Filed under: 2024, 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colenso, Colleagues, Contribution, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Home, Jill, Love, Loyalty, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents, Paul, Paula, Relationships, Resonance, Sport, Strategy, Sunshine
So this is it, the last post of the year.
Can’t believe it.
Looking back on 2024, I have to admit that generally it’s been a really good year for me.
+ The family are happy and healthy.
+ I’m happy and unnervingly healthy.
+ Work has been good and rewarding.
+ My team have been [generally] bloody wonderful, haha.
+ I got to travel a bunch to work with talented people on awesome projects.
+ I experienced stuff I’ve never had the chance to do before, which at my age is epic.
+ I was part of some creativity that’s right up there with some of the best stuff I’ve ever done.
+ This blog – albeit by its ‘questionable standards’ – had some pretty decent posts. Kinda.
+ I got a bunch of new tattoos and a new car – albeit one that was crashed into within a week.
+ Forest stayed in the Premiership and – so far – are doing better than the last 2 seasons.
+ And last but by no means least, the Tories got kicked out of government in the UK.
So, with that list of achievements and experiences, I can say this year, by all accounts, has been a pretty epic year for me.
Now I completely appreciate my privilege in being able to say this when so many are having such a hard time, but I can’t deny it happened … and while I’m obviously grateful for it, I also know it is as much down to luck than any so-called ability I may or may not have.
That said – and in no way am I trying to suggest this ‘balances things out’ – there’s been a few things that have been very challenging for me and my family to deal with this year. Not just in terms of the shit the World is going through right now … but things much closer to home.
The loss of our dear Rosie after 17 amazing years, the break-up of my best friend’s marriage after almost 20 and the horrible, premature death of a dear client placed a huge toll on us/me emotionally and professionally.
And while we know ‘life goes on’, that doesn’t mean they don’t leave scars … scars that I/we are still experiencing and dealing with today.
Each of these tragic events had a very destabilizing effect on me/us … amplified by the fact that in the case of Rosie and Paul/Shelly especially, they were long-term ‘stability pillars’ for us and now they are irrevocably fractured.
I should explain what I mean by ‘stability pillars’ …
Put simply, they were entities we could rely on – or lean on – through good times and bad.
An emotional life-raft, as it were … and given we have chosen to live so far away from so many of the people and places we feel most connected to, it meant we probably had an over-reliance on their involvement in our life.
An over-reliance that we may have taken too much for granted. Thinking it will never change or go away. Naïve maybe.
Now don’t get me wrong, we have friends in NZ and enjoy living here, but it’s different … partly because we’re not from here, partly because we’re still relatively new here and partly because we know we won’t be here forever.
Of course, I get that’s ultimately our choice and decision, but the point is for all the positive things that have happened to us and for us this year – and there’s more than we could have hoped for or maybe even deserve, at least in my case – the impact of those 3 important relationships, have left an indelible mark on the year for us.
Which leads to why this holiday season is so important for me … for us … and most likely for the people involved and affected by the events that have happened.
I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. Not just because it’s a break, but because it’s a chance to unite, gather, refresh, restore and replenish.
I absolutely get others deserve – and most likely need – it more, but it still is very important and valuable to us too.
Fortunately, not only will we be getting it, but by living in NZ – which, as I wrote here, is the best place in the World to have it – it means we will have the space to truly embrace it and I’ve never been so grateful for it.
Talking of grateful …
This year was only possible because of the people around me.
From my family and friends, through to my colleagues and [some] of my clients, haha.
But it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the people who read my rubbish on here.
And while I no longer allow comments, I know there’s still a bunch of people out there who do thanks to the data, the emails or the sarcastic texts. [Hello Andy!]
I’ve been writing this for almost 2 decades and in many ways, it has forged the glue of connection that has made our constant moving around the World a bit easier.
A way to never feel too alone. Too isolated. Too new.
That may sound dramatic, but it’s true.
Which is why I want to offer my thanks to each and every one of you for all you have done for me – even if it’s just occasionally read what I write.
I’m grateful for your interest and commentary and hope the holidays will be as good to you, as I hope 2025 is good for all of us.
Just with mine being a little bit better than yours … hey, I’m an only-child, so what do you expect? Haha.
In all honesty, I have some specific plans/hopes for next year. Plans/hopes that could give me a different perspective and experience in my – and my families – life. Whether that happens is anyone’s guess, but I’m quite excited to see if I can pull it off. See what we may discover and experience if it happens, both individually and as a family.
But before that can even happen, it’s time to rest …
So with that, I say ta-ra.
See you on the other side.
For year 19, starting Jan 13, 2025.
Happy holidays everyone. Wherever you are. Whatever you celebrate.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Cannes, Chaos, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Honesty, Innovation, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Mediocrity, Metallica, Nike, Paula, Provocative, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Sport, Strategy
It is pretty obvious I have a major issue with a lot of the ‘best practice’ processes and practices certain members of my industry love to bang on about.
