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: 2020, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Comment, Culture, Emotion, End of Year, Fatherhood, Goodbye England, Grand announcements, Health, Jill, London, Love, Loyalty, Metallica, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Nottingham Forest, Parents, Paul, R/GA
This time last year, I was writing about how I only had 11 days left of my 40’s.
That I would soon be reaching my ‘half century of age‘.
To say a lot has happened since then is an understatement.
A year ago, I was living in Fulham, working with R/GA and stuck in the first lockdown.
Since then, I have gone through redundancy, bought a beautiful family home in the countryside, watched Forest fuck up the best chance for promotion that they’ve had in 20 years, been in The Guardian newspaper, got ‘The Hoff’ to make a video for my beloved Paul’s big 5-0 birthday, started Uncorporated with Metallica’s management … worked with even more rockstars and billionaires … as well as some fashion icons, music producer legends and the most anticipated video game in history … bought a house in New Zealand that we never saw, moved to New Zealand in the middle of a pandemic, started working at the wonderful Colenso and got to see my family start living a ‘normal’ life again.
And that’s just the big bits.
So here we are again.
The beginning of the month of my birthday.
I hope to fuck this year is not as traumatic.
I’m fine with the variety, but please, not as traumatic.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Authenticity, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Cannes, Chaos, China, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Family, Fatherhood, Grand announcements, Happiness, Health, Home, Insight, Jill, London, Love, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Metallica, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Nottingham, Otis, Parents, Paul, Planners, R/GA, Relevance, Resonance, Rosie, Shanghai, Shelly, Wieden+Kennedy
Before I start, I need to warn you this post is long.
It may be the longest post I’ve ever written, so there’s a TL;DR at the very end.
Anyway, this post is about my Mum. And my wife.
Two amazing people who provided the foundation that allowed their husbands to go all over the place.
I’ve written about how my Dad had a bunch of radically different careers.
Not degrees of change, whole fucking protractors worth.
And while my career has been more ‘stable’, in so much it has pretty much revolved around the same industry … the fact I’ve been able to live and work literally all around the World is as much down to my wife as it is to any opportunity I have been given.
Put simply, none of what Dad or I have done could happen if Mum or Jill hadn’t enabled it.
And enabled is the perfect word … because this is more than just ‘supporting’ someone’s quest for adventure.
They actively enabled it to happen by choosing a path that offered them – and the family – a greater level of stability and consistency so their partner could follow the path of curiosity.
What an amazing act of generosity and love.
It is something I have been aware of for a long time …
And while Jill has loved the adventure we have been on, it has come at some personal sacrifice.
She is far from her family.
She built her career as much around the environment she was in as the interest she had in a particular area.
And while she did brilliantly with all of it – especially with her cake design business in Shanghai – I am perfectly aware she could well have gone on to even more amazing things if we had just stayed in one place rather than moved all around the World.
She has never complained about this.
She has always embraced the journey and the countries we have lived in.
But the reality is I took her away from her family supposedly for a year, which turned into 16.
Or said another way, she has shown me a level of love and support that I find hard to fathom.
So now it’s time to pay things back a little. Kinda.
You see when I got made redundant, I was inundated with generosity.
Some of it was words of support.
Some of it was offers of projects.
Some of it was even offers of jobs – albeit all overseas in America, Europe, Asia and Australasia.
Frankly, it was overwhelming and wonderful.
And while all the gigs were amazing opportunities, our first reaction was to say no.
Part of it was because of the wonderful family home we had just bought. Part of it was our desire to set down real roots for the first time. And part of it was because two famous rock bands, a wonderfully eccentric Chinese billionaire, an amazing German home appliances brand and the World’s most notorious/desired video game company stupidly asked me to work with them on long-term creative projects, meaning I could continue to earn a good living in the country my family now considered home.
Hell, in the last 9 weeks I’ve done presentations to the boards of TikTok, Rockstar, a fashion superstar and a Silicon Valley VC while also helping some mates on 2 pitches … one in Australia, one in Italy … and we won both of them!!!
