Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, China, Comment, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Emotion, Empathy, Honesty, Management, Marketing, Wieden+Kennedy
Once upon a time, I worked with a guy called Kim Papworth.
He was the co-ECD of Wieden London at the time, with the irrepressible Tony Davidson.
Now I am sure Tony wouldn’t mind me saying this, but he has a reputation as a bit of a madman.
Brilliantly creative.
Deliciously stubborn.
Fiercely challenging.
And slightly bonkers.
OK, so in their early days – when they were at BMP and BBH – this ‘unique’ reputation was allegedly shared … however as time went by, Kim started being seen by many people as ‘the nice one’.
While they are both ace, I get why.
Where Tony is loud, Kim is quiet.
Where Tony is chaos, Kim is clarity.
Where Tony is intense, Kim is calm.
Where Tony is random, Kim is considered.
Let me be clear, Tony was – and is – amazing and has always been so good to me, however many viewed Kim as the more approachable of the two … the one you could reason with … the one you could chat to … the one you could have a debate with and it’s this that was his most powerful move.
You see Kim … wonderful, kind, compassionate Kim … is steely as fuck.
Sure he doesn’t shout or rant or gesticulate or throw tantrums.
Sure he doesn’t swear or throw toys out the pram or act aloof.
But he was stubborn as fuck about letting the work win.
He wouldn’t let ideas be killed on an individuals whim.
He wouldn’t let ideas be changed to satisfy personal ego.
He wouldn’t let ideas be diluted to appease a committee.
He wouldn’t let ideas be burdened by politics or agenda.
He wouldn’t let ideas be sold short by timelines or small mindedness.
He wouldn’t let anything win other than the purity of the idea.
I once watched him keep a campaign on the table after a client had spent 30 minutes saying it was wrong and they hated it. Better yet, he did it in a way where the client was OK with him doing it.
He didn’t bully, lie or manipulate to get his way.
He did it by listening.
Intently.
Then he slowly but methodically went through each of their issues and talked about the options he saw to solve them … always ensuring they elevated the idea he believed in rather than diluting it.
It was – quite simply – one of the most amazing pieces of creative negotiation I’ve ever seen.
Actually, negotiation is the wrong word.
Because it was never about dumbing down the idea to keep a version of it, it was always about solving the problems the clients had but in ways that ensured the idea would be able to shine.
[The photo at the end of this post is from that meeting, where Kim awkwardly humoured me and my demands to commemorate the moment of magic]
While Kim was – and is – a brilliant, brilliant creative, one of his greatest skills was the art of listening, because he always saw it as ammunition that allowed him to keep ideas safe.
While there are others that practice this – including a bunch at Colenso for example – a huge amount of the industry simply hears stuff.
Listening and hearing are very different.
Listening is understanding.
Not just the words, but the context and the details.
But hearing …
Well, hearing is simply about sound and that’s why we often end up with divisions.
A battle between ‘what I want’ and ‘what you want’.
A war between creativity and client.
No one wins.
Sure, someone may in the short-term, but not long.
That doesn’t mean you can’t disagree or debate … nor does it mean you will always succeed in convincing someone to change their mind … but listening increases the odds.
It ensures the other party feels they have been understood.
It ensures your response is efficient and focused on the issue.
It ensures you are keeping the work on the table for as long as possible.
[And if he feels the demands being asked of the work undermine the power of the work, he’d just take it off the table and we would start again. And I believe in that to this day]
I have had the great pleasure of working with a whole host of brilliantly talented creative people.
People in adland, music, fashion, gaming and sport.
But the ones I find the most fascinating are the ones like Kim.
Who have the ability to feel like velvet, even when their focus is forged in iron.
Not because of manipulation, deceit or trickery.
But because they know, nothing is as forceful as the power of listening.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Comment, Corona Virus, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, London, Love, Otis
I found this photo recently.
It’s a few years old, when we lived in London … but there’s something about it that just warms my heart.
Not just because it features my son – though that helps – but because it in a period of pandemic chaos, it shows how love can make everything OK.
Covid had just taken hold.
We were all confined to home.
