Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity
First post of the 20th year of this blog … and it may even be good.
Or less shit than 99% of the last 20 years of posts.
Plus – and here’s the added bonus, especially for a Monday, I’m away for work for the rest of the week – so this is the only post you’re going to have to endure. If only the rest of my ‘post-20 years’ blogging was the same. Except it won’t. Not yet anyway. [Cue: Evil Laugh]
Anyway …
A few weeks ago, The Guardian interviewed David Chase – creator of The Sopranos, widely acknowledged as one of the best pieces of television in the history of television.
He’s a fascinating character – strong willed, challenging, complicated, textured, stubborn and opinionated – but always grounded in a desire to do the right thing, the right way.
Which may explain his open distain for the attitude, approach and behaviour of so many television executives as this quote captures perfectly.
[As an aside, my Dad once told me when he was starting out in law, he was advised by a senior partner to “get used to eating client shit”. Apparently, when he asked why, he was told it was how to get rich to which he apparently replied, “I’d rather eat my own shit and be able to look at myself in the mirror” … which not only highlights how every industry suffers from egotistical and delusional leadership, but I am far too similar to my Dad than even I may have suspected – haha]
Anyway, as the world is all a bit shit right now and all our industry ‘leaders’ are talking about is ‘efficiency and productivity’ [read: so they can justify cutting jobs for AI and pretend they’re business geniuses, even though – as David Chase also said – most C-Suite are like Golden Retrievers, licking their customers faces every night and asking ‘do you like me?’] I thought I’d offer a bit of a Monday antidote to all this bleakness.
OK, if truth be told, it won’t fix the trajectory we’re all heading – we need to come together do that – but if you believe in the craft of storytelling and know the pain of dealing with corporate leaders who know fuck-all about what quality is, let alone what it takes to create it [but think they do because they’ve mistakenly/conveniently decided their ‘big title’ represents ‘superior wisdom’ when often, it’s more about their willingness to exploit others for the benefits of their bottom line] … this will make you feel all warm inside as you read how even Grade-A, internal-fuckery can’t always stop greatness from being able to flourish.
How’s that for inspiring a better Monday morning?
You can read David’s interview here. Enjoy.
Filed under: 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Advertising [Planning] School On The Web, Agency Culture, Anniversary, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Authenticity, Bangkok Shakes, Bank Ads, Bassot, BBH, Billionaire, Birkenhead, Birkenstocks, Birthday, Black Lives Matter, Bonnie, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brian Clough, British, Business, Campaign Magazine, Canada, Cannes, Career, Cats, Chaos, Charinee, Childhood, Children, China, Chris Jaques, Clients, Clothes, Colenso, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Community, Complicity, Confidence, Conformity, Content, Context, Contribution, Corona Virus, Corporate Gaslighting, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Cynic, Dad, Daddyhood, David Terry, Death, Deutsch, Din Tai Fung, Disney, Distinction, Dog, Dolly, Dream Bigger, Dream Small, Dysgraphia, Education, Egovertising, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, Empathy, England, Entertainment, Experience, Family, Fatherhood, Fear, Football, Freddie, Freelance, Friendship, Fulfillment, Gaming, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Goodbye England, Goose Fair, Government, Grand announcements, Happiness, Harmony, Headers, HHCL, Holiday, Home, Hong Kong, Hope, HSBC, human_2, Imagination, Immaturity, Important Birthdays, India, Innocence, Innovation, Insight, Internet, Interviews, Italy, Japan, Jaques, Jill, Jillyism, Jorge, Katie, Kev, LaLaLand, Leadership, Linkedin, Logic, London, Love, Loyalty, Luck, Luxury, Management, Marcus, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Martin Weigel, Maya, Mediocrity, Mental Health, Metallica, Michael Jordan, Michael Mann, Miley, Mr Ji, Mum, Mum & Dad, Music, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Netflix, New Zealand, NHS, Northern, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Nurses, olympics, OnStrategy, Otis, Parents, Paul, Paula, Pearl Jam, Perspective, Photography, Planes, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Police, Popularity, Prams, Prejudice, Pretentious Rubbish, Pride, Process, Professionalism, Queen, R/GA, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Rick Rubin, Rockstar Games, Rodi, RoObin, Ros, Rosie, RulesOfRubin, Shanghai, Shelly, Si Vicars, Silvana, Singapore, Sport, Spotify, Starbucks, Steve Jobs, Strategy, Stubborness, Stupid, Success, Sunshine, Sydney, Taboo Categories, Talent, Tattoo, Technology, The Kennedys, The Kennedys Shanghai, Toxic Positivity, Uncorporated, Virgin Atlantic, Viz, Wedding, WeigelCampbell, Wieden+Kennedy
Yes, it’s Friday.
