Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Creativity, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning
It’s not that long ago that advertising award submissions would talk about how many Facebook ‘likes’ a post got as proof of effectiveness.
As I wrote a few years ago [even though I can’t find the post, haha] that’s the equivalent of claiming someone is your fan simply because you asked them to pass the salt in a café and they did.
And while many were quick to try and blame Facebook for suggesting this as a metric, the reality – similar to those who blame Powerpoint for writing bad presentation – was it was the people who wrote the submission who were to blame.
For all the talk and conversation about effectiveness, it’s amazing how we continue to try and reframe what it is and how you achieve it.
Hell, even those who literally make a living out of it, do it with one eye on serving their own needs and wants – resulting in methodologies that, while not wrong, tend to be more about not failing than liberating.
But hey … they’re way smarter, objective and valuable than so much of the stuff we’re seeing being peddled left, right and centre.
Some things to note.
Having 100,000 followers on Instagram is not a demonstration of your strategic effectiveness.
Having 10,000 subscribers to your newsletter is not a demonstration of your strategic abilities.
Having clients write you a letters of thanks is not a demonstration of your strategic skills.
They’re all lovely.
They’re all things you should feel proud of.
But they are not a demonstration of your strategic chops.
Christ … I have 17,000 instagram followers and do you know how I got them?
Well, as much as I’d like to say it was down to the 18,000 excellent images I’ve posted over my 14 years on the platform, the reality is it was an accident.
Metallica linked my insta to one of their photos and overnight, I gained about 20,000 followers.
Literally overnight.
Now I know what you’re thinking …
“How come 20,000 people followed you but you only have 17,000 followers now?”
Well, it’s easy …
Once people realised I was not going to furnish them with insider knowledge of their hero’s and instead, would be bombarding them with photos of my cat, they left in droves.
Almost 10,000 people.
So those 17,000 people on my insta consists of about 10k who find me so insignificant they can’t even be arsed to stop following me and 7k of people I’ve overshared into submission.
To paraphrase Lee Hill who once told me, “turnover is sanity, profit is vanity” … we can say the same about followers/readers and happy clients.
Sure, having a lot of people like what you do is good … but it doesn’t mean you’re strategically effective.
It doesn’t even mean you’re even strategic … and yet so many seem to be mistaking their volume of insta/newsletter/client letters as proof that they are.
All that means is – at best – you’re good to the people who have chosen to follow/work with you and as good as that is, it’s worth remembering a lot of people think Donald Trump is the messiah which highlights many people don’t know what the fuck they’re doing or talking about.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Grifting, Innovation, Management, Technology
Warning. This post is topical.
In fact, it may be the most topical post I’ve ever written on here for 20 years.
Please read, while sitting down in case shock overwhelms you.
This is the end of this public service announcement.
So over the years, at Wieden and R/GA, I had a few dealings with WeWork.
And while I admit at the very beginning I thought it was a genius idea – specifically the way they were creating a business that dramatically profited from sub-letting space that was designed to appeal to a particular audience who felt they deserved to work in a particular kind of environment – after I met them, I started thinking something didn’t quite add up.
Please don’t think I am trying to suggest I had any idea of the level of craziness that was going on because I didn’t … I just couldn’t understand why they kept talking about themselves as a tech company and experts in work environments and culture when they were just a new generation of business space renting organisation.
But billions were poured into them and they were the darling of so many – especially those investor/companies who love to talk about ‘disrupting categories’, despite the fact most are about as conservative as you can get.
But over time – as numerous books, documentaries and news reports have documented – WeWork was proven to be a case of Emperor’s New Clothes.
And founder ego and delusion.
Specifically one founder … because on the few occasions I met him, Miguel seemed decent and grounded, whereas Adam most certainly didn’t.
Zoom forward to today and the company has filed for bankruptcy protection.
All that money and they still fucked it.
Worse, the delusional, ego-maniac that is Adam Neumann – who took a good idea and killed it with his God complex – got to walk away with a level of wealth that will last a thousand lifetimes.
Multiple billions.
BILLIONS!
But this isn’t a post about unfairness or WeWork’s craziness – I’ve written loads about that – this is about the challenge to encourage new thinking while not being blinded by it.
We live in divisive times.
Everything seemingly turns into a war.
Those who believe and those who don’t … and that extends to new ideas.
The amount of time I’ve seen people immediately dismiss new concepts or thinking simply because they are not as perfect as something established that has had years to work through issues and train people to conform.
But by the same token, I’ve also seem people blindly back a new concept or thinking because they seemingly want to associate themselves with the topical.
We saw this last one on a grand scale with so many people on Linkedin suddenly announcing themselves as AI experts, in a desperate bid to exploit the market interest and the market lack of knowledge.
