Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Death, Deutsch, Donn, Family, Fashion, Friendship, Love, Otis
So I’m back and it was, as expected, amazing.
Obviously I have a deep love of Asia, but I have a special place in my heart for Vietnam.
Anyone who knows anything about history will understand the creativity of the place, be that its food, its art, its industry or its ability to find ways to beat every enemy who has tried to invade in the last 1000 years.
So it’s little surprise that Spikes Asia chose to hold their judging for the creative and strategy awards there … which meant I got to see some phenomenal work, some great friends and some awesome tourist stuff.
Oh, and my eye generally held up [but unfortunately not totally, hence trips back to the hospital and meds for a bit longer] but all in all it was a really fucking great week.
But I know there’s nothing worse than hearing someone talk about how great things were for them when you were stuck in the office dealing with shit so to try and win back some errrrrm, favour, let me tell you a little story.
One day – hopefully a long time in the future – my son, Otis, will go to a lawyer to hear the reading of his old mans ‘last will and testament’.
Hopefully, when he hears there’s not much left, he will find this post featuring the latest photograph someone has sent me linked to something I did to/for them a few years back [and let’s be honest, there are a TON of them] thinks, “my Dad was a mischievous sod”, rather than – as I fear – “my Dad went broke buying stupid shit to embarrass/take-the-piss out of people he loved”.
Mind you, given I love every fibre of that kid, its safe to say he will have a lot of stuff to remember me by.
Even if it might be [read: probably is] stuff he’d rather forget.
Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.
Thank you for giving me a smile Donn … given I bought you that jumper back in 2018, it would suggest 2 things.
1. It may offer me the best ROI of anything I’ve ever bought in my life.
2. You should stay well away from Harper’s softball buddies Dad and his weird internet browsing habits.
Always looking out for you Donn. You special bloody human.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Cakes And Pies, China, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, England, London, New Zealand, R/GA, Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
Over the years, I’ve introduced a number of behaviours and/or rituals into the places I’ve worked.
Some have been serious … like the cultural research studies and books I’ve done, such as Dream Small or America in the Raw [to name but two] and some have been errrrrrm, less serious, like the pie-making competitions.
I say less serious, but people don’t act that way.
In fact, regardless of whether I’m talking about the teams in Shanghai, LA, London or Auckland … they all reveal they’re as competitive as fuck.
And in some cases, delusional as hell. Hahaha.
At Colenso, I introduced the Fuck Off And Pie.
Basically we define a theme – or an ingredient – and people have to make something that reflects it.
It’s all blind-tested and then we vote on who is best over a number of categories before the overall winner is revealed to great fanfare.
Or some fanfare.
Anyway, last month the Fuck Off And Pie theme was ‘birthday’s’.
Over the space of 2 hours we witnessed – and ate – a glorious celebration of creativity, gastronomy, insanity and revenge. Put it this way, as bakers … we’re great planners.
From a personal point of view, I had a lot to prove.
Despite being my idea, the last 2 occasions had seem my submission come second-to-last. This was devastating, given I had won first place at R/GA with my totally breakthrough [cough cough] ‘Breakfast Pie’.
The good news is my entry – entitled, ‘Give Birth, Day Cake’ came a highly credible 3rd.
The bad news is I probably have another HR violation.
Here’s why … followed by some other pics of the day. A day that will long live in our memory, and our bowels.
[It’s a public holiday in Auckland on Monday – I know, I know – so see you Tuesday]
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, China, Colenso, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Cynic, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Deutsch, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, England, Family, Grand announcements, Jill, LaLaLand, London, Love, Marketing, Mum, Mum & Dad, Nottingham, Otis, Paul, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, R/GA, Relationships, Stubborness, Sunshine, The Kennedys, Uncorporated, Wieden+Kennedy
I’ve written this blog consistently for 15 years.
FIFTEEN!!!
My god …
But it gets worse.
Because bar a few weeks of holiday, it is something that has been written every single Monday to Friday.
That means there has been over 3,900 posts of utter gibberish for over 780 weeks.
And as tragic as that all sounds, there’s an awful lot of people who comment on here who have been here pretty much all that time.
LOSERS!!!
Now, I have to say there are some lovely benefits to long term blog writing.
In some ways it’s like a diary … capturing what I was thinking or doing at any given time.
It also is a lovely way to see how my opinions and thoughts have evolved over time.
Plus there’s the hope that when I’m gone, Otis will still feel his Dad is close.
OK … OK … there are some posts I definitely DON’T want him to read, but there’s others I’d be glad for him to keep going back to.
Putting aside I basically write the same 3 or 4 posts over and over again … there is a lot of my life contained in these pages.
From getting married to losing my Mum to having my son.
Proper life-changing stuff … and that doesn’t even cover the moves to different countries, jobs and homes.
The best and worst of my life is detailed here which is why – despite all these big life events being sandwiched between endless amounts of shit – I still like it.
Occasionally I randomly click on a date and just see what I wrote.
Recently I did this and was reminded what a little shit I was.
OK, can be.
It’s this.
Yep, it’s the time I tried to auction off Martin Sorrell’s business card so people could send him stupid messages or texts.
On the plus side, I was offering to give any money to charity.
On the negative, I was working for WPP at the time.
If you think that’s stupid, there was the time I wrote a post featuring a photo of Sir Martin with a picture of Toad of Toad Hall under the caption ‘Spot The Difference’.