And yes, it’s the first of May.
But neither of those things are as incredible as this …
You see, on Sunday, it will be 20 years since I started this blog.
TWENTY BLOODY YEARS!
That’s before the iPhone.
And Android.
And Facebook.
And the Kindle.
And the financial crisis.
And before Pluto lost its planet creds.
AND BEFORE WI-FI WAS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE … so a very long time ago.
I still remember why I started it …
It wasn’t for any attempt for notoriety or popularity, it was more to do with survival.
You see I’d got a job that – frankly – I was woefully under-qualified for, and because it demanded so much of my time and energy to make sure I didn’t completely fuck it up, I needed an outlet for all the ideas and thoughts that were going around my head that I just didn’t feel were right for what I needed to do at that time.
Not because I was sure I was going to use them later … more because I needed to feel I was still connected to the stuff I loved while also believing that if I didn’t find a way to get them out of my head, they’d maybe be no more space left for anything new to enter my head.
And so this blog was born.
Reading through the first few posts not only reveals the times we were living in, but also the headspace I was in.
Trying to balance making sense of stuff happening around me while also needing an outlet for stuff I was feeling or thinking … which, in many ways, set the tone for how this blog has been for over 2 decades.
Which George recently described as, “the blog version of TK Maxx”.
He’s not wrong … and in some ways, I really like that.
Sure, among the almost 5000 posts I’ve written, there’s a lot of [to keep the TK Maxx analogy going] cheap and nasty shit in there … but there’s also a few ‘designer label’ gems hidden amongst it all.
At least for me.
Stuff that made me think, challenge or question stuff in ways that I had not imagined or considered before.
Stuff that ended up impacting how I did things and how I still do things.
Stuff that forced me to articulate what I believe, not just what I feel.
Maybe those posts meant nothing to anyone but me. Hell, maybe no one even read them. But while every post I’ve written reflects something about who I was – or am – those ‘self-defined gems’ have a special place in my heart because they represent a moment where I felt I was growing and learning.
It’s why I always enjoyed the comment section, because for all the overwhelming piss-taking I received, the vast majority always ‘encouraged’ me to look deeper, wider or longer at issues I’d written about. And I loved that. I loved how the people who commented always kept me on my toes … which is why one of the unexpected pleasures of writing this blog for so long has been seeing how my opinion on certain subjects has changed or evolved over the years. It’s served as a great reminder about the importance of always exposing yourself to others perspectives, opinions, experiences and standards, even if the goal of it is simply to be really sure about what you think or believe.
In many ways, that’s the biggest surprise of 20 years writing this blog.
I never expected anyone to comment on anything I wrote, because I started it just for me.
A private place to express my thoughts and idiocy.
But then Andy discovered it and he sent an email to everyone at Cynic and some of our clients announcing it and then the mayhem started.
At that point, blogging had become a big thing. A good thing. A community of people who wanted to help and contribute to what others were doing. A lot of this was down to the great Russell Davies and his iconic blog … a place that not only brought people from all over the world together, but inspired others to start writing their own as well.
