Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Childhood, Content, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Daddyhood, Design, Fatherhood, Health, Home, Imagination, Love, My Fatherhood, Otis, Peace, R/GA
When Corona happened and we were all asked to stay at home, the first thing I thought about was the impact it would have on Otis.
It was bad enough he wouldn’t be seeing his friends for god knows how long, so the last thing I wanted was for him to start thinking the outside and people in general were dangerous.
All this led to an idea about creating a storybook to help kids understand the situation … help parents talk about it in a way that wouldn’t be scary and maybe let everyone ask questions or talk about things without freaking each other out.
A small team, predominantly Ed, James, Igor, David, Dre, Becs and Anna came up with the story, the design, the visuals and the animation – while all in individual quarantine – and 10 days later, From My Window was born.
To be honest the inspiration for all this came from the way Sesame Street handled the death of Mr Hooper – one of the human lead characters.
When he died the producers didn’t know what to do.
Do they recast the role? Do they explain his departure as the character moving away? Do they say he quit or just retired?
Instead the writers and producers decided to create an episode that taught their young audience about the difficult topic of death – not just because they felt that was the best way to respect the character, but because they assumed many kids in their audience may have experienced a loss of a loved one and this could help them better understand what it means and find some inner peace.
The episode was written by the shows head writer and aired on Thanksgiving, 1983. Even now it is regarded as having set the standard for dealing with difficult topics on children’s television and remains the highest rated episode in the shows history.
You can read more about it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Hooper
While ‘From My Window’ obviously is not Sesame Street, we hope it can help kids maintain their love for the outside and help parents deal with a situation they never could have imagined would ever happen to them.
From My Window is available for parents to read with their kids [on a smart phone or tablet] at www.frommywindow.rga.com and includes a colouring-in book. The animated version – like the one below – is also available to enjoy here.
I have to say the animated one – below – is my favourite because all the voices are from kids of parents from R/GA London.
And yes, Otis is in it … he makes his debut at the end, when he takes the story on from the beautiful rainbow … which is appropriate because he drew the one at the top of this post.
I’ve got to be honest, I love we did this. I hope in its own small way, it helps. We know it won’t change the world but it may help your kid to keep looking out the window and see wonder and excitement.
No posts till Tuesday because of the Easter holidays. Enjoy the break. Stay safe.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Authenticity, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, China, Chinese Culture, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Entertainment, Innovation, Insight, Legend, Marketing, R/GA, Unexpected Relevance
Another day, another post about my love of China.
So a few months ago I was there for the opening of a clients latest venture.
You should all check it out because it’s a luxury fashion mall THAT LOOKS LIKE MARS!
Literally.
It was specifically designed to feel like you are on a space station on another planet.
It features everything from luna modules to robot sheep to video screens that look like skylights that show you in outer space.
It is utterly mad and yet truly amazing.
A place that is like no other I’ve seen anywhere else in the World.
But then, without wanting to sound a corporate toadie, the client is like no other I’ve met anywhere in the World … even when I was living in China, which tends to have a lot of brilliantly ambitious folks than anywhere else I’ve lived.
I have to do a post about him soon because not only is his influence on the fashion world almost unparalleled – and I am comparing him to people like Anna Wintour in that statement, let alone the heads of Gucci, Prada and countless others – but in the time I’ve worked with him, he has taught me to look at strategy in a completely new way.
Given I’ve literally been working in this discipline for more years than you care to mention, that’s pretty amazing … so I am sure you would find him pretty fascinating too.
Anyway, as part of the project, I was interviewed about what we have been doing for him and how we have worked together.
I talked about how much I love China and how much of an honour it is for me and us to be able to go there and help with a once-in-a-lifetime project. This may sound like I was a total crawler, but the fact is it’s all genuine.
We have been allowed to influence and shape at the highest level – strategically and creatively – and that’s been amazing, especially when there have been times you’ve disagreed with some of the things they wanted to do.
