Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Ambition, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brands, Clients, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Effectiveness, Honesty, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planning, Point Of View, Politics, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
We’re only a few weeks into 2026 and yet last week, a planner in London reached out to me to ask for some advice because they were already feeling burned out by work.
Obviously I’m not going to give details about who they are or where they work, but what I can tell you is their stress wasn’t because of workload, but because they were working with a client who could not clearly define the business problem they needed addressing, and then was blaming them for not giving them a solution they felt was appropriate.
In many ways, this is one of the most frustrating challenges in advertising today.
Where someone uses rounds and rounds of creative work to try and work out what’s the problem they need/want to solve.
Now there’s many reasons for this …
One is that too many companies have completely undermined, destroyed and devalued the role of marketing within their organizations – resulting in a lack of training, a lack of standards, a lack of C-Suite credibility and an unspoken rule that you are only empowered to say no to proposals and opportunities.
But frankly, the blame for this scenario is shared.
Because too many agencies have also completely undermined, destroyed and devalued the role of creativity within their organizations – resulting in a lack of training, a lack of standards, a lack of backbone and an unspoken rule that yo are only empowered to say ‘yes’ to a lack of clarity on problems and challenges.
What a shitshow.
Worse, what a waste of time.
So what ends up happening is both sides throw shade and blame at each other without realizing their own complicity in what’s going on, which results in ..
+ Everything taking 10 times longer than it needs to.
+ Everything getting more complex, confusing and opaque.
+ Everything being designed for – and decided by – committees.
+ Everything requiring more presentations and rounds of work.
+ Everything getting shaped by internal politics/managing up.
+ Everything being chipped away and diluted to beige.
Now of course, not every company, agency or brief is like this.
But a lot are – increasingly so – which is why it’s not exactly surprising the planner who reached out was feeling so burned out. And I’ve not even mentioned the role of procurement, the toxicity of the ‘sprint‘ or the outsourcing to AI to make things feel even worse.
And while this situation is no good for anyone – literally no one – what really bothered me was the fact this planner felt completely isolated by his boss, the team he worked into and the client he was working for.
Everyone appreciated the issue, but no one wanted to address it.
And there lies the fundamental issue that is killing the industry.
Because as I’ve said many times, the only way you get to make great things is if 3 things are present.
1. Clarity on what problem you are solving.
2. Shared responsibility in how that can be achieved.
3. Trust each other and be transparent with each other.
All three are needed all of the time.
And while that might seem like fantasy, I can tell you, it can – and does – happen, even though I appreciate it is seemingly becoming rarer and rarer.
But it can change, though it needs everyone to take responsibility for it – specifically senior people – because without that, the ‘stress reduction’ system shown at the top of this page will become the next global marketing tool found in every marketing department and ad agency around the World.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Clients, Clothes, Comment, Community, Consultants, Context, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Disney, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Empathy, Honesty, Innovation, Luxury, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Membership, Netflix, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Popularity, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Social Divide, Social Media, Strategy, Stupid
Once upon a time, I was asked to help a client based in Thailand.
They were very successful – having made Thailand the most profitable market in the World for their particular brand.
Anyway, part of the project involved a workshop and part of that workshop was about identifying new variants for their product.
So far, so good.
Until I realized they weren’t looking at this to expand who could become a customer of theirs, but how to get existing customers to buy more of what they make.
Even that was OK, until it became apparent they believed their product was so loved, their customers would continually fill their shopping baskets with 3 or 4 different versions of the same product because they just liked the ability to consume it in more places at more times.
In short, they believed the more versions of their product they made, the more volume of products their customers would buy.
Every time.
Forget that people have a finite amount of money.
Forget that people have other bills, items, people to look after.
They believed, if you made it … people would just blindly buy.
It’s the same blinkered approach that some sales organizations have.
Where they believe if one salesman brings in a million dollars of revenue a year, hiring 11 more will mean they achieve 12 million dollars of revenue.
It’s both blinkered thinking and wishful thinking.
Or – as my father used to say – “the expansion of logic without logic”.
I say this because it feels companies are viewing the subscription model in a similar way.
Once upon a time, subscriptions were seen as the exciting new thing for business.
A new way to charge for your products and services … regardless that ‘direct debit’ payments had been around for years.
There were 3 key reasons why repositioning cost as a subscription was so appealing:
1 It lowered the barrier to entry, so it could appeal to more/new customers.
2 They knew that while customers ‘could’ cancel at any time, data showed most wouldn’t.
3 It could, in theory, allow them to charge more per month than their old annual fee.
And they were right, it proved to be a revelation … until it wasn’t.
