Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Colleagues, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Diversity, Emotion, Empathy, HHCL, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mum & Dad, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Police, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Strategy, Stubborness, Truth, Wieden+Kennedy
When I started in this business, 10,000 years ago, I was a pain-in-the-ass.
OK, I admit … I still am, but for different reasons these days.
Because back then, my annoying trait was driven my eagerness to learn.
Not just from the people around me, but anyone who I thought had – or was – doing something interesting.
It meant I had no boundary as to who I spoke to.
Not just in the agency, but out of it too.
It resulted in me talking to all manner of different people – regardless of their role or level – the only requirement being they had to doing something I thought was interesting.
Not because I was trying to gain favor.
Not because I wanted to earn ‘social clout’.
But because I was, as my Mum had taught me, interested in what other people were interested in … and I thought who better to look at than the people who had, or were doing, something that interested and intrigued me.
What this meant was I not only built up my context and breadth of knowledge pretty rapidly, it also meant I built connections that I may otherwise not ever get to. Not that, my goal was that, it was just a byproduct of it.
And while I definitely got this trait from my parents, at the time I just thought it was normal … something everyone did. Until I realised it wasn’t.
One day I got called into one of my bosses office and asked what the fuck I was doing.
A client had mentioned to him I’d been in touch [in a nice way] and my boss couldn’t work out for the life of him, how – or why – that had happened.
As he started telling me that I need to spend my time focused on my job rather than interrupting people from doing there’s … I told him that I was doing my job. That I’d not let anything fall through the cracks and it was at that point he inadvertently gave me one of the best lessons I’ve ever had in my career.
You see, when he realised I was meeting/chatting to all these people but still fulfilling my responsibilities, he knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Worse, he knew I knew.
And that kind-of liberated me to go after anyone or anything I found interesting.
It’s how I met Paul Britton, the Forensic Profiler who brought the discipline to the UK.
It’s how I met Clotaire Rapaille, the author of The Culture Code – which has had a huge influence on my work.
It’s how I met Lee Hill … who I am incredibly grateful is still in my life as my mentor and friend.
And despite all that being decades ago, I have continued to do it throughout my career – resulting in me getting to learn and understand perspectives from International Football Managers to Sex Workers.
Or said another way …
By following what interests me rather than what is expected of me, I’ve ended up with a wonderful range of wonderful people who continue to inform, educate and advice me on what I do and how I do it.
The reason I say this is that I am pretty surprised how many people only want to engage with people of a similar level to them. Not all, admittedly … but far too many.
I don’t know if it is nerves, respect, the fear of looking like a social climber or even the bloody class system but what I can honestly say is that my ‘informants’ [as I called them in Heather Lefevre’s great book, ‘Brain Surfing’] still provides me with more insight and creativity than all the frameworks, systems, social listening tools and focus groups – put together.
Which is why when people ask me what they can do to develop their skills, I tell them to not follow the words of the Linkedin pundits and gurus, but wherever their curiosity takes them or intrigues them. Because if you only play where you’re comfortable, you’ll never see everything you want is on the other side of it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, China, Cliches, Clothes, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Consultants, Context, Craft, Crap Products In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cynic, Delusion, Distinction, Equality, Fake Attitude, Imposter Syndrome, London, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Professionalism, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Wieden+Kennedy
This is a post about naming strategies.
Yes, I know I’ve talked about this before.
A lot of times before.
The processes.
The considerations.
The complications.
… but mainly it’s been about how certain branding consultancies charge an absolute fortune to come up with some utter nonsensical bullshit that they back up with 1000’s of pages of self-serving pseudo-science bullshit and still end up creating something pants. Kind of like the explanation of the Pepsi rebrand from 15 years ago. Or most Linkedin ‘guru’ pontification.
But the other side of this is when people choose to put no effort in whatsoever.
Hiding their recommendation behind terms such as ‘colloquial context’ or ‘cultural vernacular’.
Don’t get me wrong, there are times where a stripped back approach can be powerful.
A way to connect to society by taking their cultural references and contexts head-on.
Hell, cynic used to embrace an approach that we literally called, ‘unplanned‘.
However, while this was about removing any element of pomposity, it still had to elevate how people saw or connected to what we did. Any fool can churn out lowest common denominator stuff … but it takes a certain amount of skill and flair to develop something that not only connects and engages the masses, but does it in a way where the value of the product/brand is increased and improved to all.
