I’m not a huge royalist.
To be honest, apart from a couple of them – I question what any of them do.
Oh I appreciate their role in terms of history, pageantry and tourism … but to consider their validity beyond that is ridiculous. Let’s be honest, at this point, they’re more Reality TV stars than anything else.
Andrew should be on Worst Ex Ever.
Harry and Megan need to launch Real Housewives of Santa Barbara.
And Edward probably belongs on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
However, despite all that, NZ is closed today to celebrate King Charles birthday.
I know … I know … we don’t even celebrate that in the UK, but thanks to the Union Jack appearing on the NZ flag, we’re all getting an extra days lie-in EVEN THOUGH IT’S NOT EVEN HIS REAL BIRTHDAY which means – for one day only – NZ may be the most pro-Royal place on earth.
Given how the current government seem hell-bent on undermining everything that makes NZ special, I look forward to them announcing October 7th as a new national holiday: Putin Birthday Day, Day.
See you tomorrow.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Bonnie, Childhood, Family, Food, Health, Holiday, Mental Health, Rosie, Walking
As many of you know, over the last year, I’ve got healthy.
Through exercise and a very regimented and controlled calorie/sugar/carb diet [except on Christmas and Birthday’s where I eat a whole loaf of Sourdough with salted butter and raspberry jam] I’ve lost over 46kg.
Or said another way, I’ve lost the equivalent of my 10 year old son.
Not only that, but maybe the first time in 40+ years, I am in the healthy BMI range.
Yes, I know the whole BMI system is currently being evaluated because frankly, it’s not fit for purpose, however this is still a huge thing for me.
But not the biggest thing. Oh no …
Because despite now eating well, dressing better and basically being in the best health of my adult life, the biggest difference in me is this:
Yep, that’s my walking chart for January. Or should I say, for most of January.
And full disclosure, of the days shown, 10 were during the festive break and another 10 days were when I was not allowed to drive due to my eye problem.
But, even then, I walked over HALF A MILLION STEPS in 28 days.
HALF A FUCKING MILLION.
That’s 19,000 a day!!!
And you know what, I loved every step of it.
I walk before work.
I walk on client calls.
I walk in the lunch break.
I walk when I get home after dinner.
I’m a fucking walking machine, and yet a little over a year or so ago, I’d have probably driven to the shower if I could.
Of all the things that have happened on my health journey, my love of walking has probably been the most surprising. But what it also has done is reveal how I used to manage stress.
Truth be told, I never thought I suffered with stress.
Sure, there were the odd times it was tough, but generally I thought it was all OK.
However when I decided to sort myself out, I would continually catch myself walking to the fridge. Not because I was hungry, but because I was looking for a distraction or a diversion from something related to work.
I’d deal with my ‘auto-pilot fridge visits’ by forcing myself to go for a walk instead … however over the weeks I realized how often I was out pounding the streets which revealed to me, arguably the first time, how much stress I was probably dealing with throughout my life.
I should point out that when I say ‘stress’, I don’t mean anything like so many people have to deal with.
For me, it was more mundane stuff … like how I was going to write a deck or how was I going to cram all my meetings in.
But here’s the strange thing …
Despite walking so much, I somehow am able to do so much more.
Not because I have more energy – I’m not really sure I do – but because I have more inner calm.
I call it ‘Zen Ferocity’ … which sounds far too new age bollocks, but in essence means by being calmer, I have been able to put more intensity into what matters rather than what distracts.
Of course this shouldn’t be a surprise as there’s so much evidence on how running helps the mind … but when you have gone from walking to the fridge to walking 19,000 steps a day, it’s still a gratefully received fist in the face.
But what this walking has also done is prepare me perfectly for welcoming this into the Campbell home:
Meet Bonnie.
Or to give her, her full name – courtesy of Otis – Bonnie Bourbon Biscuit. [But we’ll just be sticking with Bonnie, hahaha]
She was only 24 days old in that photo and we don’t get her until April … but we have a very excited household.
Even our beloved Rosie may have thought she was cute …
Maybe.
And while I know owning a dog is a very different proposition than owning a cat, I can be sure of one thing.
She’s not going to be wanting for walks.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Environment, Holiday, Home, Jill, Love, Loyalty, Management, Miley, New Zealand, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Professionalism, Resonance, Respect, Strategy, Stupid, Success, This Blog, Toxic Positivity
Happy 2025 and welcome to year 19 of my rubbish.
I trust/hope you had a good break … even if that is simply because I didn’t write a blog post for a few weeks.
