Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, AI, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Conformity, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Independence, Individuality, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Strategy
One of the many things I love about China, are their proverbs.
Whatever the subject, there will be an expression that captures the issue in a brilliant, wonderful way.
And there’s so bloody many of them … and each one not only makes you nod your head in agreement, but also makes you think and then look at things differently afterwards.
Anyway, I heard one recently that I love.
In fact, I love it so much I’m going to use it as the ‘final lesson’ in a presentation I’m writing for a talk in Berlin – more of that in tomorrow’s post.
The quote is this:
I love it.
I love it for a load of reasons.
One of them being that China tends to encourage conformity rather than individuality – so this is beautiful for simply challenging that convention.
But the other reason is that it sums up the heart of the presentation I’m writing.
Especially in a world where so many people are – rightfully – worrying about the impact AI will have on their job, career, livelihood.
Because to take that quote one step further …
If you spend years doing all you can to become a perfect, straight tree …
A tree who stands perfectly with all those other perfect straight trees …
Not only could you find yourself being chopped down and turned into boards, you may discover that’s all you were ever going to be allowed to be.
Or said another way:
When you blindly follow someone else’s definition of ‘best practice’, the result isn’t just that you get turned into boards … it’s that your career is spent being walked on and walked over by people who never cared what you could become, only what they could become.
Which is why if you want to increase the odds of living a bigger life, be the wild tree.
Because while others may mock your shapes, bends and scars … you’ll know they’re signs of a life well lived, not a life walked upon.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Distinction, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
As it’s Monday, let me start this post with some good news.
This is the last week of posts for a while as I’m flying off to Europe on Friday.
Not for a holiday.
Not for Colenso.
But for a stream of meetings in LA, London, Amsterdam, Milan and Berlin.
All in 8 days. Darrrrrling.
God, what an asshole humble brag. That isn’t even humble.
Which is why I am not asking you to feel sorry for me because [1] I’m not stupid and [2] 8 days or not, it’s a fucking dream gig. However – if it makes you feel any better – while all of these trips are at the invitation of a range of different VIP’s, I’m only going because they want me to be their cat litter tray rather than be a valued guest.
Did that make you feel less loathing towards me?
What about making the darkness of Monday morning feel a bit brighter?
No? OK … better move quickly on.
So not too long ago, I wrote a post about the brilliant Trevor Beattie and his brilliant analysis of the modern Specsavers creative work.
Specifically, the strategic shift from ‘what it was’ to ‘what it is’.
And while he didn’t say the current work doesn’t live up to the standards of the original work, his central point highlights – at least to me – why I don’t think it does, exemplified by this piece of work that I saw near our office recently.
I should point out this gives me no joy to say whatsoever, because:
1. Specsavers played a significant role in saving my sight by recognizing my disease early and then writing a referral letter for me to urgently see a specialist.
2. Specsavers has continually proved the commercial and creative power of s great idea.
3. The shift Trevor highlighted, may – for reasons I don’t quite understand – be deliberate.
But whatever is behind it … going from the comedic potential of not seeing properly to laughing at the incurably stupid … has potentially resulted in moving the brand from friend to foe.
Or worse, bully.
Now whether they meant this to happen or not is anyone’s guess.
I’m assuming not.
Which reinforces the need to always understand the nuance of an idea – because if you don’t do that, you don’t just undermine years of craft, care and rigor, you undermine the very value you are being paid to elevate.
See my recent post about the billboard for the movie, Devil Wears Prada 2.
There’s too much complexity in our business. But solving it with simplistic interpretation doesn’t help anyone either.
Which suggests every creative, strategist, suit and marketer may need to go to Specsavers to see how to do their job properly.
With craft.
With rigor.
With care.
With an ability to actually – ironically – see it.
And with an understanding of the nuance behind the idea so your work – whaever role you play – is always building the brand up rather than tearing it down.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Community, Complicity, Conformity, Consultants, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Management, Marketing Fail, Planes, Planning, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect
Way back in 2006 I wrote a post about what exclusivity means.
