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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.
Welcome back. Did you eat lots of easter eggs?
Let’s be honest, even if you didn’t – as long as you had a long weekend, it was all good. Haha.
So to welcome you back I thought I’d write a wholesome post. No really. Maybe the sweetness of all the chocolate eggs I almost ate, got into my blood stream?
Anyway, a couple of days ago, it was a year since Bonnie came into our lives.
As people who have followed this blog for a while, you’ll know it was quite a big event for us because:
1 We had lost our beloved, very well-travelled, loveable-but-grumpy cat, Rosie the year before.
2 Jill had wanted a dog for as long as we had been together, but we’d resisted as we had moved countries so much and so often.
However, the loss of Rosie had shown just how much we missed having an animal in our house and lives.
Sure, Otis his budgie Sky … who, despite being very small, is louder [and grumpier] than a Brexit voter on twitter … however it wasn’t the same and it got to a point where the silence in the house was amplifying the loss of Rosie.
The thing was, having another cat felt wrong. I know that sounds mad, but it felt – at least to us – that doing that would be almost disrespectful towards Rosie. As if we were saying she could be replaced as quickly and easily as the average Hollywood marriage.
But I must admit I was still cautious about a dog. I’ve always loved them – and Jill, up until she met me, had always had them – but we live in a treehouse and so I felt we needed to give real consideration as to whether we could give it the life it deserved.
But three things – much to Jill and Otis’ delight – tipped me over to ‘yes’.
Firstly, I realized how good a dog would be for Otis.
Not just in having a ‘companion’ but in helping him manage/overcome some of the issues he was dealing with thanks to his dysgraphia.
Second was we found a breeder who specialized in dogs who were especially good at helping kids with issues of anxiety and confidence – not just in terms of parentage, but training.
And finally, was the fact I’d got healthy … so the idea of walking a pooch a lot was a positive rather than a negative.
So, with those 3 positives we took the plunge – which pleased Paula Bloodworth immensely after her 10+ years of lobbying for me to get a dog as she unashamedly prefers them to cats, hahaha – and then waited until the breeder informed us of a litter she felt contained puppies who could be very good for us.
And how right they were …
In a perfect world, we wanted a female dog, with a dark brown coat. And we got her. But more importantly, we wanted a dog who would be loving, gentle and – beyond the odd ‘zoomie’ calm for Otis. And we got that too.
In fact, from the moment she came into our house, Bonnie – named after a bourbon biscuit, as my tattoo celebrates – has been brilliant.
Sure, she ate all the zippers off cushions, has an unnatural love of socks and barks at her own reflection… but apart from those little quirks, she is a kind, loyal, caring dog.
And the impact she has had on Otis has been remarkable.
I won’t go into the details as that’s his story to own, but literally within weeks – the positive impact on Otis was unmistakable.
In many ways, she has changed his life and the trajectory of his life in immeasurable ways and I don’t say that with any sense of hyperbole whatsoever.
So Bonnie, thank you.
I cannot overstate how grateful we are to you for all you have done for us.
You’ve brought laughter, love and colour into our lives – especially to our brilliant boy Otis.
Seeing how you are together literally makes my heart smile.
Always by each others side, whether that’s for cuddles or mischief.
Even Rosie would approve … albeit through slightly pissed-off eyes.
So thanks for an epic first year and here’s to a shitload of them to come.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Clients, Colleagues, Comment, Communication Strategy, Community, Confidence, Conformity, Content, Context, Contribution, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Education, Effectiveness, Equality, Experience, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Otis, Parents, Research, Respect, School, Standards
As many of you know, Otis has dysgraphia.
For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a condition that means – while his capacity to learn is the same as everyone else’s – the way he learns is different.
I’ve written about how his school has tried to accommodate him and how grateful we are for that, but the reality is – understandably – most schools are designed to cater to the masses, not the edge … so as much as Otis did well, it still meant he was being taught [and measured] to a standard more than his potential.
Anyway, this year – because he was due to change school having turned 11 – we decided to take the plunge and enroll him in a specialist creative school that follows an educational model that has been specifically designed for kids who have ability, but learn differently.
I am massively against private education, but within minutes of walking in – I got very emotional because I knew this is what he needed. What would help him thrive. Not to be better than others, but to be better for himself.
Within a few days of attendance, he proved we were right.
On about the 3rd day, he came home and told us why he knew this school was right for him.
It wasn’t because there’s only 90 kids in the entire school
[when previously there were 70 just in his class]
It wasn’t because the building feels more fun ad agency than place of studious education.
It wasn’t even because it’s next to a beach which the whole class goes to every day.
No, it was this: He doesn’t need to charge his laptop every day.
Now you may think that means he’s not doing much learning … but you’d be wrong. In fact, you couldn’t be more wrong.
You see, at his old school, all he ever did was use his computer.
