Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Clients, Colenso, Colleagues, Consultants, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Planners, Planning
A few weeks ago, I was writing the Colenso strat gang plan for 2026.
What we want to do.
What we want to change.
What we want to break.
What we want to create.
In doing that, I wanted to reference what we had experienced in 2025 against what mates at other agencies around the World had gone through. Not to compare necessarily, more to understand their perspective of what was happening.
Now, despite the fact I have a reputation for never being satisfied, I knew we’d had a pretty good year.
Not maybe by the measure others value, but by a lot of things I do.
Of course there’s things we can, should and need to improve – and we will – but overall, we’d built a foundation of interesting things that was good by any criteria.
Or so I thought …
You see, I spoke to a friend of mine in the US and when I told them some of the stuff we’d done, they kept saying …
“How did you make that much stuff?”
At first I thought they were either being kind or mistakenly believed that because NZ is so small, it’s impossible for the entire industry to produce more than one thing a year … but that wasn’t it at all.
Despite them working in America.
Despite them working in a big agency.
Despite them working on a massive client.
They’d produced nothing.
Nada.
Zero.
Zilch.
Actually, that’s not quite right … because they did tell me they had produced something.
In fact over 60 somethings …
Presentation decks.
For the same idea.
Which the client still didn’t buy.
Now you may assume with that many presentations, my friend is a fucking idiot. But you’d be wrong because she’s utterly brilliant. But – as I’ve written before – this is where we’re at these days. Endless presentations to endless people in endless departments just to get the smallest bit of work through.
But as mad as that is, it’s not as mad as this …
Despite no one making much work, they told me how everyone is as busy-as-fuck.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think they’re just creating, shuffling or editing papers”.
Now I’m not saying we’re immune from writing the odd needless presentation at Colenso …
Nor am I saying we’ve not beem asked to present the same deck to different ‘stakeholders’ within the same organisation a multitude of times over the years …
And if the reason for it is because the client spotted or questioned things in the agencies thinking that the agency hadn’t so they had to go back and keep updating it to re-present it … I get it.
But over 60 times?
For the same campaign?
That never moved forward?
If that’s the case, either the client is bad or the agency is.
Who is paying for this shit? Why are we letting this happen? It’s not just utterly inefficient, it’s utterly soul-destroying.
Worse, it also is completely destroying the value, reputation, purpose of our entire industry.
I get consultancies can operate this way – because ultimately, they get paid to offer advice rather than apply it – but we are an industry made for making, creating and doing.
That we are often positioned by business and procurement departments as ‘costly and unprofessional’ while they happily pay salaries to whole departments who never move anything forward or to consultancies who never take any responsibility blows my mind.
So while hearing the situation my friend found themselves could have made me look at the things we achieved in ’25 with a slightly more positive gaze, it served more as a cautionary tale. Because what we’re seeing is the marketing industry potentially turning more and more into the worst of the legal industry … where the goal isn’t to get the right result, but to keep the problem going.
Not because – as is the case with law – it keeps the money rolling in.
But because it keeps mediocrity feeling important and looking busy.
Hell, with this news, I may be nicer to my clients and colleagues from now on.
Emphasis on ‘may’. Hahaha.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Ambition, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Effectiveness, Planning, Process, Strategy
I come from a family of lawyers.
My Italian Uncle was a prosecutor against the Mafia and my Dad was a Human Right’s barrister who specialized in fighting corporations and governments who chose to label certain groups/people as ‘irrelevant’ or ‘unimportant’.
I – on the other hand – am not a lawyer. I neither had the brains or the patience … though I did get a distinction in law at college, albeit because my Dad helped me massively – hahahaha.
But the thing is, you can’t be around that level of legal brain without it having some influence over you and one of the things my Dad and Uncle really shaped for me was how ‘details matter’.
Now I appreciate law and advertising are VERY different, but one of the areas where they are very similar is the ability to make complexity, simple.
