Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Confidence, Delusion, Linkedin, Marketing Fail
I’ve got to be honest, I’m getting fed up reading certain people’s sarcastic comments on other people’s posts on Linkedin.
I could maybe handle it more if they were responding to something offensive or idiotic.
I could maybe tolerate it more if the commenter had a long history of doing things that were truly special.
And I could maybe accept it more if they had a track record of posting interesting and well considered posts of their own over time
But in most cases, none of these ‘occasional acceptable’ filters are true, because not only is the only thing these people are synonymous with is trolling others posts … the issues they attack are, for all intents and purpose, harmless observations or a badly phrased updates.
But there they are, fulfilling their ‘main character’ delusions by going on the attack with a smug ferocity that makes you think they’re a fully paid-up member of the Andrew Tate fuckwit gang.
Talking of Andrew Tate … their responses always sound like they’ve been shaped by that manosphere twat.
You just know they’re convinced their retort is as sharp as a knife being plunged deep between someone else’s eyes, but to everyone else, we simply see their comments as blunt and missing the spot by a mile.
There’s one person in particular who seems to have all the sniper skills of a blind, drunk man … but that doesn’t stop him. Every day I see him make an attempt to churn out a sarcastic comment, even though his words always come across as inane and as confusing as the person he’s attempting to ridicule.
The funniest part is you just know they think this makes them look clever to others …
Or they hope they do, because that’s the characteristic they desire most in the world.
You can tell this by the other way they behave on Linkedin …
Crawling and fawning to people who have achieved the level of industry status and fame they crave … with the caveat, the people they aspire to be tend to all express themselves with the level of self-righteous arrogance that would put Nigel Farrage to shame.
Of course, many can respond to comments on Linkedin without ever looking stupid, arrogant or desperate for attention.
And there’s even a few who can pull it off while being openly sarcastic and confronting. [Albeit because they’re smart, experienced and their comments are actually addressing an issue that needs challenging]
But the individuals I’m talking about don’t fit either of that criteria …
So, while they may be fooling themselves into thinking they’re sharp, witty and successful-as-hell … they’re not fooling anyone else.
Which is why I love they keep posting.
Because the more they think it elevates them, the more it’s bringing them down.
Filed under: 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Advertising [Planning] School On The Web, Agency Culture, Anniversary, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Authenticity, Bangkok Shakes, Bank Ads, Bassot, BBH, Billionaire, Birkenhead, Birkenstocks, Birthday, Black Lives Matter, Bonnie, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brian Clough, British, Business, Campaign Magazine, Canada, Cannes, Career, Cats, Chaos, Charinee, Childhood, Children, China, Chris Jaques, Clients, Clothes, Colenso, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Community, Complicity, Confidence, Conformity, Content, Context, Contribution, Corona Virus, Corporate Gaslighting, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Cynic, Dad, Daddyhood, David Terry, Death, Deutsch, Din Tai Fung, Disney, Distinction, Dog, Dolly, Dream Bigger, Dream Small, Dysgraphia, Education, Egovertising, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, Empathy, England, Entertainment, Experience, Family, Fatherhood, Fear, Football, Freddie, Freelance, Friendship, Fulfillment, Gaming, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Goodbye England, Goose Fair, Government, Grand announcements, Happiness, Harmony, Headers, HHCL, Holiday, Home, Hong Kong, Hope, HSBC, human_2, Imagination, Immaturity, Important Birthdays, India, Innocence, Innovation, Insight, Internet, Interviews, Italy, Japan, Jaques, Jill, Jillyism, Jorge, Katie, Kev, LaLaLand, Leadership, Linkedin, Logic, London, Love, Loyalty, Luck, Luxury, Management, Marcus, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Martin Weigel, Maya, Mediocrity, Mental Health, Metallica, Michael Jordan, Michael Mann, Miley, Mr Ji, Mum, Mum & Dad, Music, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Netflix, New Zealand, NHS, Northern, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Nurses, olympics, OnStrategy, Otis, Parents, Paul, Paula, Pearl Jam, Perspective, Photography, Planes, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Police, Popularity, Prams, Prejudice, Pretentious Rubbish, Pride, Process, Professionalism, Queen, R/GA, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Rick Rubin, Rockstar Games, Rodi, RoObin, Ros, Rosie, RulesOfRubin, Shanghai, Shelly, Si Vicars, Silvana, Singapore, Sport, Spotify, Starbucks, Steve Jobs, Strategy, Stubborness, Stupid, Success, Sunshine, Sydney, Taboo Categories, Talent, Tattoo, Technology, The Kennedys, The Kennedys Shanghai, Toxic Positivity, Uncorporated, Virgin Atlantic, Viz, Wedding, WeigelCampbell, Wieden+Kennedy
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, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cliches, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Complicity, Conformity, Context, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Life, Linkedin, Luck, Mediocrity, Popularity, Relevance, Reputation, Respect
As we approach the end of the first month of 2026 – and I have to be up very, very early – I thought I’d drop this now and end ‘January’ on a rant. Except it’s a rant of hope, rather than pain. Maybe – hahaha.