Part of this was because dysgraphia affects your ability to write with a pen, so he did everything on a laptop. But the other part of this is because his teachers – in a bid to keep him busy while also needing to give attention to the rest of the class – gave him endless worksheets to fill in.
In essence, his education was more about data entry than learning.
That’s not a diss, we understand the situation they were in and were very grateful for the genuine interest in trying to help … however in just a few days, Otis has discovered what education really is about … what it really means … how it really feels.
And while he has stated he finds this harder … he’s not just happy about it, he’s happy about how he’s being encouraged to approach it.
Learn not follow.
Think not repeat.
Experience not reference.
Inclusive not exclusive.
Engaged not left to type.
Which is why the fact his computer only needs charging once-a-week rather than everyday is so noticeable and powerful.
Not just to him, but to his Mum and Dad as well.
It reminds me of the time I was doing a project for Coca-Cola in Indonesia.
We’d launched the Open Happiness work and I’d been sent to Indonesia to talk to kids about what optimism meant to them.
I remember talking to some kids – about 15 years old – when one of them took me to the other side of the street and pointed into the distance.
All I could see was a skyline filled with tall buildings and cranes that were building even more tall buildings so I asked him what I was supposed to be looking at.
“The cranes”, he said. “I’m seeing my future being built in front of my eyes”.
I loved it. I loved how they’d just communicated something pretty fluid and morpheus in a way that suddenly was clear-as-fuck. Something I didn’t just understand, but felt … while somehow also ensuring I was very aware of the context, conflict and challenge they’d gone through leading up to that point.
Like with Otis’ and his use of the battery % on his laptop to help me truly appreciate the journey he’d been on, the comment about the cranes made a lasting impression on me.
Which highlights a really important point.
People very rarely connect, project, express and see meaning in things in ways that reflect how we want them to communicate to us.
That doesn’t mean they lack ability, it means we lack the ability to translate them.
Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values convenience over nuance. Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values answers over understanding. Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values the functional not the emotional.
Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry that values what the clients want to say more than what the audience want to hear. Some of that’s because we’ve become an industry obsessed with the ‘science’ of marketing, not the people it’s for. But most of it’s because we’ve become an industry that places greater value on audiences repeating a specific set of words based on our communication than having them express its impact on them through their individual feelings, emotions and behaviours.
My son … and that kid in Indonesia … not only helped me understand what education and optimism meant to them in ways that no focus group or data set could ever achieve, but they gave me access into their world.
How they see it.
How they interpret it.
How they live within it.
How they cope inside of it.
How they hope to experience it.
The more we open our eyes and ears to what is going on in our audiences world – rather than focus on what we want them to specifically repeat in their world – the more we not only can make a bigger difference to our clients in the work we create, but the more our clients will make a bigger impact on the people they need.
Or as my friend Andy once said:
“Just because someone repeats what you want to hear, exactly as you want to hear it … doesn’t mean they believe a fucking word of it”.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Anniversary, Australia, China, Dad, Death, Family, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Otis
I think my Mum would be strangely happy that I almost forgot to write this post today.
And I did … only realizing last weekend today was the 11th anniversary of my Mum dying.
It’s not even the first time this has happened …
So how come I nearly forgot today – one of the worst days of my entire life – and why do I think Mum be happy about it?
Well, let’s do the practical reasons first …
I write this blog weeks in advance and so sometimes I don’t even think about the date they will appear, I just load them up to be automatically put out. That said, I’ve never nearly forgotten when it is Dad’s anniversary … however that’s a bit different to Mum’s in so much as he died in mid-January and so that tends to be one of the first posts I write every year, coming out the festive holiday season.
But that’s more of an assumptive rationale …
The fact is both my parents blessed me with an amazing childhood and upbringing. I’ve written so much about them over the years – from their endless encouragement to their demonstration of what love really means – and the loss of them was, without doubt, the hardest and biggest challenges I’ve ever had to face and deal with in my life.
But Dad died first – 16 years before Mum – and while I’d experienced the death of people close to me before, that was the one that was the most direct in terms of impact, importance and shock. It meant it took me years before I could think of Dad as the Dad I grew up with … rather than the person he became after his stroke robbed him of who he was and how he was.
But Dad’s passing opened up the ability for Mum and I to talk about death … and we did. A lot.
Not in an ‘impending doom’ kind-of-way … more in terms of the reality of what we’d faced and had to accept and learn.
It meant this was very much top of mind when Mum was going in for her operation. Maybe not spoken about openly, but definitely something that was in eachother’s minds. In fact, it was only after Mum had died – when the operation to extend her life, sadly failed due to a childhood issue that had gone undiagnosed – that I discovered just how much Mum had been thinking about it.
