Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colleagues, Comment, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Honesty, Insight, Management, Mum & Dad, Parents, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View
When I was about to begin working for the first time, my Dad sat me down and said, “be generous, be kind, but never be a pushover”.
What he was basically telling me was I should always listen and learn … but I shouldn’t blindly follow what someone has told me without asking questions and exploring or voicing my own thoughts and ideas.
Nothing reinforced this than my first ever client meetings.
I was 19 and in a room with very senior and experienced clients.
After it happened, my boss called me in to ‘have a chat’.
He wanted to know why I’d been so quiet throughout the meeting when normally – as my Dad had told me – I kept asking questions as I wanted to learn more and to start to form my own perspective on things.
I told him I was worried I’d say something stupid so felt it best to keep my mouth shut … and that’s when he gave me 3 pieces of advice that not only changed my career, but that I pass on to anywho who feels in a similar situation.
1. When you’re young you’re not expected to have answers so you should exploit the chance to ask whatever you want while you’ve got it.
2. You’ll find out if your views are stupid or valid by speaking up … and you’ll find out from the most qualified people in the room, which is worth its weight in gold.
3. Remember you were hired because we believe in you. So while you might not always be right, we trust any question or opinion you have comes from the right place and with a desire to be useful and make a positive difference.
And while I’d like to think that the response I got is what everyone would get, you just have to read the stories on Corporate Gaslighting to realise what I was being encouraged to do – by my boss and Dad – is not what many are encouraged to do.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say in many cases, it’s not even tolerated.
You’re called a trouble maker.
Not a team player.
A maverick.
Which, of course, is all kinds of rubbish [not to mention debilitating in terms of personal development, standards and reputation and quality of work] but it seems to be what a lot of modern corporate culture often expects – no, scrap that – demands.
But there is good news.
Because if you find yourself in this exact position, you can either read this post I wrote years ago about how to be Freddie Mercury in the boardroom orread the letter below and see how 97 year old Mary Grant proves it’s never to late to change.
We never needed more Mary’s.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity
It’s easy to look at the past with rose-tinted glasses.
There’s few who do this better than the ad industry.
So many saying everything was better then. More interesting. More creative.
And while there’s an argument more culturally iconic work was produced in the past than the present – driven by factors such as marketing having a greater influence in the C-Suite right through to a lack of alternative options for driving business – we can’t forget the past also produced things like this …
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT.
On the positive, it shows the flex of the material in ways you won’t forget, but on the negative …. errrrrm, where shall we start?
Elton John recently said something that I really liked about looking back.
In essence, he said if you always look at the past as the time where everything great happened, you may as well give up.
He didn’t say those exact words, but it was kinda-like that.
His point was desire, context and openness change everything.
And while that shouldn’t mean just because you do new work – or have the ambition to do it – it’s automatically better than everything that went before, neither does it mean something from the past is automatically better than whatever came after it …
What people forget is it takes hard work to be good.
Even for the most gifted and talented, it requires real effort and graft.
Doesn’t matter if it’s past or present … doing something of note means putting yourself out there and waiting to be judged.
That’s an incredibly vulnerable position to put yourself in.
To choose to put yourself in.
To be forced to put yourself in.
And while there are ways to increase the odds of a positive outcome, there’s no guarantee it will work which is why there’s two things worth remembering …
First is whether creating something for yourself or others, make sure you enjoy [and be allowed to enjoy] what you’re doing and what you’ve done because – as Rick Rubin said – if you don’t, then it’s pretty certain others won’t either.
Second is if someone hates something simply because it’s new, then remember that means they probably like the ad above and suddenly their comments mean jack shit and should be treated as such.
That doesn’t mean you can phone any shit in. [See point 1]
But it does mean you can ignore their rose-tinted bullshit too.
Filed under: Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Emotion, Imagination, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Strategy
Don’t get me wrong, commercial creativity has a job to do.
It needs to create the cultural conditions for people to think/act in ways that benefit your client.
What ‘benefit’ means is both open to debate and individual contexts and needs.
But here’s where the problem lies.
Because for many companies, it’s no longer about creating the cultural conditions … it’s explaining EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT PEOPLE TO THINK, SEE AND DO.
What they think is ‘advertising’ is delusional dictator-ing. If dictatoring is a word.
And there’s 2 reasons why it’s delusional …
The first is people do what is in their best interests, not a companies. And so unless a company lets go of their fragile ego and God-complex, they’re never going to understand or resonate with their audience. Resulting in either being ignored, or forever ever having a utility style relationship.
The second is when your only focus is telling people what you want them to think, see and do … you often discover it’s exactly the same as what everybody else in your category wants people to think, see and do.
So you end up with this.
Brand gets a lot of stick these days.
Its whole role and value is being questioned.
But the irony is the problem isn’t with the value of brand, but the understanding of what some people think a brand is.
Because a brand isn’t contrived wrapping paper placed around a functional product feature … it’s an idea that is as distinctive for how it see’s the world as it appears in it.
That some people will find this shocking not only explains why we are subjected to such ugly noise day after day after day, but how little companies/venture capitalists/consultancies understand, respect and value culture.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colleagues, Comment, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture
I love this.
