Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Management, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning
Yes it’s true.
I’m being ‘featured’ in a strategy app.
I can hear Andy now, losing his shit over an app for strategists.
However, on the brightside, it’s for 4+ year olds, which probably reinforces his point.
But better yet, it’s an app for strategic ‘models’ which – anyone who knows me will know – is my kind-of pet loathing. But the guy behind it, Ilya – not to be mistaken for the manipulative, wannabe-intellectual, bully from a previous life – is a top bloke and is doing it because he wants to help young planners feel they have something they can refer to given the industry has increasingly stopped investing in training and instead, outsourced it to people who teach solid basics but wrap it up as if they deserve an OBE for services to business. Or something.
Of course, this my rant is undermined by the fact I am being highlighted as ‘writing the forward’ … but I’m still dead chuffed and honoured to be asked, if only because it’s one thing Otis is slightly impressed with. And to me, that’s worth everything. So thank you Ilya and hope it is useful to all the planners out there with the title, but also the insecurity.
OK Andy, I’m waiting for your email/text/call of pisstaking.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Focus Groups, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mischief, Positioning, Purpose, Research, Resonance
Recently I read the story behind Angostura’s strange bottle.
For those of you who don’t know what Angostura is, it’s a bitters used in cocktails.
For those of you who don’t know what is strange about their bottle, it’s this:
Yep, that’s their normal product.
A bottle, hidden inside fucking massive packing.
The story – as told by Abraham Piper – is the business was taken over by the founder’s sons in 1870.
To help grow its awareness, they decided to update the ‘look’ and enter the finished product into a competition in the hope the exposure would drive the business.
They didn’t have much time so to maximise efficiency, one brother designed the label and the other, the bottle.
One slight problem … they didn’t discuss the size.
Another slight problem … they didn’t realise until they brought both sides of their work together and by then, they didn’t have enough time to alter things before the competition was due to commence.
So they decided to enter it anyway.
Unsurprisingly, they lost.
Except one of the judges told them they should keep it exactly as it was because no one else was going to be stupid enough to make that sort of mistake … which means it was unique and would stand out.
So they did.
And that dumbass mistake – the sort of dumbass mistake that captures Dan Wieden’s classic Fail Harder philosophy, perfectly – was the foundation of a business that continues to evolve and grow to this day.
Now there is a chance this is not true.
They don’t mention it in their history timeline on their website for example.
But history is littered with happy accidents … from making Ice Cream to making Number 1 hit records … so there’s just as much chance it is.
And if that is the case, I’d bloody love it.
Because in this world where everything is researched to within an inch of its life, the products/brands that gain a real and powerful role and position in culture – not to mention whatever category they operate in – are increasingly the ones who keep the chaos in, rather than actively try to filter it out.
Whether that’s because they know it’s better to mean everything to someone rather than something to everyone is anyone’s guess. There’s a good chance they’re just lucky-accident dumbasses. Or they might understand the value of resonating with culture, rather than being relevant to the category.
Whatever it is …
The brands with the strongest brand attribution, assets and audience are increasingly the ones who never have to talk about it, let alone spend their marketing dollars trying to create it.
Filed under: Advertising, Cats, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Rosie
As you know, I love my cat Rosie.
I have written A LOT about her over the years.
Like this.
And this.
Or this.
And this.
To name but a very, very few.
But recently, I got the opportunity to give a presentation about her to senior members of our clients.
Better yet, it was about what they could learn from her.
Yep … an entire presentation about my cats superior brand building capabilities.
Of course it went down well …
By ‘well’, I mean they didn’t report me to my bosses or the Police.
Which is why I am of the opinion I’ve achieved all there is to achieve and can now bask in the glow of having just achieved the top level of the classic planner game ‘things you can learn about brands from _________’.
And I can tell you, that is better than winning any Cannes, Effies or WARC Grand Prix.
Oh, have to go, there’s a knock on the door and I can Doctors and Nurses outside holding a jacket that has no arms in just my size …
Have a great day.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Positioning, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Standards
Brands love to say they know their customers.
They love to go on about the research they do to ‘get’ the needs of the people who use them.
And some genuinely do. Looking to understand how people live not just how they use, choose or buy their brand or a competitive product.
But sadly this group seem far more in the minority these days … with the preference being to outsource research needs to a ‘for profit’ external partner, who are asked to provide answers to drive immediate sales rather than to build long-term understanding.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of research, but I’m reading far too much that seems to be about telling the client what they want to hear rather than what they need to understand.
To be fair, that is also true of agencies as well, and so much of that is because a lot of companies have already decided what they want to do and say and they expect everyone else to fall in line with it. And I get it, in a quest to streamline process and maximise productivity, that makes perfect sense.
Except it doesn’t.
Because as George used to say ALL THE TIME, it’s like going to the doctor and prescribing your own medicine. And as much as people/brands may think they know what’s wrong, that doesn’t mean they know how to fix it …
Agencies and research companies should be paid for their independent thinking and approach to solving problems NOT paid to execute what someone else wants the solution to be. The great tragedy of brand communication these days is that somehow, independent thinking has been labelled as dangerous when the real danger is when there isn’t any.
When solutions are decided by financial hierarchy rather than expertise – and by expertise, I mean that in terms of what an organisation is actually an expert on, rather than what they think they are – you tend to end up with a pile of shit that then ignites a game of blame storming.
Here’s a perfect example of it …
Now I appreciate printer, photocopier, fax [?!!!] sales must be very difficult.
I get companies may only give them a second thought when they go wrong or run out of ink.
But … but … who the fuck approved this shit?
I mean, it’s bad enough they say they know what we need – which makes them sound like some sleazy office colleague – but then they come out with this gem of bollocks.
“Like twins who understand each other completely”.
What??? WHAT???
Apart from the fact it’s utterly, utterly pants. if they really had a telepathic understanding of ‘what we need’, surely they wouldn’t have to pay to have this shit printed in a magazine and they’d just turn up at their customers office with the requirements of their machine – even before their customer knew they needed it.
But that’s not the case because they don’t know their customers, they don’t know what they need and they sure as shit don’t know how to communicate to them.
I get people think communication and creativity is easy.
I get people think they know their customers better than anyone else.
I get they want everything to be as efficient as is physically possible.
But if anything should tell them what they think and what is true are very different, it’s rubbish ads like this. And while I appreciate this is especially bad, there’s a whole lot more expensive versions of this wherever you look.
Great creativity and research is born from independent thinking.
A desire to create value by giving you what you need not what you want.
Which is why companies who place greater value on what they can make their agency partners do – including how they do the job, how many people can do involved in job and how long they’re allowed to do if for – the more complicit they are when things are less effective than they could be.
I’m not saying agencies and research companies are perfect.
And they sure-as-hell aren’t all the same standard and quality.
But they’re much better when they can give you truth and possibilities than blind complicity.