big meetings and fancy events dressed like a trainwreck. What maybe triggered this was the time I found myself sitting next to Phoebe Philo, ex-creative director of Celine and founder of her own label, who – on seeing my t-shirt, featuring a cat logo – said:
“I love this, who is it by?”
To which I replied:
“My son made it, and that’s our cat”.
To be fair, she was brilliant but I can’t help but imagine she was also thinking, “who the fuck is this nutter I’m next to?”
Bit like the time I was in the lift with members of the Prada family.
They were – literally – the best dressed people I had ever seen in my entire life.
Me? I was wearing ripped jeans, some Nike’s and a hoodie probably from Asda.
Again, they were kind, warm and welcoming – and never once did I feel judged, in fact the opposite – but it was not long after that I started receiving a lot of fancy clothes – hahaha.
But the point of this post is not that I am more fashionably dressed person than I’ve ever been in my life.
Nor is it that I am one of the luckiest bastards on the planet.
No, it’s that the last few years have completely changed my perspective of the industry.
Where once I may have just seen it as pricey and poncy, I now have a deep appreciation, understanding and respect it..
The creativity, the craft, the inspiration, the statements, the history, the details, the obsession.
Put simply, the belief that EVERY detail matters, no matter how big or small.
Steve Jobs once talked about the importance of ‘painting behind the fence’ – the belief that even if no one ever sees or recognizes the care and consideration you have put into your work, you know and that matters – and in many ways, he could have been describing the luxury fashion industry.
You only has to watch the Netflix Documentary ‘7 Days’ – specifically the episode about Chanel’s couture catwalk show – and you’ll see how much thought goes into how every single detail is presented.
Not simply because image is important to them, but because they want to honour the work they have created.
Make sure it is represented, seen and felt exactly as intended and created.
It is a similar approach Metallica have to their music.
It’s why they bought the best vinyl printing plants in the World.
It’s why they invested in the best live concert sound-system in the World.
It’s why they own the rights to all the music they create and have ever created.
It’s not ego. It’s not hyping. It’s about ensuring they honour the work they’ve made so everyone experiences it exactly as intended, versus letting someone else determine that.
So where the fuck is this all going?
Well, it’s because recently I saw this.
Yep, it’s a billboard for the movie Devil Wears Prada 2.
BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THAT IMAGE???
How is a movie centered around the world of luxury fashion and media using such a badly designed, stretched and distorted billboard like that?!
Looking online, I can tell you that’s not the official image – at least as far as I can tell – plus I should point out the image has accentuated the lines of the digital billboard, which weren’t visible to the human eye.
But that aside, the image used looks like someone at the local distributor, media agency or billboard company decided, for reasons I don’t understand, to create – or adapt – their own version of the official artwork; the result of which is a visual that makes Devil Wears Prada 2 seems more Poundland than Prada.
Which highlights two very important reminders:
1. Everything communicates who you are and what you value.
2. For the best result, make sure all who work for you – or with you –know who you are and what you value.
I’m not saying price or speed doesn’t matter, of course it does … but what price does sloppiness, misunderstanding or a need-for-speed end up costing?
And to those who say that doesn’t matter, because no one cares … I say this in return.
Not only do you not understand marketing …
Not only do you not care about your company …
You sure as shit don’t understand your customers.
Which gives us one final thing to remember …
For all the systems, processes and marketing practice methodologies you can use … if you forget who its for and what its for, then you’re truly wasting your money.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Banks, Brand, Brand Suicide, Clients, Comment, Communication Strategy, Consultants, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Embarrassing Moments, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Microsoft, Money, Perspective, Process, Relationships, Reputation, Standards, Stupid, Technology
Over the 20 years of writing this blog, I’ve written a bunch of posts about corporate stupidity.
But of all the things I’ve seen or been exposed to, one act stands above all: when they try to gaslight their customers into believing the removal of a product and/or service, is a demonstration of how much they value and care about their customers.
We’ve seen it with ANZ Bank … when they tried to say reducing bank account interest to basically nothing, was their way of aiding financial responsibility.
We’ve seen it with NIKE … when they claimed the best way to serve their customers was to stop customers being able to order NIKE products from overseas and closing down their app.
And now this …
Yep … Microsoft are saying that to prove they’re always IMPROVING their Microsoft 365 service – a service millions pay a monthly subscription for – they are going to remove a feature that many people use.
That’s right, contrary to popular interpretation, they have decided improvement means deletion, which begs the question – whose ‘improvement’ are they talking about? Something tells me it’s their bank account.
OK, so they say that many – but not all – of the features are available in other products that you get as part of your subscription, but this is just bullshit.
They don’t tell people what those products are.
They don’t tell people how to use them in a way that will give them what they were using Microsoft Publisher for.
They don’t even fucking help you transfer all your existing Microsoft Publisher documents and files into something you can use – or turn to – later.
Nope … all they do is say, “we’re going to stop putting money into this product, you better save them as pdf’s or you’ll lose them and – while we’re at it – you better learn how to educate yourself and adapt your products so they fit with what we’ve decided you need, even though we never asked you and keep charging you an increased subscription fee.
Surely they know this is the opposite of good service?
Surely they realise this is not ‘improving’ their product?
Surely they understand customers can see through this bullshit?
In some ways I hope they don’t, because while it would mean they’re thick-as-shit, it would also mean they’re at least not trying to gaslight us.
But I am afraid it might be both …
Because Microsoft’s ability to fuck themselves – and their customers – thanks to terrible decisions is legendary.
Windows Phones.
Bing Search.
The killing of Office.
The shit that is Teams.
Skype.
Nokia.
Co-Pilot.
And basically 99% of the UI of 99% of their products.
This is a company that wants us to believe their vision of AI is one that is good for humanity and yet their behavior is more Dictatorship than democracy.