We used to call this ‘massperation’ … which still makes me feel sick even today, hahahaha.
I say all this to justify something I saw recently.
Or should I say something Otis saw recently.
You see down the road from us there’s a house being built.
It’s in full-on construction mode and as it is on the way to Otis’ school, he passes it every day.
Anyway, one day he came and told me he’d seen the building site loo and was shocked with its name.
It was this:
That’s right, it’s called the ‘Shitbox’.
To be honest, I’m not sure if Otis should have been more surprised at the name or the fact it proudly states it’s a ‘high viz’ toilet box.
HIGH FUCKING VIZ!
Is the toilet going to be walking along the street late at night? Do builders have such bad eyesight they can’t find a 6 foot high toilet without it being painted bright orange? Are construction workers such bad drivers they need to be warned of where the portaloos are so as not to hit them?
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?
Anyway, I digress.
The point is that while calling the portaloo a ‘shitbox’ may make sense … I can’t help but feel it is also playing into the builder cliche. Sure, cliches happen because they represent a common behavior or attitude that is played out over a sustained period of time … but often this is only a ‘perceived’ behavior or attitude [usually promoted by an individual or organisation who have found a way to monetise the acceptance of this view] that victimizes anyone who does not live upto the cliche.
I appreciate you may think I’ve gone full-on woke … but apart from the fact I don’t think considering others is a bad thing, I see this behaviour over and over again.
Hell, even Jaguar – with their ‘interesting’ rebrand did it by revealing their new concept cars in pink and blue.
PINK AND FUCKING BLUE.
They made such a big deal about how they ‘delete ordinary’, ‘break moulds’ and ‘copy nothing’ and then they actively, loudly and proudly reinforce the most basic of gender stereotypes. On the World fucking stage!
I totally appreciate you can go over-the-top with this stuff – especially given this whole post was inspired by a building site portaloo. I also get people may think I am suggesting we should name products/brands with words that offer no defining characteristic to avoid any potential stereotype. But neither of those are what I’m trying to say.
All I am attempting to point out is that words matter. And while I fully appreciate naming is a difficult task, I find it fascinating companies spend millions on ‘solutions’ that tend to fall into either pompous, basic or made-up.
Or said another way, names that define, limit or pander rather than celebrate those who use them and the reasons they do.
Filed under: 2024, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Brands, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Confidence, Consultants, Context, Contribution, Corporate Gaslighting, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Delusion, Differentiation, Distinction, Effectiveness, Egovertising, End of Year, Experience, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Influencers, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Only In Adland, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Pretentious Rubbish, Professionalism, Provocative, Purpose, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Ridiculous, Standards, Status, Status Anxiety, Strategy, Stubborness, Stupid, Success, Talent, Toxic Positivity, Truth
As tomorrow is one of those terribly indulgent ‘thank you and goodbye to ’24 post’ [the blog equivalent of boring someone with ‘what they dreamed about last night’], I thought today should be a RobMegaRant™ post … ending the year as I hope to start next year, hahaha.
So with that, take a look at this bloody amazing picture.
How awesome is it?
I have absolutely no idea where it’s from or when it’s from but I can’t stop looking at it.
The browns.
The clothes.
And then – of course – the egg salad machine.
You can imagine that at the time, this was a demonstration of innovation.
Of technological advancement.
Of commercial optimisation.
A glimpse into an automated world of high efficiency and effectiveness.
Removing barriers and friction to provide audiences with consistent, satisfying results.
Except it wasn’t was it?
Not in the long-term … and most likely not in the short-term either.
Oh sure, there’s machines that make industrial amounts of egg salad to shove in cheap and cheerful sandwiches you get at the local petrol station … but in 54 years of being on – and around – this planet, I’ve never once seen any ‘public egg salad maker/dispensers’.
Not even in Japan.
And that’s because it’s a shit idea, for a shit-ton of reasons.
Taste.
Quality.
Consistency.
Health and safety.
The fact no one wants egg salad every single day of their life.
And that’s before we even get to issues such as ‘appetite appeal’.
Looking at the picture and you can’t help but wonder, “what the fuck were they thinking”?
Except our industry does a similar thing ALL. THE. TIME.
An endless production line of ‘proprietary’ systems, processes, models and formats … promising the world and promoted using almost identical language and benefits that was likely used for that bloody egg volcano machine.
Innovation.
Automation.
Optimisation.
Advancement.
Transformation.
Effectiveness.