I had a great one.
Not just – as I’ve written before – because New Zealand does the ‘holiday season’ better than anywhere on the planet, but because this year was so different to the year before.
And just to reinforce how much better it was, the day I landed back in NZ I was rushed to hospital as my ‘good eye’ decided to basically stop working.
I say ‘good eye’ because when I was 21, my right eye got a detached retina [from picking up a bag of bloody coal, like some cliched Northerner from the 1800’s ] and while they managed to reattach it – which was touch and go due to some complications – it resulted in it having very bad vision out of it. However, thanks to my left eye being good, I’ve never had to worry about my sight beyond how much it costs to have for lenses that don’t look like I’m wearing beer bottles on my face plus the general protection of my head and eyes.
Even though it has been like this for 33+ years, I’ve never taken my sight – or the protection of my eyes – for granted, so you can imagine how freaked out I was when suddenly my good eye basically stopped working a day before we flew back to NZ from Asia.
Now it’s not totally sorted, but I have been assured it will over the next couple of months [which is handy as you can see from the photo below, I look bloody weird with different sized pupils which means people are even less inclined to look at me] and yet despite all this, I STILL CONSIDER THIS HOLIDAY BETTER THAN LAST YEARS.
Let me explain why …
You see back in December 2023, I started work with a new private client.
They had asked me to do a big project for them with a first check-in date of mid-Jan.
I knew it would take a couple of weeks or so to write things up but stupidly, I decided I’d do it over the holidays rather than before.
There was some rationale for that decision …
+ I had a bunch of stuff to finish before the holidays.
+ I had a bunch of reading to do relating to who this client was as a person/artist.
+ I was exhausted and wanted a break before I got stuck into things.
+ It was the bloody festive season and that’s a time I wanted to spend with family.
But the problem was that even though I had a plan for when to do the work, my brain wouldn’t let me forget about it.
So each day, the thought of the work I had to do would nag and niggle at me.
Slowly upping the volume and pressure.
So as each day ended, all I could think about was how I had even less time to relax before I had to start work, which resulted in me not being able to fully enjoy or relax until – in what felt like the blink of an eye – it was time to get started.
When that happened, the annual break I was so looking forward to, wasn’t just over … but never even had a chance to properly start. So instead of being relaxed and ready, I was tired and anxious.
Add to that, that the holiday season the year before had also been rather a traumatic – with Otis and I both ending up in hospital and my dear friend Chelsea, passing away – I was a shattered, emotionally not just physically.
The result of this was that the first 3 months of 2024 were, in all honesty, one of the most stressful times of my life. Not necessarily because the project was hard – though it was certainly demanding, albeit incredibly exciting – but because I had not allowed myself the break I needed to be ready for a completely new challenge.
The good news – if you can call it that – was the impact of these choices and decisions was very obvious to me and I knew I would never, ever let something like that happen to me again. Which is why before the most recent holidays started, I wrote to all my clients – both my private ones and Colenso’s international ones, who don’t have the same holiday duration as our local clients – telling them I was out.
Not ‘out unless you have an urgent requirement’ … but out.
Nada. Zilch. Gone.
And you know what?
No one minded. Not one.
Now, you could say that’s because they find me an absolute pain-in-the-ass to deal with, but I think – or should I say, hope – I believe it is because they respected my time and respected the efforts I’d put into their business over the past 11 months.
I get not everyone has that opportunity.
I get being able to have a break of this duration is a privilege.
But the reality is a break is the greatest investment you can make in yourself or your people.
It gives them a chance to decompress. To think. To let shit go. To get excited again.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a checkout operator or an old bastard, advertising strategist.
It’s why I hate how some companies treat ‘holidays’ like it’s a gift … something you can only have if it suits the organisations needs, timelines and ego.
Fuck that.
For all the talk companies say about ‘our staff being our greatest asset’, the second best demonstration of that – after being paid fairly – is valuing, encouraging and protecting their rights to a break.
And by that, I mean respecting their people’s right and need to have ‘proper holidays’ rather than attempting to hide their toxicity under the guise of bullshit like unlimited holidays … which not only aren’t ever true, but are something they actively go out of their way to ensure can never be realised.
And don’t get me started on the US attitude to vacations, with their 10 days a year allowance … meaning many people can’t have any break of significance without either years of sacrifice or days of unpaid leave.
It’s why I’m eternally grateful for Colenso’s attitude to holidays.
And why I’m eternally grateful for how NZ values and protects their ‘festive season break’.