Which gets to the heart of this post which is the importance of independent, critical thinking.
Where you are supportive of new ideas and thinking but know it is OK to ask questions about actions and decisions. Not to tear things down, but to better understand what is being done.
Starting from a position of ‘they could be right’ rather than ‘they’re obviously wrong’.
Focusing on the business not the hype … which, as Lee Hill once told me … is often as simply as acknowledging ‘profit is sanity, turnover is vanity’.
Critical, independent thinking isn’t celebrated enough.
Oh we may think it is, but what often we’re seeing is blinkered ego thinking.
Not enough understanding.
Not enough knowledge.
Not enough homework.
Not enough questions.
Not enough patience.
WeWork has cost millions of people billions of dollars … and yet you can’t help but think it didn’t have to be that way.
Their original business idea was a good one.
But the promise of trillions seduced people to lose their ability to think.
Critically and independently.
I wrote about this years ago with a lesson from the master conman, Bernie Madoff:
“I succeeded because when you offer people a deal that’s too good to be true, they never want to look too hard into the facts. They say it’s because of trust. I say it’s because of greed.”
We need to encourage positive pessimism.
The ability to champion new ideas without blindly being seduced by them.
To want to help people succeed without falling into being an accomplice for any delusion or slight of hand.
It’s not hard … but the more we promote blinkered ‘framework and eco-system’ thinking, the more we lose the value of independent thinking and then everyone loses in every way possible.
Especially those who have exciting new ideas that just need our encouragement and time.
Filed under: Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Cannes, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Experience, Fake Attitude, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Point Of View, Professionalism, Relationships, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Toxic Positivity | Tags: om
Obviously I have a soft spot for Google.
From cynic to Colenso, they’ve been a constant in my professional as well as personal life.
They are intimately involved in so much of what I do every single day and I appreciate the possibilities they have enabled me to embrace because of them existing.
I know … that sounds unbelievably gushing doesn’t it.
That doesn’t mean there’s not stuff that drives me nuts …
From the way some of their products work [Google Slides, I’m looking at you] through to the passive behaviour they are increasingly showing in the face of challenges that their smarts/money/tech could fundamentally change for the benefit of millions – if not billions – of people. However even with all that, it pales into comparison to this:
What. The. Hell?
Not only is it an absolutely terrible attempt to make a terrible pun, I still don’t know what ‘the new way to cloud’ is. Or means. Or why I should give a second of attention to it.
For a company so full of smart people, how can this happen?
Seriously, this sort of work does the absolute opposite of what Google want.
It makes people question how smart the company is.
It makes people ask if Google know how to talk to people.
It makes people wonder if Google know how to make tech that understands our needs.
It makes people ask if this is the sort of organisation we should trust to shape our future.
Sure, it’s just a random billboard … but for a brand that once represented humanities hope for ensuring technology enabled and empowered a better, brighter, more equal future for all, this work feels more like a politician pretending to smile while they’re busy oppressing us.
I know this isn’t the case, but bloody hell, it’s rubbish.
Which leads me to this.
I don’t know who is behind it. I don’t know if it’s an agency or an internal group. But I have to believe this was made because senior people mandated it or influenced it. Either directly, or indirectly. Which serves as a really good reminder about the dangers of corporate structures.
As Martin, Paula and I said in our Cannes talk, toxic positivity is ruining brands and people.
The idea that ‘team’ is now interpreted as blind complicity and conformity is insane.
But it’s happening. We all see it or have experienced it.
Worse, there’s an underlying attitude that the only way to get ahead is manage up. What I mean is that rather than do the right thing for your audience, you do the right thing by your boss. Doesn’t matter if it makes no sense. Doesn’t matter if it actively confuses the people it is actually designed to communicate to. As long as it hits the ‘cues’ your boss likes, you’re good.
As I wrote recently, toxic positivity is leading to the systematic destruction of knowledge and experience. Great ideas and people are literally being moved out of organisations to be replaced by conformists and pleasers.
Yes, company culture is important.
It has an incredible power to achieve great things.
But here’s the thing too many companies just don’t seem to get.
If you’re mandating it, you don’t have it.
Because real company culture is born from the people within the company. Yes, the people at the top shape and influence it – often through beliefs and a way to look at the world – but the moment you try to dictate or define it, you lose it.
But here’s the thing …
Even when a company gives you something to believe in, they know the real key is to give every employee the power to feel they can be themselves. That they trust them to want to make things better, rather than break things apart.
Which is why they encourage debate.
They value different opinions and ideas.
Because as long as it’s not in a self-serving, divisive manner … it’s almost the ultimate demonstration you want to help make things better.
There are a lot of companies who get this.
There’s sadly far more who don’t.