It was a place that not only exposed me to a lot of brilliant people I’d never have known about without his blog – people like Gareth Kay, Paul Colman, Northern Planner, Rob Mortimer, Marcus, John Dodds, Lauren, Age to name but a few – it also brought people to my blog who helped add to the texture, lessons and perspectives I was writing about.
I will forever be grateful to Russell for that … especially as most of the people he inadvertently introduced me to, not only still exist in my life but I have met them all IN THE FLESH.
Alas the blogging community, like most things in life, has moved on with maybe only Martin and I still churning stuff out via that platform. [Well, he curates, I churn] And while technologies advances allows strategists to be even more connected in even more ways, the energy of the community is not the same as it was back in the early days of blogging.
Now it feels more aggressive.
More sharp elbows and self publicizing.
Wanting the spotlight on them rather than the work they do.
But then, the industry seems to value those who talk about the work more than those who actually make it … which kind-of highlights why the industry is in the state it finds itself in but refuses to acknowledge.
Emperor’s New Clothes anyone?!
Screenshot
That this blog is 20 years old blows my mind. I never thought it would last that long, mainly because I never gave much thought about how long I’d be writing the thing. It’s not always been fun – when I was receiving a lot of anonymous hate that resulted in me deciding to stop allowing comments was definitely a low point – but all in all, the whole experience has been pretty glorious.
In many ways, this is one of the longest committed relationships I’ve ever had.
And one of the most successful, hahaha.
The fact there are some people who have been reading it for almost as long as I have been writing it, is madness.
Have they no taste?
Have they got nothing better to do?
Or maybe they’re stuck in prison and this is part of their ‘sentence’.
The good news for them is there’s no way this will still be a ‘going concern’ in another 20 years … at least not in terms of how regular I’ve been writing posts for the past 2 decades. Not because I am running out of things to say [albeit Andy said I have only ever written 3 posts and just keep re-writing them in different ways] but because I’ll be – hopefully – doing other things with my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always be grateful to advertising … it has given me a life I never could have dared to imagine … but I am increasingly spending more and more of my time working and collaborating with artists and I feel that’s where my future may be. Not because I don’t love what I do, but because I find their definition and expression of creativity even more interesting, challenging, open, provocative and progressive than where our industry is choosing to head.
But that’s not going to happen yet. Hell, it may not happen at all – I could get fired by all the artists tomorrow for all I know – which is why for the time being, I’ll keep happily juggling my two ‘lives’ while churning out daily blog posts at the same time.
Sorry, hahaha.
That said, the point of continuing this blog is different to what you may think and why I originally started it.
Because while it has helped me grow, learn, make new friends and even help build my professional reputation [which is hilarious when you read some of the stuff I’ve churned out, like this!] … it delivers something that is even more important to me.
Connection to my family.
I know … I know … that sounds weird-as-fuck, but what I mean is this:
A few years ago, Jill said that while she rarely ever reads my blog, when she does – she can hear my voice because of the way I write.
Put simply, how I write is how I talk … so when she reads my posts, it feels like I’m with her.
And she liked that.
Add to this that I’ve shared deeply personal and important moments in my life – from getting engaged to getting married, to Mum dying, to becoming a Dad, to getting Rosie – and Bonnie – to saying a tearful goodbye to Rosie, to moving from Singapore to HK to China to America to London to New Zealand [so far] … which means moving from cynic/WPP to Sunshine to Wieden+Kennedy to Deutsch to R/GA to Colenso [not to mention all the other highs and lows that have impacted or been introduced to my life over this period, be it death, covid, friends, family, health, books, chaos, and/or multitudes of weird, wild, crazy shit] … and this blog is no longer just a place where I rant rubbish, it’s a place my family can have me close even when I’m no longer here.
That means a lot to me.
Not because I want them to need me, but because I like knowing they can access me should they ever need me.
Or if Otis ever wants to introduce me to whoever becomes important in his life.
It’s why I’m going to keep writing it and why I’m going to move it to a free domain again, to make sure it always stay up … because what originally was a place just for me, has become a place that offers connection to the most important people to me.
And with that, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has ever visited or commented.
