Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Brand Suicide, Chaos, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Context, Corona Virus, Crap Campaigns In History, Grand announcements, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Positioning, Presenting, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance
I’m writing this post on the 28th May, so who the hell knows what’s happening a month from now. Actually I’m lying, as I have a pretty good suspicion about a few things, at least to do with me, so it will be interesting to see how wrong or right I am.
But I digress.
This is about the British Government’s communication strategy, specifically when they went to phase 2 of their COVID-19 strategy and launched these guidelines to help the British public deal with the pandemic.
As we all know by now, there was a lot of debate.
Some said they were clear.
Some said they were ambiguous.
And so rather than help the nation as a whole understand their situation and what was needed to help us move forward, they ended up igniting the nation in debate about wording, leaving people to interpret what the hell they wanted.
A conspiracy theorist may suggest this was done to stop people looking at the huge death toll that had happened due to Boris Johnson’s shambolic handling of COVID. A theory only made compelling by the way Johnson suddenly announced the UK was ‘re-opening’ mere hours after he had publicly backed his advisor, Dominic Cummings, for breaking the rules he had helped force upon the entire British public in an obvious attempt to distract the public’s attention. Made even worse by the fact Johnson had apparently almost died with COVID, so he knew first hand how dangerous it was and as such, should not back anyone who had the symptoms and then knowingly broke the rules. And as a final insult, the way he backed Cummings – suggesting it was what ‘all parents would do’ literally pissed on the faces of the parents and children who went through incredible hardship [from not seeing loved ones, to not attending loved ones funerals] to obey what was asked of them. An utter, disgusting way to behave.
But I digress. Again.
The point I want to make is that while all this argument was going on – specially around what ‘Stay Alert’ meant in practical terms, Vic Polkinghorne, @vicpolky on twitter, wrote a tweet that put the debate to rest.
They wrote:
____________________________________________________________________________________
Note on clear/unclear communication (one area I do have some experience)
If some people find it unclear, it’s unclear.
If you find it clear and some people find it unclear, it’s unclear.
The responsibility for clarity of comms is with the communicator, not the recipient.
____________________________________________________________________________________
That’s a good lesson for anyone in the communication industry.
An even better one for the British Government.
Now if only they were open to constructive criticism or gave a shit about anyone outside of their chummy little privileged gang.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Authenticity, Black Lives Matter, China, Comment, Confidence, Content, Creativity, Culture, Diversity, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Experience, Fatherhood, Food For Thought, History, Hope, LaLaLand, London, Minimum Wage, Perspective, Planners, Police, Presenting, Racism, Relevance, Resonance
So last week, I was invited to talk at GroupThink’s planning conference.
I like the people there and said yes.
Originally I was going to take people through an old presentation because I didn’t really have much time to write something specific for you. They were OK with it and so wrote it into their program.
Then the situation with George Floyd happened.
Following so shortly on the heels of other racist motivated murders, like Ahmaud Arbery – who was murdered in cold blood by a father and son while out jogging.
At this point, quite frankly, the idea of doing a presentation on strategy seemed so utterly pointless.
So 2 days before the day of the event, I wrote something new.
Something that was about why Black Lives Matters is the only thing that really matters to me right now.
How the ad industry HAS to change.
How the ad industry may talk a lot about diversity and inclusivity but its actions are racist.
I’m not saying that is their intention or that they even realise it, but it’s racist.
And I’ve been complicit in that.
Again, not intentionally, but still done it.
Anyone who is white has … because we’ve let our privilidge create a gap between our actions and our self awareness.
Finally, I talked about 6 things people could do TODAY to make a positive difference to any person of colour … whether that’s through education, responsibility, judgement or action.
Now I must admit I was scared to write this presentation.
Not because I was worried it would make people feel uncomfortable, but because I’m a white male who has had every privilege going and the last thing I wanted to do was come across as if I was claiming to be an expert on this matter or whitesplaining anything.
Which is why I didn’t write the presentation.
I co-wrote it.
In addition to capturing some of the lessons I learned from the brilliant people of colour I’ve worked with and known over the years [which is a lot given how long I spent in China and Asia], the main bulk of the presentation was put together – after seeking their permission – with the irrepressible, wonderful and take-no-shit-from-anyone-especially-me … Maya Thompson, Breanna Jones and Chelsea Curry.
I’ve written and talked about them a lot.
