Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Design, Entertainment, Insight, Luxury, Marketing, Meetings, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Presenting
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, when I was in NY, I was invited to speak at design gods … Pentagram.
Whenever I’m asked to speak at something, the first thing I think is ‘why?’
The second thing I think about is ‘what right have I got to talk about this subject?’
And the final thing is ‘what am I going to talk about’.
In the case of Pentagram, I didn’t know what I could say that would be of any interest of them.
Then I remembered the only reason they asked me to come is because of my relationship to a certain, famous rock band so instead of doing a deck – where, let’s be honest, they would be judging the design of each slide rather than listening to what I said – I bought 12 iconic albums on vinyl [they’re the ones in the picture above] and talked about the relationship they had with the music and the fans of the music under the heading, ‘Design is not decoration’.
Now I have no idea if they actually learnt anything from my talk, but it certainly created a bunch of conversation and debate and for me, that’s a big win.
Actually, getting out alive was the big win, but seeing some of the most talented design people in the World talk about the relationship between music, design and fans was something I’d pay for just to witness.
Which is why one of the best lessons I learned about strategy is less about what you are going to do and more about what you’re going to sacrifice.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Context, Cunning, Empathy, Health, Insight, Otis
When I was a kid, a visit to the dentist was a thing to be scared of.
To be honest, it shouldn’t have because I had great teeth … but there was always that chance something might happen and that scared the hell out of me.
If further evidence of my dental naivety/good teeth was needed, when I finally did have to have some treatment – a wisdom tooth removal, when I was 14 – I was in utter shock that they were literally pulling the tooth out of my gob as I assumed they’d give my gums an injection and it would fall out.
The weirdest bit of all is that when you left the dentist, they gave you a sweet.
A SWEET!
Though now I think of it, it probably was their way of guaranteeing further business from you down the line.
And given how bad my teeth are these days, it seems that was a brilliant strategy.
Evil. Geniuses.
Now I appreciate when I was a kid, the World was a very different – and younger – place, but having just taken Otis to the dentist, I’m jealous how ace his experience is.
For a start the interior has been decked out in different animal themes.
From Giraffe’s to Panda’s … each room has a different theme to help kids feel they’re somewhere special and different.
Then there’s the video games for them to play in reception or – if they’re too young – a huge aquarium for them to look at.
But it’s when they are having treatment the real difference happens.
Not because there’s a video screen showing cartoons.
Or wireless headphones so you can hear the movie not the drill.
Or even the sunglasses so you don’t let the brightness of the dentist light affect you.
Or even the balloon [not sweets] they give you as you leave the building.
It’s the way they make sure they spend time explaining what each instrument is and what it does. Letting the kid hold it, hear it … get an understanding of what it does so it stops being a fearsome object of pain and simply a instrument of health.
Whatever stress they have is reduced.
They feel they’re in a safe environment.
A special environment.
With people who you won’t fuck you over but actually want you to have an exciting experience with a great result.
It turns a visit to the dentist from a scary experience to a positive one.
Even an awaited one.
All because they give the time and space for patients emotions and fears to be calmed, which gives them – and their parents – the confidence to let the dentist do their thing. That doesn’t just result in more efficient treatment but makes the parent feel OK about being charged an arm and a leg because their precious child had an experience that is the absolute opposite of what they feared they’d have.
Now I know creativity needs a place where chaos and curiosity is allowed to explore and wander – something we don’t get enough of at the best of times – but in terms of getting clients into the right frame of mind to allow agencies to do their thing without skeptical, questioning and damning eyes, adland could learn a lot from American Dentists.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Education, Honesty, Insight, Management
One of the things I find amazing about adland is their inability to review what they just did … whether that was a pitch, a big meeting or just a campaign.
Basically, it things have gone well, they act like they are invincible.
And if things have gone less well, they either ignore it or blame it all on the client.
Look, I get that we have too many meetings.
I get no one wants to be the person who brings the energy of positivity down or make a bad situation worse, but reviews are super useful.
Not just for what you did wrong, but what you did right.
And yet so few agencies seem to do it …
Maybe part of it is that it can quickly turn into a blame game.
Maybe part of it is because people feel they can’t be honest, either for fear or reprisal or fear of hurting egos.
Or maybe it’s just because ‘reviews’ are so closely associated the ‘annual review’, people feel they can’t do it without masses of paperwork and 360 degree feedback.
But in my experience, an honest, objective review can make a huge difference – not just in personal performance but in terms of giving confidence to the team moving forward.
For me, there are a few key rules to do it well.
