Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Culture, Empathy, Human Goodness, Love, Loyalty, Marketing, Marketing Fail
A couple of days ago I wrote about how the reset button on society has been pressed.
How companies and people are actually working together to make sure humanity is being moved forward rather than being left to fend for itself.
Sadly, not everyone is acting in this way.
In fact, some are openly displaying they prefer profits over people.
That blows my mind both in terms of arrogance and stupidity.
Arrogance … because they literally think they’re better or more important than everyone around them.
Stupidity … because this thing will be over one day and people don’t forget.
While this is old news, there is a site that has been started who has the aim of making sure of that … didtheyhelp.com.
It’s a site that details if companies or celebs helped during this crisis.
We are at a point where society will support those who support them and not let shit behaviour be passed off as “it’s just business” anymore.
It may have cost the ultimate price, but we may end up coming out of this in a better place than we started.
I hope so.
Tomorrow is a bank holiday in the UK, so hope you have a happy and safe long weekend.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Comment, Cunning, Embarrassing Moments, Entertainment, Friendship, Loyalty, Management, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, R/GA
So a while back, I wrote a post about Martin Bassot.
Martin worked for me at R/GA as a very talented comms/connections planner but then fucked off to Wieden+Kennedy.
Anyway, as part of his leaving present we gave him a jigsaw.
Of himself.
You see as one of his bucket list goals before he turned 30, he wanted to do a big jigsaw.
There’s 2 very big problems with the previous sentence.
1. He was incredibly talented and only TWENTY BLOODY NINE.
2. The other was he wanted to do a jigsaw as a life goal.
Christ!
Anyway, because I’m a bit of a prick, I found the photo of the one time he wore a suit for work [to pick up an award, the bloody corporate crawler] photoshopped it onto a pic of a ‘used car forecourt’ and made that the image of his jigsaw.
Zoom forward a few weeks and we caught up.
I told him it was because I wanted to see how he was doing, but it was really to make sure he was not letting Wieden down, as I still feel a ridiculous sense of loyalty to Dan, given all the mayhem I apparently caused when I was there.
So the call started off interestingly when the Crystal Palace supporting scum came onto the video chat sporting a background specially designed to provoke trouble.
[See photo at the top of this post]
He would have got away with it too had he not later sent me a photo of where he was at with the goodbye jigsaw.
Amateur mistake.
You see, at the time of writing this post, he has been gone from R/GA for 2 months.
THAT’S EIGHT WEEKS.
And not only was he working from home for most of that time, he had 2 weeks off sick …
That means, he had 1,344 possible hours to finish this jigsaw … and how much has he done?
This much …
And to think I thought he was one of the brightest minds I’d met.
Pah.
On the bright side, showing his jigsaw dyslexia to the World [or the 8 sad bastards who visit this blog everyday] is some sort of revenge for the Forest Shit zoom backdrop.
And yet I still like him and miss him.
I’m a saint. A bloody saint.
______________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE:
Since writing this post, Martin sent me a message saying he had finally completed it.
Worse, he said it with a distinct ‘smugness’ in his tone.
OK, it was an SMS but I could still sense it.
So I sent him a 3000 piece jigsaw of this.
That’ll teach him.
Probably for the next year.
Cue: Evil laugh!
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, Chaos, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Daily Mail, Emotion, Empathy, England, Equality, Family, Guns, Home, Human Goodness, Insight, London, Love, Loyalty, Luxury, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Parents, Perspective, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Social Divide, Standards, Unfair Life, United Nations, Wankers
So today, I start working from home due to the devastating spread of corona virus.
As someone who has lived through SARS, avian and swine flu, you’d think I would be fine with it … but the way the government and media have responded, I have to say has left me on edge.
It feels like 28 Days Later – as we hide, hoping the invisible virus won’t get us while looking suspiciously at anyone who is outside or has a casual sneeze.
Personally I don’t think the government are taking it seriously enough.
I also think a lot of people are being way too blase about it.
But what’s worse is that while many of us are going to be inconvenienced, the elderly, the homeless, the single parents, the temporary workers, the unemployed and the small business owners are going to face a horrific time and no one seems to be creating plans for how they can cope.
I’m addition, it’s showing the worst of society.
From that fat, lying, cheating bastard who is the President of America – to the rapid increase in gun purchase in the USA [seriously, WTF?] to the disgusting locust like behaviour going on in across supermarkets all over the World.
I tell you what, any of these people who ever negatively judged immigrants, refugees or boat people better not do that from now on.
Though what’s the betting they’ll claim their situation is different.
I guess they’re right.
Refugees, migrants and boat people are trying not to die. They’re just trying to continue living in comfort and wipe their arse with 3-ply.
But through it all there have been signs of humanity showing their best side.
Coming together.
Uniting.
Looking out for others.
From the wonderful singing that is happening on balconies across Italy to Waitrose making sure all small business suppliers are paid the next day to LVMH doing this …
Given there are some companies you’d expect to jump to societies help who are acting like absolute wankers, it’s even more amazing LVMH are acting so swiftly and generously.
When this all passes, some companies will discover profit before people ends up costing them profit and people.
It’s a strange time but we will get through it – but what will make it better is if we can find ways to help those who feel left behind.
I’m working on something and there’s options already in place for the elderly – like this – but if you have more ideas, please let me know.
Most of all, look after yourself.
So far, 2020 has a lot to improve on.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, China, Comment, Creativity, Culture, DLin, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Fulfillment, Love, Loyalty, Planners, Planning, Rodi, Wieden+Kennedy
Living overseas is something people often say they want to do, but don’t.
I get it, it’s a big thing, and for some people – they have obligations and responsibilities that mean there is no chance of being to embark on an adventure, even if they were able to.
But there’s others who are in a totally different situation.
Where there is nothing really holding them back but don’t because they spend their time focusing on what they’ll leave behind rather than also appreciating what they’ll gain.
One of the things you get from taking the leap – beyond the incredible experiences, lessons, values, creativity and madness – is friends.
And that’s why a few weeks ago an English/Italian, Russian/Australian and Taiwanese/American – who all met and worked together at Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai but now all live in different countries – were able to meet in London for a steak, a laugh and a glorious bitch session.
This would literally not have been able to happen if we all had individually chosen to stay in our home countries rather than embrace the unknown and the uncertainty … but we did and a lifelong friendship were formed.
I say lifelong, but as they are both now bigwigs of strategy at Apple, I bought them each one of these special edition ‘Apple Watches’ …
… so there’s a good chance I may never see or hear from either of them again.
Which is why if this story isn’t the best ad for planners to go and experience and explore working in other countries, then I literally don’t know what is.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Loyalty, Management
If this situation has shown us anything, it’s who is comfortable with the uncomfortable and who is just making it up as they go along.
Populism has been, well – popular – these last few years. In the past it was [mainly] based on the act of having done something others liked.
Recently it has become about saying things others want to hear.
And while no one could foresee what we’re going through now, that new definition of populism has been seen for what it is.
Ego.
So I hope we get back to valuing those who have plans and proof behind their words, whether that’s planners or prime ministers.
Because anything is easy for the person who doesn’t have to do it, doesn’t understand how to do it or has never actually done it – from making great creativity or leading a country through crisis.