That’s hard for companies to hear at the best of time, but when it’s the billionaire founder of an international fashion group, that’s a whole other level of sensitivity and yet he has been nothing but open to us because he knows we’re not doing it for any other reason than wanting him to win better.
And when you’re talking about creating Mars on earth, ‘winning better’ is going to be crazy fun, whatever way you look at it.
But back to the interview.
So off we head to China for the opening.
It was packed with press and celebrities.
Billionaires mingled with paupers – errrrm, me – fashionistas rubbed shoulders with fashion disasters – errrrm, me again – so imagine their surprise when the start of the official opening included this …
Yep … that’s me.
Yep … that’s my interview.
Yep … no one understood why I was there or what I was saying.
I’d love to say I was all cool, calm and collected, but I – along with my colleagues – were pissing themselves laughing.
It was madness and awesome all at the same time.
I didn’t know whether it was like a remake of the classic 1984 Apple ad. or my attempt to be the leader of a Birkenstock cult … but it was like nothing I had experienced in my life.
Which is another reason I love this project and miss China.
Because when you are working with someone who believes anything is possible – and has the drive to make it happen – the journey is equally as much fun as the destination and I feel massively fortunate to be on it.
Even if there are people all around the World asking themselves …
“Who the fuck was that old guy in the camo Nike hoodie?”
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Insight, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, R/GA, Relevance, Resonance, Wieden+Kennedy
So recently, I got an email from a guy called Fergus at On Strategy.
He’s a planner, but more importantly, he’s a planner who wants to help all planners get better, more confident and more capable in their jobs.
Not in terms of giving them models or processes or other stuff that often takes the creativity out of strategy, but giving access to the stories, conversations and people who are often only accessible to those with a very expensive subscription to various industry platforms … which is ironic given most of these platforms claim to exist to raise the bar for the industry as a whole.
The reason this is so important is there’s a distinct lack of investment by agencies in training and industry events/membership – not to mention most of them don’t have a philosophy on how to look at the world of planning and creativity – so we end up with way too many planners thinking the only way they can learn the stories and craft of the discipline is by following the ego-filled rantings of various people on twitter.
While I’m definitely one of them, you’ll soon have another reason why this is a terrible way to ‘grow’ for most planners. Existing or wannabe.
So while Fergus is doing a very good thing – exemplified by the huge range of truly great planners he’s had on his show – he made a fatal error by [you guessed it] asking me to rant about the state of strategy and what I think we’re doing wrong and right.
While I’m sure Fergus won’t make that mistake again, I’m grateful he did and you can pick fault with all I said by listening here … though if I were you, I’d check out the much better and smarter stories from either my old mate Britton at W+K Portland, the brilliant Lucy Jameson of Uncommon – whose shadow is smarter than most planners brains combined (Fact!) – or ex-R/GA London’s Simon Wassef who explains how this office helped design, build and create the brand, story and system for Beats By Dre.
Much better uses of your time.
But then you already knew that.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Din Tai Fung, London, Management, Planners, Planning, R/GA
So today we say goodbye to Martin.
While I’ve only known him for 16 months, he made quite the impression on me.
Not because of his talent.
Nor is it because of his brilliant attitude and hunger to help create great.
Not even because I was the one that got to take him to Din Tai Fung for the fist time.
In China.
Christ … it’s not even because his Mum is from Nottingham and he studied there.
It’s because he was the very first person at R/GA to tell me to “Fuck Off”.
This might sound a bit weird, but I was really happy when he did it.
I’d been here a couple of months and – as it always is the case when you start a new job – everyone was still feeling each other out.
While I can’t remember what it was I said to him – but, let’s be honest, it was probably something unprofessional and mischievous as shit – I do remember he looked at me and laughingly told me “Fuck Off”.
And that’s when I knew it might work out here.
Or at least work out with the team.
Because while we were obviously bantering, I am a big believer in us being able to say what we think to each other.