Life is tough.
It’s demanding, challenging and expensive.
Some are dealt a very good hand, most have to deal with what they’re given.
It’s because of this, we look for things that let us feel we’re doing something right.
It might be putting food on the table.
It might be buying fashion or tech.
It might be progressing your career.
I am not here to judge anyone on that, we’re all dealing with our own shit and what gets us through, gets us through.
However, where it does bother me, is how this is increasingly being presented on platforms like Linkedin.
When I look there, it feels the ambition is to achieve ‘ultimate professional clout’.
Now I get ‘clout’ is old terminology … but it seems to capture the attitude of many, perfectly.
Be THE leader.
Be THE role model.
Be THE most popular.
Be THE judge of what matters.
Be THE most successful person.
To be honest, I find it all a bit repulsive – especially as it seems to be all about celebrating attitude, behaviour and bravado over anything more tangible and meaningful – but again, if it works for them so be it. After all, this need for pedestal posturing is hardly a new phenomenon, as I wrote about it – albeit not related to Linkedin – way back in 2012.
However, where it does become a problem to me is in terms of the message it sends out to the upcoming colleague.
Especially the next gen of marketing/advertising colleague.
In some ways, they’ve got their shit much better worked out than I ever did – as demonstrated by the ‘great resignation’, that was really the ‘great reset‘. However, as I wrote not that long ago, there’s a hell of a lot of people out there who think ‘success’ is far more about acting like a ‘thought leader’ than doing and making stuff that makes people think.
It’s not their fault.
The platforms celebrate it.
The industry champions it.
The companies promote it.
Hell, the only training companies seem to do these days is generic, one-size-fits-all approaches everyone does … so they’re designed to make you fit in, rather than develop you to be able to stand out.
Which is why I want to sound the oldest fuck in the entire universe by leaving anyone thinking of working in my industry with this.
The marketing and advertising industry can be an incredible place. It has given me a life I could never have imagined. I’ve been able to work, collaborate and learn from people all over the World who are unbelievably talented and creative. It has provided me with chances and opportunities that have allowed me to expand who I am, without demanding I change who I am. And while I started in it before many of you were even born, it is still possible. Not easy, but still possible.
But while it is understandable you want to feel you fit in. While it is understandable you want to move up the ladder as quickly as you can. While it is understandable you want to increase the chances of success. While it is understandable you think you have loads of time to do all you want … the way to achieve it is not the way you are being told by everyone else.
Because the secret to this industry is to live the fullest life you can.
Not your work life, but your life. And there’s one major reason for that …
Because creativity – whether we’re talking about strategy, production, media, account management, design – is born, nurtured and crafted through your exposure to experiences.
The people you meet.
The places you go.
The stories you hear.
The concerts you see.
The food you eat.
The books you read.
The museums you visit.
The history you learn.
The lessons you try.
The shit you get up to.
Because all of it – every single bit – somehow comes together and help forge YOUR opinion, rather than mimic everyone else’s.
Basically, the bigger the life, the more you’ll breed your own originality, independence. ideas, craft and voice.
Please note I’m not saying you can just piss about and it will all work out. While openness and spontaneity has a role to play, it’s a deliberate act. You are making a conscious choice. Because whoever you are … growing, learning, expanding and just doing fun and interesting shit takes a lot of hard work.
That doesn’t mean I’m saying you should work all hours in the office, but by the same token, you shouldn’t have the attitude you’re only going to put in effort to better yourself when someone is paying you for it. Sure, companies should absolutely be helping people develop outside of their generic, outsourced, annual training program … but if you don’t want to aid to your own development – by that, I mean exposing yourself to the biggest life you can [as detailed above] – then you’re not denying your potential, you’re undermining it and, without wishing to sounds a total prick, you deserve what you won’t get.
Which is why, if you read only one thing I ever write – and I’ve written a fuckton about this sort of thing over the 19+ years I’ve been churning out this blog – it’s this.
The secret to success is defining it on your terms, not on the Ranters of Linkedin™.
Here is the model on how to get there …
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Collaboration, Colleagues, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Linkedin, Loyalty, Management, Process, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
It seems that as an industry, we care more about frameworks than what they are supposed to help create.
Actually, it’s worse than that …
It seems we aspire to be known for the creation of a framework rather than the work.
Nothing summed this up more to me than an article I read on Linkedin …
I must admit, I read it a few times to try and comprehend what I was looking at …
Trying to work out why my initial response was shock and – to be honest – disgust.
