Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Ambition, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Communication Strategy, Consultants, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Emotion, Innovation, Insight, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Provocative, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Strategy
Insights aren’t very fashionable these days.
Seen as outdated and derivative or increasingly reduced to nothing more than a basic observation of human behaviour, increasingly favored by creative teams who think it justifies whatever execution they are about to detail … despite the fact it often is not true, or addresses a totally different issue than the one that needs the focus of their attention and talent.
Put simply, what passes for an insight these days is a lot of ‘what’ when it needs to be a lot more about ‘why’.
No wonder insights are so out of favor … however while I agree they are hard to find and should not be limited to just one area of focus, I think they are still the most powerful way to make stuff people find powerful.
Of course, what you do with them is what matters most.
Having an execution that just dramatizes the insight is rarely good work – albeit better than creative that just executes the brief – but a great insight opens up possibilities, rather than closes them off.
Recently I saw this and immediately connected to it …
Now I appreciate this is more ‘what’ than ‘why’ …
I also get it’s more universal than personal …
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pierce a deeply held truth most people will feel.
I know I do …
Sending Sarah Holtham my first ever Valentines day card [aged 6]. Going down the ‘big slide’ at Greenhorn Drive park. Lying at the very end of a row of my mates as someone jumps over us on their BMX bike via a badly constructed ‘ramp’ that consists of some flimsy piece of wood and bricks we found lying around the new build housing estate. Going for my first band audition. Driving to Scotland in a convoy then driving all the way back. Going to North Korea. Trying different foods. Moving overseas to be close to a girl I’d met in the UK.
So much of my life – the big stuff and the small – is down to one of my mates giving me a countdown to courage.
And while those days are far more my history than my present, their impact remains.
So while I appreciate age means you’re more aware of what could go wrong … the reality is most of the things you did because of a friends encouragement turned out to be OK. Great even. And even if they went wrong, it wasn’t the end of the world and you have it as both a lesson for what to do next time and a story to remember a life well lived.
Because for all the people selling their ‘for profit’ systems and processes on how to do things ‘right’ … the reality is most of them are designed to kill the possibility and excitement of our curiosity, discovery and inventiveness. Or said another way, they leave you where you already are rather than take you to where you could be … which is why I’m still a disciple of the insight, because they open the door to what could be next rather than nailing it closed under the guise of ‘protecting you from things that could go wrong’.
We need more friends giving us a ‘countdown to courage’ rather than guru’s telling us to be sensible with where we are. Not because I am a commercially irresponsible, but because we’re all in danger of going to the same place that everyone else is going. Which means the winners will be the ones who are the biggest, rather than the ones who want to do things in better ways.
And like in life, the things that define us came from those who pushed and challenged us.
Not because they wanted us to fail, but because they wanted us to live, experience and grow.
Talking of growing …
I’m in NY all next week doing some stuff that will stretch my experience, knowledge – and most probably – a bunch of other people’s patience [haha] so enjoy the silence and see you in 8 days. Make the most of it …
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Creative Development, Creativity, Germany, Insight, Relevance, Resonance, Strategy
This is my last post for a couple of weeks as I head off on a stupid trip around the World.
Los Angeles.
London.
Milan.
Amsterdam.
And finally … Berlin.
While I’m excited for all the places I’m going – even more so, the people I’m meeting – I am especially excited about going to Berlin.
Part of that is because it’s one of my favourite cities.
Part of that is because I get to see some friends I’ve not seen for years.
Part of that is because I’ve been kindly invited to speak at the GWA/Strategy Collective ‘Strat Con’ conference.
The topic of the conference is basically a discussion around the future of strategy … which is appropriate given I think if we carry on the way we’re going, there won’t be one. Or at least a bright one.
And why do I say this?
Well, it should be obvious, but if I had to sum it up it’s this:
Everyone thinks they’re different. Everyone is exactly the same.
Of course, a lot of this is because we all use the same tools, systems, models and approaches.
Where the goal is less about impact and change and far more about ‘packaging efficiency’, all reinforced by ‘for profit’ gurus who flog their systems – and themselves – as business superchargers when they’re insurance salesmen enforcing a self-interest driven definition of category convention.
