Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Cunning, Fake Attitude, Innovation, Marketing, Marketing Fail
I’ve written about Gary Vee before.
And while I admire his ability to promote himself – and don’t deny his considerable entrepreneurial spirit – I feel he is entering that dangerous area where he’s starting to blindly believe his own voice, without any sense of objectivity.
Now there’s many successful people who are like that, but given he preaches on a platform of self awareness, I find this new chapter of his ego particularly unpleasant to witness.
What has raised my ire?
This …
Yep, he has launched his own range of sneakers.
Sneakers!
What the fuck?
Apart from maybe watching sport or having once ridden a skateboard, what credibility has he got to do that?
I could maybe accept it he had got some fantastic – and credible – people to help create them, but that is never mentioned at all.
Of course not, because even if that is the case, I doubt his ego would allow it.
And maybe that’s why he wants people in marketing and entrepreneurship to support him rather than athletes … despite the fact they’re made to look like the bastard love-child of Adidas and K-Swiss.
That’s right, it’s not enough for Mr Vaynerchuk to create a pair of ‘sneakers’ that’s been influenced/plagarised by one credible sports brand, he wants to double influence/plagarise … which kind of sums him up through and through.
Seriously, anyone who buys a pair of these is basically anti-sport and pro-asshole.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, DLin, Emotion, Empathy, Insight, Management, Planning, Rodi, Wieden+Kennedy
A few weeks ago, I woke up to the photo above appearing on my phone.
The 2 people are both ex-planners of mine from Wieden and I admit it was nice to see them.
Then I realised they were never at Wieden at the same time – and even though they’re now both bigwigs at Apple – I suspect there reasons for getting together [and making sure I knew about it] was more to talk shit about me than to discuss the launch for the next iPhone.
Eitherway, I’m as proud as fuck about them and for them … and not just because I’m hoping for freebies.
As I’ve said many times before, I believe the role of a boss is to help develop your people so when they leave, they get a better job than they could ever of hoped for.
Of course, they have to do all the hard work.
They have to want to see where their potential could take them.
But by pushing them, developing them, giving them opportunities to grow and just overall helping them believe in their talent and where it could take them beyond where they currently are, you have a chance to play a small role in creating their future.
And that’s why, seeing David and Rodi lead Apple strategically across the entire Asia region [and for some perspective, just the iPhone business in China is bigger than the entire NIKE company worldwide] makes me so happy.
Not for what I did for them.
But what they did for themselves.
Now please give me the new iPhone or I’ll ask Baz to fire you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Insight, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Resonance, Social Commentary
So we’ve recently had some interns join the Deutsch planning mob.
They’re smart, passionate and enthusiastic as hell.
Far smarter than I was at their age. Arguably, smarter than I am now.
So I met up with them to see how they were going and they told me how they were getting to grips with things because initially, it was so overwhelming that they found themselves going down a lot of rabbit holes.
I get it, it was super daunting to me when I started too but the one thing that concerned me was their belief that rabbit holes were a negative.
As I pointed out to them, if they don’t go down rabbit holes, then they’re no use to me.
Rabbit holes are an essential part of the planning process.
Not just in terms of exploring possibilities to tackle the problem you have been given … nor to pressure test the strategy you have identified … but to also reveal if there is are more interesting ways to tackle the problem than you may have originally considered or identified.
Rabbit holes are as much about opening possibilities as they are closing them which is why if you don’t embrace them, all you’re doing is screwing yourself – and the client – over.
Sure, focusing on what you think the client will buy may get you quicker approvals and client compliments, but allowing your brain the space and time to wander can help you get to somewhere new … somewhere exciting … somewhere that allows creativity to take you to places no one saw coming … places that will attract rather than chase … and even if you don’t end up somewhere more interesting than where you started, at least you can be sure the strategy you’re recommending has been pushed and prodded, which is why I passionately believe rabbit holes aren’t a waste of time, but a key deliverable of what we do and have to do.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Comment, Confidence, Insight, Men
So recently I was in Berlin and had one of the most underwhelming dinners of my life at Soho House.
For those of you who don’t know Soho House, they describe themselves as a ‘private members’ club for people in the creative industries’.
Maybe that’s true, but having gone to the bathroom and seen their urinals, I think Soho House Berlin is actually a private members club for men who like to think they’re big swinging dicks so will happily pay their $2000 annual membership fee just so they can keep using their toilets that have been designed to reaffirm their delusions.
Or something.
Regardless, it’s evil genius – because to paraphrase Bernie Madoff, when you offer people something they want, they never want to look too hard into it because they don’t want their fantasy to be shown for its reality.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Comment, Confidence, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Film, Insight
Kathleen Turner is an actress.In the 80’s, she was hugely successful – but illness, addiction and Hollywood studio’s hatred of women over the age of 30 – all contributed to her falling out of the limelight.
This interview is a few months old, but I recently read it again and I still love it.
Not because she is indiscreet about other actors … though that’s good.
But because of her ability to know who she is that has enabled her to acknowledge her faults, see her strengths and challenge the system.
There’s a bunch of gold in there – from how to deal with others [which is very similar to the advice Tom Hanks gives] through to how to deal with yourself – so whether you know her or not, I am pretty certain you will enjoy the read.
Hey, you might even come away asking yourself some questions about yourself.
It’s a good way to start the week and you can read the interview here.