They changed my life.
Literally.
I genuinely believe I can never thank them enough, but one way I try is to take on the issues I should have taken on years ago but thought not being racist was enough.
It isn’t.
So here it is … it’s my usual picture rubbish, but hopefully the bits that are there will make sense to everyone.
The real presentation starts at page 28, the previous slides were linked to the talk I was going to give so I could lull people into a false sense of security so they would get comfortable before I talked openly, emotionally and plainly about an issue that should be the focus of every human right now, but isn’t for a whole host of unimportant or self-serving reasons.
Should anyone want to know more about the presentation, please get in touch.
But most importantly, please act.
Black. Lives. Matter.
Slides 1-5: Just introducing me and why I am happy to be invited to present.
Slides 6-10: How the standard of work being created is generally very poor and how we are all contributing to it in terms of the things we are talking about. Which isn’t the standard of the work and sounds more like us trying to be clients than people valuable to clients.
Slides 11-23: Insights matter because people matter and if you want to make work that is intriguing, interesting, provocative and fresh, you have to care about people, culture and subculture or you’ll get nowhere.
Slides 24-27: I talk about how I was going to talk about the wonderfully crazy project we’ve recently done in China and how understanding sub-culture made building something specifically designed to look like ‘future Mars’ was perfectly sensible but ….
Slide 28: I need to pause the topic of the talk because frankly, the events of the past week have really upset me – specifically the reaction of many agency leaders – and I want to talk about something that matters more to me.
Slides 29-31: Black Lives Matter. There’s many lives that matter, but right now – for me – Black Lives Matter is the only one that matters.
Slides 32-34: Lived around the World, eventually moved to America and then met 3 brilliant women who changed my life. Maya Thompson. Chelsea Curry. Breanna Jones.
Slides 34-39: This is how they fundamentally changed my life for the better by helping me see how blind, stupid and complicit I’d been and then [with some values my Mum taught me] the journey we went on – and still go on – together.
Slides 40-49: Announce this deck has actually all been co-written by Maya, Breanna and Chelsea. Three main reasons for this. I don’t have credibility, I don’t want to come across as whitesplaining and I want any advice I give to be genuinely valuable to people of colour, not a white persons interpretation of what is valuable.
Slide 50: How my industry is racist. Doesn’t want to be. But is. And I use a recent ‘challenge’ put out by Cannes as an example. For the record, they launched a competition on how to attract more diversity into the industry and gave a media budget of £100,000. That’s right they were committing an amount of money most agencies would spend for dinners during Cannes for a topic that they claim is hugely important to them. They don’t intend to be racist but they – like the whole industry – is acting in ways that are.
Slides 51-58: What we have to do to stop being a racist industry including letting go of everything we thought we knew and starting again.
[Please note slide 54: Lots of people say they’re ‘colour blind’. By which they mean they claim they treat everyone the same. The point of this slide is that while we should absolutely treat and value everyone the same, we should do this in a way that acknowledges individual backgrounds and beliefs. Not doing this can result in one of 3 things. [1] We treat everyone the same but based on our definition of what ‘same is’. Which is often white, which means we expect people of colour to adapt to us and our standards. [2] We generalise groups for our convenience, so we call [for example] everyone who is black, “black” … ignoring the vast range of backgrounds, beliefs and nuances they could have BECAUSE PEOPLE OF COLOUR DO NOT ALL COME FROM THE SAME PLACE!!! Or [3] because of being ‘colour blind’, you see everyone the same [which we don’t, let’s be clear on that] so you end up making the same work for everyone thinking it will be resonant with everyone. It isn’t. See how Rihanna highlighted this when she launched her Fenty cosmetics and simply added colours for African American skin, fucking up the big cosmetic companies who had ignored this for decades]
Slide 59-60: Highlighting when you start from scratch it can work, because my son Otis is living proof of it. He has lived in 3 countries and loves them all equally, while accepting and respecting their individual differences.
Slide 61: If you need a commercial reason for why Black Lives Matter [and if you do, you’re a prick] it’s because people of colour can make this industry great again because on top of all influential culture being born from black culture, people of colour understand nuance, values, struggles and humanity better than anyone as they have to deal with this shit every day.