Whether you meant it or not, you’ve given me far more than I ever imagined or hoped for.
Thank you. Love you. Grateful for you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Colleagues, Comment, Complicity, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Planes, Planners, Planning, Process, Success, Teamwork
I appreciate the title of this post may suggest I am advocating kissing colleagues or clients – but HR and legal executives around the world, stand down – because this is a post that reminds us of the importance of, Keeping It Simple, Stupid.
Phew.
Anyway, years ago, one of my mentors – the wonderful Lee Hill – told me something that had a profound effect on me.
“When their solution is more complicated than your problem, why would you do it?”
The point he was making was there are a lot of companies out there who care more about showing-off how smart they are than addressing their clients actual need and so the result is they propose a lot of ‘complexity’ to either justify their price or to satisfy their ego.
There’s one place in my past that embodied this.
300-page decks.
Incredible amounts of technical detail.
An emphasis on their approach more than the problem.
Don’t get me wrong, they were good, had a bunch of talented people and did some truly brilliant work … however the problem [at least for me] was that every challenge ended up being approached in basically the same way because their way was to fit every client problem into how they worked rather than adapt their way of working to solve what the client problem actually needed.
By that, I’m not suggesting they should only have looked for simplistic solutions.
Nor am I suggesting they should have ignored their specific skills and talent.
And I’m not in any way suggesting they didn’t want to help their clients.
However, while you could argue many companies approach their work in a similar way, they were the only ones who seemed to revel in actively showing how complicated their ‘solutions’ were, which may explain why they revered consultancies more than creativity and why there was as much complexity inside the organization as there was in their recommendations.
Which reminds me of a story I’ve told many times:
Decades ago, the US navy were looking for a new fighter jet.
Over a series of days, the admiralty invited executives from the main fighter plane developers to come pitch their ideas.
Each day, a mass of engineers would walk into a room featuring a long table surrounded by highly awarded officers to explain why their plane was the one they should invest the billions of US tax dollars into.
On the last day, 3 people from Lockhead Martin walked into the room.
One went up to the end of the table, produced a ball-bearing and – in true Hollywood style – rolled it down the table.
As it slowly passed the Navy Officers, he stated:
“Gentleman, would you like a fighter jet that registers the size of this ball-bearing on the enemies’ radar? These gentlemen will explain how we can do it”.
They won the contract, which resulted in the iconic A-12.
The point of this is their approach was centered on identifying the clients real need – where all the other shit was stripped away – which allowed them to address the problem in a way where their solution could clearly, simply and powerfully express a focused benefit.
No complexity.
No ambiguity.
Just clarity.
Of course, building a plane is as complex-as-fuck, but by doing it this way everyone was not just focused on the prize, but united in the key objective.
Or as Michael Mann, the film director once told me:
“I explain how I see the movie I want to make to all the people in the team and ask them to bring their talent to make it even better than I hoped. But I remind them it’s how I see the movie, not how they wish I saw the movie”.
The point of this is because I saw something recently that I think is a brilliant example of ‘clarity thinking’.
Something I imagine that was full of challenges and complexity – both in terms of input and output – but has a solution that is compelling, unifying and simple for all parties and audiences.
This.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it takes a lot of hard work to be simple, but somewhere along the line, we seem to have forgotten that … and if you want proof of that, read some effectiveness papers, where it seems the goal is to bamboozle the reader rather than help them understand how everything leads to a single, simple, powerful solution.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Complicity, Creativity, Cunning, Management, Scam, Systems, Technology
A few weeks ago, I received this email.
I know it’s small – and blurry – so out of the kindness of my heart, let me replicate what it says:
Hi Rob, I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Thomas and I am a recruitment consultant working on behalf of a large marketing firm.
I found your Linkedin profile and was impressed by your background and professional experience.
We are currently recruiting for several positions and would like to know if you a opportunities with us. We are looking for innovative and forward-thinking people who are passionate about building the future.