Unfortunately, a lot of our industry seems to have forgotten that … preferring to either celebrate complexity or make things embarrassingly simplistic, but when we do things right, we do things really right.
Of course it takes a lot of hard work to make things simple.
You have to read.
You have to explore.
You have to go down rabbit-holes.
You have to chat, challenge, and consider.
But not only does this approach mean you get to the core of issues, problems, understanding and opportunities … you are more likely to put something out that makes a real difference to people and the business. So I find it fascinating how more and more companies are giving less and less time for this hard work to be done.
Wanting the process to be at a ‘sprint’.
Wanting costs and people to be ‘trimmed’.
Wanting the agency to accept what ‘they say’.
But we don’t push back on this to be awkward, we push back on this because we give a shit about their wellbeing. We want to do things that add value to what they do, rather than open the door to challenges or questions. And while I appreciate there is a narrative that ‘the general public don’t really care about advertising’, the reality is a bit more nuanced than that.
1. They don’t care about SHIT advertising, but they do care about, what they care about.
2. They definitely care about not being fucked over by companies who try to fuck them over.
And if there’s one thing companies should know by now … social media often finds the stuff they want to hide. The stuff that challenges the narrative they like to project and profess. And while I appreciate that may have led to many companies making ads that basically say nothing – in the twisted belief that if they bore audiences to death, they’re protected – the reality is there will always be someone out there who delves into the details.
I’m not talking about conspiracy theorists.
I’m not talking about the populists and non-conformists.
I’m talking about individuals who want to make sure the companies who want them to give a shit, give a shit in return.
And you know what should scare companies even more?
AI allows everyone to do this quickly and easily. Suddenly the tool some companies have adopted as a way to ‘slash costs’, is the tool that allows society to work out if they should give them any time, let alone money.
And why am I talking about this?
Because in the last few weeks, there’s been a couple of posts that show the importance of ‘the details’.
A couple of posts that show a company that loves to claim they care about what you need, care more about what they need.
A couple of posts that are fucking breathtaking in their ‘findings’.
Who am I talking about? Uber.
Cars and Food delivery.
Now I appreciate what is detailed below may not be entirely accurate – different markets operate by different needs and requirements – however if you use Uber in any way, and I do, it’s something worth reading.
Because at the very least, if the information is not completely right, Uber can then tell us and show us how good they really are. And if the information is correct, then it will force Uber to change or face the consequences.
Details matter.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Ambition, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brands, Clients, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Effectiveness, Honesty, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planning, Point Of View, Politics, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
We’re only a few weeks into 2026 and yet last week, a planner in London reached out to me to ask for some advice because they were already feeling burned out by work.
Obviously I’m not going to give details about who they are or where they work, but what I can tell you is their stress wasn’t because of workload, but because they were working with a client who could not clearly define the business problem they needed addressing, and then was blaming them for not giving them a solution they felt was appropriate.
In many ways, this is one of the most frustrating challenges in advertising today.
Where someone uses rounds and rounds of creative work to try and work out what’s the problem they need/want to solve.
Now there’s many reasons for this …
One is that too many companies have completely undermined, destroyed and devalued the role of marketing within their organizations – resulting in a lack of training, a lack of standards, a lack of C-Suite credibility and an unspoken rule that you are only empowered to say no to proposals and opportunities.
But frankly, the blame for this scenario is shared.
Because too many agencies have also completely undermined, destroyed and devalued the role of creativity within their organizations – resulting in a lack of training, a lack of standards, a lack of backbone and an unspoken rule that yo are only empowered to say ‘yes’ to a lack of clarity on problems and challenges.
What a shitshow.
Worse, what a waste of time.
So what ends up happening is both sides throw shade and blame at each other without realizing their own complicity in what’s going on, which results in ..
+ Everything taking 10 times longer than it needs to.
+ Everything getting more complex, confusing and opaque.
+ Everything being designed for – and decided by – committees.