Efficiency.
Put aside that in most cases, the only ‘proprietary’ element is the name that’s been given to it.
Put aside that in many cases, the people behind it have never created something of disproportionate value and impact.
Put aside that the vast majority of these ‘innovations’ are more about not being left behind rather than moving you forward. [Read: marketing transformation]
Put aside that in many cases, the real purpose of the product is to reinforce the ego – and/or bank account – of the person claiming to have all the answers.
Put aside that many of the companies who flock to it tend to be those who choose to abdicate and outsource their responsibility for decisions and choices.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some really good innovations in our industry. There are also far too many people who dismiss change simply because they don’t like it. And we cannot forget that we unfairly expect new ideas to deliver the results of established ideas.
However, when certain parties peddle their products, tools, services, models, formats with the attitude of it not just being the right way, but ‘the only way’ – where they guarantee success regardless of category, country or spend – then frankly, not only should we see their declarations as an admission of [at best] blinkered thinking or [at worst] evidence of being a chancer and/or hustler … we should be asking ourselves why the fuck are we blindly trusting the self-serving voice and opinion of those whose only major commercial achievement is elevating their own name and image.
I am over efficiency and optimisation being peddled as innovation and progress.
I am over process being regarded as more important than output.
I am over loose association being reframed as expertise.
I am over easy being more valued than quality.
I am over people thinking being good in one thing means they’re excellent in all things.
We need to stop thinking of insurance salesmen as pioneers.
Sure, the good ones have a role to play – especially when companies are downgrading training for their employees – but it’s not as a leader of marketing/brand/creative innovation. Even more so when the reality is many are either riding on the efforts and achievements of someone else or simply communicating the 101 of particular disciplines under the guise of it being at the highest academic standard.
Forgive me for my skepticism, but even if it was true – which it isn’t – I don’t see many universities achieving cultural status and influence through their marketing approach. Hell, most universities don’t even know how to differentiate themselves from each other.
Please don’t read this as being anti-education. God no.
The reality is the industry needs more teachers. Or should I say better ones.
Not the self-appointed guru’s who peddle their self-serving blinkered services for profit, but those who have been there and done that. Who have consistently done things at a standard that goes way beyond just basic levels of achievement. Who can talk from the perspective of being at the coalface, not from a pedestal. Watching on with their binoculars. We need to celebrate those with actual experience, not just assoicated opinions.
Or said another way, we need chefs not egg salad salesmen.
Lets hope in 2025, we get back to valuing the ingredients, not just the convenience.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Collaboration, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Craft, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Leadership, Love, Loyalty, New Zealand, Paula, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Play, Point Of View, Provocative, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
So here we are. December.
9 days to my beloved son Otis’ 10th birthday.
18 days to the last blog post of 2024.
23 days to the festive season.
30 days to 2025.
Bloody hell. I mean … if I thought the last 11 months have gone fast, how quick are the next 30 days going to go? Worse, how quick will the gloriously long New Zealand summer holiday fly past.
ARGHHHHHH.
OK, before I wish everything away before I’ve had a chance to do it – and acknowledging I can’t write my ‘year in review’ post quite yet – I’m going to dedicate today’s post to my mob at Colenso.
Not Colenso – they will get that later – but my planning mob.
God they’re annoying.
A bunch of banter-loving, fault exposing, pricks.
But you know what else they are?
Smart, funny, caring, curious humans. All of them. Even the dodgy ones … of which there’s definitely more than one.
As I’ve written many times before, I’ve always been very lucky with the teams I’ve got to work with. Sure, there have been a couple who have been toxic wankers, but given I’ve been in this industry longer than dinosaurs, I take that as a massive win.
What I’ve loved about all of them is that rather than know interesting things, they’ve done – and do – interesting things. I adore that. I value that. I deeply respect their ability to jump head first into stuff and then naively tell me about what they did and what didn’t work in the naive belief I won’t hold it against them for the rest of their days.
They keep me young and make me old.
They teach me and frustrate me.
They challenge and want to be challenged.
But most of all, they give a fuck.
About the work.
The job.
The standards and each other.
That doesn’t mean it’s a love-fest, oh no … there’s competition. But when the chips are down, they’ll do whatever needs to be done to look after each other. And I mean that … because I’ve seen that. A lot.
Does this mean they’re perfect?
Hell no.
Can they be better at what they do?
Absofuckinglutely … but then, regardless who you are or however long you’ve been doing this, you can be.
