Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Chaos, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Imagination, Logic, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Paula
Just to be clear, I am not anti-logic.
Of course not.
But I am anti-blinkered logic.
Where anything outside of established rules or norms are discounted because they’re outside of established rules or norms.
It was the foundation of our Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative talk, last year at Cannes.
And ironically, if I thought it was important then … it’s become even more important now with people like Jon Evans waxing lyrical about ‘System 2’ thinking.
Have a look at the functional benefits he is stating:
+ Facts don’t care about your feelings
We all know how unreliable our feelings can be so why would you make a large business decision based on what people feel about it?
+ Measure Everything
I never understood at System1 why we worked so hard to reduce it down to a few key metrics. The results also came in this super easy online report rather than PowerPoint. Now you can have every measure you ever wanted in a shiny PowerPoint presentation with our ‘minimum page promise’ of 93.
+ Infinite personalisation at scale
We have finally achieved the holy grail of marketing reporting namely infinite personalisation at scale. With so much data at your disposal whatever conclusion you need to make we can provide it. We also present it in such a scientific way that no-one will be able to challenge your conclusion. Imagine that!
+ The Price is Right
One of the reasons you employ McKinsey is because they charge a lot of money and therefore must be making a huge impact on your business. We have followed this immutable logic to ensure this is the most expensive research you will ever pay for because, well, we’re worth it.
Now on one level, a lot of what he’s saying isn’t wrong. But by the same token … it’s also not entirely right.
The reduction of everything to a quantifiable – and historical – measure ultimately means you’re advocating, at best, for incremental change or, at worst, following a model of ‘best practice’ without remembering that best practice is past practice.
Of course some will love it. But then, some love beige office furniture.
Which is why this old ad kind of sums up my concerns with myopic approaches based on models designed to not fail rather than liberate possibility.
History is littered with once great brands and ideas that fell foul of ‘the research says no’.
What makes it even worse is often that research is based on the lowest common denominator of audience versus – say – the highest.
Resulting in commoditised mediocrity, hidden under ‘effectiveness and optimisation’ justifications.
Or said another way, outsourcing your cowardice to ‘for profit, external organisations’.
I am not saying what Jon is saying is wrong.
I am not saying using facts and data are wrong.
I’m saying his view – as I say about many people who sell their specific processes/programs as guarantees of success’ – is.
[For example, as the very brilliant Lee once told me, “if you’re measuring everything, then you don’t know what is important”]
As I wrote a while back, there’s many examples of brands who buck his view.
Hell, I work with a bunch of them, including:
SKP-S … the most profitable luxury retailer on the planet.
Gentle Monster … the fastest growing and selling eyewear brand across Asia.
Metallica … the 2nd most successful American band in music history.
… to name but 3.
The point is, for all the cleverness of Jon Evans – and he is very clever and I respect him, what he does and how he does it – the implied suggestion, whether intentional or not, that his way is the only to be successful, is wrong.
As is his new statement around ‘system 2 thinking’.
I get why he says it … just like I get why many people in that industry say it … because it’s as much what they believe and how they make money.
And while that is all well – plus they’re very good at what they do … especially with organisations who are conservative and/or have people with little formal training – they’re services are more like insurance products than business accelerators.
Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re not claiming otherwise.
Which is why it’s important to remember – to paraphrase what Martin and I also said at our ‘The Case For Chaos’ talk in 2019 for WARC at Cannes – logic might give you what you think people want, but chaos gives them what they’ll never forget.
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We’re surrounded by processes and systems.
Each and everyone proclaiming to be ‘the right way’ to do something.
A way that claims effectiveness … efficiency … accuracy and performance are all but guaranteed.
And while it is true that in many cases, they increase the odds of good things happening … that’s all they do.
Sure, many have a ton amount of data accompanying them to back things what they say … but as we all know about data, when used right [or wrong] you can make it say or prove anything you want it to.
The reality is our industry, pretty much all these systems are less a shortcut to wealth and prosperity, and more an insurance policy against failure and destruction.
Nothing wrong with that other that it does the opposite of what many claim and instead, champions conformity more than liberation. But then what do you expect when many of the people doing the spouting of systems and processes have a vested interest in everyone using those very systems and processes.
Again, I’m not suggesting you ignore all these things. As I said, many play an important role in developing products and brands … however when someone suggests they’re ‘the secret to success’ and must be embraced to the letter – then you need to think about whose success are they really talking about.
It’s why I bloody loved this interview with Marc Andreessen – the businessman, venture capitalist, and [former] software engineer. Specifically the bit about ‘why hyperlinks are blue’.
OK, so he tries to rationalize it at the end, but fundamentally what he says is: “blue is my favorite colour”.
That’s right … the colour of our hyperlinks were chosen.
By a human.
Because he liked that colour.
Kind of reminds me of the ‘wings’ on a Cadillac.
There was absolutely no functional reason for them to exist other than the fact the designers just thought it looked better with them.
That’s it.
And with that, they turned a car into an icon. And here lies a key lesson …
Sometimes, the things we like are simply because we like them.
There may be many alternatives.
There may be other possibilities.
But at the end of the day, some choose things for no other reason than it works for them.
And at a time where everything needs to be justified … rationalised … reviewed and tested … I think those people deserve credit for backing their belief, judgement, vision and preference.
It’s easy to do what a system tells you to do.
It’s easy to follow what others tell you is right.
But it takes confidence to embrace what you believe is the right thing to do. And while I acknowledge some will suggest this approach is an act of ego and arrogance … when you consider how many of these ‘dot-to-dot logic™ systems and ‘researched-to-within-an-inch-of-their-life’ campaigns/brands/products fail to perform [often because the impact or output they create is deemed secondary in importance to the adherence of every step of whatever system or logic process you have committed to using] you could argue the person who backs their judgement is no less an idiot than the person who outsources all their responsibility to someone else?
Whether we like it or not, sometimes the best things are a product of someone doing something they preferred.
They will justify it.
They will rationalize it.
But underpinning it all, is their acknowledgment that before they can think about satisfying others, they need to satisfy themselves … and frankly I find that a pretty honourable act.