[Though one unfortunate side-effect is people often don’t take a break in the rest of the year so they can save it all up for the end of the year, which can also contribute to people feeling and experiencing burnout]
And why I’m eternally grateful to my clients for appreciating and encouraging it for me.
Of course part of the reason for their generosity is because it’s in their interests … because a holiday increases the odds great things will happen for them thanks to your renewed energy, focus and inspiration. But hey, I respect they get this because we all win from it rather one person feeling indebted to the other for having what is their god-damn given right to have.
So hello 2025 … let’s see what you’ve got in store for me.
Or should I say, look out for what I’ve got in store for you.
Filed under: 2023, Advertising, Agency Culture, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Cannes, China, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Context, Corona Virus, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fashion, Fatherhood, Holiday, Individuality, Jill, Love, Loyalty, Martin Weigel, Mum, Mum & Dad, Music, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Paul, Paula, Peace, Prejudice, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Revenge, Review, School, Shanghai, Travel, Trust, Truth
So with all the focus on Otis’ 9th birthday, I only just realized this is going to be the last week of this blog for this year. Which means you get a month off and then – when I come back – I will be entering year number 18 of writing my rubbish.
EIGHTEEN YEARS.
An adult.
And will my posts reflect that maturity?
Errrrm, probably not.
In fact a while back, I got called ‘immune to maturity’ by Metallica’s management which they quickly followed up with, “… and I bet you think that’s a compliment.”
That’s why we’re still working together after 7 years … we understand each other so well, ha.
2023 has been an interesting year for me.
Definitely more highs than lows.
In many ways, it has been a standout year for me – both personally and professionally.
I feel almost embarrassed to say that. I totally appreciate how many people are suffering right now. I have friends in tough places and there’s those dealing with everything from mental health challenges through to terrifying conflicts … which just reinforced how privileged and lucky I am.
For the first time in my life, I started this year with a resolution, and it was to say ‘yes’ to everything I was asked to do.
I don’t know why I decided to do that – maybe it is because for all of NZ’s magic [of which there’s tons] it can sometimes feel a pretty isolated, inward-focused place – so to counter that, I decided 2023 was the year of yes and I got to do a lot of that.
Saying yes let me travel literally around the world for work … including some countries/cities I’d never been to in my life. [Not to mention, having the gift of visiting my childhood home again, even though I burst into tears when the lovely new owner opened the door, haha]
I got to speak at a bunch of ace conferences. from Cannes – with my mates Paula and Martin – the magnificent State Of Social in Perth right through to the WWD World Fashion Conference in China [with the incredible Phoebe Philo and, bizarrely, being interviewed by Fashion TV] with a whole bunch in-between.
I was a guest speaker at a bunch of institutions from Cambridge University, the Ecuadorian Advertising Federation right through to the House of Prada.
I got to be part of some incredible creative projects. From the huge: helping design the 72 Seasons world tour stage set for Metallica. The cheeky: offering the All Blacks rugby coach a free curry for a year if he brought home the World Cup, then taking away his naan bread because he didn’t. To the most awarded: watching the wonderful fools at Colenso pick up Gold gongs and Agency of the Year title’s all over the place.
Top that off with seeing 3 members of my team become parents for the first time [and another about 3 months into that magical journey] and to see the 3 newbies from overseas not only fit in with the gang like they were here for years, but make an even bigger difference than I hoped – and you can see why I feel it has been a hugely satisfying year for me professionally.
But it’s the personal side that made it truly memorable.
First of all, we’re all happy and healthy. Like properly happy and healthy.
Then, for the first time in 7 years, we had our first proper family holiday. And while It did not last long in terms of duration, the glow still is with me months later. Yes, I appreciate that sounds more sickly than being force fed 5047389 sticks of candyfloss, it’s true.
Jill started her new company, Tiny Riot … a jewellery company dedicated to say the words women feel, but don’t always want to say out loud. She also felt she had found her peeps … letting her feel she was part of a community she loves and thrives in. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me, especially as we know we’ll no doubt be moving to another country in the not too distant future, hahaha.
Just to be clear, that has not been decided yet, we just know it’s coming … especially as we’ve already lived in NZ longer than we have lived in the last 4 countries we have been in. But I digress …
Which leave Otis …
Brilliant, wonderful, fantastic Otis.
Well, he has flourished and blossomed this year.
