Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Birthday, China, Cunning, Embarrassing Moments, Family, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Home, Hong Kong, Jill, Legend, Love, Otis, Shanghai, Singapore, The Kennedys, The Kennedys Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
So today, Rosie is 13.
THIRTEEN!!
Yes, she’s slower than she was.
And definitely more bad tempered.
But overall, she’s in pretty awesome nick for someone who was once a Singaporean street cat.
Of course, part of this wellbeing is she got the best adoption ever.
Her life, since that day we got her back in 2007 has all been first class.
Not just in terms of the life she has gets to enjoy – which has seen us do all manner of things, from building her penthouses for the home to importing her favourite snacks – but also in the fact that she has lived in 5 countries and has entered each one in pampered luxury.
Hell, I even did freelance jobs just to ensure she moved to countries in more style than any other pet could dream of.
And you know what? I don’t begrudge a second of it.
Since the moment we got her, she’s given us nothing but joy.
OK, there have been a few headaches …
When she almost strangled herself to death with an elastic toy.
When she was so dehydrated they thought she might die.
When I turned down an amazing job in New Zealand because immigration wouldn’t let us bring her due to being based in China.
And when she broke my lamp and my X-Box all at the same time and I wanted to kill her.
But overall, she has been nothing but an absolute joy … which is pretty amazing when you remember she’s a cat.
Let’s be honest, cats are assholes.
They are the masters of manipulation.
They can become the cuddliest bundle of fluff when they want something and can be the coldest fuck when they don’t.
And yet you come back for more because you want their acknowledgement … which only encourages them more.
Which is why they end up thinking they can sit wherever they want because they think everywhere is theirs.
They’re not our pets, we’re there’s … and I hope we have many more years of being her servant because while many may regard her as an animal, I see her as family.
So happy, happy birthday my dearest Rosie … and to sign off I thought I’d show you a video I made when I was running The Kennedys.
I had given everyone an assignment to ‘make a video on their smartphones about a family member and their dirty little secret’.
I could have done one about Jill.
I could have done one about Otis … even if he was months old.
But no, I did it about you. THAT’S how much I love you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Authenticity, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, China, Chinese Culture, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Entertainment, Innovation, Insight, Legend, Marketing, R/GA, Unexpected Relevance
Another day, another post about my love of China.
So a few months ago I was there for the opening of a clients latest venture.
You should all check it out because it’s a luxury fashion mall THAT LOOKS LIKE MARS!
Literally.
It was specifically designed to feel like you are on a space station on another planet.
It features everything from luna modules to robot sheep to video screens that look like skylights that show you in outer space.
It is utterly mad and yet truly amazing.
A place that is like no other I’ve seen anywhere else in the World.
But then, without wanting to sound a corporate toadie, the client is like no other I’ve met anywhere in the World … even when I was living in China, which tends to have a lot of brilliantly ambitious folks than anywhere else I’ve lived.
I have to do a post about him soon because not only is his influence on the fashion world almost unparalleled – and I am comparing him to people like Anna Wintour in that statement, let alone the heads of Gucci, Prada and countless others – but in the time I’ve worked with him, he has taught me to look at strategy in a completely new way.
Given I’ve literally been working in this discipline for more years than you care to mention, that’s pretty amazing … so I am sure you would find him pretty fascinating too.
Anyway, as part of the project, I was interviewed about what we have been doing for him and how we have worked together.
I talked about how much I love China and how much of an honour it is for me and us to be able to go there and help with a once-in-a-lifetime project. This may sound like I was a total crawler, but the fact is it’s all genuine.
We have been allowed to influence and shape at the highest level – strategically and creatively – and that’s been amazing, especially when there have been times you’ve disagreed with some of the things they wanted to do.
That’s hard for companies to hear at the best of time, but when it’s the billionaire founder of an international fashion group, that’s a whole other level of sensitivity and yet he has been nothing but open to us because he knows we’re not doing it for any other reason than wanting him to win better.
And when you’re talking about creating Mars on earth, ‘winning better’ is going to be crazy fun, whatever way you look at it.
But back to the interview.
So off we head to China for the opening.
It was packed with press and celebrities.
Billionaires mingled with paupers – errrrm, me – fashionistas rubbed shoulders with fashion disasters – errrrm, me again – so imagine their surprise when the start of the official opening included this …
Yep … that’s me.
Yep … that’s my interview.
Yep … no one understood why I was there or what I was saying.
I’d love to say I was all cool, calm and collected, but I – along with my colleagues – were pissing themselves laughing.
It was madness and awesome all at the same time.
I didn’t know whether it was like a remake of the classic 1984 Apple ad. or my attempt to be the leader of a Birkenstock cult … but it was like nothing I had experienced in my life.
Which is another reason I love this project and miss China.
