Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Conformity, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Retail
So I’m back and let’s start the week as I intend to go on. Kinda.
With the obsession of marketing practice, our towns and cities are increasingly being wrapped in advertising that all looks the same – just in different colours.
Doesn’t matter if it’s an ad for a bank, a car, a holiday destination or a cold and flu medicine … everything feels interchangeable, which results in people – ironically – being able to ‘tune them out’ rather than being attracted to how they stand out.
It’s why the thing that is increasingly capturing the attention and creating some sort of differentiation are the ‘walk-in’ signs designed by the people who either own the shops we walk past, or run them.
One of them I saw recently was this:
Is it brilliant? Not really.
It it it clever? A little, but not much.
Does the store have anything to do with Christopher Walken? Not at all.
But I tell you what, it caught my attention, made me smile and made me pay attention to it – and the store it was for – far more than I do with many of the dot-to-dot, paint-by-numbers ads that have been tested to within an inch of their life to ensure the message achieves maximum comprehension, does not – in any way – offend or alienate audiences and hits every category cue, brand ‘asset’ and ‘purchase driver’ to ensure the people behind it can tell their bosses it ‘achieved all the metrics’, even if no one in the real world paid the slightest bit of attention to it whatsoever.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know there’s a world of difference between developing the communication for a major, national/internation brand and doing a ‘walk-in’ sign for a local suburb – but somewhere along the line, we seem to have forgotten the point of ads is to stand out, not blend in which is why it might be a good time to end this post by dusting off this quote by the great Mr Weigel,
‘You can be as relevant as hell and still be boring as fuck’.
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: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Colenso, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Efficiency
That’s right … creativity helps business make money.
I know there’s a bunch of people who like to claim otherwise, but they’re wrong.
More than that, creativity can help business make money in ways traditional approaches can’t.
Be it distribution, market share, heritage, price-point, tradition, routine, apathy, complexity and god knows what else … creativity always finds a way because – as Martin Weigel and I explained at Cannes back in 2023 – creativity can do what logic can’t.
This blog has literally thousands of examples of it.
From making me, a teetotaler, buy alcohol to making a print ad, produce sound waves to making pasta look even more beautiful than it tastes to making drinking beer from a bottle, an act of love … to helping shelter dogs become adoptable dogs, creativity is a beautiful and powerful thing.
But here’s the thing …
Creativity may always start with the mind, but it needs to be turned into something for it to change something.
I’m fed up of hearing people talking about creativity rather than doing something with it.
Or about it.
Sure, you can argue talking can also bring change … but to me, that’s a cop out.
Creativity needs to be allowed to make an impact.
It needs to be allowed to grow into something powerful and interesting.
Because if you inhibit that, you’re not ‘being safe’, you’re taking the biggest gamble of your life.
History is littered with examples of success that could never of happened or imagined without the influence of creativity.
Creativity helped make hundreds of millions want to become an athlete.
Creativity helped make Americans try sushi.
Creativity helped make the best selling calculator of all time.
For all the consultants out there, flogging their self serving, one-size-fits-all systems, frameworks and models … the inconvenient truth is this.
Business needs creativity more than creativity needs business.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Complicity, Confidence, Conformity, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Experience, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relationships, Relevance, Retail, Technology
I was going through some old photos when I saw this …
That’s right, Banana Republic used the pandemic as an opportunity to shame people who were struggling to work from home – while trying to also care for the people in their home, including having to teach their kids their schoolwork – to look better for their work calls.
Oh I know some people will say this was ‘good marketing’ … seizing an opportunity to drive their business at a time where commerce was expected to suffer [when we know the opposite was true] … but it’s not, if anything it’s ambulance-chasing marketing. Where the only consideration is ‘can I make money out of this person, regardless of their situation.
And that’s the thing between good and shit marketing … the knowledge that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
The fact they literally call these scarves ‘video chat accessories’ is so overt it’s breath-taking.
And sickening.
But to be fair, they weren’t the only one adopting this ‘strategy’.
I remember a UK-based kitchen company that suggested you should go thousands into debt to have your kitchen ‘updated’ so you can do your future work calls in a room that presented you in a more ‘professional, wealthy, successful light’.
The big problem with a lot of our industry is our disregard for customers.
Actually that’s wrong … it’s our ability to pretend we’re doing everything for our customers.
The reality is though many companies don’t know who their customers are or even what industry they’re in … they simply believe that people – all people – are lining up to buy whatever it is they want to sell, whenever they tell people about it.
I once worked at a place that was obsessed with D2C – direct to consumer.
They were heavily pushing ALL their clients to follow suit … claiming it was what customers wanted, how a modern brand behaved, where retail was heading.
And, to be fair, there was a lot of that happening at the time and they were well placed to leverage it … but I, and more than a few others, weren’t convinced. Mainly because the brands who did it well were very clear on who they were, what they did, who they were for and how long they intended to be around whereas they were trying to force it on organizations who were the antithesis of this. Worse, they were the antithesis of this but were being told that didn’t matter … it was what the future was all about.
I kept bringing this up … highlighting this was not a blanket approach for all and there were serious implications on the brand, customers and category over time. Or at the very least, we shouldn’t be advocating clients let go of all they have done and built and stand-for just so they can exploit a new opportunity for cash.
And I was told I was a dinosaur.
Harking back to a time that was no longer relevant.
That technology was changing everything and they were at the forefront of it.
And while they were a good company, they were lost in their own ego and greed … refusing to look beyond the world they had created, because it was a world that positioned them as visionary rather than acknowledging this was a temporary wave where they were well equipped to benefit from.
Don’t get me wrong, we have to continually innovate.
We have to identify the possibilities, opportunities and waves of change.
But it only works if you know who you are, what you do, who you are for and what they value and want.
It also needs self-awareness, objectivity, honesty and transparency and the realization everything and everyone evolves – regardless what you wish people did.
Which may explain why many of the clients they had, are now brands who are a case-study for what not to do.
A warning that when you think the things that define you, guide you and build you are superfluous, then you can – and probably will – fall for everything.
Just ask Wework.
And Nike.
And The Line.
There’s a big difference between making money and building a business. Sadly, today, few seem to care about what they can become, just what they can get now.