As weird as it is to say, unemployment – for me – has been amazing.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I know what I’m saying is the definition of privileged-as-fuck.
I absolutely acknowledge I’m in an extremely fortunate position and, if I’m being honest, I’ve found that hard to reconcile with, given how many people – many my mates – are having a hard time right now. To help deal with that, I’ve been finding ways to bring some of them into the projects I’m on because not only do I want to share the good fortune I’m experiencing, they all make me – and the work I do – so much better.
But it also revealed something I had forgotten.
As much as I love the work I’m doing and who I’m doing it for, I love it more when I’m doing it with a team. If I’m being honest, I suck when I’m on my own and given the personal projects I’m doing will never demand 8 hours a day – let alone 5 days a week – there’s a lot of ‘on my own’ time, I have to deal with.
I know, that sounds like the dream doesn’t it?
And it is. But while I absolutely love spending so much time with my family and adore working with Rock Stars and eccentric billionaires, I also love – and probably need – to collaborate with other creative people on other creative things … which led us back to the ‘real’ jobs people were talking to me about.
Frankly they all offered something unique, interesting and valuable to my career, my family and our overall future.
And, importantly, they all involved working with interesting, passionate, creative people.
Plus – in theory – I could still deal with the crazy ideas and needs of rock stars and billionaires.
So Jill and I discussed them again.
Some were pretty easy to decide …
Not because the job or the companies were bad – they were all wonderful – but they were based in the US and frankly, given all that’s going on there right now, that’s not somewhere we wanted to go back to at this time.
But there was one opportunity that caught Jill’s attention.
Not just because of the job, but because of the place.
Jill knew I was already excited by it because the company involved was one I had revered and raved about for years. In fact I had almost joined them a few years ago, but Mum had just died so I was in the wrong frame of mind to make any big changes in my life.
So why did this place catch Jill’s attention?
Because, in simple terms, it was nearer to her Mum, who lives in Australia.
You see while she talks to her daily, it’s obviously not nearly the same as seeing her a bunch of times a year.
I totally understood this, not just because I had been in a similar situation with my parents … but because now we were so close to my beloved best mate Paul and his epic wife Shelly, I felt an even deeper connection with them, simply because we got to hang out a shit load more than we had for the past 25 years.
And so this got us talking.
As I said, I absolutely adored the company. And I loved Jill could be closer to her Mum. And we loved the idea Otis could spend his primary school years in an environment that is safe, natural, liberal, creative and culturally diverse. Plus I loved I could do something that would – in a super small way – repay Jill for all the love, consideration and sacrifice she had given to allow me to keep us moving forward … not to mention I loved that I would have a whole new list of people I could make Facebook friends.
[OK, not that last bit, more like a whole new list of people I could be an instagram terrorist to]
Are you wondering what the fuck I’m going on about?
Well this is my very convoluted way of saying Jill, Otis, Rosie and I are all moving to Auckland in New Zealand, and I‘m pathetically happy to announce I’ll be the head of strategy for one of the most wonderful agencies in the World – in fact, one of the Cannes agencies of the decade – the utterly brilliant, beautifully ridiculous, infectiously creative … Colenso.
I have loved this agency for so long.
They’ve consistently made work that I’ve not just been insanely jealous of, but I’ve not seen anywhere else.
From creating a radio station for dogs … to stopping speeding by letting kids design the speed dial in the family car … to making drinking a beer the most romantic thing you can do on Valentine’s Day – or an alternative fuel for cars – they’re imaginative, audacious and wonderfully bonkers.
While saying ‘no’ to them 5 years ago was the right decision because of my state of mind after Mum died, I always felt I’d missed out on an opportunity that could be very special for me, so to be offered a second chance is … well, put it this way, it’s something I’ll always be eternally grateful to their idiocy for making happen.
Frankly, when I got made redundant, I never imagined something like this could happen … but, as I said at the time, the last time this happened to me, it led to one of the most creatively rewarding times of my life and in my post, I wondered out loud if lightning could strike twice.
Amazingly, it seems it can … but that’s the best thing about life, because if you’re open to everything, anything can happen.
