Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Creativity, Daily Fail, Experience, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging
There’s been a few things that have made little sense to me over the last few weeks.
One of them is why a hotel would have this as their bedside lamp …
Look at it.
LOOK AT IT.
Seriously, who thought this would be a good idea?
Sticking a bunch of different sized, acrylic squares, on a lamp stand is the sort of thing you would expect to see in a 1986 episode of Blue Peter, not a 2020, just-refurbished, supposedly fancy-pants[ish] hotel.
Given the bits of plastic move, I can just imagine the designer/salesperson making some narrative up about it being ‘playful’ and other excuses to cover up the fact it’s a bit shit.
Then there’s this fruit truck I saw recently …
I know I am being especially petty, but why would you trust a fruit company who thinks a strawberry and an apple are the same size as a banana.
Unless they’re a fruit company that specialises in genetically modified fruit.
And lastly there’s this …
They are – supposedly – some of the spiciest noodles you can get anywhere in the World.
They’re so spicy, that it’s become an internet sensation [TM Daily Mail] with countless videos on Youtube of people destroying their tastebuds in the quest for a laugh.
Well, as someone with zero tastebuds – and taste, for that matter – and a best mate who doesn’t need persuading to do stupid things – we decided, as you can see by the picture at the very top of this post – that we would have a go at this ‘so-called-challenge’.
To cut a very long story short, the winner was not the one who was once a bouncer but the one who once cried his eyes out at the final episode of The Wonder Years and now believes he could be SAS material.
You can watch the very sad journey to taste-bud destruction below.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Awards, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Freddie, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, London, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Pretentious Rubbish, Queen, Research, Resonance
Today I’m judging the Effies.
Oh awards …
I’ve written so, so much about them in the past.
Like here. And here. And here. And here.
I must admit, I am intrigued to see what they are going to be like in the UK.
Will they be a celebration of insightful efficiency or will they be like I experienced too many times in Asia, a stream of consciousness that just rumbles along till they think they have explained how they got to their idea and how they have proved it worked.
I guess we shall see later today.
I really, really hope they are good.
Not just because the Effies have always had a standard they’ve lived up to, but because it will give me faith the industry still has fight in it to do things right.
In my time in the UK, I’ve read a bunch of planning documents/portfolios/resumes that have been more about packaging.
Repeating a client brief in a way that has been ‘sexed up’.
Superficial.
Executional.
Literal.
There are a bunch of reasons for this.
Part of it is the lack of training agencies give their strategiests.
[Hence why we started the School of Strategic Arts]
Part of it is the huge amount of freelance planners out there who are doing exactly what they are asked because they are fighting for their livelihood.
And part of it is because of the client/agency remuneration deals which means planners are giving too little time to explore the best outcome to the problem they face.
Planning has a valuable role to play in effectiveness.
Planning has a valuable role to play in creativity.
But it needs to be allowed to do it to make it happen … so here’s hoping we see the best of what it can do today, because the Effies is not just important for the people who win, but for what the industry needs to get back to being.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Starbucks
I’ve written a bunch about Starbucks over the years – most recently, their cereal coffee debacle – but let’s be honest, where ‘what the fuck’ happens, Starbucks is close behind.
Well while this example isn’t a demonstration of their marketing department being on crack, it is a demonstration of what their marketing department think of their customers.
Have a look at this.
Yes, it’s a bunch of bananas.
Amazingly, this is not the first time I’ve written about Starbucks and bananas.
Anyway, bananas are one of those fruits that are almost impossible to confuse with another.
And yet the folks at Starbucks think it is worthy of adding a sign in case they have the most stupid customer in the whole wide World.
Now, if you’re going to do that, you’d think you’d make sure they were the best looking, freshest bananas ever grown … but no … instead, they’ve curated a bunch of the most depressed looking fruit you could find.
Seriously, they couldn’t look sadder if they’d been placed in front of a television and made to watch 36 hours of Donald Trump speeches.
And then they want to charge 55 pence for one.
FIFTY FIVE PENCE.
At that price, I hope they throw in some banana flavored prozac as well.
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Chaos, Creativity, Culture, Management, Metallica, Packaging, Relationships
So a few weeks ago, I came home to find a Metallica album.
Not just a Metallica album, but a special edition – box set album.
And not just a special edition, box set Metallica album … but one personally signed by each member of the masters of metal themselves.
Now while that would be nice to think this was an act of love and generosity, the reality is it was an act of cheeky bastardness because for reasons I don’t understand, the band and their management have decided to bestow the nickname ‘St Anger’ on me and by sending me an album of the same name, this was their way of rubbing it in.
I admire their evil genius.
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.