Of course it has to be respectful to the other person, but it also has to be truthful.
There’s no time for managing up or playing office politics – not if the goal is to do truly great work – and the moment Martin told me to go away in his unique style, I knew we could get somewhere good.
Now of course it’s not just his swearing ability that has made me sad to see him go.
He is – as I mentioned earlier – a genuinely great talent.
Sure he is smart, creative and committed to culture.
But he’s more than that …
He’s authentic, genuine, compassionate and a genuine decent human.
He is focused on the work not his ego and always pushes the work to get to new places rather than what is easy and safe.
In fact, when I started at R/GA, I told someone the moment Martin realises how good he is, we’re all doomed.
Well, he still hasn’t quite grasped that, but my beautiful bastard friends at W+K have and he heads there to let them benefit from his magic.
They are lucky to have him.
They are one of the few places I would let him go.
They know I’ll always be loyal to WK, so if he ever slacks off, they can tell me and I’ll come over and kick his arse.
So Martin, you might be a pie-cheating, Crystal Palace fan who looks like a double-glazing/car salesman on the [very] rare occasions you wear a suit, who is seemingly always on holiday and throws a tantrum when his Nintendo Switch breaks mere hours before having to go on a 12 hour flight to London from Beijing … but you’re also top human with top talent and I’m very glad I got to have you in my team and my life.
Now Fuck Off.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Mischief, R/GA
For some weird reason, I like badges.
I should point out I don’t mean I like wearing them … but having them made for me.
And I don’t mean because I’m some sort of egotistical pervert – not typically, anyway – but because I’m a bit of a prick.
In some ways, it all started because of a sticker.
Or should I say 600 of them …
Remember when I left Wieden+Kennedy and hid them throughout the agency and venues where we used to hang out?
That moment of mischief – which is still being discovered – set off a bit of bomb in me and suddenly having customised shit made for my colleagues became a thing.
There was the stickers to the wonderfully talented Jorge – simply because I thought he looked like the handsome actor in the movie ‘Love Actually’.
Then there was the first badge.
For Zaid.
Which I had done because I was experiencing some sort of delusional tiredness at 4am – stuck in a horrible room in a snowed in hotel in Boston.
Then I made stickers for Otis – in his genuine Chinese fighter pilot helmet – before making some more badges for everyone at Deutsch when I left the US.
Of course, when I started at R/GA … I thought the best way to introduce myself to the team was by having a set of stickers made that communicate my philosophy on planning that they can vandalise their slick Apple Macs with.
And then I decided to up my game by having some pencils made.
Initially it was for my R/GA mob … just because I thought it was fun.
Then I decided to be an asshole and get Sam and Mike some individual pencils – all aimed at taking the piss out of Sam, mainly because he is a Spurs fan.
Which leads to this …
A few months ago, the wonderful Megan came to join the team as a connections planner – also known as a comms planner in the industry.
She’s smart, creative and horribly lovely.
Or so we thought.
Because over the weeks, we have seen a new side to Megan reveal itself.
A cheeky bastard, suffer no fools side.
I love it.
Recently we were in a meeting with an another agency and they presented their ‘model for working’.
It was absolute pants, so you can imagine my joy when Megan snorted loudly at it in front of everyone.
Or the guy from a consultancy who had literally repackaged Byron Sharp’s work as his own, but was using it completely out of context.
I turned to see what Megan thought of what he was saying and it was the best ‘disgust’ face I’ve seen in ages.
Hands behind head.
Face looking like it was being violated with the worst smell in the World.
It was quite frankly, wonderful – especially when she uttered the following words …
“So what you’re saying is basically the same as Byron Sharp isn’t it?”
Proud.
So proud I needed to commemorate the event with this …
That’s right, Megan’s own ‘what the fuck is this shit’ face … on a badge.
To be kept forever.
She is so grateful. She just is hiding it well.
Very, very well.