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: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Content, Context, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Delusion, Differentiation, Din Tai Fung, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, New Zealand, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Tourism, Travel
I have good news for you …
This is the last post for a week. Yep, a week!
You see I’m off to my beloved China for the week so you can rest in peace while I fill myself up on Din Tai Fung, haha.
What a way to end the week eh?
By pure coincidence, this post is about Taiwan – specifically mocking their tourism campaign – which I assure you has nothing to do with me going to China and hoping to have my visa renewed. After all, that’s where Din Tai Fung comes from and there’s no way I’d ever do anything that could harm my ability to keep scoffing down their dumplings.
So over the years, I’ve written a lot about tourism campaigns. Like here. Or here. Or here.
The upshot being that apart from the original 100% Pure NZ campaign – and Mauritius clever idea to bring more foreign income into the country – most are more likely to keep you away than to pull you towards them.
In fact, the only positive of these campaigns is they demonstrate the danger of committee thinking … where the end result is an act of political appeasement than audience understanding.
It’s why I find it hilarious how we keep banging on about all the data we have and yet we still end up scoring own goals.
Why?
It is because we have the wrong data?
Is it because we have people that can’t read the data.
Or is it because people hide behind the data to outsource their responsibilities and decisions?
Well, given this tourism campaign from Taiwan, it may be all 3.
Have a look at this …
What the hell?!!!
My god … Taiwan is a beautiful land full of rich history, heritage and cultural texture and they think this will make people come?!
Who the hell has their ‘data’ told them is the future of their tourism audience … urban architects and local council town planners?
Seriously, what is this supposed to convey … that they have shopping centers?
And they have the audacity to then say ‘Enjoy Now’.
For fucks sake, Taiwan is where the incredible – and my absolute favorite – Din Tai Fung started … that alone could attract more people than this campaign. But no, instead they decided the best way to invite millions to visit is to use the most generic photo ever taken … a photo that could be for literally any place in the whole, wide World … and then shove the words ‘Waves of Wonder’ on it.
What the hell is a ‘wave of wonder’ … because unless it’s a clever ruse to make people wonder out-loud why they should give-a-flying-fuck about a photo of a generic shopping centre, then this work is nothing more than tourism terrorism.
Years ago, I was staying in the W Hotel in Taipei when an earthquake woke me up in the middle of the night.
It was pretty strong and the whole building shook for ages.
And even that is a better tourism campaign than this horror show.
Taiwan is a wonderful place. You should go visit. But don’t go anywhere their tourism department recommends.
See you in a week!
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.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Complicity, Conformity, Content, Context, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Delusion, Differentiation, Distinction, Diversity, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Emotion, Empathy, Focus Groups, Inclusion, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Process, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Standards
Recently I had to interview a relatively well known singer songerwriter.
While their major successes were in the 90’s, they’d always had a place in popular culture – albeit British culture.
I went into the call only knowing what I had read up about them and what I had thought about them when they were making hits … so while I was intrigued to chat, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to go.
Fortunately for me, I had a secret weapon and that was a Mum who had instilled in me to ‘always be interested in what others are interested in’.
What this means is your job is simple: listen to them and follow where they take you.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions.
Nor does it mean you can’t challenge them when you feel their answers contradict each other.
However, rather than go into it looking for faults or specific answers, your focus is simply to understand how they think and see the world.
And I am so grateful for that because the conversation was amazing.
Not just in terms of what was discussed, but how much I understood and – even related – to many of the choices and decisions they made on their journey.
A reminder that whoever you are … whatever plans you have … or wherever you’re from … we’re all bumbling along trying to make sense of the stuff we experience and are exposed to, while trying to keep on some sort of path we feel we can manage or hope to navigate.
I came out of our chat with a totally different perspective of this indivudual – both as a musician and as a human.
More than that, it allowed me to look back on my perceptions and realise how much I had let prejudices, associations and media [mis]shape my point of view. Or said another way, how I had chosen to ‘tune out’ their reality and ‘tune in’ to the noise surrounding them.
Noise created by people who often didn’t know them and certainly didn’t know what they were going through.
We all have experienced a version of that in our life. Now imagine it on a national and international scale?
Which is why that chat not only helped me see their choices and career through an entirely different lens … it made me feel deeply ashamed of myself.
Of my prejudice.
Of my judgement.
Of my wasted energy.
And I told them and they were incredibly kind and gracious about it. Far more than I deserved, let alone expected … but I can honestly say, I now look at who they are and what they have done – and do – with deep respect rather than judgement or ridicule.
That doesn’t mean I suddenly love their music – I don’t – but I do now completley understand where it came from and what it represented. Especially to them. And that – ironically – has allowed me to connect to them as an artist and a human far more than I ever imagined was possible … amplified by their openness, warmth and willingness to be vulnerable about moments in their life that were most definitely not easy.
I say all this because I think where I started prior to the interview represents what our industry is doing day after day.
Relying on cherry-picked data points, shortcuts and convenient answers, rather than going out their way to truly understand the textured lives, perspectives and challenges of the audiences they want and need to connect and engage to.
What’s making this even worse is how many research companies are now outsourcing ‘data gathering’ to AI driven bots … reinforcing that business increasingly values speed, convenience and efficiency over depth of underrstanding.
And the result of all this?
False perceptions.
Self-interest driven solutions.
Increased category convention advertising.
Or, to sum it up even more devastatingly … Maxwell House idiocy thinking.
It’s why I’ve always seen strategy as an outdoor job more than a desk job.
It’s why I’ve put-out books about what society is thinking over what marketing is claiming.
It’s why I’ve always favoured working with people like On Road and Ruby Pseudo over the conglomerate research companies.
And finally, it’s why – when told by planners they don’t have time to go out and talk to people – I’ve said that even if they talk to 3 people in the streets, that’s likely 3 more than anyone else. Because as much as it is always the right thing to make time for more understanding, the point isn’t about scale of opinion, it’s about scale of the nuances you will discover … because when you’re open to that, you’ll not only learn how much you never knew, but see how much your creativity can now impact and achieve.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Bands, Bangkok Shakes, Career, Comment, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Emotion, Empathy, Music, Resonance, Words
Music has always played an incredible role in my life.
I get most people on the planet would think that way, but what’s interesting – at least to me – is that lyrics rarely impacted me compared to the melody and overall ‘feel’ of the song/music.
Maybe part of that is because 10 million years ago, I used to be a session guitarist so melody was literally how I earned an income, but I’m pretty sure I felt that way way before that. Hell, even now, while I can remember how to play songs I appeared on – or even wrote – I can’t for the life of me, remember any of the lyrics.
In fact it’s only in the past 5-10 years that I’ve really come to respect the power of the lyric. Of course I always knew they were important, but for me – I heard them more in terms of the melody they created rather than the story they told.
I say all this as a way to explain why I was so weirded out when someone sent me this:
To be honest, I can’t even remember writing it … but apparently I did because it has made its way into a book that will be coming from Berklee College of Music regarding composition and songwriting.
And as impressed as I am about that – which also includes being pretty chuffed/shocked at what I said – I can’t help but notice they only referenced me by name rather than by my experience … probably because ‘failed studio guitarist who is now the cat litter tray for actually successful musicians’ would probably undermine some of its appeal.
On the bright side, they didn’t include a photograph, which the image at the top of this post should explain why.