Because when you are working with someone who believes anything is possible – and has the drive to make it happen – the journey is equally as much fun as the destination and I feel massively fortunate to be on it.
Even if there are people all around the World asking themselves …
“Who the fuck was that old guy in the camo Nike hoodie?”
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Legend, Millennial, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Positioning
So a client of ours has an arcade machine in their reception.
I say ‘game’, but it’s much more like a social definer … separating the haves from the have nots.
Any minute of the hour, you see people congregating there to test their gaming chops.
Pushing themselves to be better.
To rise up the ranks.
To be the eventual champion.
Except when I walked into that clients building, a new sheriff was in town.
Sure, I looked a bit knackered.
Sure, I am more ball shaped than athlete.
Sure, I made sure every meeting was as short as possible so I could play on that machine.
But as you can see from the picture above, I proved that in the field of sports it’s not how you look, it’s how you perform and I performed like the crap arcade game champion I truly am.
Let this achievement give all old dogs out there the belief that 2019 isn’t a year they need to learn new tricks, but to simply challenge the whippersnappers to games that don’t matter and they don’t care about.
Which means this post is ultimately a strategy lesson on repositioning.
It’s been a great first week for me at R/GA, so I’m going to do something crazy and end the week on a positive.
JK Rowling is a hero of mine.
Not just because she got more kids to read books than all government education departments put together.
Not just because she created a story that addresses issues kids may face and help them believe they can beat it.
[EG: Voldemort is based on the feelings you get when suffering ‘depression’]
Not just because she persevered when everyone around her was turning their back on her.
Not just because she’s smart, funny and stands up for what she believes in.
But because of this …
If it’s not amazing enough that she made over a billion pounds from her work, I find it even more amazing that she is no longer a billionaire because of her charitable donations.
But the thing that makes me smile is that Forbes describes her loss of billionaire status as ‘falling off’, when I am pretty sure if you asked JK Rowling, she would say ‘intentionally demoted herself’.
At a time where many people are given ‘hero’ status, JK Rowling is one of them that I think is truly worthy of that title.
How’s that way to end the week!?
Filed under: Advertising, America, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Honesty, Influencers, Legend, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Premium, Relevance, Resonance, Scam
Recently we’ve been seeing a lot of collabs between brands and artists.
I don’t mean bullshit influencer social content, but proper collaboration in terms of product creation … albeit that it often ends up being just ‘logo swapping’.
Of course that is still marketing, but it’s a bit more effort than a celebrity just fronting a TV or print campaign.
Or is it?
You see, while the people at the brand all think they’re going to become cool and rich by associating with someone influential with millions of fans, the reality is somewhat difference.
Maybe once upon a time that was always the case … and when it’s done right it can absolutely still be the case … but for a lot of the bullshit collabs we’re seeing being pimped out by certain brands [you all know the ones, especially the tech bros desperately trying to look like they’re part of youth culture even though all they are is a fucking ‘productivity tool”], they don’t understand the artist and their fans have a very different view of the ‘partnership’.
To them, the association is not an act of endorsement.
Nor does it make the brand partner cool.
And it absolutely won’t define their loyalty.
The reality is the association is nothing more than a ‘get rich quick’ scheme for the artist and their fans love them for it.
Unlike previous generations, they don’t see it as an act of selling out.
In fact it couldn’t be more opposite because they see it as an act of awesome.
Taking millions off a brand for a moment in their day.
Something that will be forgotten as soon as it’s done.
A novelty for the fans to buy but not to keep buying.
Basically, playing the corporations at their own game but they end up the real winner.
That’s success right there.
Not that most brands understand that.
Most of them still think they’re playing the artist. That money means they can get whatever they want out of them. Why wouldn’t they, brands have been using, abusing and stealing from artists for decades.
But it’s very different now.
Years ago, I was working with a very famous brand who did a collab with a very cool, up and coming rapper.
The brand were beside themselves because they thought this association was going to change their fortune forever.
On set, the artist was a bit of a nightmare – not saying or doing anything the brand wanted them to do – in fact they even used their social channels to tell their fans they weren’t doing this because they loved the brand, but because they were getting big money.
Unsurprisingly, the brand team were not very happy about that, but they reasoned that the association would still be worth it for them in terms of awareness and sales.
And maybe it was … but the real winner was the artist because their fans thought what they’d done was even more cool.
Talking shit about the very people who had hired them and still getting paid millions upon millions for a few hours work.
That’s power.
That’s influence
That’s a life goal we should all have.
So while collabs can be cool when done for the right reasons and the right ways, many brands need to understand that while – at best – they may have a boost to their short-term profits, the cool doesn’t actually rub off on them. In fact, if anything, their desperate desire to look cool to millions has just made them the laughing stock to the very millions they wanted to appeal too.
Because while they think they’re hustling the artist, the artist and their fans are hustling them.
Welcome to the new definition of power.