Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, China, Comment, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Food, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Service, Supermarkets
Isn’t it funny we talk so much about the environment, and yet we are producing more stuff that fucks the world than ever before?
That said, while companies aren’t great at living up to what they state – humans tend to be far better.
One of which has been our ability to find ways to make food last longer than intended.
Whether that’s been creating mustard to disguise the taste of potentially ‘off’ ingredients through to making stale bread into bread and butter pudding, we’ve always found ways to stretch things out.
Of course, the ultimate nation for food maximization is China.
Now, part of that is because during the Great Leap Forward, people were starved/starving and so were forced to eat anything they could to survive. However, while that time is well gone, the attitude of ‘waste not, want not’ has remained which is why there’s so many recipes across the region that utilize a nose to tail philosophy.
Literally.
I say this because I recently saw Marks & Spencer’s [M&S] in the UK be a bit smart with their sourdough bread.
It’s this.
Good eh?
Rather than chuck the bread out as it starts to go stale … shove loads of garlic butter in them, place them in a fridge and flog them as mouthwatering garlic bread you just have to heat-up before shoving down your throat.
OK, they could have given it to the needy rather than find another way to take every last penny from their customers, but it’s still devastatingly simple. And smart.
They’ve also launched a range of ‘minimal ingredient’ food … which is clever for a whole host of reasons. The first being the increased awareness and desire for preservative free food. The second being it goes off faster, so there’s a good chance people will end up having to buy more when their best intentions to eat it gets scuppered with life etc. Given it is probably even more expensive than the preservative counterpart – I know, paying a premium for less, classic capitalism – and everyone can kinda win with this.
To be fair, I’ve always been quite impressed how supermarkets innovate – they’ve done far more and in more ways than most organisations – but while ‘pre-packaged’ garlic bread is not a new thing [though garlic sourdough loaves is a whole other level] … as is finding new ways to extend old/ugly food … it’s still a perfect example of creative thinking.
It’s also a lesson to the ad industry on how to sell creative thinking.
Because for all the systems, processes, charts and models we love to bang on about, the key seems to be much simpler.
Solve a real problem. [Opportunity]
Show why people will really pay for your solution. [Benefit]
Make it easy-as-fuck for them to buy [Action]
[including what they have to do at their end to make it happen]
I say this, but I bet there’s still strategists and agencies out there who would still write a 305 page deck to explain this idea …
As I have said before, if the solution feels more complicated than the problem, why the fuck do we expect anyone to do it?
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Class System, Colleagues, Community, Complicity, Conformity, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Culture, Delusion, Effectiveness, Equality, Fake Attitude, Honesty, Imposter Syndrome, Individuality, Leadership, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Meetings, Membership, Perspective, Pollution, Popularity, Prejudice, Process, Professionalism, Relationships, Reputation, Respect, Ridiculous, Service, Social Commentary, Social Divide, Social Media, Standards, Status, Status Anxiety, Strategy, Subliminal Hatred, Succession, Systems, Talent, Teamwork, Technology, Toxic Positivity, Values
This is a long post, because it has been written by a lot of rage. Mine.
So buckle up and read it, because while most of what I spout is utter shite. This is important.
Recently someone I know left the company they had been working at for a few years.
When they announced it on Linkedin, they were flooded with supportive, celebratory messages. As they should be.
But there was one other thing that was common among the comments, and that was people writing “what a good run you had”.
I don’t know about you, but when I hear that, it immediately conveys a company who has a reputation for letting people go … and so ‘what a good run’ really means is that you lasted longer than most. That your achievement was as much about staying in the role as it was about what you did in the role.
And to me, that all feels toxic as fuck.
Not by the people saying it.
Or the person it is being said to.
But the organisation who seemingly doesn’t give a fuck about letting people go.
Of course – like US politicians who ask for ‘thoughts and prayers’ after another mass shooting – their corporate mission statement only talks about their belief in their people …
How they’re trying to build a thriving, collaborative community and culture …
In fact, they say a lot of things except one: ‘when people leave, they will be cushioned by comments saying they ‘had a good run’.
So how do they get away with it?
Cash.
They pay significantly more than market rate and so there’s a steady stream of people who are willing to go work there either because they need a gig, they have fallen for the hype [and not checked it first] or they believe they can be the exception to the rule.
That’s not a judgement on the people, I get it … but it is a judgement on the org.
Especially as – in the big scheme of things – the money they pay comes at a huge cost.
The talent they’ve burned – and burned through – is extraordinary and yet no one, be it past of present employee, says a thing.
On first impression, it can feel like they’ve all agreed to collectively gaslight society, but on closer inspection you soon realise the real reason for that approach is far more due to fear than delusion.
Fear of losing your position.
Fear of never working again.
Fear of inviting more abuse.
One look at Corporate Gaslighting and you see this is not an uncommon – or unjustified – view. What’s even scarier is it is seemingly happening more and more … to the point where I swear some companies think ‘salary’ means they fully own their employees.
OK that’s a ridiculous view … a totally over-exaggerated and overblown view … an over-exaggerated and overblown view that is almost as ridiculous as:
Zero-hour contracts.
No overtime payments.