And the weird thing is that while I don’t agree with his approach to creativity, I do respect him. I have met him on a number of occasions and he was very, very impressive.
Though it’s fair to say that respect was only one way, Especially when there was an agency Q&A and I asked him ‘what do you spend all your money on?’
So Sir Martin … even though I know you would never read this blog [more proof you’re clever] I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for my stupidity. It was ridiculous … but if it’s any consolation, at least it wasn’t as bad as this.
I know … I know … this was a terrible post even by my standards.
So celebrate in the fact that tomorrow is Good Friday so I’m off till next Tuesday and you’re not going have to deal with any more of this shit till then.
I don’t know about you … but it’s the sort of news that makes you almost believe in God, doesn’t it.
Happy Easter, enjoy the sugar rush.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, China, Comment, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, LaLaLand, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Nike, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Respect, Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
So I’ve decided to do a little thing every month where I write about a planner I love.
Full disclosure, the vast majority will be people I’ve worked with because I can then say honestly I know all their bad bits as well, hahaha.
Today I’m going to write about Ben Perreira.
I first met Ben when I moved to LA and worked with him at Deutsch.
Or at least I thought I did.
About 6 months in, he told me that he had written to me when on April 11th, 2014 … I put a post up on my blog asking if anyone was interested in working with me on NIKE at Wieden.
Embarrassingly I couldn’t remember him writing to me – though it was well over 3 years later by that point – but fortunately, I had apparently written him a very nice return email saying that while I liked what he was up to, I didn’t think he was quite what we needed at that moment.
As an aside, that is the job that led me to the brilliant Paula Bloodworth and so I don’t think anyone would feel hard done by losing out to her – given she’s one of the top 5 strategists on the planet. Probably higher than that.
But that doesn’t mean Ben isn’t amazing.
He is.
I liked him pretty much as soon as I met him.
And that’s quite amazing given he was a surly, petulant prick for our first few get-togethers.
Arms folded.
One word answers.
A lot of, “why would you ask that?”
But Ben’s problem was I’d seen that behaviour before.
When I joined Wieden, one of the people who would eventually be in my team, Rodi, was a carbon copy.
Same reaction.
Same responses.
And that was in the interviews.
But I soon discovered it wasn’t because they were assholes – well, not real ones – it was because they wanted to see if my standards were going to be high enough. If I was going to fight my corner or try to just be liked. To check if I was worthy of the gig and they may learn something from me or I was just a token figurehead who just wanted an easy life.
So when I saw Ben doing the same thing, I found it amusing rather than disturbing.
Which meant I just kept asking him more and more personal questions. Digging into his character before he could dig into mine.
Oh how awkward he found it. It was wonderful. Hahahaha.
Now you would have to ask him if I ‘passed’ his test, but he certainly passed mine.
Because what I soon learned – and loved – about Ben was he just wanted to do great things.
He didn’t want to take the easy path.
He didn’t want to just be liked for saying yes.
He didn’t want to simply churn out the same thing over and over again.
And I loved that.
I loved the questions and the debates we’d have.
I loved the way he dug into the business details to pull out the possibilities.
I loved the way he was a fundamentally good human, despite his dating escapades.
I miss Ben.
Not just because he’s disgustingly handsome, but because he’s a good human who happens to be smart.
He has high standards and wants people who have the same.
And if he feels he has that, he’ll go into any battle because he wants to make a difference.
Not just to the work, but the people doing it.
Lots of people will say that, but for him, it’s in his DNA.
In some ways, I imagine Ben was a natural leader from the day he was born.
He gives a shit about others.
He wants to see them succeed.
He won’t manage up simply for optics … and in the insanely hierarchal corporate structure of America, that’s not just rare, but beautiful.
Christ, the things I saw …
And yet Ben didn’t fall for that.
One or two others tried to do that shit, but never Ben.
In fact, I remember one day being told by someone my team were out of control.
Too full of opinions with too much desire to debate.
And when I said, “I know … isn’t it great!”, it was made pretty clear to me they didn’t share that perspective.
Hahahahahahahahaha!!!
Normally I wouldn’t feel proud about that.
I shouldn’t, because a planners job is to be a well-intentioned, pain in the ass.
Someone who pushes clients to be great not to be average.
But I found in America that wasn’t always the attitude.
I met far too many people there who told me “saying yes” – regardless of the ask – was far more valued by their managers than saying, “I think we can be better than this”.
I don’t know if Ben likes me.
I hope he does.
And if he does, I know the exact moment it happened.
He’d been in a huge meeting that had gone well.
The ECD sent an all agency email updating everyone on what had gone on and thanked Ben for [I think] ‘preparing the room for the meeting’.
I kid you not.
What was even more pathetic was I knew how much Ben had put into this.
How much blood, sweat and tears he’d poured into the project to give us a chance to make something great.
So I decided to respond with an all agency email reply.
Basically pointing out that as the planning department were apparently ‘so good at setting up rooms for meetings’ … if anyone had anything else they need us to do – from fixing a TV to washing clothes – just drop us an email and we’ll be there in the blink of an eye.
It didn’t go down well with anyone, except Ben.
And that’s all I cared about.
Because he’s smarter than he realises and kinder than he likes to admit.
I’m glad I didn’t miss out working with him when the Wieden gig didn’t work out.
I’m even more happy that he’s still in my life.
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.