Add to this the increasing amount of clients who want anything relating to their business, their audience or their competitors sanitized or erased from the ‘planning process’ to ensure their ego remains unharmed, and you can see why it’s not just strategy fighting for its relevance, but marketing as a whole.
It’s kind-of why I also find it hilarious we’re so worried about AI when the real problem is us.
Our complicity to formats and systems means innovation, invention and originality is literally being filtered out of our process and thinking so how they hell can we complain about AI when we’re making it so easy to duplicate us.
If you think this means my talk at Strat Con is going to be depressing, you’re right … it is.
Or should I say the first half is …
The second half will hopefully leave the attendees feeling a bit more hopeful.
Maybe excited even.
We’ll see … I hope so, I want the discipline and the industry to win.
And the good news is we have the talent, the brains and the creativity to do it … we just need to step out of the ‘brain jail’ we’ve all slowly walked our way into, encouraged and pushed by certain individuals who have a vested financial interest in taking us there and then keeping us there.
So see you in a couple of weeks, because while I’ll be back from my trip much shorter than that, I think we all could do with a rest from me.
Including me.
Besides, any bruises I end up with after my speech will need some time to recover.
Ta-ra. See you on Monday 13th July.
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Yes, it’s Friday.
And yes, it’s the first of May.
But neither of those things are as incredible as this …
You see, on Sunday, it will be 20 years since I started this blog.
TWENTY BLOODY YEARS!
That’s before the iPhone.
And Android.
And Facebook.
And the Kindle.
And the financial crisis.
And before Pluto lost its planet creds.
AND BEFORE WI-FI WAS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE … so a very long time ago.
I still remember why I started it …
It wasn’t for any attempt for notoriety or popularity, it was more to do with survival.
You see I’d got a job that – frankly – I was woefully under-qualified for, and because it demanded so much of my time and energy to make sure I didn’t completely fuck it up, I needed an outlet for all the ideas and thoughts that were going around my head that I just didn’t feel were right for what I needed to do at that time.
Not because I was sure I was going to use them later … more because I needed to feel I was still connected to the stuff I loved while also believing that if I didn’t find a way to get them out of my head, they’d maybe be no more space left for anything new to enter my head.
And so this blog was born.
Reading through the first few posts not only reveals the times we were living in, but also the headspace I was in.
Trying to balance making sense of stuff happening around me while also needing an outlet for stuff I was feeling or thinking … which, in many ways, set the tone for how this blog has been for over 2 decades.
Which George recently described as, “the blog version of TK Maxx”.
He’s not wrong … and in some ways, I really like that.
Sure, among the almost 5000 posts I’ve written, there’s a lot of [to keep the TK Maxx analogy going] cheap and nasty shit in there … but there’s also a few ‘designer label’ gems hidden amongst it all.
At least for me.
Stuff that made me think, challenge or question stuff in ways that I had not imagined or considered before.
Stuff that ended up impacting how I did things and how I still do things.
Stuff that forced me to articulate what I believe, not just what I feel.
Maybe those posts meant nothing to anyone but me. Hell, maybe no one even read them. But while every post I’ve written reflects something about who I was – or am – those ‘self-defined gems’ have a special place in my heart because they represent a moment where I felt I was growing and learning.
It’s why I always enjoyed the comment section, because for all the overwhelming piss-taking I received, the vast majority always ‘encouraged’ me to look deeper, wider or longer at issues I’d written about. And I loved that. I loved how the people who commented always kept me on my toes … which is why one of the unexpected pleasures of writing this blog for so long has been seeing how my opinion on certain subjects has changed or evolved over the years. It’s served as a great reminder about the importance of always exposing yourself to others perspectives, opinions, experiences and standards, even if the goal of it is simply to be really sure about what you think or believe.
In many ways, that’s the biggest surprise of 20 years writing this blog.
I never expected anyone to comment on anything I wrote, because I started it just for me.
A private place to express my thoughts and idiocy.