Even Paula Bloodworth and she’s as near perfect as anyone I’ve ever met, let alone had the pleasure of working with.
But can you find a better bunch of humans?
Well that would be pushing it.
And the good thing about that is in my experience, the best people in this industry – by that, I mean those who consistently create the best work and ideas – tend to be great humans who just so happen to work in this industry.
They have varied lives, varied backgrounds and varied interests.
What makes them interesting is not simply how they think, but how they live in the world.
At a time where strategic thinking is seemingly being forced into an evermore formulaic approach, this gang of brilliant fools are all – in their own way – trying to break that apart.
It doesn’t always work. It doesn’t always go far enough. But where so many in the industry crave the comfort of the tropes and tribes of strategy, this bunch like to play in the messiness of life.
Or said another way …
They get that interesting lives lead to interesting thinking. Which is why they believe more in the power of creativity than whatever the latest framework, format or buzzword that is being banged on about on Linkedin by someone who has never made anything of note.
I love that about them.
I love we believe in a planning identify more than a process.
And we’re pretty good …
Good enough to have won Global Effies, Grand Prix’s and WARC awards.
Not as one offs, but on going.
Not bad for a teeny-tiny agency on the other side of the planet.
So to Martin, Meg, Gi, Augustine, Tobbi, Emma, Lizzie, T, Syd, James, Caitlin, newbie India – and not forgetting Amy – thank you. For being who you are, for turning down all the agencies who keep trying to hire you [oh I know which agencies you are and what you tried to do – cue: evil laugh ] … but most of all, for putting up with all my HR-violation shit.
Enjoy this, it literally will never happen again.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brands, Creative Development, Creativity, Differentiation, Distinction, ECommerce, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, R/GA
When I worked at R/GA, they got very excited about D2C brands.
Part of this is because they got a lot of business from brands who wanted their help to design the infrastructure for their D2C ambitions. Part of it was because they loved to talk about transformation and saw this as a major shift in brand development. And part of it is because a lot of their work – especially with NIKE – revolved around this type of thinking.
[Though I did laugh when a couple of their senior people in NY tried to convince me ‘Fuel Band’ was more valuable and important to NIKE than ‘Just Do It’ … and hated the fact I refused to buy their logic]
Look, I really liked R/GA – specifically the first year I was there – but I always felt the whole D2C approach was flawed. Didn’t have to be, but the way people/brands/companies saw it, made it that way.
When I at Wieden, P&G asked our opinion on the Amazon dash button.
They were massively excited by it as they saw it as a way to drive sales while being able to massively cut their marketing costs.
For those who don’t know what the dash button was, it was a piece of tech – connected to a specific item – that allowed customers to order from Amazon at the press of a button.
So if you spotted you were running out of washing powder, you could press the dash and within a day or so, you would get a new box delivered.
All good in theory except the only real winner would be Amazon.
And we told them that. Because the moment you let your brand become a commodity, your value is destroyed as is all the work you’ve put in to get into that position.
But that didn’t stop every man and their dog seemingly bang on about the virtues of D2C.
Nor did that make companies who had previously talked about the importance of brand, jump on the bandwagon.
And while some went on to achieve great success with this strategy – albeit, having to spend millions on building the brand value of their D2C org – the vast majority crashed and burned after, at best, a small moment in the spotlight.
That’s not to say new ideas are wrong – far from it – it’s to say that too much of the industry, despite what they may claim, are obsessed with the quick wins and short-term gains.
Worse, the reason for this is often less commercial and more egotistical.
A desperate need to look like they’re ‘in the know’ to those around them. A desire to be part of the cultural clique rather than risk being left behind by those who are skeptical, cynical or closed-minded.
I get it … no one wants to look slow or old or out-of-date and everyone wants a shot to elevate themselves up in collapsed time.
But as much as new ideas require a leap of faith – and that leap often takes a degree of courage – when it also requires you to let go of all you know and believe, then it says more about what you want to be than who you are.
Now of course, we all have our egos and ambitions – and that’s natural – but when your strategy to get where you want to go is chasing trends rather than following your values, that’s when you can find yourself in a whole heap of trouble.
Because following the pack without objectivity, values or context doesn’t make you an entrepreneur – it makes you an ambulance chaser – and once you have that reputation, you end up doing to yourself what D2C did to many companies … and that’s a position no one who claims to be ‘an expert in brands and brand building’ should ever find themselves in.