No training and development.
Expectation you are always ‘on-call’.
Personal social media monitoring.
Yes, I get those ‘work practices’ are still more the exception than the rule … but the fact they are there at all, is madness.
I get companies have to make money.
I get we live in a highly competitive world.
I even appreciate not every person is good for every company.
But come on …
What bothers me more is this is quickly becoming standard work practice.
STANDARD!
It’s like someone read a book on Victorian-era ‘workhouses’ and thought, “That sounds fun”.
And so, they’re trying to create a new set of beliefs for the ‘modern’ workplace.
Culture will not be born from the employees but dictated by the leadership.
Opinions can never be expressed; they must always be silenced.
Growth is not measured by personal development, but corporate conformity.
Success is not defined by personal achievement, but individual survival.
Failure is always – ALWAYS – to be aimed squarely at the shoulders of the employee.
[As an aside, if anyone is visiting Nottingham, they should check out the Workhouse in Southwell and go back to the future]
It’s like an episode of Black Mirror if Black Mirror was a documentary, not satire.
It’s here we’re taking a commercial break, because as much as this post has been about bullshit behavior – at least the people it’s about got paid well. But over the last 6 months, I’ve met many, young, lowly-paid, talented strategists be burned out by the expectations, pressure and demands of their employees.
As we highlighted in our 2024 book, Dream Bigger, too often people of my generation look at the young and say they don’t have the right work ethic … they expect too much … they are lacking in drive and skills … but apart from the fact that’s bullshit, even if it wasn’t, could you blame them given how they’ve seen so many of us invest so much in the promises of ‘hard work’ and then end up with nothing. And at least we had options available to us that could actually help. These poor fuckers don’t have any of that and yet we hold them to even higher expectations.
But that’s different to burnout because burnout is criminal. Actually criminal.
How are companies letting this happen? What are the fucking HR people doing?
What makes it even worse is the 5 people I met all worked at companies who talk big about ‘how their people are their greatest asset’. More like burning asset.
You want to know why we find it hard to attract the young to our industry? Because too many companies treat them like cannon fodder – and then when they’ve been battered, broken or bruised. we turn around and say ‘they couldn’t cut it’. Bastards.
Back in 2021, when we did Dream Small, we highlighted how this was a generation tolerated rather than welcomed. Then a few months later, I wrote how the ‘great resignation’ was actually – for many of the young – the ‘great reset’. But as much as they have pushed for change, this shit is still happening to so many – as demonstrated by the fact I’ve talked to 5 people in the past 6 months who could be great, but have literally been burned and no one seems to give a fuck.
All their bosses do is throw them some compliments or cash, believing it will ‘shut them up’ when what the person actually needs is to be thrown a fucking life raft of compassion, care and change. But what makes this even worse is that when the bosses discover the cash and compliments no longer have any sort of effect – when they have wrung the person out completely – they get rid of them while doing all they can to make sure the individual feels they have done something wrong to shame them for life and to keep them quiet.
It’s horrific and shows nothing has changed in the 4 years since I was featured in The Guardian about this corporate practice of employee shaming. Or the attempt of it.
What are we going to do when we have no one want to come to our industry?
We don’t pay many fairly.
We don’t train them well.
And then we work them to the point of exhaustion.
Seriously, in terms of analogy, there is no better one for this group than Workhouse attendees.
We can try and claim their attitude sucks all we like, but we’re the fuckers who need to take the long hard look in the mirror.
And with that, I end the commercial break and take us back to ‘regular programming’.
The reality is we’re getting to a point where there’s no bigger red flag about an organisation than when employees get congratulated by ‘the run they’ve had’.
Some may be well paid ‘middle management’.
Some may be poorly paid ‘young talent’.
But all of them are out-on-their-ear … surplus to requirements or drained of all life.
Which is why – and I appreciate the privilege I say this with – if you find yourself in a company like the one my mate has just ‘left’, then maybe the best thing you can do for your future health, well-being and career is to ‘run the fuck away from them’.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Corona Virus, Creativity, Culture, Customer Service, Differentiation, Experience, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Service
One thing that actually angered me throughout COVID was the attitude supermarkets adopted over the Christmas break.
Don’t get me wrong, they did an amazing job to ensure food supplies were maintained but they also did it because they were making incredible profits at the same time.
I’m cool with that.
I’m less cool with how some still lobbied for government benefits, made whole departments unemployed – looking at you Sainsbury’s – failed to use the Christmas period as a time to ‘give back’ to essential workers [ie: their own staff] and just ran bog-standard ads [even though they were generally pretty poor] … all the while claiming they were a version of ‘ one of us’.
Which is why this little gesture by the Co-op made an impression on me.
It’s very nice.
Not bombastic. Not chest beating. If anything, it’s almost silent.
But it’s impact for those suffering from isolation could be huge.
I really like this. Not just because it more needed than many think, but because I can imagine there are a lot of possible implications on their business should their customers take them up on it.
I have no idea how many customers Co-op delivers to each day, but if each customer just wanted a 5 minute chat, that means the subsequent deliveries will be 5 minutes late.
The more customers, the more deliveries get impacted in terms of time.