And everyone loses because of it. Because if companies stopped thinking of company culture in-terms of efficiency and optimisation – and more about standards and quality control – we would all get to better places faster.
Or at the very least, less ads that say everything by saying absolutely nothing.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Corporate Evil, Egovertising, Embarrassing Moments
So a few weeks ago, Elon Musk posted this.
What the hell …
The irony is anyone who tries to claim penis size is a symbol of status and superiority is an idiot … most often while being in possession of an appendage that is the size of a drawing pin.
As if losing billions on Twitter wasn’t embarrassing enough … his ‘feud’ with Zuck just makes him look like a more desperate version of Tom from Succession, just with less quality one-liners. Hell, he has made Zuck look good, which up to 6 weeks ago, seemed as likely as making Putin look a cuddly, compassionate grandpa.
I’m not doubting Musk is smart in some things, but the more he acts like a petulant child, the more I am in doubt what those things are.
Seems like he may be the billionaire in this story …
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Strategy
Not too long ago, Campaign – in the UK – asked me for my point of view on Byron Sharp and the obsession with brand assets etc.
Specifically, they wanted to know if I felt he was hindering creativity as well as making it harder for small business to ever stand a chance of breaking through.
Now I have some issues with Mr Sharp’s character, but if I put that aside to answer the question, I said this:
First of all, I don’t think Mr Sharp wants to kill creativity.
From my perspective, he recognises its value far more than others in his position. If I’m going to talk about who is undermining the power of creativity, I’d say it can be aimed far more at the companies who outsource all their training needs to the same few individuals because it’s easier and cheaper for them to do.
God, that’s started off controversially hasn’t it?
The reality is what Mr Sharp says isn’t wrong, it’s just not the one-size-fits-all approach that so many seem to have interpreted it as.
And that highlights what the real problem is for me: conformity over possibility.
Or said another way, the modern equivalent of ‘no one got fired buying IBM’.
Look, I get it … marketing is expensive, complicated and influenced by a whole host of factors that you can’t control, so if someone say’s “this will stop you making stupid mistakes”, it’s pretty compelling.
But the reality is not making stupid mistakes doesn’t mean you are ensuring success. Worse, blindly following these rules creates a real risk you will commodify yourself … looking, talking and behaving just like everyone else. Let’s be honest, you don’t have to look too hard to see that already happening …
And that’s my problem with terms like ‘brand assets’ … they’re talked about as if you can buy them off the shelf.
Simply choose a single colour, add a logo and some category cues … then sit back and count your billions.
But people are confusing visual distinction with brand value.
Sure, being recognised in some way helps … but it only becomes an ‘asset’ if it has meaning built into it and to do that requires distinctive and deliberate acts, actions and behaviour over time.
Or said another way, you don’t ‘create’ a brand asset, things become a brand asset.
The industry is continually looking for shortcuts.
I get it … I really do … but the irony is the thing that can deliver so much of this, is the thing the industry continually tries to diminish or control.
Creativity.
At its best, creativity rewrites rules and changes the odds in your favour.
Creativity helped Liquid Death get men to want to drink water.
Creativity helped Gentle Monster become the fastest selling and growing eyewear brand across Asia.
Creativity helped Roblox go from niche player to the single most played game by kids and teens across America.
Creativity even helped Metallica use a 30 year old album to attract more fans resulting in them becoming the second most successful American band of all time.
They didn’t achieve this simply because of smart distribution of their brand assets. Nor did they achieve it by placing their logo as a watermark throughout their TV commercial [which has to be the laziest and most misguided attempt to achieve ‘attribution’]. They achieved it by allowing creativity the freedom to push forward in ways that – as a by-product – meant their voice created value in their numerous assets.
I get it’s not easy.
I get it requires real energy and openness.
But little can achieve what creativity can do when you commit to letting it loose.
My problem [and I appreciate this may just be me] is that many seem to have interpreted the words of Sharp [and others] in a way where they see creativity as simply the ‘wrapping paper’ to execute their rules and processes.
But creativity isn’t the wrapping, it’s the fucking present.
A gift that offers value to brands that goes far beyond the fulfilment of singular commercial objectives and goals.
There are countless examples of brands achieving incredible success and growth following different rules so much of the industry feel is the only way to progress.
That’s not meant as a diss to Mr Sharp, he is obviously very good – though I note he and his peers choose to not highlight that many misinterpret and misuse their guidance, which suggests there is an element of complicity and profiteering from the one-size-fits-all blandification that is happening all around us.
But even then, the real blame should be aimed at the industry for fetishising the learnings and viewpoints of the same few people, because however good they may be – and they are good – it means we’re literally choosing to narrow our own potential and future.
Don’t get me wrong, brand assets are definitely a thing. But they don’t make creativity valuable … creativity makes them an asset.