Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Colenso, Creative Brief, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Focus Groups, Honesty, Imagination, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Membership, Mischief, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Strategy
When I was living in Shanghai, I met a young guy who said to me,
“I think the Chinese government are rock n’ roll”.
Given I couldn’t imagine anyone less rock n’ roll, I asked why they said that. To which they replied:
“You told me rock n’ roll was about doing whatever you want to do, regardless what other people think. That’s the Chinese government”.
Mind. Blown.
Never in a million years would I consider the Communist Party rock n’ roll … and now that’s all I can think. I say this because recently I had another of these moments.
It was when I read this:
How amazing is that?!
Now whenever I talk to my friends named Tim, I keep imagining them as a moth.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
If you don’t leave space for conversations and understanding, you will miss out on these little gems of opinion. These things that can make you look at subject in a completely different way. That can take you to different place with even bigger possibilities than you could imagine.
And yet we – as an industry – aren’t leaving space for this.
We actually think getting into the real world is a hindrance.
Too messy. Too much time. Too many opinions.
So we actually advocate building creativity and brands from a weird sort of recipe book.
Where equal parts questionable data, brand assets and self-serving logic come together to make something that looks like a cake but generally tastes bloody awful.
Because we’d rather follow what everyone else does than create something everyone else wants.
Valuing attribution more than change.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I get the importance of all these things.
I agree and value their role in brand building and creativity.
But as I wrote a while back, it’s utterly bonkers that as an industry, we value the condiments of the meal more than the steak.
Recently, someone called me irresponsible for demanding my team spend time meeting, talking, listening and understanding people from all walks of life.
They literally used that word: Irresponsible!
Now I don’t mind admitting there’s many things I could be accused of being irresponsible for, but valuing the role culture has in liberating creativity and possibility isn’t one of them.
No wonder society is so bored of what we do.
No wonder brands have had to reframe bribery as loyalty.
Or membership.
Because while we think we have all the answers, culture has the interesting.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Environment, Marketing, Perspective, Point Of View, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Social Commentary, Social Divide, Strategy, Stubborness
Many years ago, I did a campaign for Australian ‘youth’ radio station, Triple J.
Triple J was a government funded radio station, but what set it apart was that it had a mandate to play new artists, preferably Australian, who were definitely not part of the mainstream crowd.
Think John Peel, but Australian.
What I loved about them was how much they divided opinion.
To some they were hope. To others they were noise.
But as we delved deeper, it became apparent the people who thought it was noise were basically proud the followers of the mainstream. The focus-group designed. The beige and the blunted. The average.
Now I appreciate that sounds massively judgemental … but what I found interesting was how companies had basically messed with the meaning of average in a bid to make more cash from customers.
In the old days, average was an achievement.
The meeting point between quality and cost.
Democratisation.
Progression.
Access.
But now average wasn’t that at all.
It was mainstream mediocrity.
Designed for easy, passive appeal. Mindlessness. A strategy of making beige act like gold.
Which led to the point of view of the work: The enemy of average.
Directly targeting anything that had been designed to dumb down rather than lift up.
We got into all sorts of mischief …
From placing warning stickers on all ‘easy listening’ artists in HMV [that saw us being threatened with legal action] … to running ads during mainstream TV to tell viewers they’re being murdered by averageness … to images of mainstream mediocre products being placed in public toilets so you could literally piss on them. [Beige Volvo anyone?]
And while this may all sound madness – and this was the 90’s so tastes were very different – we knew the only way to attract more listeners was to ensure we did it in a way that made our existing fans see we were fighting for what we believe, rather than pandering to popularity.
The old reverse psychology trick.
And it worked because ultimately this was just an extension of who they truly were.
Stubborn, opinionated, mischievous, audacious and uncompromising.
A teen who was very comfortable in playing with the uncomfortable.
And what this did was help build the cult of the brand … helping Triple J enter a new phase of growth while never looking like they were chasing fame.
Of course, they’re not the only ones who have pulled this off.
Playstation did it … NIKE have done it … Supreme do it … but the key to pulling this off successfully is knowing who you are and knowing who you’re for and frankly, not many can brands – or agencies – say that, especially these days.
What makes this even more amazing is how many agencies and companies bang on about their authenticity and purpose … but the problem is they can’t see what they’ve become: a mediocrity pleaser machine.
Of course the signs are there if you just scratch the surface.
Generic, mass audiences.
An aversion for sacrifice.
A desire to remove any sharp edges or opinion.
And while many think making a brand as easy to buy is the greatest way to achieve success, the thing they need to remember is the future goes nowhere in the hands of cowards.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Colenso, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Context, Craft, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Effectiveness, Emotion, EvilGenius, Marketing, New Zealand, Packaging, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Truth
OK, so today is a slightly un-topical post.
About Christmas.
Yes, I know that happened 2 months ago, but when has that ever stopped me?
You see I recently saw that Walkers – the royalty of Crisps – launched this.
What the hell?
Like, what the absolute hell?
I once did a project for Walkers about new flavour variations and we talked about topicality but I never – in any way – considered mince pie flavour.
I think we did say Christmas Dinner flavour.
Or maybe even Turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce flavour.
But mince pie?
No, no, no, no, no.
I particularly like how they say on the packet, ‘Limited Edition Flavour’.
No fucking shit, Sherlock.
And yet I admire the genius of it.
Let’s be honest, when something is as illogical as that, you’re going to try them aren’t you.
And when it’s linked to a particular event, it’s likely to pull in the people who don’t normally eat crisps.
Sure, it might make some crisp fanatics never try a new flavour again or make the occasional crisp scoffer, never eat another one again … but it’s still a smart strategy.
Which reinforces my view the most effective strategy these days is the ridiculous.