But then Andy discovered it and he sent an email to everyone at Cynic and some of our clients announcing it and then the mayhem started.
At that point, blogging had become a big thing. A good thing. A community of people who wanted to help and contribute to what others were doing. A lot of this was down to the great Russell Davies and his iconic blog … a place that not only brought people from all over the world together, but inspired others to start writing their own as well.
It was a place that not only exposed me to a lot of brilliant people I’d never have known about without his blog – people like Gareth Kay, Paul Colman, Northern Planner, Rob Mortimer, Marcus, John Dodds, Lauren, Age to name but a few – it also brought people to my blog who helped add to the texture, lessons and perspectives I was writing about.
I will forever be grateful to Russell for that … especially as most of the people he inadvertently introduced me to, not only still exist in my life but I have met them all IN THE FLESH.
Alas the blogging community, like most things in life, has moved on with maybe only Martin and I still churning stuff out via that platform. [Well, he curates, I churn] And while technologies advances allows strategists to be even more connected in even more ways, the energy of the community is not the same as it was back in the early days of blogging.
Now it feels more aggressive.
More sharp elbows and self publicizing.
Wanting the spotlight on them rather than the work they do.
But then, the industry seems to value those who talk about the work more than those who actually make it … which kind-of highlights why the industry is in the state it finds itself in but refuses to acknowledge.
Emperor’s New Clothes anyone?!
Screenshot
That this blog is 20 years old blows my mind. I never thought it would last that long, mainly because I never gave much thought about how long I’d be writing the thing. It’s not always been fun – when I was receiving a lot of anonymous hate that resulted in me deciding to stop allowing comments was definitely a low point – but all in all, the whole experience has been pretty glorious.
In many ways, this is one of the longest committed relationships I’ve ever had.
And one of the most successful, hahaha.
The fact there are some people who have been reading it for almost as long as I have been writing it, is madness.
Have they no taste?
Have they got nothing better to do?
Or maybe they’re stuck in prison and this is part of their ‘sentence’.
The good news for them is there’s no way this will still be a ‘going concern’ in another 20 years … at least not in terms of how regular I’ve been writing posts for the past 2 decades. Not because I am running out of things to say [albeit Andy said I have only ever written 3 posts and just keep re-writing them in different ways] but because I’ll be – hopefully – doing other things with my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always be grateful to advertising … it has given me a life I never could have dared to imagine … but I am increasingly spending more and more of my time working and collaborating with artists and I feel that’s where my future may be. Not because I don’t love what I do, but because I find their definition and expression of creativity even more interesting, challenging, open, provocative and progressive than where our industry is choosing to head.
But that’s not going to happen yet. Hell, it may not happen at all – I could get fired by all the artists tomorrow for all I know – which is why for the time being, I’ll keep happily juggling my two ‘lives’ while churning out daily blog posts at the same time.
Sorry, hahaha.
That said, the point of continuing this blog is different to what you may think and why I originally started it.
Because while it has helped me grow, learn, make new friends and even help build my professional reputation [which is hilarious when you read some of the stuff I’ve churned out, like this!] … it delivers something that is even more important to me.
Connection to my family.
I know … I know … that sounds weird-as-fuck, but what I mean is this:
A few years ago, Jill said that while she rarely ever reads my blog, when she does – she can hear my voice because of the way I write.
Put simply, how I write is how I talk … so when she reads my posts, it feels like I’m with her.
And she liked that.
Add to this that I’ve shared deeply personal and important moments in my life – from getting engaged to getting married, to Mum dying, to becoming a Dad, to getting Rosie – and Bonnie – to saying a tearful goodbye to Rosie, to moving from Singapore to HK to China to America to London to New Zealand [so far] … which means moving from cynic/WPP to Sunshine to Wieden+Kennedy to Deutsch to R/GA to Colenso [not to mention all the other highs and lows that have impacted or been introduced to my life over this period, be it death, covid, friends, family, health, books, chaos, and/or multitudes of weird, wild, crazy shit] … and this blog is no longer just a place where I rant rubbish, it’s a place my family can have me close even when I’m no longer here.
That means a lot to me.