+ Everything requiring more presentations and rounds of work.
+ Everything getting shaped by internal politics/managing up.
+ Everything being chipped away and diluted to beige.
Now of course, not every company, agency or brief is like this.
But a lot are – increasingly so – which is why it’s not exactly surprising the planner who reached out was feeling so burned out. And I’ve not even mentioned the role of procurement, the toxicity of the ‘sprint‘ or the outsourcing to AI to make things feel even worse.
And while this situation is no good for anyone – literally no one – what really bothered me was the fact this planner felt completely isolated by his boss, the team he worked into and the client he was working for.
Everyone appreciated the issue, but no one wanted to address it.
And there lies the fundamental issue that is killing the industry.
Because as I’ve said many times, the only way you get to make great things is if 3 things are present.
1. Clarity on what problem you are solving.
2. Shared responsibility in how that can be achieved.
3. Trust each other and be transparent with each other.
All three are needed all of the time.
And while that might seem like fantasy, I can tell you, it can – and does – happen, even though I appreciate it is seemingly becoming rarer and rarer.
But it can change, though it needs everyone to take responsibility for it – specifically senior people – because without that, the ‘stress reduction’ system shown at the top of this page will become the next global marketing tool found in every marketing department and ad agency around the World.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Content, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Planners, Planning, Research, Resonance, Respect, Status, Strategy, Success
Without wishing to sound like a stalker – or a pervert – but I recently spotted this couple walking down Ponsonby Road …
I don’t know who they are.
I never saw their faces.
I only was behind them for a matter of seconds.
But in that time, they made a huge impression on me.
The togetherness.
The lazy pace of synchronicity.
The fact they were heading somewhere only they knew.
So much of our industry is focused on what we want people to do or think … and so little time is spent on where people are at in life. Everyone has their issues, concerns, hopes and ambitions – and yet, too often, that’s seen as unimportant or inconvenient.
We – and by that, I mean research companies as much as advertising agencies – talk about ‘understanding people’, but what we really mean is we understand what clients want to hear. So we churn out an endless stream of characteristics that both say everything about anyone as well as nothing.
Robots more than humans.
The thing is, one of the greatest things about the creative industry is are ability to emotionally impact millions.
How to make them feel … not just think.
And yet every model, system and process I see being promoted on platforms and websites doesn’t talk about this.
In fact, it actively filters this sort of thing out … instead, it talks about ‘identifying the optimum trigger and moment to drive the purchase decision’.
What. The. Fuck.
We wonder why our industry is not as influential as it once was?
We wonder why influencers can impact audiences more than a multi-million media plan?
We wonder why artists can reach and impact audiences without any marketing budget, knowledge or skills?
There’s a simple reason.
We don’t spend enough time caring about this couple.
Who they are.
What’s important to them.
What they’re working towards.
What people misunderstand about them.
When was the last time they felt happy. Or helpless.
All we care about is how we can reach them with ‘efficient and convenient sales messages that convey the key functional reasons for purchase consideration. Never once realizing the real problem is they don’t give a fuck about what we’re saying because all we’re doing is shouting what we want them to care about rather than understanding what they actually care about.
Or need.
So next time you get a brief – or write one – that describes an audience as, ‘urban dwelling, white collar employees who take what they do seriously but don’t take themselves seriously’ ask yourself one thing.
Are you about humanity or commercial landfill?
Which just leaves me with a message to the people in that photo.
Thank you for being an important reminder of what we’re brilliant at and what we’re here to do.
May you have a brilliant life together. Whoever you are. Wherever you go.
Here’s to you continually walking towards wherever you want to go together.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Clients, Clothes, Comment, Community, Consultants, Context, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Disney, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Empathy, Honesty, Innovation, Luxury, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Membership, Netflix, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Popularity, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Social Divide, Social Media, Strategy, Stupid
Once upon a time, I was asked to help a client based in Thailand.