Not just because ‘best practice, is past practice’, but because these individuals position their approach as the legitimisation of the discipline they claim or suggest they are an expert in. Implying that anyone who does not strictly adhere to their process is an imposter and a danger to whatever organisation they’re working with.
It’s the sort of deluded arrogance that people who describe themselves as an ‘evidence based’ strategist embodies … attempting to infer everyone else is simply making things up and don’t give a fuck what happens afterwards.
It’s everywhere. Twitter. Linkedin. Conferences.
You name it and someone is bragging and banging on about it.
But what makes this hilarious is that many of these self-appointed experts have never made any work of any repute whatsoever. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Which means their entire viewpoint is either based on their own post-rationalised evaluation of another persons work or their narrow, naive and/or skewed viewpoint of what constitutes as ‘good’.
Don’t get me wrong, process matters.
In no way am I advocating you just chuck it all out.
However the difference is my processes does not require me to outsource my brain, imagination, curiosity, gut or ambition to fit into a format whose goal is to deliver a standardised, consistent response rather than enable the opportunity for greater possibility.
And that’s the big problem for me …
Because so many of these ‘models’ seem to care more about the process than what the process is meant to help enable. Actually, even that is wrong … because more and more of these models don’t even care about ‘enabling’ anything … they instruct you to simply follow the format and then do whatever the fuck comes out the other end.
No questioning.
No challenging.
No pushing.
Just blind adherence.
Martin and I talked about the folly of this approach in 2019 with our Case For Chaos talk at Cannes for WARC and then – in 2023 – Paula joined us on the same stage for our Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative presentation.
But still this approach and attitude goes on … and while I don’t deny it can be effective, it rarely has the impact or influence as work that comes from a process shaped and flavoured by ideas, imagination or ambition.
But then I wonder if that is the goal anyway … because frankly, the obsession with efficiency means more and more companies don’t want to move towards where they could be and just want to optimize where they’re currently at. Adopting an attitude of ‘when we fall behind, we’ll simply catch up’.
Though they will never admit that publicly – oh no – what they is they’re investing in ‘business transformation’.
Hahahahahahahaha.
A while back I met one of these ‘dot-to-dot’ advocates at a conference I was attending.
Early in the discussion, they said their company had pioneered a process that “guaranteed success”. And then proceeded to talk about their system that ‘removed the risk of contaminated thinking’.
They literally said that.
I looked around the room waiting for someone to say something. Anything. But no one did.
Worse, they seemed to be nodding their heads in agreement. Or awe.
So I stuck my hand up.
Eventually I was seen and asked if I had a question, to which I replied:
“I was just wondering if you know what the words ‘guaranteed’ and ‘success’ mean?”
Yes, I know that was a total asshole move.
It alienated me immediately.
And while I regret how I asked my question, I don’t regret asking my question because that sort of declaration is insane. Not just because it’s not true, but because their ‘examples of proof’ are rarely more than a brand doing a bit better than it has before.
Now I appreciate that’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s hardly Metallica is it?
A band that plays a niche genre of music, has pensioners as members and yet is the 2nd best selling American group in music history. MUSIC HISTORY!
And I can tell you, that didn’t happen blindly adopting the latest best practice process.
Where are their examples of that sort of impact?
Oh I know … in the hands of the fuckers who do shit, not spout it.
Look, I am not dismissing process.
Nor am I devaluing rigour.
But I am redefining what they mean in comparison to how more and more people seem to be interpreting it.
As we said at Cannes, strategy is the first creative act.
A chance to leap not step.
An opportunity to leave the category behind rather than reinforce the category.
But you don’t achieve that by simply ‘filling in the blanks’ with your functional and rational data.
No … if you really want to have a shot at changing where you can go and where you can be, you have to heed the advice of Rob Strasser – the iconic Nike exec – who said this:
“A shoe is just a shoe until someone steps in it”.
By that, I mean don’t just follow a framework, put your whole self into it.
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.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Cannes, Colenso, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Effectiveness, Entertainment, Martin Weigel, Mischief, Paula, Planners, Planning, Relevance, Resonance
Systems.
Processes.
Models.
Theories.
We’re surrounded with ways to do stuff and yet it feels we’re surrounded by more boring stuff than ever before.
By boring, I mean derivative.
A production line of repetition, albeit with different brand names emblazoned on the front.
I’ve said this before, but while a process is important … when we place more emphasis on that, than what it produces – or what we want it to produce – then we’ve got our shit the wrong way round.
It’s why I’ve also talked about the commercial effectiveness of creative ridiculousness.
A way to make an impact by the simple nature of not following the same patterns and processes of everything that has come before.
I don’t mean in terms of ‘differentiation’ [which is still based on using category norms] but – to steal from TBWA mainly because I don’t see them doing it much anymore – disruption.