No one was offering any clarity.
People were dying at unprecedented numbers.
And Otis desperately needed his hair washing.
However …
… he was also playing a video game he absolutely didn’t want to stop playing so – because his world had been turned completely upside down – his wonderful, kind, considerate Mum found a way for him to keep playing while she could do some hair washing.
Obviously it is an utterly ridiculous way to do things, but it’s my ridiculous.
A moment of twisted normality at a time where nothing felt normal whatsoever.
And while I appreciate this is an utterly indulgent photograph, I love the way he seems oblivious to his surroundings. His little legs stretched out to the tip of his toes. And a kitchen that has been rapidly turned into a school, a playroom and a hairdressers all at the same time.
While we were painfully aware of the privileged position we were in – from having an income to having a teeny garden to escape in – the fear of COVID was starting to take a hold which is why, as I look at that photo today, I realise how much my ridiculously beautifully family let me feel we were strong together at a point where everything was feeling like it was falling apart.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Business, Colenso, Comment, Confidence, Corporate Gaslighting, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Honesty, Management, Marketing, New Zealand, Point Of View, Relevance, Resonance
This is Angela.
Her official title is the Managing Director of Colenso.
But actually she’s the boss.
Not just because of how she is sitting, but because of how she operates.
Leading without dictating.
Encouraging without patronising.
Liberating without restricting.
The great, great thing about Angela is that for all the experience and success she’s gained, she is open and hungry to let the energy, ambition and values of youth to keep shaping and changing where we are going.
Angela’s strength is she wants everyone to win.
She opens the door to opportunities for talent to run in and do their thing rather than closing it behind her so she can have all the power.
But then female leadership has always seen winning differently to a lot of men.
Progress for all rather than power for one.
And before certain men start spouting their sexist shit at me like they did when I wrote about how more female leadership will give the industry a real chance to grow, I appreciate not all male leaders are like this.
But a hell of a lot are.
And – if you look at Corporate Gaslighting and/or read Zoe Scaman’s brilliant, brave but totally unsurprising Mad Men and Furious Women – many of them are doing stuff … and are being allowed to get away with stuff, often by companies that talk about their commitment to their staffs wellbeing and mental health … that is a fuckload worse.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Consultants, Culture, Empathy, Management, Relevance, Resonance
It’s August.
Month 8 of 2021.
Month 17 for so many of my mates working from home.
It’s quite interesting sitting in New Zealand and reading all these companies releasing reports about ‘the future of work’ when they are doing it from a position of semi-blindness.
Yes, there are many, many benefits from working from home.
For a lot of people, the hours saved on commuting are incredible.
And there’s definitely a lot of benefits for companies having people work of home.
The savings on office space alone do that.
But the reality is after a year of that, being back in an office – albeit in a country that has dealt with COVID better than anyone – the impact has been huge on me.
It reminded me of the thrill of working with other people.
Debating ideas.
Discussing issues.
Talking bollocks.
There’s a camaraderie that you don’t get on a video conference.
In addition you don’t have to always be ‘on’.
Always look like you’re busy.
Always look like you’re paying attention.
Always look like you’re on top of everything.
That doesn’t mean you can be a slack bastard in an office, but it means the pressure of ‘being on’ reduces. That may seem counter-intuitive in an environment where you are always seen, but it is because of that you let your human side come out. The different forms of your energy and presence.
What all these companies banging on about having fixed ‘the future of work’ are actually saying is what is the future of THEIR work. What they want THEIR environment to be. What THEIR individual category allows them to do.
They can put out as many survey monkeys as they like to their employees, if doesn’t mean they know the future of work.
It’s also laughable these organisations are proclaiming they have all the answers when they were often the ones who encouraged/forced people to come to their offices every day … and would then actively fight against anyone who wanted to operate under slightly different terms.
If we want to learn what the future of work is, we’d be far better off listening and learning from companies or organisations who operated this way since before COVID forced change than anyone else. Which means I’d trust Mary Kay Cosmetics or even Anonymous more than many of the big talkers out there right now.