But as I pointed out at the top of this post, they’re not alone. We’re constantly seeing companies attempting to gaslight their customers with claims that by deleting a service, they’re offering a better service … even though they don’t offer an alternative and if they do, it’s either not as good or costs even more.
Which demonstrates 4 things:
Many companies care more about maxing money than doing good things that earn them money.
Many companies are gaslighting themselves more than customers because we sure-as-shit aren’t falling for this rubbish.
Most companies demonstrate the corporate culture is all about managing up rather than doing what is actually right for their customers.
Most companies hire consultancies because they validate their bad behaviour rather than hold them to standards and expectations of customers.
Which is why when a company goes on about how good their NPS score is, remember – it’s coming from a faceless data point, based on an average of other players in their category – rather than the voice of customers and how they evaluate the service in terms of anything and everything they experience and endure in their day.
More proof that there’s lies, damn lies and not just statistics but customer data.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Conformity, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Retail
So I’m back and let’s start the week as I intend to go on. Kinda.
With the obsession of marketing practice, our towns and cities are increasingly being wrapped in advertising that all looks the same – just in different colours.
Doesn’t matter if it’s an ad for a bank, a car, a holiday destination or a cold and flu medicine … everything feels interchangeable, which results in people – ironically – being able to ‘tune them out’ rather than being attracted to how they stand out.
It’s why the thing that is increasingly capturing the attention and creating some sort of differentiation are the ‘walk-in’ signs designed by the people who either own the shops we walk past, or run them.
One of them I saw recently was this:
Is it brilliant? Not really.
It it it clever? A little, but not much.
Does the store have anything to do with Christopher Walken? Not at all.
But I tell you what, it caught my attention, made me smile and made me pay attention to it – and the store it was for – far more than I do with many of the dot-to-dot, paint-by-numbers ads that have been tested to within an inch of their life to ensure the message achieves maximum comprehension, does not – in any way – offend or alienate audiences and hits every category cue, brand ‘asset’ and ‘purchase driver’ to ensure the people behind it can tell their bosses it ‘achieved all the metrics’, even if no one in the real world paid the slightest bit of attention to it whatsoever.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know there’s a world of difference between developing the communication for a major, national/internation brand and doing a ‘walk-in’ sign for a local suburb – but somewhere along the line, we seem to have forgotten the point of ads is to stand out, not blend in which is why it might be a good time to end this post by dusting off this quote by the great Mr Weigel,
‘You can be as relevant as hell and still be boring as fuck’.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Community, Complicity, Conformity, Consultants, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Management, Marketing Fail, Planes, Planning, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect
Way back in 2006 I wrote a post about what exclusivity means.
Not the marketing version of it … but what the people who can afford to have it, really want and expect from it.
The reality is this group of people don’t care about showing – or sharing – their success with the masses. They don’t have any desire to be ‘aspirational’. In fact what they want couldn’t be more different – because all they really seek is to keep the masses as far away from them as is physically possible.
I entitled the post, FUCK YOU MONEY, but really it should have been called FUCK OFF MONEY … because that’s the spirit that defines exclusivity to them. The ability to live in a world where the only people around them are equal people.
Or said another way, they like to practice economic racism.
It’s part of the reason LVMH lost cache in China when they opened stores in lower-tier cities.
It’s part of the reason Bentley lost long-term customers when they became the car-of-choice for rappers.
And it’s part of the reason why Air New Zealand have scored a massive own goal with their most valuable customers with this billboard rolling out all across NZ.
For those who don’t know what Koru is … it’s Air New Zealand’s new Frequent Flyer Program and Koru Black is their highest tier.
To be fair to Air NZ, Koru is genuinely one of the best frequent flyer programs of any airline in the World … so with that in mind, I get why they think offering the public the opportunity to get more points to get closer to ‘black status’ is appealing.
However, it isn’t for the fuckers who already have achieved that status.
For them, they’ll not only see it as Air NZ allowing more people to be part of their club’, they’ll see it as Air NZ allowing ‘lesser people’ to be part of it given they ‘won’ their place via a promotion rather than ‘earned the right to be there’ as they will no doubt tell themselves they achieved
Is that bollocks?
Sure, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think it, which is why one of the best bits of airline research I’ve ever read was when the wonderful David Lin – who worked for me at Wieden, and is now Mr Important at Apple – told me that ‘business class was the politest way to say ‘fuck off’ to everyone who always wanted their time or attention.
But there’s more …
Because added to this is the fact many Koru Black members feel annoyed they already have to share ‘their’ airport lounge facilities with people from other airlines who happen to hold a business class ticket – which results in situations where there’s no seats available to rest in – and you start to think Air NZ may not understand their top customers as much as they may like to think they do.
What makes it worse is that it would have been so easy to discover …
The main one being just sit in the airport lounge and listen to the conversations when it’s full.
But it seems they didn’t. Or haven’t. Because what else would explain their disastrous decision to set all ‘black tier’ customers frequent flyer points to zero when they launched Koru.
Sure, they did a u-turn on when they discovered how angry it had made customers … but they still did it, which not only undermined their launch, but left customer with a horrible taste in their mouth they’ll remember for a long time.
I mean, you’d think it would be obvious to not do that, but apparently it wasn’t – which not only suggests Air NZ put their faith in the wrong research and creative partners – not to mention are incapable of evaluating standards with an objective, global perspective – it highlights how you can have all the data in the world, but if you don’t look for, or understand, the fucked-up, hypocritical truth of your customers, you’ve got nothing.
Also see every research company who announced with the upmost confidence that Trump wasn’t going to win the Presidency in his first term … either because they were arrogant, blinkered or simply failed to understand people rarely tell you what they think, instead they tell you what they think will protect them from revealing what they really believe.