Not the marketing version of it … but what the people who can afford to have it, really want and expect from it.
The reality is this group of people don’t care about showing – or sharing – their success with the masses. They don’t have any desire to be ‘aspirational’. In fact what they want couldn’t be more different – because all they really seek is to keep the masses as far away from them as is physically possible.
I entitled the post, FUCK YOU MONEY, but really it should have been called FUCK OFF MONEY … because that’s the spirit that defines exclusivity to them. The ability to live in a world where the only people around them are equal people.
Or said another way, they like to practice economic racism.
It’s part of the reason LVMH lost cache in China when they opened stores in lower-tier cities.
It’s part of the reason Bentley lost long-term customers when they became the car-of-choice for rappers.
And it’s part of the reason why Air New Zealand have scored a massive own goal with their most valuable customers with this billboard rolling out all across NZ.
For those who don’t know what Koru is … it’s Air New Zealand’s new Frequent Flyer Program and Koru Black is their highest tier.
To be fair to Air NZ, Koru is genuinely one of the best frequent flyer programs of any airline in the World … so with that in mind, I get why they think offering the public the opportunity to get more points to get closer to ‘black status’ is appealing.
However, it isn’t for the fuckers who already have achieved that status.
For them, they’ll not only see it as Air NZ allowing more people to be part of their club’, they’ll see it as Air NZ allowing ‘lesser people’ to be part of it given they ‘won’ their place via a promotion rather than ‘earned the right to be there’ as they will no doubt tell themselves they achieved
Is that bollocks?
Sure, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think it, which is why one of the best bits of airline research I’ve ever read was when the wonderful David Lin – who worked for me at Wieden, and is now Mr Important at Apple – told me that ‘business class was the politest way to say ‘fuck off’ to everyone who always wanted their time or attention.
But there’s more …
Because added to this is the fact many Koru Black members feel annoyed they already have to share ‘their’ airport lounge facilities with people from other airlines who happen to hold a business class ticket – which results in situations where there’s no seats available to rest in – and you start to think Air NZ may not understand their top customers as much as they may like to think they do.
What makes it worse is that it would have been so easy to discover …
The main one being just sit in the airport lounge and listen to the conversations when it’s full.
But it seems they didn’t. Or haven’t. Because what else would explain their disastrous decision to set all ‘black tier’ customers frequent flyer points to zero when they launched Koru.
Sure, they did a u-turn on when they discovered how angry it had made customers … but they still did it, which not only undermined their launch, but left customer with a horrible taste in their mouth they’ll remember for a long time.
I mean, you’d think it would be obvious to not do that, but apparently it wasn’t – which not only suggests Air NZ put their faith in the wrong research and creative partners – not to mention are incapable of evaluating standards with an objective, global perspective – it highlights how you can have all the data in the world, but if you don’t look for, or understand, the fucked-up, hypocritical truth of your customers, you’ve got nothing.
Also see every research company who announced with the upmost confidence that Trump wasn’t going to win the Presidency in his first term … either because they were arrogant, blinkered or simply failed to understand people rarely tell you what they think, instead they tell you what they think will protect them from revealing what they really believe.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Collegues, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Process, Provocative, Relationships, Resonance, Respect, Strategy, Technology
A few months ago, the lovely James Welch [stupidly] invited me to have a chat about my perspectives on creativity, technology and process.
Why? I have no idea … maybe he was being charitable.
Whatever the reason it ended up – surprise, surprise – being a ramble about why I’m a nightmare to work with, an ‘acquired’ taste and absolutely not an idea megalomaniac.
The good news is only one of these character evaluations came from James … which, on second thoughts, may not be such good news after all.
Anyway, I thought I’d post it …
Not because I have a career death wish, but because if someone out there is finding it hard to sleep, listening to it will help them drift off in no time … albeit having to endure some horrific nightmares along the way.
Not because of what I say – even if some of the perspectives are pretty bleak – but because you’ll hear my dulcet tones saying it.