The reality is people can adapt more easily than companies have ever given us credit for. But what the future of work is for them and us is going to dependent on many factors … of which one is remembering what it is like to be in an office again.
At the end of the day it will likely be a balance – something that works for the 3 main parties of people, clients and company – but what I’ve found interesting from the people I’ve spoken to who don’t want to go back to the office, is they’re not just saying it for financial/commute reasons, but because they hated how the company made them feel constantly oppressed and judged when they were inside their 4 walls.
In fact, having spoken to a number of people on Corporate Gaslighting … many have said that working from home would have saved them from the worst of bad management.
Which is the real lesson about the future of work for companies post covid.
Do you have a culture people want to be a part of or want to stay away from?
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Authenticity, Comment, Content, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Gaming, Insight, Love, Planners, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Sentimentality
When I was young, I was introduced to a whole host of iconic TV characters.
Six Million Dollar Man.
Wonder Woman.
Buck Rogers.
Superman.
The Incredible Hulk.
Of course there were more, lots more – from cartoons to local kids TV – but the one’s from America just seemed to be more amazing.
Part of this was probably the production value of the shows, but it was also the imagination they triggered and celebrated in me.
It was so much more than just entertainment, it challenged, encouraged and introduced me to a whole new way to look and see the possibilities of the World.
These characters continue to hold a lot of sentimentality with me, because despite being over 40 years ago, they were – in many ways – characters that defined my generation.
They were OUR shows, even when they were a remake of something that went before.
I say this because when I look at Otis, the characters from his shows are so different.
For a start, so many of them are born through Youtube.
Plus there’s also a huge amount from games, like Roblox or Minecraft.
But the relationships are similar to the ones I had with the Incredible Hulk etc.
And that’s because they’re his characters.
They are badges of his generation.
He connects to people who share the same love and knowledge.
Which is a good reminder that in a world where we are continually going on about new possibilities, new opportunities and new technologies … the forces that make so many of them successful and valuable are the same things as they’ve always been.
Emotion.
Of course we should know this.
Of course this should be obvious.
But I don’t know if we do.
I read so much these days that seems to be focused on efficiencies, effectiveness, experience or eco-systems … and while they’re all important and have a role to play … they aren’t the reason people connect so deeply, they’re just tools to help make it happen.
In our quest to be seen as innovative, we’re re-making the wheel over and over again except it’s not as simple. Or as effective. Or as powerful.
Because we’re so desperate to look like we’ve done something new, we walk away from the things that can make something valuable.
Beyond price.
Beyond status.
Beyond superficial.
Somewhere along the line, we’ve forgotten the value of emotion.
We talk about it. We describe it. We even attempt to show it.
But instead, we have reduced it to a set of ‘research group approved’ actions and behaviours.
A set of research group approved actions and behaviours that are more focused on telling people what we want them to think about rather than to feel.
A set of research group approved actions and behaviours that are designed to minimise the potential of alienating someone rather than making it mean everything to them.
How fucking depressing.
More than that, how fucking laughable.
Because the holy grail for all these brands is to encourage loyalty beyond reason.
Where people choose you over countless competitors.
Where they will queue for hours to stand a chance to have a moment in your company.
Where people will willingly wear a t-shirt with your name emblazoned on it.
Where people will do this over and over again, regardless of time, money or location.
For all the money, research and ‘marketing guru tactics’ so many brands adopt these days … they still don’t come anywhere close to the impact bands, gaming characters and old 1970’s TV shows have on people.
And there’s one simple reason for it.
You don’t make people care talking about them, you do it by being for them.
Not in terms of ‘removing friction to purchase’.
Or telling them you really, really care about them.
Or saying you’re committed to their progress and success.
Or you want them to get the best value deal they can get.
But by recognising who they are, not who you want them to be.
And then talking to them that reflects that.
The good, bad, weird, strange, complex, scary, hopeful, uncomfortable.
It’s not hard.
And yet it seems to be the hardest thing in the World.
Which is mad, given a man painted green and a shitty rubbery mask was able to do it and 40+ years later, can still ignite more feelings of love and loyalty from me than 98.99999% of all brands with their research and marketing guru processes.