I know some would say that’s because I am this – and sometimes I accept that I am am – but that’s not the reason I love it.
No. My adoration just comes from the attitude of going all in.
No compromise.
No hedging bets.
No pandering or placating.
It’s all in or absolutely nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating being a prick. We have enough of those in this business already … but what is even more annoying with those people is they’re being a prick for their ego rather than the work. They’ve already played their ‘please the client at all costs’ card and now they’re throwing their weight around to look like they haven’t.
But we can see those people from a mile off.
They’re more transparent than a bloody greenhouse.
No, I’m talking about those who push for great. Who hold the line for standards and expectations. Who demand the right response not the easiest or least offensive. Who tell the truth when bending it would be a far easier course of action.
There’s not enough of those people.
And we need them.
Because while it may appear that approach is counterproductive to building relationships, loyalty and business – with great clients, it does exactly that for one simple reason.
Standards need stubbornness.
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Childhood, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Design, Differentiation, Distinction, Effectiveness, Emotion, Football, History, Individuality, Legend, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Resonance, Respect, Sport
Over my career, I’ve had a lot of ‘annual reviews’ and in all that time, there’s been a couple of topics that have made regular appearances in my bosses observations.
I am sure you can guess a lot of them, but one is that I approach every brief like a chance to change or impact everything.
Sometimes it was said in a positive tone.
Sometimes it was said in a less than positive tone.
And they were right.
They still are.
Because whenever we/I get a brief, my starting point is ‘what excites me about the brief’ … quickly followed by ‘how insanely big could we make the idea’ … quickly followed by me getting ridiculous excited about the potential, totally ignoring the fact that all they wanted was a shelf wobbler. Or something.
You think I’m joking don’t you? Well I am, but only just.
My strength/weakness is I always dream massive. Proper massive.
Sometimes it’s paid off – creating the first 4×4 on 2 wheels for Peugeot Mopeds in Vietnam.
Sometimes it’s been a total and unmitigated disaster – trying to get Porsche to bring rally car culture to China.
But pretty much all the time I’ve been able to look in the mirror and know I gave them what they needed, albeit in bigger, more provocative ways than they may have wanted … imagined … or expected.
And you know what, I’m good with that … which probably explains why the quote from the KLF – ‘Don’t give them what they want, give them what they’ll never forget’ – resonated with me so hard.
Anyway, the reason I say this is because waaaaaaaaay back in 1973, this ad appeared in the good, old Nottingham Evening Post.
It was an ad to design the Nottingham Forest Football Club badge.
If that sounds strange, wait till you hear the reason.
Originally, the Forest badge was the Nottingham Coat of Arms … it’s the emblem featured in the middle of the ad.
After discovering they could not copyright it, they decided they had to come up with a new badge and – for reasons no one has really got a good answer for – they decided to run a competition in the local paper, recruiting two lecturers in art and design as advisers.
Despite this being before the glory years of the Clough era, and a prize of just ÂŁ25, the response was massive.
There were 855 entries from as far away as Australia and Germany … with one man submitting 27 designs.
After a judging process, David Lewis was crowned the winner with this …
David was 29 at the time, working as a graphic designer and lecturer at Nottingham’s College of Art.
He was a football nut and fancied a shot at winning the cash, but there was one problem … one of the judges, a man called Wilf Payne, was the head of the department where he worked.
David said …
“I didn’t think that any design I entered could have been judged fairly if he knew it was mine, and I also didn’t want to embarrass the judges. I did want to enter, though, so I decided to use my mother’s maiden name to hide my real identity. My mother’s side of the family were Italian immigrants and her maiden name was Lago. So I submitted my design as Lago and it wasn’t until afterwards that the judges found out my real name.”
Thank god he did that, because otherwise he may not have won and football – not just Nottingham Forest – would have missed out on one of the most beautiful and distinctive football club logos of all time.
Simple, yet powerful.
Accessible, yet iconic.
Universal, yet truly Nottingham … thanks to the tree representing Sherwood Forest, the wavy lines reflecting the river Trent [where the City Ground stands next to] and the red/white colour formation to reflect the club colours.
Forest’s badge has remained unchanged ever since David’s design – except for the addition of 2 stars to celebrate Forest’s back-to-back European Cup triumphs in 1979 and 1980.
Hell, the club is known to fans as ‘the tricky tree’s’ thanks to the logo.
And a few years ago, an American magazine ran an article on the most memorable and liked sports logos across the world and Davi’d design was in the top 10.
THE. TOP. TEN.
The point is, David Lewis could have approached the competition ‘pitch brief’ as many approach real pitch briefs.
Giving them exactly what they ask for in ways they would expect or feel comfortable with … which in this case would be a badge that represents Nottingham Forest and takes design cues from the existing logo.
But David thought bigger than that.
He wanted to create a design for Nottingham Forest that would be known, respected and revered across all sports and across all countries. A badge that could play outside the lines of the game and into culture.
A designer badge. Literally and figuratively.
And he did it. Beautifully and brilliantly.
Which is why the next time you get a brief – whether for a pitch or an existing client – just remember this story, because the whole industry could do with being more David Lewis.