Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Audio Visual, England, Home, Reputation, Social Media
If you worry about being under surveillance from the authorities, you won’t want to read this.
You see a few weeks ago, I was looking at dog videos on Tiktok.
I know … I know … sue me.
Anyway, at one point, I came across a video of a cute little puppy who was going completely nuts at a cardboard box.
Back and forth it would run around the room, jump on and off the sofa and then jump into – and out of – a cardboard box.
It was sweet but something felt a bit weird.
Not weird in a ‘wrong’ way, just weird.
And then I realized what it was.
It had nothing to do with the dog we were watching, but the house the dog was jumping around in … and there was one simple reason for it.
IT WAS OUR HOUSE!
That’s right, the dog in question was owned by the tenants of our house in the UK.
The house we moved into on the very day – much to our bank managers distress – that we decided to move to NZ. We didn’t even bother to unpack everything, haha.
Now we don’t know the tenants in our house.
We don’t know their name, what they look like or what their personal contact info is.
But we do know they have a dog because the agent looking after the house for us, asked us.
So it’s utterly bonkers that the TikTok algorithm decided – out of all the millions of videos of dogs out there – to serve us a clip of their pooch in our house?!!
The good news is the house looked loved, cared for and in tip-top condition … which is all a landlord could ask.
The bad news – for them – is I can now keep an eye on what they’re doing in it.
Cue: Evil Laugh.
We go on about how social media listens to what we say, but that’s the least of our concerns.
The real worry is you can be watched by people you don’t want seeing you.
Guess that means the dodgy movie Sliver, from the 90’s was actually a documentary …
They just didn’t know it yet. [Cue: evil laugh]
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Management, Social Media
Speak No Evil, See No Evil, Hear No Evil
A few weeks ago, on one of the social media platforms, I wrote the word ‘idiot’ in a comment.
It was a statement about something I’d done but it triggered the platform to immediately put up a message – prior to them posting – that basically saying:
“Are you sure you want to do this? It could be read as offensive”.
On one hand I appreciate it the caution.
On the other, I find it amazing they are so focused on policing their users language but don’t hold themselves to the same standards.
Let’s be honest, most of them fall far below that behaviour on a daily basis …
From the ability to manipulate images in the most offensive and gratuitous way possible to the harassment of women – and that’s before we even get to the corporate behaviour of many of these companies – social media platforms seem to think they can divert our attention from their massive moments of self-interest, profit-motivated behaviours by executing some automated, minimum standard, ‘standards management’.
Nothing sums this up more than the ban of social media for kids up until the age of 16 in Australia.
While this was not instigated by the platforms, many jumped on it to demonstrate their support.
Was it because they mean it?
Errrrrm, almost definitely not … the driving force behind their ‘compassion’ was the fear of what may happen if they didn’t support it.
And they’d be right to think that, because the real question we should be asking is ‘why do we have to save our kids from social media when the real solution would be to hold social media companies to account to help protect our kids?
Of course parents have a responsibility in all this. A big one.
But if you think social media companies are exempt from any of the blame is insane and if you want to know why, listen to this.
Warning: It is extremely triggering, but very important.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Clients, Clothes, Comment, Community, Consultants, Context, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Disney, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Empathy, Honesty, Innovation, Luxury, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Membership, Netflix, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Popularity, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Social Divide, Social Media, Strategy, Stupid
Once upon a time, I was asked to help a client based in Thailand.
They were very successful – having made Thailand the most profitable market in the World for their particular brand.
Anyway, part of the project involved a workshop and part of that workshop was about identifying new variants for their product.
So far, so good.
Until I realized they weren’t looking at this to expand who could become a customer of theirs, but how to get existing customers to buy more of what they make.
Even that was OK, until it became apparent they believed their product was so loved, their customers would continually fill their shopping baskets with 3 or 4 different versions of the same product because they just liked the ability to consume it in more places at more times.
In short, they believed the more versions of their product they made, the more volume of products their customers would buy.
Every time.
Forget that people have a finite amount of money.
Forget that people have other bills, items, people to look after.
They believed, if you made it … people would just blindly buy.
It’s the same blinkered approach that some sales organizations have.
Where they believe if one salesman brings in a million dollars of revenue a year, hiring 11 more will mean they achieve 12 million dollars of revenue.
It’s both blinkered thinking and wishful thinking.
Or – as my father used to say – “the expansion of logic without logic”.
I say this because it feels companies are viewing the subscription model in a similar way.
Once upon a time, subscriptions were seen as the exciting new thing for business.
A new way to charge for your products and services … regardless that ‘direct debit’ payments had been around for years.
There were 3 key reasons why repositioning cost as a subscription was so appealing:
1 It lowered the barrier to entry, so it could appeal to more/new customers.
2 They knew that while customers ‘could’ cancel at any time, data showed most wouldn’t.
3 It could, in theory, allow them to charge more per month than their old annual fee.
And they were right, it proved to be a revelation … until it wasn’t.