Right now, everything is seemingly a subscription model.
Food.
Clothes.
Streaming.
Gym and health.
Car purchasing.
But the one that really is making me laugh, are phone apps.
It’s almost impossible to download anything without it being a subscription service.
And that would be OK, except the prices they want to charge are getting out of control.
I recently downloaded a recipe app that wanted $14.99 A WEEK. A FUCKING WEEK.
$60 a month just so I could send it healthy recipes I see on social media and have them all in one, easy-to-access place.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Sure, it had some features that would make it more convenient than just putting it into a saved folder on instagram … but it sure-as-shit isn’t worth me paying more than it costs me for Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify PUT TOGETHER.
I appreciate everyone thinks their product is the best product.
I acknowledge it takes a lot of hard work and money to make a new product.
But the removal of any ‘human reality context’ – ie: how much money do people actually have available to spend, and the hierarchy of importance they place on the things they spend – is not just stupid, it destroys the potential of good ideas.
Of course, part of the reason for this is because of how tech investment works.
Basically investors want big returns, very fast … so this pushes developers to build economic models based on a ‘perfect scenario’ situations.
For perfect scenario, read: not real life.
So they show things like:
The economic value of the health industry.
The impact of social media on diet choices.
The rise of health-focused products and services.
And before you know it, they’ve extrapolated all this ‘data’ to come up with a price point of $60 per month and said it not only offers good value, but will generate huge returns on the investment in collapsed time.
Except …
+ All this is theory because they haven’t talked to anyone who would actually use it.
+ They probably haven’t identified who they need to use it beyond ‘health seekers’.
+ And they absolutely haven’t understood it costs a lot of money to be healthy and so an additional $60 subscription for the average person is a cost too far … especially when things they use ALL THE TIME – like Netflix [which they already think is too expensive] – is a quarter of that cost FOR THE MONTH.
I get no one likes to hear problems.
I appreciate anyone can find faults if they really want to.
But being ‘objective’ is not about killing ideas – when done right – it’s about enabling them to thrive, which is why I hope business stops looking at audiences in ‘the zoo’ and starts respecting them in ‘the jungle’ … because not only will it mean good ideas stand more chance of becoming good business, it also means people will have more access to things that could actually help them, without it destroying them in other ways.
As perfectly expressed by Clint, the founder of Corteiz …
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Career, Clients, Collaboration, Comment, Complicity, Conformity, Consultants, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Delusion, Distinction, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Freelance, Honesty, Individuality, Innovation, Insight, Leadership, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Perspective, Planners, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Strategy
OK, I’ve given you a couple of days of niceish posts to help ease you into the new year, so I think it’s time I write some stuff that lets out some of my seemingly endless frustrations – ha.
As we all know, there’s a ton of talk about the longevity of the industry with things like corporate consolidation, AI and processes and systems.
I get that and there should be that … but what bothers me is a lot of the conversations are not focused on what got us here.
Because for all the talk about the obsession with efficiency and the ‘illusion’ of effectiveness, what is rarely discussed is the lack of investment in training.
Don’t get me wrong,’outsourced, for profit’ training programs have their role and value in developing skills – even if many have been devised by people who have often never even worked directly in the industry, let alone made anything of note within it – but so much of this is about creating industry conformity, rather than creation.
Worse, it’s industry conformity often based on an individuals definition of what good work is … which is ALWAYS self-serving for them.
And while – as I said – it still offers some sort of value, it also actively devalues individual talent, potential, craft and creativity.
Or said another way, it allows all the things we are spending so much energy complaining about – to thrive.
Add to that too many people only wanting to develop in a bid to get more money – rather than more ability – and you can see how we got where we’re sitting.
But what bothers me most is how some companies are reacting and responding to this shift.
I don’t mean agencies – who, in the main, are not exactly shining with their ‘strategies’ – but companies.
Because for all the demands they have in terms of expectations and standards, they end up showing nothing really matters as much as cost and time.
Part of this is because – sadly – many companies don’t know the difference between quality and quantity.
Part of this is because – even more sadly – there is a lack of training in their organizations as well, so they’re only empowered to say ‘no’, rather than ‘yes’.
Part of this is – possibly most tragic of all – is that many companies have put themselves in a position where they have allowed procurement to be the ultimate decision maker – despite the fact the only thing most know about other industries is how to ‘compare prices’.