Which is my way of saying why I love this …
Yes, it’s got cats on it.
And yes it says it will let me talk to them.
But even I know it’s not true … and yet I bought it and paid a premium for it, which is more than I would ever do for any other form of gum.
Fuck, I don’t even buy gum normally which reminds me of this post back in 2007 that reinforces the power of packaging.
Planning is important.
It has a real role to play for business and creativity.
But when that role ends up being shaped exclusively by the rules of the category, the competition and the ‘average consumer’ … then we’re not moving our brands forward, we’re in danger of cementing them where they are.
Of course I appreciate the difference between a novelty candy and a major brand with global distribution … but the premise remains the same.
If you let your blinkers only allow logic to influence your choices, you’re not liberating opportunities … you’re stifling it. Or – as Martin, Paula and I said at last year at Cannes – you’re being strategically constipated and only imagination can be your laxative.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Cannes, China, Comment, Complicity, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Effectiveness, Honesty, Imagination, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Metallica, Nike, Paula, Planners, Point Of View, Provocative, Succession, Uncorporated, Wieden+Kennedy
When Tiger and Nike recently ended their relationship after close on 3 decades, there was a lot written about why.
Hot takes.
Wild ideas.
Conspiracy theories.
But among them all was a post by Tom Bassett – a brilliant ex-Wieden strategist who was there when so much of what became Nike folklore was written.
The reason his voice stood out is because it wasn’t WHY the relationship ended, but why it started.
At the heart of his story was the brief Phil Knight gave for NIKE Golf.
He said: “Get NIKE to be #1 in golf or we get out the category all together”.
Having had the errrrm, pleasure(?) to meet and present to Mr Knight a few times, I can literally hear him saying/barking this … and what I love about it is the stubborn, blinkered ambition.
We seem to live in a world where the majority of conversation is around optimization … efficiency … brand assets … and basically how to get the most out of what you’ve got.
There’s nothing wrong with that, except it’s all about not being wrong than being as good as you can be.
Or said another way, being comfortable with what you’ve got as opposed to being impatient for what you want to have.
Get to #1 is a proper goal. One where the evaluation criteria is very fucking simple.
No hiding behind incremental growth or internal metrics … #1 is a criteria that dictates decisions and investment rather than the other way around.
Sure, there are ways #1 could be reframed in an attempt to look like you’re doing better than you are . Let’s face it, we see this sort of shit in the ad industry all the time, especially around award time … but Phil Knight wasn’t about skewing results but going right at them … which is why he didn’t place any additional burdens on how to achieve goal, other than demand it was true to the sport and how NIKE see’s the athlete.
Sounds easy, but it isn’t.
To do that takes a lot of confidence.
Confidence in who you are … confidence in your team … confidence in what your company stands for and confidence your company is full of people who know what that translates to in terms of behaviour, consideration and action.
And that’s why we often undermine the value of confidence and right it off as bravado.
Of course it can be that, but it is also about trust, experience, knowledge and openness.
As a chef once told me when we were doing Tobasco research at W+K, “the more confident the chef, the less ingredients they use”
And that’s why I love the clarity of Phil Knight’s objective.
He could have added a million mandatories, but he knew that would add a million reasons why his objective would then be almost impossible to achieve.
At least in a realistic timeline.
Which is why, as difficult as the objective was, he increased its chances of success by being clear as fuck and – to a certain degree – open as fuck. Enabling the team to not just tackle the project head on – rather than tap-dance around politics and restraint – but to also place responsibility back on the company in terms of what it needed them to do to help make it happen.
Not just in terms of money, but action and change.
It is one of the many reasons why I loved my time in China … why I loved Branson’s brief for the Virgin lounge … why I love working for Metallica and Mr Ji.
Sure, in China’s case, it was often more the ambition and scale than the clarity … but for the others, it is/was the single-minded, stubbornness of their objective, the trust they placed in the people they were asking to help them do it, the commitment of the whole organisation to give it the best chance of making it happen and the willingness to walk away rather than accept a poor substitute of what they wanted to change.
We need more of that.
Creative work would be more amazing for that.
Effectiveness would be more powerful for that.
But sadly we’re in a world where it’s all about hedging bets, outsourcing responsibility and managing internal politics rather than being focused, fierce and open on creating change.
Proper change.
Real change.
Massive change.
It all kind of ties in with the ‘Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative’ talk Martin, Paula and I did in Cannes last year.
The obsession with playing to the process while being continually outsmarted by those who are focused on enabling the possibility.
And while some claimed we were being irresponsible, unrealistic and even unprofessional in what we were saying, the reality is we have – and are – in the incredibly fortunate position of working with brands/people who prove the most responsible way to create powerful and lasting change is not by hedging your bets, but being willing and open to fight for it all.