That said, being in England has been amazing, far more than I imagined or hoped.
I don’t mind admitting when we came back I had a sense of trepidation.
Part of it was because I never thought we’d live in England again, part of it was because I didn’t want it to signify ‘the end’ of the adventure [and yet so many people thought it did] and part of it was that I felt guilt coming home after Mum and Dad died … because if I was going to do that, what didn’t I do it when they were both still here.
But as we spent more and more time in England, those concerns were replaced by feelings of belonging and connection that I thought I’d lost the ability to feel or experience, regardless where we lived … so while the UK may a complete basket-case of a nation, it’s my basket-case and I can take that newly formed sense of connection with me wherever we go.
But what about our new home?
The one I’d written so much about when we got it?
The one we moved into SEVENTEEN DAYS AGO!
Well, the fact of the matter is we’re in it and we love it and we don’t want to lose it … so while we will taking a detour via a wonderful adventure in New Zealand, I can categorically say we will be back living in it at some point. Don’t know when – we never make plans about timing – but we just know we will one day.
You see the reality is the house was always more to us than just an asset.
We wanted somewhere where we could settle … a place where our roots could grow and become established and entwined. It’s why I took the decision to sell Mum’s home, not just because it helped us be able to afford it, but because it was the sort of place Mum would want for us.
A family home rather than a house my family lived in.
I look forward to continuing to enjoy that until we go.
I look forward to continuing to enjoy that when we eventually come back.
But when do we go?
Well, that’s an interesting question with COVID … but hopefully in the first part of 2021.
If you asked me if we would ever live in New Zealand in the first half of 2020, I would have laughed and said no … and then added., “not unless Colenso offer me a job again”. But here we are, about to do just that … and I have to admit we are all hugely excited about it.
Not just for the reasons I’ve mentioned, but because living in another country and culture is an amazing privilege and we’re excited that the journey we’ve been on for the last 25+ years, still has a few more chapters to be written.
[That said, our cat is not happy as this this will be her SIXTH country in 13 years]
I’m so grateful to Colenso for giving me – and my family – this opportunity.
I’m so grateful to Jill for thinking of me even when this is supposed to be more about her.
I’m so grateful to R/GA for giving me – and my family – this experience in England and, by making me redundant, opening the door to exciting and rewarding things I never imagined could happen.
I’m also so grateful to all the people who have been so kind with their generosity and support while I’ve been in England, especially when I was made redundant. There’s loads and I’ll write a post about them when we leave but quickly, a massive thanks to …
My old planning gang at R/GA. Nils, Lucy and the incredible team at Uncommon. Matt Tanter. The Brixton Finishing School. John Dodds. Joel Keene. Emma Clark. Jonathan Nwauzu. Phil Jacobson. Judd Caraway. Caroline Seifert. The delightful nightmares Mike and Sam. Claire Pickens. David Tiltman. Munraj Singh. Kay and the team at SMILE-ing Boys Project. Michael Roberts. Karrelle. Louise Jack. Nick Ellis. Paul C. Nick Hirst. Richard Greene. Jed Hallam. Ms Bloodworth [although technically she is now in PDX]. Trudie McNicholl. Omar at The London Business School. Larissa. Sam Clohesy. Hanan. Giles Edwards. Asher. Tom Roach. Tarik at On Road. Sara Tate. Stefano. My beloved Mr Weigel. Ally McKenzi. Vince Aidoo. Neil Perkin. Graeme Douglas. Nick Owen. Nic Owen. Sam Brookes. Dave Alberts. Ayo and Group Think.
There’s tons I’ve missed but as I said, I’ll write a proper thing about them closer to the time we go [even though I appreciate this is turning into a Ms World acceptance speech] but I would be wrong if I didn’t give a mention to my oldest, dearest friend – Paul – and his wonderful wife Shelly, who made – and are making – this chapter better than I dared imagine.