Case in point …
Recently I spoke to a strategist who is not just incredibly experienced, but is pretty incredible.
By that I mean the work they’ve done and the impact they have enabled.
And yet, despite all this, they’re finding it hard to find work … exemplified by recently losing out on a project where – objectively – they would be one of the most qualified people in the entire industry to do this job.
They didn’t lose out because they weren’t known.
They didn’t lose out because they weren’t available.
They lost out because the company thought they could ‘hack the system’ by hiring someone who had worked at the same company as the strategist in question, who was asking for a much lower fee.
Now I get – on face value – that sounds a smart move.
Except that was the only requirement for hiring this person.
They ignored the fact these strategists didn’t work in the same office.
They ignored the fact these strategists didn’t work on the same clients or category.
They ignored the fact they never worked or interacted together.
They ignored the fact one strategist has led work, the other has just supported it.
They ignored the fact one strategist has 16 years of experience, the other has under 5.
They ignored the fact one strategist is at a ‘head of planning’ level, the other is ‘strategist’.
I should point out this does not mean the strategist they chose isn’t good – I know who they are and they have some interesting perspectives – but their experience, context, exposure to senior leaders and overall ability is miles off what the other strategist in question has to offer. There is literally no comparison.
Now this is not their fault … with time, I imagine their abilities [like all of us] will increase dramatically, or it will if they are exposed to people who are willing to develop them, rather than expect them to just execute which sadly – even if they had a full-time job – is increasingly seen as a ‘cost’ rather than an investment … but while I have no desire to deny anyone the ability to make a living [especially young talent who have been forced out of jobs because of costs, workload or mental health] everyone is going to lose here.
Everyone.
The ultra-qualified strategist has to look for another job.
The strategist who has been hired is going to only execute based on their frame-of-reference and standards which, as I pointed out, is not what a job of this magnitude requires. And that’s before we even consider how much this job could hold back their development because they’re not being paid to learn, they’re being paid to do.
The company ends up having a solution that doesn’t liberate the opportunity they have … or the issues they need to contend with.
Of course, where you work has a huge impact on how you grow … and the place both these strategists worked, is excellent.
But there’s a massive difference between being there a few years and many years – not just in terms of the work you do, but the challenges and growth you are exposed to – and so when companies choose to deliberately ignore this … be it for cost, convenience or control reasoning … not only are they undermining their own business, they’re undermining the potential of the person they hired and so we all end up contributing to the situation we’re complaining about while also being blinkered towards.
Train properly.
Pay properly.
Place value on experience, standards and craft.
If you don’t, the position of mayhem that we’re in now will be seen as one of the golden ages of where we’ll end up.
Happy New Year … hahaha.
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Class System, Colleagues, Community, Complicity, Conformity, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Culture, Delusion, Effectiveness, Equality, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Imposter Syndrome, Individuality, Leadership, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Meetings, Membership, Perspective, Pollution, Popularity, Prejudice, Process, Professionalism, Relationships, Reputation, Respect, Ridiculous, Service, Social Commentary, Social Divide, Social Media, Standards, Status, Status Anxiety, Strategy, Subliminal Hatred, Succession, Systems, Talent, Teamwork, Technology, Toxic Positivity, Values
This is a long post, because it has been written by a lot of rage. Mine.
So buckle up and read it, because while most of what I spout is utter shite. This is important.
Recently someone I know left the company they had been working at for a few years.
When they announced it on Linkedin, they were flooded with supportive, celebratory messages. As they should be.
But there was one other thing that was common among the comments, and that was people writing “what a good run you had”.
I don’t know about you, but when I hear that, it immediately conveys a company who has a reputation for letting people go … and so ‘what a good run’ really means is that you lasted longer than most. That your achievement was as much about staying in the role as it was about what you did in the role.
And to me, that all feels toxic as fuck.
Not by the people saying it.
Or the person it is being said to.
But the organisation who seemingly doesn’t give a fuck about letting people go.
Of course – like US politicians who ask for ‘thoughts and prayers’ after another mass shooting – their corporate mission statement only talks about their belief in their people …
How they’re trying to build a thriving, collaborative community and culture …
In fact, they say a lot of things except one: ‘when people leave, they will be cushioned by comments saying they ‘had a good run’.
So how do they get away with it?
Cash.
They pay significantly more than market rate and so there’s a steady stream of people who are willing to go work there either because they need a gig, they have fallen for the hype [and not checked it first] or they believe they can be the exception to the rule.