After all, they’d received a lot of positive comments from a lot of smart people, so surely I had got the wrong end of the stick?
But then, after a lot of consideration, I realized I hadn’t read it incorrectly … this person really had put forward a framework on how to interact with colleagues having a tough time.
Which is why I responded with this …
If truth be told, their write up on why this mattered to them, made sense.
Too many ‘managers’ DO jump to solving problems rather than listening to them.
But the great irony to their proposed solution is that they had inadvertently just put forward a methodology that is part of the reason we have these problems in the first place.
Because business has equated professionalism with optimised efficiency rather than human emotion.
Conveniently – or deliberately – forgetting that while frameworks may help create the consistency, it’s humanity who creates the value.
Or said another way:
It doesn’t matter what business you’re in.
It doesn’t matter who you conduct your business with.
It doesn’t even matter how you make your business operate.
At the end of the day, whatever line of work you’re in – business is always personal.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Career, Collaboration, Colleagues, Community, Context, Contribution, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Experience, Eye, Health, Jaques, Jorge, Linkedin, Loyalty, Management, Martin Weigel, Maya, Mr Ji, Paula, Pride, Purpose, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
Many years ago, I sent letters to anyone I felt had had an outsized impact or influence on my career, as it was then.
Some had been in my life a short time, some for many years … but all of them had made a significant difference to where I was and where I wanted to be.
And not one of them responded.
Nada.
Zilch.
Zero.
Eventually I reached out to one person to see if they had received it – fearing something terrible had gone on with the post.
“Robert, how are you?” … they said, as soon as they heard my voice … “are you OK?”
I remember how weird I thought their response was but reassured them I was fine and asked if they’d got my letter.
They confirmed they had and then – after a pause – asked if I was suffering ill health.
When I asked why, they told me they thought my letter was my way of saying goodbye to them before I died or something.
The irony was within months, I would get very ill, but I had no idea that was going to happen which is why my immediate response to their fears, was to piss myself laughing.
Fortunately, so did they.
And over the following weeks, I slowly heard from a number of the other people I’d written to who all had heard through the grapevine that rather than saying my farewells, I was simply expressing my gratitude.
The reason I say this is that recently, I started writing about another set of people who I felt I owed great thanks to.
There was no agenda other than to publicly acknowledge their importance in my life and my thanks for their talent and friendship.
At the time of writing this post, I’d written about Paula Bloodworth, Martin Weigel, Maya Thompson, Chris Jaques, Jorge Calleja, Clare Pickens and Jason White.
[There will be a ton more, but that’s all I’ve done so far … mainly because I have a job I have to pretend I’m doing diligently – ha]
Now, maybe it’s because people know this time I am suffering from ill health – specifically my eye – but the response to these celebrations, while different to the previous occasion I did it, are also quite similar.
In essence, they can all be summed up in 2 words: Gratitude and concern.
Gratitude for my words.
Concern for why I wrote them.
Now I appreciate my eye situation is getting very alarming, but this has been going on for almost a year so while I recently received less than favorable news …. this and my ‘Campbell Gratitude’ series are purely a coincidence rather than some sort of correlation.
But what IS concerning is how this reveals the true state of professionalism these days … in so much that the idea of someone saying nice things about someone else with absolutely no agenda, can only be explained away by them dealing with a major health issue.
Maybe this is what’s wrong with where we’re all at …
That no one should ever show generosity without having self-interest motivations.
Platforms like Linkedin haven’t helped …
For all their claims of being a place for the professional community, it has nurtured an environment where anyone who comments/likes or accepts a request entitles them to bombard you with unsolicited, irrelevant sales pitches or non-stop declarations of ego and bravado.
Mind you, let’s be honest it’s not just Linkedin is it.
From what I know, every dating site out there is doing exactly the same thing.
Claiming love. Championing self-interest gratification.
Look, I get it’s tough out there.
I also appreciate I am privileged as fuck.
But if we can’t say thanks to the people who mean a lot to us – simply because we want to celebrate to others WHY they mean a lot to us – then it’s no surprise we are promoting a culture of transactional interactions. The irony of which is that this literally undermines the chance of what all these people aspire to achieve.
Because as I wrote here, the most important and powerful relationships are based on your commitment to who they are, not what you want or can get out of them.
Like many words advocated by my industry, the meaning of loyalty has been completely fucked-with.
Changed beyond all recognition to justify self-serving actions and behaviors.
It’s why I love something I heard recently about how one person defined loyalty …
Someone whose entire business is based on appreciating what someone has done for them in the past, rather than simply evaluating them on what they can get out of them tomorrow.
“Always leave the dance with the person you came with”.
I love it.
I love what it means and how they expressed it.
There’s a lot of companies who could do with following that advice.
There’s a lot of professionals too.