I can’t really put into words how wonderful it has been being close to them again. While it had been 25 years since we were in the same country, it never felt like it – though being so close definitely made things even better. [The photo above, taken in our new garden when they came to visit, is one I’ll always treasure]
The one really sad thing about going is not seeing them as much as we have been able to over the past 2 years … but I keep reminding myself we’ll be back and I know when that happens, it will be exactly like it has been – wonderful and silly – because that’s exactly what happened when we came back after a quarter of a bloody century.
I know this has been a super long post. Like, Gwyneth Paltrow Oscar-speech long.
And I know most of you won’t have read most of it.
Or you just skipped to the TL;DR at the bottom.
But that’s OK, because it’s not for you, it’s for me.
And for Otis. For when he’s older. So he can properly understand the reasons behind his childhood, family adventures.
However even I’m getting over it so with that I’ll leave you with this …
Once upon a time, Dan Wieden asked me if I would ever live in Portland.
My response resulted in him saying, “I should fire your ass” and repeating it every single time he saw me from there on in.
I never had anything against Portland.
It’s an absolutely lovely place, but for me – especially as I was living in Shanghai at the time – I felt it was too small, too quiet, too natural and just too nice.
Well, we’re going to find out who was right.
I’m pretty sure we’ll find Dan was. As usual.
TL;DR
Bought a house in England but moving to NZ.
Off to play at the wonderful Colenso and let my wife be closer to her Mum.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Brand Suicide, Chaos, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Context, Corona Virus, Crap Campaigns In History, Grand announcements, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Positioning, Presenting, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance
I’m writing this post on the 28th May, so who the hell knows what’s happening a month from now. Actually I’m lying, as I have a pretty good suspicion about a few things, at least to do with me, so it will be interesting to see how wrong or right I am.
But I digress.
This is about the British Government’s communication strategy, specifically when they went to phase 2 of their COVID-19 strategy and launched these guidelines to help the British public deal with the pandemic.
As we all know by now, there was a lot of debate.
Some said they were clear.
Some said they were ambiguous.
And so rather than help the nation as a whole understand their situation and what was needed to help us move forward, they ended up igniting the nation in debate about wording, leaving people to interpret what the hell they wanted.
A conspiracy theorist may suggest this was done to stop people looking at the huge death toll that had happened due to Boris Johnson’s shambolic handling of COVID. A theory only made compelling by the way Johnson suddenly announced the UK was ‘re-opening’ mere hours after he had publicly backed his advisor, Dominic Cummings, for breaking the rules he had helped force upon the entire British public in an obvious attempt to distract the public’s attention. Made even worse by the fact Johnson had apparently almost died with COVID, so he knew first hand how dangerous it was and as such, should not back anyone who had the symptoms and then knowingly broke the rules. And as a final insult, the way he backed Cummings – suggesting it was what ‘all parents would do’ literally pissed on the faces of the parents and children who went through incredible hardship [from not seeing loved ones, to not attending loved ones funerals] to obey what was asked of them. An utter, disgusting way to behave.
But I digress. Again.
The point I want to make is that while all this argument was going on – specially around what ‘Stay Alert’ meant in practical terms, Vic Polkinghorne, @vicpolky on twitter, wrote a tweet that put the debate to rest.
They wrote:
____________________________________________________________________________________
Note on clear/unclear communication (one area I do have some experience)
If some people find it unclear, it’s unclear.
If you find it clear and some people find it unclear, it’s unclear.
The responsibility for clarity of comms is with the communicator, not the recipient.
____________________________________________________________________________________
That’s a good lesson for anyone in the communication industry.
An even better one for the British Government.
Now if only they were open to constructive criticism or gave a shit about anyone outside of their chummy little privileged gang.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Birthday, Childhood, China, Comment, Confidence, Context, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Football, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Grand announcements, Health, Home, Hope, Innocence, Italy, Jill, LaLaLand, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents, Sentimentality, Shanghai, Shelly, WeigelCampbell
So today is June 1.
In 11 days, I wave goodbye to my forties and enter a decade that seems impossible for me to fathom.
50.
FIFTY.
Seriously, how did this happen?
I still remember sitting on the hill outside Erica’s newsagent with my best mate Paul around 1978, when we worked out that in the year 2000, we would be turning 30.