That she had written me ‘notes’ in case the worst happened – featuring information I’d need to make organizing her estate easier – is still one of the most powerful demonstrations of unconditional love I’ve ever seen. Though it still breaks my heart how she must have felt writing them – knowing that she was having to face her own mortality, on her own, while I was on the other side of the planet.
That said – as I wrote the morning she died – we’d found a lovely rhythm in the final few years.
We’d always had a wonderful relationship but there was a period where a few niggles had entered our interactions … nothing much, just a little tension caused by me wanting to take care of her and her wanting to fiercely protect her independence and have me look after myself and my future more. But we’d got past that by realizing both us were coming from a place of love … so we made allowances for each others needs, which meant she let me put money in her bank account every month and I didn’t mind that she never spent a penny of it. Haha.
And while the days leading up to her death will be forever burned in my mind, my memory of Mum has never been stuck in that period, like it was for Dad for all those years. I don’t know why but I’m grateful for it.
Maybe it’s because I became better equipped emotionally after Dad died?
Maybe it’s because Otis was born 3 months before Mum passed and so that period was consumed with happy thoughts throughout that time?
Or maybe it’s because I’d seen Mum a lot before she died – every month for 6 months or so – and so saw the impact of her heart condition on her health – meaning it was less of a surprise to me, even though I thought the operation was going to make things better?
Who knows … but while today will always be significant in my mind, it’s not the main thing that immediately comes to mind. Instead I think of the conversations we had when I came to visit … the pasta she would lovingly make for me … the look of happy surprise on her face when I turned up unannounced from Australia … the tennis she’d play with me on the patio in the back garden in summer when I was a small kid … the joy on her face when she learned she was going to be a Grandma … the stories she would tell me of the films or comedians or concerts she’d gone to see … the quiet contentment we felt when we were in the same room together, even if nothing was being said.
I think of those things WELL before anything to do with her dying.
I think of her grace, her kindness, her love, her curiosity, and her compassion.
I think of how much I wish she could see the grandson she never met, but adored.
I think of how she will never know I lived in America and back in England and now NZ.
I think of how she would react to Bonnie. [And the news of Rosie]
I think of how she would react to ‘healthy me’.
I think of how lucky I was – and am – to be able to call her my Mum.
And that’s why, I am sure Mum would be happy that I almost forgot to write this post …
Because it means her memory is alive and present in my life and that means she achieved what she hoped for most in her life.
That she was a good Mum.
And she was. And still is.
I miss you Mum. I hope you’re with Dad, holding hands.
I love you.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Asia, Auckland, Authenticity, Bonnie, Cats, China, Comment, Content, Context, Craft, Creativity, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Design, Emotion, England, Family, Freddie, Happiness, Harmony, Jill, LaLaLand, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, Music, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Names, Otis, Queen, Resonance, Respect, Rosie, Shanghai, Tattoo
I got my first tattoo when I was 42.
I was holidaying in LA, saw a tattoo shop and – after some encouragement from my friend Paul – went in and had a big one on the underside of my arm.
Hey, nothing like jumping all in eh.
But from that moment, the tattoo became something very important to me.
To be honest, I’d always wanted one but chickened out because of the fear of pain – but not only did it not hurt at all [in fact I fall asleep when I have them] I discovered it the ultimate way to express my sentimentality towards people, dates and things that held a very significant place in my life.
Since that day way back in 2012, I’ve had loads of tattoos.
Birthdays.
Postcodes.
Phone numbers.
Signatures.
Names, pictures and paws of pets.
Honoring Mum, Dad, Jill, Otis and China.
Personal philosophies and heroes.
Nottingham Forest and Queen.
Some weird shit for some friends.
And nods to LA, UK, NZ and Italy.
There’s not one that I regret because each and every one of them is there for a reason.
No ‘moments of stupidity’.
No ‘this would be good for a laugh’.
No ‘tribal or badly translated rubbish’.
Each tattoo represents something deeply important and significant to me – even if to the causal observer, it may look like I have a bunch of random and weird stuff across my arms.
I say all this because recently, Otis asked if I had any tattoos for him, to which I proudly pointed to the one of his name and his date of birth.
And while he seemed moderately pleased with this, it apparently wasn’t enough because he asked if he could design one … a tattoo that captured who he was and what he believed. And I stupidly said ‘yes’, which is why I am currently in negotiations with him to decide which of these will be inked upon my body in the next few weeks.
For the record, the reason the potential designs are all in type is because I don’t have any room on my arms for a picture and he wants to ensure it is something that can be – and will be – seen at all times, haha.
Now before you think I’m blindly pandering to my son’s whims and wants … he genuinely loves rice. In fact he has it every night for dinner which he claims is because he was born in China … so while his tastes may well change or evolve over time, ‘Rice Is Life’ does capture who he is and what he believes, which means – for me – it ticks all the criteria boxes needed to go out and make it a permanent symbol on my body.
The ad industry could learn from kids for their powers of persuasion.