That can add up to something significant and potentially make other customers frustrated.
Maybe they’ve put on more delivery drivers to off-set this.
Maybe they’re only going to offer this for a limited time.
Maybe no one will actually take them up on any of this.
But even then, I can see a lot of reasons why a lot of companies would say no to this idea.
The cost.
The impact.
The potential for logistical nightmares.
Which is exactly why I think the Co-op have done something pretty great in doing it.
Because while words, money and countless bloody ‘purpose statements’ may make a company feel they’re doing valuable stuff for the community, its actual acts of action that proves to the community you actually care.
It’s not that hard to make a difference. If you actually want to make a difference.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cars, Comment, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Fulfillment, Insight, Management, Resonance, Service, Standards, Technology
So I have an Audi.
I know … I know … what a wanker.
Well as we all know, German cars are well known for their quality of engineering, but recently I saw something that showed me it’s not just engineering where they pay attention to detail.
Have a look at this …
Can you see?
It’s the colour of the screws.
Where most cars have 4 yellow screws in each corner of the rear number plate, Audi have used 2 – one black, one yellow – placed in the middle of the number plate and designed to make sure they perfectly match with the area they’re screwing into.
Black to match the colour of the letter of the registration number.
Yellow to match the background of the rear registration number.
It’s an incredibly small thing, but if they care about that, you can be sure they care about every detail in the car.
Which helps reinforce why German manufacturing is so highly revered.
Or said another way, why craft is proved by the small things, not just the big.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Bank Ads, Brand, Brand Suicide, Clients, Comment, Confidence, Context, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Customer Service, Finance, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Relationships, Reputation, Service, Standards
So, I have been a customer of ING Bank in Australia, for over 30 years.
THIRTY.
Given I have moved countries so often, I have had to update my country of residence many times – so when I received an email in December, asking me to ‘check my information’ for the banks legal requirements, I took it all in my stride.
Unsuprisingly, my information was – having updated it when we moved to NZ – was up to date and when I confirmed, I got a notification telling me all was good.
So imagine my surprise when in January, I received this …
I have no idea why my ‘document’ was not accepted, when [1] at the time it said it was and [2] it is the same one they have had on file for years – but I went to the website, as they requested, to provide another only to find this when I logged in.
ACCOUNT INACTIVE.
The bank, without letting me know in advance, had frozen my bank account.
Ice cold. Can’t access my money. Can’t spend my money.
What the actual fuck?!
To make matters even worse, they didn’t have any place where I could ‘update’ my information and so I found myself on hold for THREE HOURS.
Now, I appreciate there is anti-money laundering rules that need to be maintained but there’s 3 things I don’t understand.
Why did they freeze my account before asking me for other paperwork?
Why wasn’t my paperwork accepted given it has been fine for decades?
Why don’t they get their own shit in order before bullying their customers …
What do I mean by that last point?
2018 Dutch Settlement:
ING paid €775 million to settle charges with the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service for allowing clients to launder money for years, citing serious flaws in their counter-terrorism financing systems.
Systemic Failures:
Prosecutors identified instances where accounts were used for illicit activities, such as a lingerie trader laundering €150 million, which the bank’s systems should have flagged.
Regulatory Action:
The Dutch Central Bank oversaw corrective actions, and ING accepted responsibility, vowing to improve compliance.
Executive Liability:
While the large fine resolved the organizational charges, Dutch prosecutors later dropped criminal cases against former executives, including CEO Ralph Hamers, due to insufficient evidence for criminal liability, though they noted insufficient steps were taken.
2025:
ING faced new scrutiny in early 2025 over its role in a case involving former EU Commissioner Didier Reynders, with investigations into whether the bank failed to report suspicious activities related to him.
Other Jurisdictions:
ING Spain also received a fine in March 2025 for serious AML failings.
Yep, the bank that wants its customers to comply with money laundering rules has consistently failed to comply with money laundering rules … except where mine was a paperwork issue, theirs was an illegal activity issue.
Financial institutions consistently like to present themselves as ‘caring about their customers’, but the reality is the vast majority only care about themselves and their richest customers.
In that order.
Is it any surprise so many people are turning to things like bitcoin?
Sure, the risks are high but at least there’s a chance you could strike it rich whereas with so many financial institutions, they use fees, interest rates and access to keep so many exactly where they are.
Or worse.
Now I appreciate I am generalizing here.
I get many of the people who work in banks are decent people who are caught in the same situation as many out there. [And the person I dealt with at ING was very helpful and understanding … even when I took her through all of ING’s ‘mistakes]
But when people feel they are forever being spoken at, rather than listened to … there’s a point where people have as much interest in financial organizations as they offer their customers.
Which, according to a letter I received from ANZ Australia, is 0.01%.
The banking system operates on trust and confidence. What a shame those principals don’t extend to how banks see customers. Especially customers who have never done anything wrong for 3 bloody decades.
Well, ING lost one today.
Not because they wanted more paperwork from me but because they made a decision – that could have had a huge impact on me – without even discussing it with me. And if they can do that over a relatively minor issue, which – let’s not forget – their system had told me was ‘upto date’, then why would I ever believe I can trust my money is safe with them?