But here we are, 11 days from 50.
[Though it’s 15 days for Paul, who will LOVE those 4 days where he can bang on about how he is a decade younger than me … though he will also moan that my present for him isn’t like the full page newspaper ad I got him when he was 40, but a Forest shirt signed by all the members of the 1980 European Cup team. Asshole. He knows about this present as I bought it for him years ago so I’m not ruining anything for him. But I still have a surprise for him. Oh yes.]
Turning 30 bothered me a bit.
I was totally fine with becoming 40.
But 50!
I’m both bricking it and utterly casual about it.
And while there are some practical reasons for the shitting myself part – health, work, life in general – the fact of the matter is the older I get, the better my life has become.
I totally get the privilege of that statement, I don’t take it for granted at all, but it is definitely true.
Personally, professionally, emotionally …
Sure there have been some bumps along the way – some terribly hard and emotionally destructive ones – but looking at the big picture, the reality is my life has generally been on an upward trajectory.
Now even I know that it can’t keep going like that forever … but it doesn’t mean I have to stop trying.
The fact is, the older you get, the more you discover …
From what you like, what you don’t … to what you didn’t know and what you want to know.
And what makes it even more amazing – and annoying – is that every step you take, in whatever direction, reveals a whole host of other possibilities you would like to explore and investigate.
The problem is time is now officially, not on your side … so there’s a point where you have to accept you won’t get to try, play, experiment with all you want to do, so while that might put some people off, it kind of makes me want to try and pack more in.
And I am … because on top of work, Metallica, the school with Martin, I’ve already agreed to do a couple more projects that are intriguing and – frankly – ridiculous.
But there’s another reason for this attitude and it’s because my Dad died at 60.
Death is something I’ve talked a lot about over the years – mainly due to both my parents passing away.
I’ve talked a lot about the importance of taking about it, but I must admit, I’m scared of it.
I’m in generally good health, but fifty is still 50 and my Dad still died just 10 years on from this age.
Now of course it doesn’t mean I will … and I’ve come to this completely unscientific view that I should live till I’m at least 71 because if you take away my Dad’s age of dying [60]from my Mum’s [83] … that leave 23 years. Halve that … add it to Dad’s age … and voila, I will live till at least 71.
But then that means I only have 21 years left.
TWENTY ONE.
That’s nowhere near enough.
My wonderful little boy is only 5 for fucks sake. 26 is way too young to lose your Dad … hell, that’s even younger than I was when I lost mine.
Years ago, an old boss I looked upto said that if you can’t feasibly double your age, that is when you know you are – at best – middle aged or – at worst – the last stage of your life.
Well I suppose I can still feasibly double my age – even if it’s against the average age of death for a man in the UK [79.2] – but the reality is where I’m going is shorter than where I’ve been.
But shorter doesn’t mean less interesting.
And arguably, I have more exciting things in my life now – both personally and professionally – than I have ever had.
It also helps I am insanely immature with a desire for mischief, experimentation, creativity and adventure.
And I intend to fill it up with even more.
Fortunately I get that from a number of sources.
My wife.
My son.
My job.
My other jobs.
My friends.
My mind.
A while back, Pete said something I found pretty profound.
He said the narrative of strategy tended to focus on the importance of curiosity when discovery is far more valuable for driving the standard of the work you create and the adventure you go on.
Now I’ve written a lot about how I hate when planners talk about curiosity – as if they’re the only people who have it – but I really, really like that idea of the hunger for discovery.
I absolutely have that.
I owe so much of what I have to that.
The countries I’ve lived in. The people I’ve worked with. And most importantly, the family I am fortunate to have.
So while I enter a new decade, I will continue to live like it’s the old one.
Not in terms of dressing like I’m younger than I am – mainly because I have always dressed like I live in 1986 – but with the hunger, ambition and desire I’ve always had.
I genuinely believe my best work is still ahead of me.
Truly believe that.
And the goal of this decade is to achieve some of that while discovering new things that make me believe even better work can still lie in my future.