I think you would be an excellent fit for this organization, It you’re ready to take the next step in your career, we’d love to hear from you.
Please apply directly through our Careers portal.
Warm Regards.
Thomas Ryan
Recruitment Consultant
I’ve got to be honest, it really pissed me off.
Not just because it was speculative.
Not just because it was unsolicited.
Not just because it was ambiguous.
But because it was also presumptuous – exemplified by the ‘book a call’ link at the bottom.
I am fed up of how lazy some recruiters are – especially as some poor company is paying them for their ‘expertise’ in finding talent – so this time, instead of ignoring them, I decided to reply to them.
So I sent this:
Hello Thomas, thank you for reaching out.
I hope you will forgive me, but I receive many of these emails so to ensure we’re both on the same page, could you let me know what it is about my experience you feel is especially relevant for the opportunity you represent?
In addition, it would be good if you could tell me a bit about the actual opportunity – from industry, to geography, to level of position.
Thank you so much.
I know, polite eh?
And why – given I was so pissed off?
Well, because I wanted Thomas to respond so I could prove he hadn’t actually read my profile and was just ‘talent farming’ … by that I mean sending out copious amounts of emails to all and sundry to see who bit so they could tell their client about their extensive search and charge their fee.
And did I get a reply?
Not exactly. A few hours later I got an email saying my response had not been sent as the email it was sent to didn’t work.
I should have known given so many of these type of emails are sent out with the sole goal of ensuring they don’t have to deal with any direct contact … however I was still pissed at the lazy and impersonal approach, so I went back to the original email to see if there was any way to contact them.
Having looked again, I realized there wasn’t any except that link to ‘book a call’.
At this point I’d decided to write a blog post about Thomas and how horrid and presumptive his approach was – so in a bid to try and find out more info on how to reach him for the content of the post, I clicked on the link and …
Well, at this point I should be showing you an image of what I found, but I forgot to take a photo, so instead … maybe this will give you a good idea of what I discovered:
Yep, I was caught in a phishing scam. Except they weren’t trying to steal my data, they were ‘teaching me’ that I needed to be more careful before I click on links sent on email because this ‘scam’ was from our own IT department.
Now I appreciate I work for an Omnicom company. And I appreciate security is rightfully very important to them and they understandably want all their people to take security seriously too. And I acknowledge I’d just demonstrated that I need to be extra vigilant because these things can – and do – happen all the time, even though it was the first time I’d fallen for something like this in my 5 years with the company. Which I will. And finally, I also acknowledge that on closer inspection, the email was riddled with little tell-tell spelling mistakes that I should have noticed … though the reality is not only did I miss them, I only saw them when I replicated the email above for legibility and corrected them for ease of reading this post.
However – and maybe it’s just me – the way they approached this ‘lesson’ feels a bit yucky.
Not because I was caught out – it was definitely an effective way to remind people to keep on their toes where company internet security is concerned – but because their approach could be read by some as a way to scare people into fearing – or staying clear – of any genuine recruitment enquiry they receive from any outside party.
Now you might think who cares, it was effective. And that’s fair.
Or you may think that couldn’t happen … but imagine you’re new to the business and have never experienced dealing with a recruiter before? Add to that the endless rounds of redundancies they’re hearing about – and most probably fearing – and let me tell you, I can absolutely see this sort of thing potentially putting someone off who is young in the industry from responding or replying for a long time.
As I said, I get why they do this sort of thing and I hold my hands up in acknowledging I was caught out by it – albeit for reasons they probably hadn’t anticipated which is namely some bloke with a blog suddenly wanted name and shame the sender for their lazy and sloppy professionalism. And it’s because of that I would like to take this opportunity to genuinely congratulate the Omnicom IT department for their devious and – all credit to them – creative way to teach an important and valuable lesson.