They were very successful – having made Thailand the most profitable market in the World for their particular brand.
Anyway, part of the project involved a workshop and part of that workshop was about identifying new variants for their product.
So far, so good.
Until I realized they weren’t looking at this to expand who could become a customer of theirs, but how to get existing customers to buy more of what they make.
Even that was OK, until it became apparent they believed their product was so loved, their customers would continually fill their shopping baskets with 3 or 4 different versions of the same product because they just liked the ability to consume it in more places at more times.
In short, they believed the more versions of their product they made, the more volume of products their customers would buy.
Every time.
Forget that people have a finite amount of money.
Forget that people have other bills, items, people to look after.
They believed, if you made it … people would just blindly buy.
It’s the same blinkered approach that some sales organizations have.
Where they believe if one salesman brings in a million dollars of revenue a year, hiring 11 more will mean they achieve 12 million dollars of revenue.
It’s both blinkered thinking and wishful thinking.
Or – as my father used to say – “the expansion of logic without logic”.
I say this because it feels companies are viewing the subscription model in a similar way.
Once upon a time, subscriptions were seen as the exciting new thing for business.
A new way to charge for your products and services … regardless that ‘direct debit’ payments had been around for years.
There were 3 key reasons why repositioning cost as a subscription was so appealing:
1 It lowered the barrier to entry, so it could appeal to more/new customers.
2 They knew that while customers ‘could’ cancel at any time, data showed most wouldn’t.
3 It could, in theory, allow them to charge more per month than their old annual fee.
And they were right, it proved to be a revelation … until it wasn’t.
Right now, everything is seemingly a subscription model.
Food.
Clothes.
Streaming.
Gym and health.
Car purchasing.
But the one that really is making me laugh, are phone apps.
It’s almost impossible to download anything without it being a subscription service.
And that would be OK, except the prices they want to charge are getting out of control.
I recently downloaded a recipe app that wanted $14.99 A WEEK. A FUCKING WEEK.
$60 a month just so I could send it healthy recipes I see on social media and have them all in one, easy-to-access place.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Sure, it had some features that would make it more convenient than just putting it into a saved folder on instagram … but it sure-as-shit isn’t worth me paying more than it costs me for Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify PUT TOGETHER.
I appreciate everyone thinks their product is the best product.
I acknowledge it takes a lot of hard work and money to make a new product.
But the removal of any ‘human reality context’ – ie: how much money do people actually have available to spend, and the hierarchy of importance they place on the things they spend – is not just stupid, it destroys the potential of good ideas.
Of course, part of the reason for this is because of how tech investment works.
Basically investors want big returns, very fast … so this pushes developers to build economic models based on a ‘perfect scenario’ situations.
For perfect scenario, read: not real life.
So they show things like:
The economic value of the health industry.
The impact of social media on diet choices.
The rise of health-focused products and services.
And before you know it, they’ve extrapolated all this ‘data’ to come up with a price point of $60 per month and said it not only offers good value, but will generate huge returns on the investment in collapsed time.
Except …
+ All this is theory because they haven’t talked to anyone who would actually use it.
+ They probably haven’t identified who they need to use it beyond ‘health seekers’.
+ And they absolutely haven’t understood it costs a lot of money to be healthy and so an additional $60 subscription for the average person is a cost too far … especially when things they use ALL THE TIME – like Netflix [which they already think is too expensive] – is a quarter of that cost FOR THE MONTH.
I get no one likes to hear problems.
I appreciate anyone can find faults if they really want to.
But being ‘objective’ is not about killing ideas – when done right – it’s about enabling them to thrive, which is why I hope business stops looking at audiences in ‘the zoo’ and starts respecting them in ‘the jungle’ … because not only will it mean good ideas stand more chance of becoming good business, it also means people will have more access to things that could actually help them, without it destroying them in other ways.
As perfectly expressed by Clint, the founder of Corteiz …