Ridiculous achieves what logic can’t.
Because rather than play to the norms of category behaviour are, they just ignore them.
In fact, they go off on a tangent even a protractor couldn’t measure.
Not in its entirety, but in an area that’s a necessity.
And while that sounds counter-intuitive, what it does is find a way around the in-built firewalls we have in our heads to avoid all this logical nonsense and messes with us.
Igniting our intrigue.
Demanding consideration.
Tempting us by simply being unlike anything we had ever considered.
And yet it’s not annoying.
In fact it’s pretty refreshing.
Because in a world increasingly sensible – it celebrates the bonkers … reframing how you look or feel or think about something you thought you knew all there was to be known.
In essence, it lets brands show that while they take what they do seriously, they don’t take themselves too seriously. Which must be a huge relief for all the people who work in the company, let alone society, given all the pompous, self-righteous, pseudo-Yoda bollocks we are bombarded with day after day after day.
We did a similar thing with a campaign for DB Export Beer …
A campaign that WARC said was the most effective campaign on earth.
Further allowing us to prove the commercial effectiveness of creative ridiculousness.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, Confidence, Context, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Experience, Gaming, Honesty, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Point Of View, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Technology
I recently read an article in the Guardian about the launch of the X-Box.
Given the brand has been part of gaming culture for the past 20 years, it’s easy to forget what an achievement this has been for Microsoft.
Let’s remember back then, the brand was far more synonymous with office computer programs than gaming … so to come from such a negative space and place to become the powerhouse it is today, is nothing short of incredible.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing.
Sure, their cause was helped by SONY seemingly forgetting everything that had made the original PlayStation launch so successful … but even with that, Microsoft were still coming from pretty much a standing start.
It’s a great article that’s well worth the read, but there was one part that really stood out to me.
This:
Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there …
Where someone chooses to ignore a statement of obviousness and instead, attempts to turn it around so you look like you’re making a potentially dangerous assumption.
Don’t get me wrong, we shouldn’t blindly assume common sense is common sense, and – without doubt – there’s been a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions that have ended up being the backbone of ideas and campaigns all around the World, but this sort of behaviour is nothing but an act of petty cowardice.
However, let’s assume for a moment the person who wanted proof that people did expect DVD quality to be better than the crunched-up shit that was on screen, was right.
Let’s assume that we didn’t know that DVD brands had been communicating ‘improved image quality’ to the general public for years.
Even if all that was true, the real issue was still not being addressed.
And that is facts doesn’t mean standards.
So rather than fall into a ‘fact inflation fight’ that no one was going to come out of well – even though I get why they were triggered – they should have asked Mr Petty if the image on the screen reflected the quality of product and performance he – and the company – wanted to globally be associated with?
Quickly followed up by enquiring whether Microsoft had the technology to dramatically improve the current standard of performance?
By doing this, they not only side-step the pointless barrier being placed in front of them and refocused the conversation to values, standards and ambition.
I’ve seen this situation happen so many times.
Where political point scoring derails ambition, potential and standards.
Where the company starts focusing on the ‘minimum viable product’ rather than what could drive the brands perception.
And while these situations have also seen me lose my shit – A LOT – I always remember my Dad telling me the real way to win these sorts of arguments, which is to elevate the discussion to reputational standards not down to petty point scoring.
He was brilliant at it.
Me? I’m still working on it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Education, Insight, Internet, Northern, Planners, Planning, Point Of View
Ad blogging was once a rich, vibrant community.
It was amazing how much people looked out for each other.
A lot was driven by Russell Davies … but the effect of it was something pretty special.
I met a lot of people because of that community … some, still even come on here.
Occasionally.
But when you compare it to the toxic, ego-filled bullshit of ad twitter … I can’t help but feel the blogging community was a much more valuable and positive resource for adland.
Especially if you were a junior.
While there are many positives of social media, learning the strategy discipline through 280 letter tweets is not really going to drive the craft forward.
Nowadays there seems to be only 2 people still blogging.
Martin and me.
Or said another way …
Nowadays, only Martin writes a blog that has real value and depth for the industry and discipline.
One of the people I am saddest at having stopped blogging is Andrew Hovells. Better known as Northern Planner.
I’ve written about him a lot in the past.
From how much I respect him to how much I liked trolling him by sending him to see Queen in concert, when he absolutely hates the band.
But I revisited his blog recently and there’s just so, so much amazing stuff on there.
Stuff for people curious about planning.
Stuff for people just starting planning.
Stuff for people having a career in planning.
Stuff for people leading work and teams in planning.
Stuff for every level and need in planning.
And while there are many other resources for this sort information on the internet, Northern Planner’s is especially good for 3 reasons:
1. It comes from someone who could have worked at pretty much any of the best agencies in London, but didn’t and instead chose to stay ‘oop North’ and bring the planning discipline to a part of England that [i] didn’t have it and [ii] needed a lot of convincing to see it’s value. Not only did he achieve that – and validate the discipline for more people in the region to become a part of it – his work gave the supposed London ‘superstars’ a run for their money.
[He also turned down coming to cynic, which still devastates me, because he would have made such a difference to us. But it also shows how smart he is. Unfortunately]
2. He doesn’t give you a process to follow, he gives you a way to look at the discipline and the roles within it. Meaning you’re developing your own planning style and voice … not regurgitating someone else’s.
3. All of it is free. Every last bit of it.
Given the amount of amateurs ‘flogging’ their questionable, superficial and inauthentic courses that don’t have the right to even be in the same universe – let alone industry – as Andrew’s generous, considered and carefully explained lessons and insights … I know who I recommend people spend their time learning from.
I really miss Northern and his blog.
But the planning community should be missing it even more.