1. It can not be more than 30 minutes in length.
2. It has to happen within 48 hours of the event that justifies the review.
3. It has to involve all the people involved, not just the key players.
4. No comment can be personal, you win as a team and you fail as a team.
5. Everyone gets to say 1 thing they liked [about the process/pitch/work] 1 thing they’d change [about their approach to the process/pitch/work] and 1 thing they’ve learned [about how to improve the process/pitch/work]
That’s it.
Now I am not denying that a key element to it’s success is the tone of the meeting.
Too serious and it makes people nervous to say anything valuable.
Too light and no one takes it seriously.
But if you ensure there is an air of inclusion, positivity and the sense it’s being done to help everyone become even better, I find it is 30 minutes that people find genuinely valuable.
Of course it’s not just something for show.
All comments must be noted, distributed and then reviewed prior to the next situation where a post-review is likely … but once you get in the habit of it, those 30 minutes can have a lifetime of positive effect.
I wish more people did it … if not for the agencies benefit, but their own.
I promise I won’t write any more serious posts like this in the future. Sorry.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Chaos, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Experience, Immaturity, Insight, Jill, Management, Marketing, Otis, Parents, Wieden+Kennedy
I’m old.
In fact by adland rules, I’m a bloody dinosaur.
That’s not because I’m switched off to contemporary culture – quite the opposite – but because the industry is ageist to the core.
The reality is anyone at my age tends to face an interesting dilemma in terms of how they are perceived …
Be old but think young and the industry sees you as a try-hard.
Be old and act old and the industry sees you as past-it.
Both things are wrong of course and it’s one of the reasons I always loved Wieden because they valued creativity rather than devaluing age. Of course, you have to keep the flow of new, exciting, dangerous talent coming into the place … but in my experience, when people have an open mind, the young learn from the old and vice versa and the end result is something even more potent than it would have otherwise been.
But maybe that’s just me trying to post rationalise my value.
The thing is, as I get older, I don’t want to subscribe to the ‘life’ I am supposed to have.
That doesn’t mean I aspire to living a long-term midlife crisis any more than I want to spend my time gardening, drinking wine or playing golf … if people want to do that, that’s fine, but I want to indulge in the things that continue to fascinate, intrigue and challenge me.
I wrote about this once before, but the best and worst thing about growing older is that you are continually discovering things you want to explore – in fact, the more you explore, the more you discover additional things you want to explore – but underpinning all this is the unshakable knowledge the time you have to do it is more limited than ever and so there will be paths that will be unexplored.
That’s quite the mindfuck.
Years ago a man I met said, “you know you’re getting old when you can’t feasibly double your age”.
At the time I remember laughing but now I’m in that situation, it’s confronting.
I have so much I want to do. See. Try. Explore.
Then there’s the things like seeing my son forge his own path.
While spending more time with my beloved wife.
More memories. Less dreams.
The idea that time is getting shorter can really fuck you up.
And that’s why for me, it’s about trying to ensure my family life a life of fulfillment.
I don’t want to subscribe to irrelevance.
Sure, one day I might be regarded as that for companies, but this is not about them – but me.
My Mum always had a desire live at the speed of contemporary culture.
She didn’t want to feel she was left behind.
That didn’t mean she did things she didn’t want to do, but she also didn’t want to live in a bubble where her context for life was far removed from the realities of life so she was open to the new and actively explored it … not in the bullshit way advertising portrays it, but in her interest in culture, from comedians and artists to music and politics.
That’s an amazing lesson to be taught – one I wholly subscribe to – which is why I think the industry is missing the point when it labels people over 40 as over-the hill. For me, rather than judge individuals by their physical; age, they should judge them by what they bring … what they challenge … what they change … because it’s the one’s who refuse to be labelled who can make exciting things happen.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Empathy, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View
One of the things I’ve always hated is reading planning decks filled with charts and graphs.
Don’t get me wrong, it is very important to ensure your strategy is grounded in truth, but pages and pages of data and percentages says you lack confidence in what you’re saying rather than you have a conviction for it.
There are so many tips and tricks to ‘presenting’ strategy – of which I’ll be talking about some of them at the upcoming HOALA conference in Amsterdam – but having a story that takes the audience on the journey of your strategy in a way that both excites and informs is the absolute basic requirement.
Excites … because if the recipient doesn’t see the potential for what’s in it for them, then there’s no point presenting.
Informs … because if they don’t see it baked in reality, then they will regard all you’re doing as trying to sell fantasy.
I’ve seen far too many presentations that only deliver on one of those attributes and the reality is the work either never gets made or you wish it never was made and that’s why getting someone to buy your strategy requires real thought and ‘beating up’ before you commit anything to paper/powerpoint/keynote/film because as Ronald Reagan said, if you’re explaining, you’re losing.