You can watch it here.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you …
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Curiosity, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Egovertising, EvilGenius, Experience, Facebook, Influencers, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Popularity, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Ridiculous, Strategy, Stubborness, Technology, Toxic Positivity, Trust, Truth
When I was growing up there was a newspaper cartoon called ‘Andy Capp’.
Andy was a cliche of the working-class – albeit he never actually works – and lives in Hartlepool in the North East of England.
Andy is married to his long suffering wife, Flo – and despite her working – they are almost on the verge of poverty because apart from Andy being unemployed, he lacks any motivation and thinks he can ‘beat the system’ because of his smarts.
By that, think early stage manosphere but replacing the sexualization of women with more pure sexism.
Anyway, the reason I say this is because I remember one cartoon where Flo told Andy that they were in debt to the tune of £1000.
To which Andy replied something like:
“I told you Flo, if you owe £100 you’re a failure. If you owe £1000 you’re an entrepreneur. If you owe a £10,000 you’re a businessman and if you owe £1,000,000 you’re a government. So what this means Flo, is we’re on the way up!”
I don’t know why I remember that cartoon among the millions of things I’ve seen over the years – but it has always left a lasting impression on me, which may explain why I’ve tended to only seek – or listen to – the advice I’ve got from people who either failed trying or succeeded by doing. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? Yet everyday I read/hear/watch people spouting unsolicited advice about subjects they have almost zero right or credibility to do – mistaking opinion as fact, interest as knowledge, knowledge as expertise or ego as cleverness.No wonder a famous football manager once told me to always learn from winners, not players.
Look, I get we all do this to some degree, but there’s a big difference between spouting an opinion or perspective and acting like you’re the indisputable, all-knowing, God-of-all.
The point is, regardless what Andy Capp says, we would not take his proclamations as fact.
We might accept it’s what he thinks is fact, but not what is true for all.
And yet, more and more, I’m witnessing business blindly follow the statements and proclamations of people who are the real-life, modern version of Andy Capp.
Kinda.
Because while they DO have jobs … and while they have even been successful in them … they are now telling people how to succeed in areas they have absolutely no right to talk about.
Not just because many have never worked in those areas, but they have a track record of making terrible choices when developing ideas outside of their core area of knowledge.
Enter Mark Zuckerberg.
I’m not doubting he’s smart.
I’m not doubting he loves technology.
I’m not even doubting his successes.
However, why are so many people listening [and investing] in his version of the future when not only is it designed around his ego and need for power and control – not to mention his desperation to be talked about in the same breath as Steve Jobs – this is a person who spent/blew/lost US$80 BILLION on the Metaverse??
EIGHTY. FUCKING. BILLION. DOLLARS.
I get innovation is expensive.
I appreciate all technology needs time to evolve.
I acknowledge that I have two of their Quest headsets.
But 80 billion?
To put it in context, the iPhone is said to have cost anywhere between $150 million and $3.2 billion. The creation of Google Maps is said to have cost around $1 billion to initially develop. Even the A380 aircraft – the biggest passenger aircraft in the history of aviation – ‘only’ cost around $25-35 billion to build.
And to add even more context …
80 billion dollars is the equivalent of being the 90th placed country in the World by GDP.
OK, so Zuck’s 80 billion was spent over a long period of time compared to how GFP figures are calculated, but still …
In fact, this suggests Zuck is someone who stubbornly believes he is always right.
Or at the very least, refuses to acknowledge where things aren’t working or where things need improving.
Sadly, we see this same sort of arrogance in our industry …
Where someone is successful in a particular disciple or with a particular agency or with a particular piece of work or with a particular promotion… and then suddenly, they believe they are more knowledgable, more successful and more authoritative than every other person in every other industry regardless of their actual level of experience and expertise.
And what is worse is they get away with it …
Because like Zuck, too many people hang onto their words like gospel, even though in many ways they’re speaking the same delusional clap-trap as Andy Capp, which suggests 2 uncomfortable truths.
1. The real problem with ego is not the person spouting the nonsense, but the people who choose to believe loud confidence over real experience.
2. Andy Capp may have been right because it does seem in business. ‘the more you lose, the more people believe you’re a success’.
