Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Cannes, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Design, Distinction, Effectiveness, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Only In Adland, Presenting, Social Divide, Status | Tags: t
One of the things I’ve found fascinating over the past few years is watching consultancies AND platforms mock the value of advertising and then increasingly try and enter that space.
And while you could argue it’s because they saw an opportunity to do it ‘properly’, the way they have embraced it – and executed it – has shown they seem to want to be more like the beast they wanted to slay than the beast they are.
What do I mean?
Go to Cannes and the whole place has been taken over by corporations.
All the best locations, beaches, hotels are the domain of tech, consultancies and platforms.
Now you could say that’s because they’re the ones with all the money – and that’s true – but what is amusing is WHAT they do.
Because rather than reflect ‘a better way to do what those ad agencies used to do’ … they seem to be doing the same thing ad agencies used to do.
Parties.
Give-aways.
Celebrity talks.
Expensive dinners.
In fact the only thing that is different is how desperately bad their attempts to show ‘they’re creativity’ actually are.
Nothing brought this home more than a poster I recently saw promoting an advertising festival.
An advertising festival representing the ‘modern’ world of the industry.
This was it …
What. The. Hell?
Seriously … what is it?
I’m not just talking about the design and colour palette that could make a 1987 acid house party feel embarrassed … I’m talking about all of it.
The email automation masterclass.
The ‘scale your YouTube’ talk.
The $15 million ad storytelling formula class.
And let’s not forget the ‘thumb-stopping’ direct response scripts.
Look, I get small business may get something out of some of this.
And I appreciate there are many elements to run a successful business.
But this all comes across as used car salesman shit.
Worse, used car salesman shit where their office is a portacabin on a muddy industrial estate in Slough.
In all seriousness, what I find astounding is this must be what the people behind this conference must think is creativity. And don’t get me started on what it says about the people presenting there.
I include Scott Galloway who said ‘brands are dead’ and then not only invests in elevating his own brand, but starts selling courses on how to approach better brand strategy.
[For the record, I respect Scott Galloway hugely but when he said that – like when Mark Ritson said his advertising course was a ‘mini MBA’, when it is nothing at all like a MBA – I couldn’t help but feel their focus was becoming more about building their own cult than building better marketers. In fact, given their approaches have now been so optimised, systemised and codified … you could argue it’s actually undermining brand building because everyone is following the same approach and the result is passive corporate conformity. But I digress …]
I guess what I’m saying is that for all the smarts of modern marketing, the people behind this conference – and potentially the people at it – are revealing they know jack-shit about creativity or culture.
And you know what? That would be fine if they didn’t pretend they otherwise.
But for all their big Cannes events … agency buy-outs … and talk about advertising, the reality is they view creativity as a ‘wrapper’ for their engineering type processes.
A belief there is a singular approach to engage and grow – regardless of audience or category. That the features around a brand are more important than the brand. Or as I told WARC, that the condiments are more valuable than the steak.
Do not get me wrong, advertising has a lot of problems.
It’s got a lot it can learn from platforms and consultancies.
But at our best, we know how to use the power of creativity and culture in ways so many of thehaven’t got a clue about.
Now some may say that statement shows how out of date I am.
How contemporary business doesn’t care about all that.
And maybe that’s right … but while I could point out the vast majority of brands who are infectious to culture were not born anywhere near a ‘consultants proprietary marketing playbook’ … all I have to do is point at the AdWorld poster and say, “Look at that shit”.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there will be a bunch of valuable stuff at the conference.
I am sure it will attract tens of thousands of people.
It may make the organisers a shit-ton of cash.
But for all the smarts appearing at Adworld, they sure as shit don’t have any appreciation of style. And I would like to point out that I say this as someone who was wearing an ironic Celine Dion T-shirt when I typed this.
And with that, I wish you a good weekend … which only gets better for you when I let you know there is a national holiday here on Monday so there will be no post till Tuesday [I know, I just had 2 days off for national holiday – deal with it] … so with that, I leave you with a sneak-peak of the Adworld virtual after party dance floor.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Freddie, Presenting, Queen
Yes, it’s a photo of Freddie.
But this is not just a tribute to him … well, not really.
The reason I love that photo is the intensity of performance.
The bulging vein. The closed eyes. The focused frown.
This photo was taken from their concert in Montreal, on their 1980/81 ‘The Game’ World Tour.
In fact, it was taken 10 years to the day before Freddie died.
But what I love about the photo is that despite Queen having been touring for years – and that concert coming at the end of an 18 month tour – he’s still bringing everything to the moment.
No short-cuts.
No lacklustre performance.
Just a show designed to leave an audience blown away.
I say this because one of the easiest mistakes agencies make is getting bored of their work before an audience is bored of it. A tiredness of going through the slow process of client acceptance. A hunger to move on to the next thing. Excitement of other opportunities that allow a fresh start.
And I get it. I get it A LOT.
But while playing a concert to 50,000 adoring fans and selling a campaign to a bunch of people in suits is pretty different … passion goes a long way in winning both parties over.
So while things should not take as long as they often do to get over the line … making sure you bring your commitment, focus and passion to meetings can go a long way at winning the audience over to your way of thinking.