Not because I want them to need me, but because I like knowing they can access me should they ever need me.
Or if Otis ever wants to introduce me to whoever becomes important in his life.
It’s why I’m going to keep writing it and why I’m going to move it to a free domain again, to make sure it always stay up … because what originally was a place just for me, has become a place that offers connection to the most important people to me.
And with that, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has ever visited or commented.
Whether you meant it or not, you’ve given me far more than I ever imagined or hoped for.
Thank you. Love you. Grateful for you.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, AI, Ambition, Attitude & Aptitude, Billionaire, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Community, Complicity, Confidence, Conformity, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Delusion, Details, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Experience, Innovation, Insight, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Strategy, Success, Tactics, Technology
A few weeks ago, Jack Dorsey – ex-Twitter and now Block – laid off 40% of their staff.
They say this was not because they were doing badly, but because it allowed them – thanks to AI – to be even better positioned to take advantage of future opportunities.
He also said that he suspects most organisations will follow suit in the near future.
He’s not wrong … for many, reducing headcount is the ultimate commercial dream. Which got me thinking …
What will happen when every company is ‘AI’ led/driven/managed and there’s no more employees who can be ‘restructured’ to satisfy the C-Suite and/or share market?
How will companies exist when the people they once sold to, no longer have an income to keep buying their goods? How will companies compete when they all follow the same AI-led protocols, all learned from the same aggregated models and practices? How will companies build value when they’ve turned everything into a commodity? How will companies exist with ‘access per user’ business models, when AI removes the need for users? How will companies justify their price premium when they keep promoting their use of AI lets them do things for less? How will companies build trust and loyalty when everyone knows they’re being outsourced and managed by an algorithm?
One possibility is employees will suddenly be back in vogue … allowing companies to talk about how their products and/or services are now much more personal, hand crafted, and/or curated than their AI competitors. The other is – as many tech bros have suggested – we enter a world of ‘universal credit’ … except no one talks about where that money will come from and who will control the amount of money given to people.
Given there’ll be a lot less money available to be raised from taxes – as there won’t be enough people earning money from jobs – and the wealthy have an incredible ability to avoid governments taxing them appropriately, are we going to be reliant on the ‘generosity’ of the tech companies and should we feel good about that given they value power and control over a healthy society?
However none of this is AI’s fault. We’re now in a world where the obsession for short term results and/or PR headlines means everything is tactics, not much about strategy.
AI is incredible – as is its possibilities and potential – which is why when companies make a big song and dance about how they’re using it to ‘fast track’ growth and efficiencies [read: efficiencies] I can’t help but think it reveals far more about their narrow and limited thinking than the technologies.
What makes it even crazier is how the share market rewards companies for dismantling their operational structure and knowledge …
Oh I get it if you look at it in a vacuum, but not only is this behaviour often a short-term reaction – designed to boost share price at a time where bonuses or evaluations are due to take place … but why are these so called shit-hot analysts not questioning the leadership who put their company in the position of having so many alleged ‘excessive’ staff in the first place.
Because they don’t really care about anything other than the illusion of radical action.
Actions that allow them to say to themselves, ‘we were right’.
Remember Citibank back in 2008?
Forget condemning the leadership who encouraged their people to engage in a level of economic recklessness that contributed to the global financial crisis, and instead, congratulate them for firing 72,000 employees in the name of ‘efficiency management’.
As I said, I am not blaming AI for this, nor am I saying Jack Dorsey is the poster child for this attitude in management. At least in Jack’s case, he is in tech and recognises his own self interest in what he’s doing/publicising. That doesn’t make what he’s doing any better, but it at least explains his actions with more clarity than a lot of companies who have jumped into AI without seemingly realizing [or choosing to be deliberately ignorant] to the longer term implications they’re creating their own company, category and individual role.