Slide 62-63: Thank you to all the people of colour who helped co-write this presentation – especially Maya, Chelsea and Breanna – and justice for George Floyd.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Differentiation, Emotion, Empathy, England, Entertainment, Experience, Football, Happiness, Honesty, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Interviews, Love, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Paul, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Point Of View, Presenting, Sentimentality
So a while back I was invited to do a talk for Isolated – the TedTalkesque site that raises money for charity.
I could have revisited a presentation I’d written I the past, but I thought I would take the opportunity to write the presentation I’ve always wanted to write …about why Brian Clough was so amazing.
Now I could have written a thousand slides, but as Isolated in linked to creativity, I decided to make it slightly relevant to that subject by framing the presentation about ‘why the creative industry needs more of Clough’s attitude towards success’.
Whether I pulled it off is anyone’s guess and frankly – I don’t really care – because I got to write about Cloughy, but if you fancy checking out a long, rambley, over-sentimental and biased talk about Clough and Nottigham Forest, then head over to Isolated and hear me bore you half to death.
Now I appreciate the idea of hearing my voice could be too much for you to deal with, and if that’s the case, I have an alternative plan …
1 Donate money to Isolated … because it’s for a good cause.
2 Look at the deck below.
Now I admit you won’t get much out of it just seeing the deck without my accompanying narrative because it’s my usual random ‘picture’ rubbish … plus the gifs don’t work.
And where there is some writing, the lack of context means it may come across as some sort of z-grade psychobabble [even though it is all from interpreting Clough’s beliefs and philosophy over his near 20 years running Nottingham Forest] … however if you can put that all aside and want to look at some amazing pics of some amazing Forest players over the years, then it may be the best presentation you’ll ever see.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Hopefully.
Anyway, it’s Friday so just humour me and even if you don’t agree with what I say [which would be hard because there’s no chance you’ll be able to work out what I’m trying to say, because even I’m not entirely sure] know my goal wasn’t to get your agreement, but just to write a presentation about Nottingham Forest and the incredible Brian Clough.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Creativity, Culture, Empathy, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Prejudice, Presenting, Professionalism, Standards
We have all had bad pitch meetings.
When things don’t just go wrong, but go terribly.
Politics.
Bad attitudes.
Going on too long.
Terrible work.
Great work they think is terrible.
Stand-up rows.
Professional fails.
Arrogance and abuse.
Lack of response.
Stupidity.
But the next time it happens – however angry, sad, pissed off it may makes you feel – look at this video and remember, it could have been so much worse. It could be Kylie bad.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Experience, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Meetings, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Presenting, Relevance, Resonance
Yes I’m back.
If anything will help you be excited about the oncoming weekend, it will be that.
So the picture above is from a presentation I give to planners.
The reason for it is because I find it fascinating when ad folk try to be like their client.
Exactly like their client.
The way they speak. The way they dress. The way they think.
Of course, I understand the importance of knowing your client, their business and their challenges, but the problem with mirroring your client is that you end up looking at the World in the same way as them … and as much as some people may think that’s a good thing, it’s not.
You see when you focus on being like an insider, you ignore the benefits of thinking like an [informed] outsider. You know, the perspective the client actually hired you for in the first place.
As one of my old senior Nike clients once said to me …
“Senior management need and want to be challenged because that’s how we keep things moving forward. If you’re not doing that, then you’re not doing anything for us”.
Now I appreciate not every client thinks this way, but this shift to client mirroring is – in my opinion – another thing that has undermined our industry.
I swear the reason for it is an attempt to be taken seriously as a client partner when the easiest way to achieve that is to do work that shows we are a serious client partner.
Do the people who say, “we’ve lost our seat at the boardroom table” seriously think this approach will change that?
Maybe … but then they will be wrong because there’s only 3 things that will do that.
1. Talk about the things that are important to the client rather than important to us.
2. Know their audience/culture better than they know their audience/culture.
3. Solve their business challenges in creatively imaginative, distinctive, culturally resonant and sustainable ways.
Oh, and there’s a 4th point … prove it.
Not just in the short-term, but in the long … where client can see the economic value of investing in their brand voice. Not just through ‘brand campaigns’, but in how they approach everything they do.
Now I know some of you may think this whole post is my attempt to justify wearing shit t-shirts and birkenstocks to client meetings for the last 25+ years – and maybe it is – but if we are to get back to where we belong, I passionately believe it’s not going to happen by behaving more like clients, but by getting back to the things they need and no one else can do.