That’s not a judgement on the people, I get it … but it is a judgement on the org.
Especially as – in the big scheme of things – the money they pay comes at a huge cost.
The talent they’ve burned – and burned through – is extraordinary and yet no one, be it past of present employee, says a thing.
On first impression, it can feel like they’ve all agreed to collectively gaslight society, but on closer inspection you soon realise the real reason for that approach is far more due to fear than delusion.
Fear of losing your position.
Fear of never working again.
Fear of inviting more abuse.
One look at Corporate Gaslighting and you see this is not an uncommon – or unjustified – view. What’s even scarier is it is seemingly happening more and more … to the point where I swear some companies think ‘salary’ means they fully own their employees.
OK that’s a ridiculous view … a totally over-exaggerated and overblown view … an over-exaggerated and overblown view that is almost as ridiculous as:
Zero-hour contracts.
No overtime payments.
No training and development.
Expectation you are always ‘on-call’.
Personal social media monitoring.
Yes, I get those ‘work practices’ are still more the exception than the rule … but the fact they are there at all, is madness.
I get companies have to make money.
I get we live in a highly competitive world.
I even appreciate not every person is good for every company.
But come on …
What bothers me more is this is quickly becoming standard work practice.
STANDARD!
It’s like someone read a book on Victorian-era ‘workhouses’ and thought, “That sounds fun”.
And so, they’re trying to create a new set of beliefs for the ‘modern’ workplace.
Culture will not be born from the employees but dictated by the leadership.
Opinions can never be expressed; they must always be silenced.
Growth is not measured by personal development, but corporate conformity.
Success is not defined by personal achievement, but individual survival.
Failure is always – ALWAYS – to be aimed squarely at the shoulders of the employee.
[As an aside, if anyone is visiting Nottingham, they should check out the Workhouse in Southwell and go back to the future]
It’s like an episode of Black Mirror if Black Mirror was a documentary, not satire.
It’s here we’re taking a commercial break, because as much as this post has been about bullshit behavior – at least the people it’s about got paid well. But over the last 6 months, I’ve met many, young, lowly-paid, talented strategists be burned out by the expectations, pressure and demands of their employees.
As we highlighted in our 2024 book, Dream Bigger, too often people of my generation look at the young and say they don’t have the right work ethic … they expect too much … they are lacking in drive and skills … but apart from the fact that’s bullshit, even if it wasn’t, could you blame them given how they’ve seen so many of us invest so much in the promises of ‘hard work’ and then end up with nothing. And at least we had options available to us that could actually help. These poor fuckers don’t have any of that and yet we hold them to even higher expectations.
But that’s different to burnout because burnout is criminal. Actually criminal.
How are companies letting this happen? What are the fucking HR people doing?
What makes it even worse is the 5 people I met all worked at companies who talk big about ‘how their people are their greatest asset’. More like burning asset.
You want to know why we find it hard to attract the young to our industry? Because too many companies treat them like cannon fodder – and then when they’ve been battered, broken or bruised. we turn around and say ‘they couldn’t cut it’. Bastards.
Back in 2021, when we did Dream Small, we highlighted how this was a generation tolerated rather than welcomed. Then a few months later, I wrote how the ‘great resignation’ was actually – for many of the young – the ‘great reset’. But as much as they have pushed for change, this shit is still happening to so many – as demonstrated by the fact I’ve talked to 5 people in the past 6 months who could be great, but have literally been burned and no one seems to give a fuck.
All their bosses do is throw them some compliments or cash, believing it will ‘shut them up’ when what the person actually needs is to be thrown a fucking life raft of compassion, care and change. But what makes this even worse is that when the bosses discover the cash and compliments no longer have any sort of effect – when they have wrung the person out completely – they get rid of them while doing all they can to make sure the individual feels they have done something wrong to shame them for life and to keep them quiet.
It’s horrific and shows nothing has changed in the 4 years since I was featured in The Guardian about this corporate practice of employee shaming. Or the attempt of it.
What are we going to do when we have no one want to come to our industry?
We don’t pay many fairly.
We don’t train them well.
And then we work them to the point of exhaustion.
Seriously, in terms of analogy, there is no better one for this group than Workhouse attendees.
We can try and claim their attitude sucks all we like, but we’re the fuckers who need to take the long hard look in the mirror.
And with that, I end the commercial break and take us back to ‘regular programming’.
The reality is we’re getting to a point where there’s no bigger red flag about an organisation than when employees get congratulated by ‘the run they’ve had’.