Right now, everything is seemingly a subscription model.
Food.
Clothes.
Streaming.
Gym and health.
Car purchasing.
But the one that really is making me laugh, are phone apps.
It’s almost impossible to download anything without it being a subscription service.
And that would be OK, except the prices they want to charge are getting out of control.
I recently downloaded a recipe app that wanted $14.99 A WEEK. A FUCKING WEEK.
$60 a month just so I could send it healthy recipes I see on social media and have them all in one, easy-to-access place.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Sure, it had some features that would make it more convenient than just putting it into a saved folder on instagram … but it sure-as-shit isn’t worth me paying more than it costs me for Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify PUT TOGETHER.
I appreciate everyone thinks their product is the best product.
I acknowledge it takes a lot of hard work and money to make a new product.
But the removal of any ‘human reality context’ – ie: how much money do people actually have available to spend, and the hierarchy of importance they place on the things they spend – is not just stupid, it destroys the potential of good ideas.
Of course, part of the reason for this is because of how tech investment works.
Basically investors want big returns, very fast … so this pushes developers to build economic models based on a ‘perfect scenario’ situations.
For perfect scenario, read: not real life.
So they show things like:
The economic value of the health industry.
The impact of social media on diet choices.
The rise of health-focused products and services.
And before you know it, they’ve extrapolated all this ‘data’ to come up with a price point of $60 per month and said it not only offers good value, but will generate huge returns on the investment in collapsed time.
Except …
+ All this is theory because they haven’t talked to anyone who would actually use it.
+ They probably haven’t identified who they need to use it beyond ‘health seekers’.
+ And they absolutely haven’t understood it costs a lot of money to be healthy and so an additional $60 subscription for the average person is a cost too far … especially when things they use ALL THE TIME – like Netflix [which they already think is too expensive] – is a quarter of that cost FOR THE MONTH.
I get no one likes to hear problems.
I appreciate anyone can find faults if they really want to.
But being ‘objective’ is not about killing ideas – when done right – it’s about enabling them to thrive, which is why I hope business stops looking at audiences in ‘the zoo’ and starts respecting them in ‘the jungle’ … because not only will it mean good ideas stand more chance of becoming good business, it also means people will have more access to things that could actually help them, without it destroying them in other ways.
As perfectly expressed by Clint, the founder of Corteiz …
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: Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Content, Context, Culture, Social Media
I’m back.
Best not ask. Not because it’s bad news – but it’s definitely not good.
Unfortunately.
I must admit it’s getting to me, but there’s many more worse off than me, so I just need to keep the faith and follow the DR’s orders.
So given I don’t want to bring myself down – I’ve had enough of that over the last week – let’s launch into a rant shall we?
In the time off, I made the mistake of spending some time on Twitter/X.
While I still post on there, I don’t do much of it … and do even less reading of it.
To be honest, I had stopped prior to Elon buying it. I was over the endless humble bragging and hot takes from people who desperately wanted ‘twitter fame’ without ever really doing anything worthy of getting it.
Not just from adland – though there was a ton of that – but from people in general.
But when I revisited it, I was shocked.
On the positive, a lot of the ‘ego shouting’ had gone – moved to Linkedin, the home of ‘thought leadership’, hahaha – but what had replaced it was a torrent of blame throwing.
People blaming people for the bad choices of people.
You name it, they were shouting about it.
Government policy.
Kids behavior.
Employees.
Health.
It was not just depressing, it was exhausting …
Everyone picking fights with everyone around them.
Shouting, never listening.
Throwing stones regardless of the subject matter or situation.
Blinkered and blind opinions, subjectivity and contexts.
And it just reminded me of the image at the top of this post …
I got sent that ages ago, but it never became as powerful as when I took a brief swim back in the cesspool of what was once a relatively cool place to hang out in.
But it’s not just X/Twitter where this attitude prevails. It’s creeping into all avenues of life.
Where people are blaming everyone else for what is happening – or not happening – to them.
Of course there are many who are well within their rights to be angry at decisions forced upon them, but there are more who aren’t … they chose it directly or indirectly but just don’t want to accept or acknowledge it.
And while I appreciate no one likes to admit they made a mistake or did something wrong, it’s funny they all want the people they have decided to blame to do exactly that.
Making a mistake isn’t bad – we all do it – but never taking responsibility for it is another thing altogether. Yet we see this all the time. Professional gaslighting and blame-storming at every level of society.
From companies making thousands redundant and then claiming ‘they’ve never been in better shape’ to people on social media shouting abuse at people and positioning themselves as role models to governments blaming youth for crime while being conveniently ignorant to the fact they have robbed entire generations of opportunity or hope. We live in a world where it seems everyone wants the authority to dictate and judge but no one wants to take the responsibility for what they’ve enabled to happen.
God, it’s all so depressing which, on the bright side, is kinda perfect for a Monday.
Have a great week … hahaha.