From seeing his mates network evolve and develop … with their own codes, games and slang … through to watching him throw himself into new activities, like tennis and swimming, yoyo’s and messing about with Roblox, Reels and video games … to seeing him love his budgie, Sky [which he made me a t-shirt to wear on the Cannes stage to ensure I admitted I cared for it as much as Rosie, ha] and then of course, watching him deal with his dysgraphia diagnosis with positivity, openness and conviction.
Given I have seen adults literally burst into tears when they had to move desks at work – true story – seeing an 8, now 9 year old – embrace a challenge that will affect him for the rest of his life with understanding, openness and a desire to not let it define him or make excuses for him is honestly one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing.
[I also have to add Forest staying in the Premiership was a highlight, because while Jill and Otis may not like to hear it … that team are family to me, hahaha]
But of course, you can’t have good without bad and there’s been a couple of things that have shaken me deeply.
One in particular made me question everything I thought I knew and could rely on.
The impact it had on me was – and still is – huge. I would say it has been the most emotionally confronting situation I’ve experienced since my parents died. It has been that big.
What makes it even worse is that in reality, I may never really get over it as the impact affects me and my family for the rest of our lives.
And we’re the least affected in this situation.
It has taken me months to try and come to terms with what has happened … to try and accept things I thought I knew and could rely on, have failed.
If truth be told, I’m still working on it … because while I appreciate life can take unexpected turns, it’s why – and how others deal with it – that determines how you feel about it and in this case, they are the things that ended up being disastrously dealt with.
Which is why 2023 can never be seen as a spectacular year for us, merely a very good one.
And as I said, that is still a hugely positive outcome given so many are suffering in ways that make my pain seem insignificant.
Which is why I was so impacted by some graffiti that someone I vaguely know, told me about.
It’s this …
… they’re not wrong.
Which is why, while I know 2024 will face it’s challenges – especially with the US election and the likelihood America will lose its mind and vote for Trump [while acknowledging the Democrats have failed to find and develop a single worthy candidate in 4+ years] – I hope by this time next year, more people can say they had a more positive than challenging year because the World needs it. Because for all the hell that Covid subjected the planet too, the anxiety created by people [read: old, white men] who feel entitled to do and have whatever they want is arguably, even worse. And without wanting to sound like a hippie … some peace would be nice.
I know no one will have read this far, but then this is not for you … but I can assure you the last 3 posts of this week won’t be as indulgent, not for your sanity, but because I can’t be arsed to write so much rubbish again.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Birkenstocks, Brand, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Cannes, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Dysgraphia, Empathy, EvilGenius, Fear, Holiday, Imagination, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Otis, Paula
So I’m back.
And after an October where I went to Fiji, Australia, China and America … November is wonderfully static.
Don’t get me wrong, I love travelling … but that was ridiculous.
For all the talk of how COVID would change the way companies would work and interact, I’m meeting more and more people who are travelling more than they did pre-pandemic.
And that’s scary for a whole lot of reasons.
Personal, environmental, commercial.
Scarier than the that day where ghosts and ghouls are supposed to come out and haunt us. Also known as the day kids keep coming to your door demanding sweets.
Yes … that’s a terrible link to the point of this post, but I wrote it to originally appear on Halloween, but then I went to the US and missed my chance, so here we go.
Halloween in NZ is definitely less full-on than the US.
Oh my god … they love holidays and Halloween is one they embrace full-on.
When we lived in Manhattan Beach … it was like a community event.
The whole street would basically come out, all dressed in god-knows what, embracing the mood and the moment.
Obviously I hate that level of sociability … but even I got caught up in it, buying a ridiculously sized baby head from a shop, which I tried on in the car before casually looking to my right and seeing [1] I was next to a bank and [2] I had a security guard looking at me as if I was going to rob the joint.
Good times. Ahem.
Anyway, to keep with the ‘scary’ mood, Otis recently became the proud owner of these …
Yep … Crocs.
Fucking Crocs.
I know we talked about them recently in our ‘Strategy is constipated, imagination is the laxative’ talk … I know I have some sort of grudging respect that they are cool with charging $8 for each ‘personalised attachment’ you can add to the shoes … I know, with Otis’ dysgraphia, they are much easier for him to put on than many others … I know I can’t talk with my love of Birkies … but, but, but THEY’RE FUCKING CROCS.
Seriously, compared to them, Birkenstocks are liked pieces of art.
And yet they continue to live.
To thrive.
Like cockroaches of the footwear category.
Which means I have to salute their brand management and imagination.
Which is better than 99% of brands out there.
Which is why we put them in our Cannes talk.
And why I felt scared enough to put them in a post that was supposed to appear on halloween.