Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Embarrassing Moments, Fake Attitude, Scam
Ladies and gentlemen.
Boys and girls.
We have reached ‘peak hipster’ …
A monocle.
A bloody monocle.
It was bad enough when people started wearing glasses without lenses in but this … THIS!!!
And they say ‘splendid clear reading vision, when you need it’
What the hell does that even mean?
Splendid clear reading vision.
How different is that from clear reading vision.
And sure you need that all the bloody time …
I cannot tell you how angry this has made me and it’s only because they had the self awareness to add the word ‘madness’ to their website that I won’t turn up to their store with a weapon, which – given the period of time they are trying to bring back – would probably be pistols at dawn.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Egovertising, Innovation, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Positioning, Pretentious Rubbish
Have a look at this …
I’ve got to be honest, I think it’s one of the most amazing ads I’ve ever seen.
Not – of course – because it’s good, but because there’s so many things in it to hate, I don’t know which one I loathe more.
From the cliched photograph that is obviously trying to associate with street culture through to the absolutely fucking awful oxymoron/pun of ‘Future Retro’ and ‘Deja New’ … there is an endless amount of hate inducing triggers in this ad.
But even those things don’t come close to releasing my inner rage as ‘Time Tracker’.
TIME TRACKER!!!
It’s a watch. A bloody watch. Yes, they ‘track time’ but they’re attempt to make it sound like the future of watches makes me literally want to kill.
Oh I am thinking about how I’d do it.
Maybe a wooden post so I can smack them around the head.
Or maybe a canon, so I can shoot them far, far away.
Or maybe … oh hang on, I know what I’ll do … I’ll make them wear that ‘time tracker’ and refer to it in the same way, so their shame will be all encompassing and complete.
Time Tracker is a perfect example of something I’ve been seeing more and more of … repositioning that isn’t repositioning.
Repositioning is about helping culture look at your brand in a totally different way.
When Wrigley’s chewing gum moved from being a sweet to a dental care product … that is repositioning.
When Poloroid cameras shifted from photography to being a social lubricant … that is a repositioning.
When Old Spice moved from being used by men to being valued by women … that is repositioning.
A watch going from telling the time to tracking the time is not.
And yet I am seeing more and more work that is trying to position themselves as a catalyst for change when they’re doing nothing but re-articulating the category expression.
One of the categories doing this the most is the financial sector.
There are more new ‘banks’ than at any point in my life.
All with quirky names.
All claiming to be revolutionizing the industry.
All stating they are being developed around the needs of their customers.
And yet not one of them seems to realize that as much as they’re trying to be seen as disrupting the banking industry, they’re doing it in exactly the same way as everyone else.
Disruption but without distinction.
But here’s the thing, are they even disrupting … because so many of them are trying to communicate you can ‘trust’ them. I get trust is important wherever money is concerned, but it is also the backbone of the industry … so in essence, they’re saying ‘we’re different’ and yet they are communicating in exactly the same way as the establishment.
In essence, they’ve become the beast they claim they were created to slay …
But they’re actually worse, because not building any distinction into their offering or behaviour except their name and choice of pastel ‘brand’ colour means all they are really building is commodotisation.
Of course that’s probably because their business plan is to be bought by the establishment and so they don’t care about long term thinking, but this – just like the idiots behind that Nixon watch – is the new ‘best practice’ for brand and business strategy.
And we wonder why the business community questions our ability to talk business.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Insight, Interviews, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Resonance
Purpose.
Planning.
Both have had a lot of debate about them in the past few years and both have their cheerleaders and detractors.
The reality is they both have incredible value but – and it’s a big but – only when used responsibly.
Of course, what ‘responsibly’ is, is often in the eye of the brand owner and that’s where the problems starts … because too often, the focus is appealing to the ego of the company directors rather than the pulse of culture which is why we’re seeing more and more ‘purpose work’ that communicates in the corporate monotone of egotistical, bland, business-speak.
The client doesn’t think that of course, they think they’re doing an amazing thing and that people will really believe Hard Rock Cafe’s want to stop hunger or a plastic lighter company in HK wants to save the rainforest [which is true, but I can’t find the post about it, mainly because it was back in 2010] or – hold on to your hats – this …
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Yes, that really is an umbrella company claiming their purpose is to offer lifestyle solution and protection for the public.
Are they insane?
Even if that was true – which if it is, means they’re bonkers – then the way they’ve written it means the umbrellas are to save you from marketing bullshit raining down on your head.
Purpose has a really important role for brands … but you don’t just ‘make it up’.
I am utterly in shock how many companies sell ‘purpose’ to brands and yet never investigate the soul of the brand.
Go into the vaults.
Look inside every single box.
Discover what made them make their decisions.
Understand the values they lived by and fought for.
Talk to the people who have worked there or shopped there since the earliest of days.
Basically discover their authenticity rather than what they wish their authenticity was.
And yet a lot of companies are paying a lot of other companies to literally make up a bullshit story about them.
Something they think makes them sound good.
Something they think will make people want to choose them.
And while we are definitely seeing more and more people choosing to associate with brands that live by a set of values and beliefs, the thing the brands who ‘invent a purpose’ fail to understand is that this audience seeks truth, not bullshit and so what they’re doing with their make-believe is actually achieve the absolute opposite of what they were trying to do.
Purpose matters.
Planning matters.
But the moment you let ego drive your ambitions rather than your authenticity, you end up being a brand that is flying extremely high on the Planning Purpose Twatosphere.
Remember brands, by being yourself you will be different.
Stop inventing bullshit and start acting your truth in interesting ways.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Creativity, Daily Fail, Experience, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging
There’s been a few things that have made little sense to me over the last few weeks.
One of them is why a hotel would have this as their bedside lamp …
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT.
Seriously, who thought this would be a good idea?
Sticking a bunch of different sized, acrylic squares, on a lamp stand is the sort of thing you would expect to see in a 1986 episode of Blue Peter, not a 2020, just-refurbished, supposedly fancy-pants[ish] hotel.
Given the bits of plastic move, I can just imagine the designer/salesperson making some narrative up about it being ‘playful’ and other excuses to cover up the fact it’s a bit shit.
Then there’s this fruit truck I saw recently …
I know I am being especially petty, but why would you trust a fruit company who thinks a strawberry and an apple are the same size as a banana.
Unless they’re a fruit company that specialises in genetically modified fruit.
And lastly there’s this …
They are – supposedly – some of the spiciest noodles you can get anywhere in the World.
They’re so spicy, that it’s become an internet sensation [TM Daily Mail] with countless videos on Youtube of people destroying their tastebuds in the quest for a laugh.
Well, as someone with zero tastebuds – and taste, for that matter – and a best mate who doesn’t need persuading to do stupid things – we decided, as you can see by the picture at the very top of this post – that we would have a go at this ‘so-called-challenge’.
To cut a very long story short, the winner was not the one who was once a bouncer but the one who once cried his eyes out at the final episode of The Wonder Years and now believes he could be SAS material.
You can watch the very sad journey to taste-bud destruction below.