And if that doesn’t change things – or worse, you see no desire from your audience to be part of something great – then maybe that’s when you need to adopt another Rockstar trait … which is get on the tour bus, speed out of town, never look back and go find an audience who value you – and will reward you – for being at your best.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Comment, Cunning, EvilGenius, Planning, Point Of View, Presenting, Resonance, Respect
Some people say planners are a waste of space.
That they don’t know what they’re doing.
That they have egos is writing cheques, their talent can’t cash.
To be fair, there’s a lot of truth in all of that.
But recently I came across a bit of planner genius that deserves applause.
Have a look at this …
The handsome bastard in the photo is Henry.
Henry is one of the brilliant planners in my gang.
And while his brain can take you to places normal minds can’t see, let alone reach, I can’t help but think that as subliminal cues go … showing a client your thinking while standing under a light bulb – to reinforce “this is a brilliant idea, you must approve it immediately” – is next level impressive.
Well done Henry, you have single handedly make planners ask their agencies for lightbulbs to be hung down in meeting rooms all over the world.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Marketing, Point Of View, Positioning, Presenting, Professionalism
A few months ago – before moving to NZ – I did a presentation on behalf of my Metal Masters for some record company bigwigs.
It was going to be quite a contentious presentation so I asked my wife to read it to make sure I was on the right side of the ‘asshole’ line.
Maybe it’s because she’s had to put up with me for 17 years, but she said I wasn’t “too bad” with my kicking, but she did say one thing about one slide she had noticed.
It was this one.
She said to me:
“Don’t call it a slide, call it a page. People value books more than presentations”.
She was – as usual – right.
And while it made me wonder how the hell I had managed to convince someone so smart to marry me, it also made me wonder why I had made such a rookie mistake.
If you don’t value you what you do, why should someone else?
And while you may think using the word ‘slide’ for ‘page’ is very small … it’s what it signifies and conveys.
Rather than communicate something personal, it comes across as something ‘production line’.
An ability to easily ‘write it off’ from their memory.
When the point I was making was very important.
Once upon a time I worked with a creative who insisted all his creative work was covered in trace paper. When I first saw him do it, I thought, ‘what a pretentious tosser’.
But then I saw the reaction from the clients when he showed it to them.
It was treated a bit more nicely. A bit more preciously.
It wasn’t for theatre, it was because he wanted his work to be valued like he valued it and he found a way to create an environment that made that happen without having to say it.
Like calling a slide a page.
Details matter.
Not just for craft, but for your own reputation.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Apathy, Apple, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Innovation, Insight, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Presenting, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance, Standards
One of the things I’ve found fascinating over the years is how many companies think all they need to do to keep employees happy is cash and perks.
Don’t get me wrong, cash and perks are very nice – and for some people, that’s all they need – however for a certain type of employee, there is another attribute that has equal, if not even greater, appeal.
Pride.
Pride in what they do.
Pride in how they do it.
Pride in who they do it for.
Pride in who they work with.
Pride in the actions of the past.
Pride in the ambitions for the future.
Pride in the standards the company lives by.
Pride in the companies standing in their field.
Now I get the C-Suite may like to think their employees are proud working for them – probably reinforced by countless questionable ‘monkey surveys’ sent by HR – however more often than not, they are confusing ‘having a job’ with ‘being proud of the job they have’.
Nothing highlights this more than when a company feels morale is down, because that’s the moment the spot-bonuses and/or impromptu office parties begin.
Does it work?
Sure. For a period of time.
However employees are no fools, they know the real reason for these ‘additional benefits’ is to keep them quiet rather than force the C-Suite to open up a set of issues they absolutely don’t want to have to deal with.
Why?
Because in the main, the issues are about them.
Specially the work they aspire for the company to make.
Look I get it … no one likes to face their potential failings, so if they can avoid it with spending a bit of cash, why wouldn’t they?
Well I’ll tell you why, because money can’t buy pride.
I say this because I recently saw a video of Steve Jobs talking about standards.
He’s made similar speeches over the years – with his ‘paint behind the fence’ being one of my favourites.
However I love this one because there’s a bit of bite in it.
A clear perspective on what standards he holds Apple too, rather than what the competition hold themselves too.
Sure, to some it could come across as arrogant, but I imagine to the people at Apple at that time, it induced the same feelings I have when I work for a company whose standards and ambitions were at least the same as mine or – hopefully – even higher.
Pride.
Confident.
Togetherness.
A sense of ‘us against them’.
That feeling you’re part of a place playing a totally different game to the competition. A special place. A place that does things right, even if people don’t quite get it yet. A place that attracts the best to do their best … but not in a way where you then feel ‘you’ve made it’ for being there. Instead, it’s a feeling of responsibility to keep the standards of name moving forwards. An intoxicating mix of expectation, judgement and encouragement all at the same time.
You can’t fake that.
You can’t buy it either.
So when the C-suite hand out promotions, payrises and parties in a bid to boost morale because the claims of doing great work are not convincing anyone … my advice is to save their cash.
Not just because the employees know exactly what they’re doing.
Nor because whatever they end up receiving, it still won’t buy their pride.
But because they could save a ton of cash by simply committing to doing things to the highest standards rather than the lowest … because at the end of the day, these people don’t need certainty, they just want possible and if they have that, morale will fix itself all by itself.