Some may be well paid ‘middle management’.
Some may be poorly paid ‘young talent’.
But all of them are out-on-their-ear … surplus to requirements or drained of all life.
Which is why – and I appreciate the privilege I say this with – if you find yourself in a company like the one my mate has just ‘left’, then maybe the best thing you can do for your future health, well-being and career is to ‘run the fuck away from them’.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, AC/DC, Advertising, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Bands, Before Fame, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Career, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Consultants, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Delusion, Distinction, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, EvilGenius, History, Honesty, Interviews, Leadership, Legend, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Meetings, Music, Perspective, Prejudice, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Status, Stories, Stupid, Success, Teamwork, Trust, Truth
Once upon a time, a man – who lived and worked in Newcastle, England – got a phonecall.
When he picked up, he heard a woman with a German accent on the other end, who asked “Are you Brian Johnson?”
He replied in the affirmative, to which the mystery caller said,
“You need to come down to London for an audition next week”.
Now Brian was a singer. In fact he’d once had a hit record with his band Geordie – but now he had his own business fitting car windscreens so it was a pretty left-field call to receive. Still, he was intrigued to which he asked the caller, “Who are you and who is the audition for?
There was a pause before the German voice informed him they worked for a music company – who had to remain nameless, just like the band he was told he had to audition for.
Brian was getting a bit fed-up at this point so pointed out in his thick accent,
“I’m not going all the way down to London for an audition unless you tell me who it is”.
Immediately, they were told that was not possible.
“Can you give me a clue … even if it’s just the initials of the singer or band?”
There was another pause – as if the caller was weighing up which would get them in more trouble: giving them a clue or not having Brian come to the audition – before they said,
“OK … here are the initials of the band, but I can give you no more information whatsoever. The initials are A, C, D, C”
The rest is history.
Brian did go to London and he did audition to replace the recently deceased Bon Scott, as the singer of AC/DC.
He got the gig and the first song he wrote – in fact the first song he EVER wrote – was You Shook Me All Night Long.
Then he wrote his second ever song, Back In Black.
Then his third, Hell’s Bell’s.
And not only did all these songs appear on the first album he recorded with the band, it went on to be the best selling album of the bands career. In fact it get’s even better than that, because the album, Back In Black, sold so many copies it become the best selling album OF ALL TIME [at that time] and even now – 46 years later – still ranks the 2nd best ever seller, with 50 million albums sold.
All this because Brian – through luck and persistence – got a key piece of information that made the difference between him choosing to go down to London or telling some random German female caller to “Fuck Off”.
Now it’s fair to say AC/DC were a known quantity at the time. A relatively successful quantity at the time. But who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t done the audition.
We wouldn’t have those 3 songs for a start … 3 songs that are not just iconic for AC/DC fans, but iconic fullstops.
The point being, one of the most important things you can do, to increase the odds of success is be transparent.
Transparent on where you are.
Transparent on what is needed.
Transparent on who is involved.
Transparent on the facts, timing and money.
Transparent on roles, rules and responsibilities.
Transparent on what the definition of success is.
I say this because there is not enough transparency right now – if anything, we operate in a world of opaqueness, which not only fucks up the potential of what can be created together, but breeds distrust and unhelpfulness.
Sure, things can change.
Sure, not everything may be known at the time.
But the more you hold things back, the more you’re not just fucking others over, you’re fucking yourself.
The greatest demonstration of respect in any partnership is transparency … so if your ego, need for control or fear stops you from doing that, then it doesn’t matter what you claim or who you blame, you’re the problem.
That doesn’t mean everything will fail, but it does mean you’ll never create history.
Or said another way …
If that German woman who rang Brian Johnson way back in ’79 had refused to give him any information on the name of the band she wanted him to audition for – as were their orders – then AC/DC may be a band few people would remember and Brian Johnson would be the graveliest-voiced car windscreen repairer in the North of England.
Of course, there will be some who say if that had happened, we’d never know what we’d lost.
And they’d be right, but they’d also be something else: someone incapable of creating or achieving anything truly significant.
In fact it’s worse than that … they’d be someone incapable of even aspiring to something truly significant and would actively goes out of their way to stop others from achieving it, claiming they’re ‘just looking out for the business’ when really it’s about their fear, ego, power and/or control.
No wonder my dear and clever friend George calls them, ‘commercial assassins and happiness vampires’.
Don’t stop someone finding your Brian Johnson because you think transparency is weakness.
It’s not, it’s rocket fuel.