Of course not all company leaders are like this – or doing this with AI – and I obviously appreciate it’s a competitive world out there … but to see them viewing efficiency and speed as the only levers that matter [and that is what AI is for] is pretty tragic. Add to that, many seem to have forgotten this technology is still in its relative infancy, so are basically buying into the ‘dream’ of what AI can do – as being heavily pushed by its creators/investors … which helps companies justify their heavy adoption of it, even though many of the C-Suite in those companies don’t have a clue what it is or how it works but just see the financial rewards of pretending they do … and we’re facing the very real prospect of organisations discounting or ignoring the ‘small stuff’, even though that’s what will determine if the ‘finish line’ is positive or destructive. [For more info on this, see my post about the ‘O Ring’]
As a friend of mine said, “it’s like buying a jet to do the school run”.
Mind you he also said, “beware of people selling promises they’ll never be accountable for, but will always benefit from”.
Unsurprisingly, he’s a lawyer.
In a technology firm. Haha.
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Recently I had to interview a relatively well known singer songerwriter.
While their major successes were in the 90’s, they’d always had a place in popular culture – albeit British culture.
I went into the call only knowing what I had read up about them and what I had thought about them when they were making hits … so while I was intrigued to chat, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to go.
Fortunately for me, I had a secret weapon and that was a Mum who had instilled in me to ‘always be interested in what others are interested in’.
What this means is your job is simple: listen to them and follow where they take you.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions.
Nor does it mean you can’t challenge them when you feel their answers contradict each other.
However, rather than go into it looking for faults or specific answers, your focus is simply to understand how they think and see the world.
And I am so grateful for that because the conversation was amazing.
Not just in terms of what was discussed, but how much I understood and – even related – to many of the choices and decisions they made on their journey.
A reminder that whoever you are … whatever plans you have … or wherever you’re from … we’re all bumbling along trying to make sense of the stuff we experience and are exposed to, while trying to keep on some sort of path we feel we can manage or hope to navigate.
I came out of our chat with a totally different perspective of this indivudual – both as a musician and as a human.
More than that, it allowed me to look back on my perceptions and realise how much I had let prejudices, associations and media [mis]shape my point of view. Or said another way, how I had chosen to ‘tune out’ their reality and ‘tune in’ to the noise surrounding them.
Noise created by people who often didn’t know them and certainly didn’t know what they were going through.
We all have experienced a version of that in our life. Now imagine it on a national and international scale?
Which is why that chat not only helped me see their choices and career through an entirely different lens … it made me feel deeply ashamed of myself.
Of my prejudice.
Of my judgement.
Of my wasted energy.
And I told them and they were incredibly kind and gracious about it. Far more than I deserved, let alone expected … but I can honestly say, I now look at who they are and what they have done – and do – with deep respect rather than judgement or ridicule.
That doesn’t mean I suddenly love their music – I don’t – but I do now completley understand where it came from and what it represented. Especially to them. And that – ironically – has allowed me to connect to them as an artist and a human far more than I ever imagined was possible … amplified by their openness, warmth and willingness to be vulnerable about moments in their life that were most definitely not easy.
I say all this because I think where I started prior to the interview represents what our industry is doing day after day.
Relying on cherry-picked data points, shortcuts and convenient answers, rather than going out their way to truly understand the textured lives, perspectives and challenges of the audiences they want and need to connect and engage to.
What’s making this even worse is how many research companies are now outsourcing ‘data gathering’ to AI driven bots … reinforcing that business increasingly values speed, convenience and efficiency over depth of underrstanding.
And the result of all this?
False perceptions.
Self-interest driven solutions.
Increased category convention advertising.
Or, to sum it up even more devastatingly … Maxwell House idiocy thinking.
It’s why I’ve always seen strategy as an outdoor job more than a desk job.
It’s why I’ve put-out books about what society is thinking over what marketing is claiming.
It’s why I’ve always favoured working with people like On Road and Ruby Pseudo over the conglomerate research companies.
And finally, it’s why – when told by planners they don’t have time to go out and talk to people – I’ve said that even if they talk to 3 people in the streets, that’s likely 3 more than anyone else. Because as much as it is always the right thing to make time for more understanding, the point isn’t about scale of opinion, it’s about scale of the nuances you will discover … because when you’re open to that, you’ll not only learn how much you never knew, but see how much your creativity can now impact and achieve.