[As an aside, I wonder if they send similar sorts of things to different CEO’s of different Omnicom companies? Except instead of Thomas being a fictional recruiter with ambiguous job openings, he’s now a potential client with a billion dollar advertising budget he wants to talk to them about, via a ‘book a call’ link]
But for any younger person who has never been in the position of being approached by a headhunter and was caught out by this exercise – and looking at Reddit and Fishbowl, there were – let me ease your paranoia by saying should you ever end up wanting or needing to explore new opportunities and don’t know where to start, who to turn to or what to do, seek out Lea Walker or Lesley Cheng, who are both based in Australia but work internationally.
Not just because they’re brilliant humans who happen to be incredible, smart and deeply knowledgeable experts in talent, careers and roles … but because they will never send you an email that could be an Omnicom IT phishing test in disguise.
I will now never be responding to any email, let alone make the stupid mistake of clicking a link … even if its in the quest to write a scathing blog post.
Consider myself properly ‘chastised’.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cliches, Clients, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Consultants, Craft, Creativity, Presenting, Pride
There’s not many things I am anal about, but presentations are one of them.
The story.
The design.
The details.
The feeling.
The editing.
The clarity.
The craft.
The point of view.
Ask anyone who has worked with me and it’s fair to say, they’re going to say I’m a fucking nightmare about it.
Part of it is because I believe it’s a sign of respect towards whoever we’re presenting too.
Part of it is because I believe it’s a sign of respect to the work you’ve developed and crafted.
And part of it is because I believe it’s a demonstration of the standards you hold, value and expect from whoever you work with.
I appreciate it’s not the most ‘efficient’ approach, but there are moments in a process, where ‘efficiency’ should never be the objective, because it either encourages – or invites – lazy thinking and/or lazy application.
This does not mean I don’t care about brand guidelines or toolboxes, I do … however far too often, they’re developed with the sole goal of enabling the ‘lowest form of consistency’ throughout an organization, as opposed to delivering the highest. Of course, this approach is not limited to simply brand guideline development … the same can be said for things like ‘brand experience’ and ‘brand transformation’ … where the language implies ‘executing excellence’ but the reality is often just playing ‘catch up’ to competitors who have been doing the basics better for years.
Look, on one level I get it … especially in big companies, where it’s bloody hard to make everything work seamlessly to a unified level … however if a companies ambition is to identify the ‘minimum standard they can get away with’, then surely that raises questions regarding the standards of the organisation, the people they hire and the aspirations – not to mention, taste – of the company leadership.
Now you may be thinking, “that’s a big call based on how a company creates presentations”, but for me this stuff matters and I’m over people saying it doesn’t.
That’s its ‘overkill’. Fuck off …
Put simply, ‘good in, encourages good out’. It really is that simple … and if you can’t be bothered to do that for a client, why do you think they would want to do good things with you?
And please don’t give me ‘but the content is all that matters’ argument.
Maybe in a Hollywood movie that works … but in real life, how you present is as important as what you present.
Not because ‘pretty wins’, but because design helps convey an argument in a way that can be more powerful felt.
And understood.
And remembered.
Now I completely appreciate not every presentation requires this level of craft and consideration, however at the very least they should all feel people have given a shit about its development. That they’ve sweated over the details. That they want the recipient to feel seen, challenged, understood and helped.
But that’s not happening nearly enough these days.
A creative director at Wieden – the wonderful Paul Stechschulte – once gave me a brilliant piece of advice about presentations.
He said, there’s only two reasons to ever have one: To convert or to conflict.
You’re either there to convert an idea/decision into action, or you’re there to conflict the recipient so they don’t choose or make the wrong idea/decision.
That’s it.
But too often, the goal of a presentation is to have another presentation. To kick the can further down the road. To give permission for people to not make a decision while looking like they’re being productive.
Look, I get some things take time but a lot of this is because too many companies only empower their people to say ‘no’, so the result is nothing gets made and so the focus of the endless presentations ends up being whether the ‘minimum standard guidelines’ have been adhered to, as opposed to can we create a compelling argument that demands they say ‘yes’.
Which leads to the point of this post …
TL;DR Why I will never work for Morgan Stanley. And why I’ve never been so happy about it.