All I know about this picture is it was taken by a friend of mine because it appeared on my Facebook feed.
Except I can’t remember which friend.
But I love it.
I love the colour of the drink.
The way the hand is perfectly placed and poised.
The reflection on the tray … unable to stop the burnt orange colour shining on the tray but looking like it is exploding out of the centre.
I love the way the seat and the walls of the plane seem to have the same type of look and feel.
Warm. Fabric. Like a favourite jumper at winter.
I love the clouds poking out of the window.
I love that as the person flies through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, it looks like they’re preparing to relax as if they’re going at 5 miles per hour.
I don’t drink any alcohol, but that plastic glass looks mighty tempting …
I imagine that if I put it to my lips, I’d experience a strong, rich orange flavour that is ice cold and utterly refreshing.
A drink you’d sip because of it’s intensity and desire to make it last longer.
That photo makes me want to drink that glass.
That’s a better ad than most I see these days.
But it’s not an ad.
Filed under: Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Chinese Culture, Devious Strategy, Social Media
Today it’s ‘singles day’ in China.
If you haven’t lived here or don’t run a big multinational corporation, you probably haven’t heard of it.
But if you have – or do – I’m pretty certain it’s a day you find very important.
Singles day was originally created by some university students to celebrate ‘being single’.
In a culture that believes and promotes the importance of family, being single was – and still is – something that tends to provoke more questions than support.
It’s even harder if you’re a female.
If you’re not married by 30, you’re labelled ‘left behind’ … a horrible label implying you will be left on the shelf until eternity.
Apart from the fact it’s hurtful and simply not true, the fact that the culture believes you can only be happy if you are with someone before the age of 30 is pretty mad.
But then there’s a lot of madness in this country.
Some is beautiful, some not so much.
Which goes back to singles day.
The university students behind it, didn’t want to feel like they were an embarrassment of society, so they created this day to embrace and celebrate their situation. To be honest, for China – especially in the 90’s – that was a pretty ballsy move.
They chose the 11th of November because it features all the ones … 11.11 … and for years, it was a day embraced by many university students, especially in Nanjing, where it is alleged to have started.
Then in 2009, business got involved.
Seeing an opportunity to exploit the ‘singles day celebration’, they started offering special online deals to entice people to spend.
Now China doesn’t need an excuse to shop and before you knew it, singles day morphed from a day of celebrating singledom with your single mates into the single largest online shopping day in the World.
How large?
Well, last year it generated US$9.3 billion.
Yes, 9.3 billion. In US dollars in 24 hours.
If you think that is impressive, they did US$2 billion in the first hour.
FIRST HOUR!!!
For all the talk in the West of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, nothing compares to the craziness of China’s Singles Day and given the sales in 2009 was only US$8 million [not billion] and only 27 retailers offered discounts, you can see the level of growth that has happened in the space of 6 years and why every CEO of every retail organisation in the World is desperate to get in on the action.
The thing is that the discounts aren’t just on big stuff … it’s on the little things too.
House cleaning goods. Make-up. Batteries.
In fact, far more little things get bought than big.
Not just because there’s more on offer, but because Singles Day has become something where people feel they have to buy something just so they can feel they were part of the madness.
You know when FOMO extends to buying three AA batteries, just so you can say you ‘bagged a bargain’ to your mates, the World – or should I say, China – has gone mad.
But then, as I said, China does mental better than anywhere else in the World.
And that’s why it’s so bloody special.
So a few weeks ago, I saw an entry on Facebook from a friend of mine who is a policeman in Nottingham.
This was it:
I have to be honest, I love it.
I don’t know if they found the guys profile because there’s a copper at the station who is looking for dates rather than robbers – or whether it is part of their overall approach to finding [alleged] criminals – but I think it’s ace.
It’s a bit similar – but not very much – to that story from years ago where a US Police department sent some fake “you’ve won money” letter to the homes of criminals that had avoided capture.
They were betting on the fact that someone in the house would let them about their ‘good fortune’ and let them know they did, because on a particular date, at a particular venue, they turned up to collect their cash only to collect some handcuffs and a prison sentence.
In one day, a bunch of crimes were cleared up simply because the cops knew people find it hard to turn down something free – especially when it’s valuable [and especially when you’re a criminal who does that sort of thing for a living] and that trying something different was worth giving a go when so many traditional approach end with nothing.
Lovely stuff.
But back to Tinder.
So for the last 12+ months, I’ve been on Tinder talking to men and women on Tinder about their experiences.
[Don’t worry, the wife knows and I say on my profile that I’m a happily married man. Besides, with my face, who the hell would swipe right on me?!]
I have to be honest, it’s been fascinating, especially when you start seeing the differences of the audience when you compare who is on it in say, China, to those on it in say, Portland.
I’ll be writing this all up in the next few months, but frankly, if you are a woman – and it’s mainly women – who enter the crazy world of Tinder dating in the hope of finding ‘the one’, you may end up feeling more disillusioned and disappointed than when you were at home on a Saturday evening eating Ben & Jerry’s in front of the television.
Watching Bridget Jones.
You see while Tinder makes it easy to “search” thanks to their gamification operating system, it appears that within hours of usage, people [read: men] forget they’re dealing with humans and their emotions and go cold – either in how they judge a potential match or what they do when they’ve connected. [Which seems to involve either asking for sex, sending a plethora of ‘dick pics’ or not making contact at all!]
Of course not everyone is like that and there’s been many relationships formed through an initial interaction with Tinder, but the evidence so far suggests there’s far more disappointment being created between people than emotional fulfilment. At least if you are going on there for pure reasons.
We shall see how things turn out over the next few months – as well as if this finding is something that is relative across geographies or more prevalent in certain countries [which definitely seems the case at this moment in time] – but like with everything in life, for every product that is hyped as being ‘revolutionary’, there is often a dark side that exists, even if it takes a few hours/weeks/months/years to present itself.
By all means am I not knocking what Tinder does/has achieved, I’m just highlighting that behind the headlines, you often find a far more interesting bunch of stories … as Nottinghamshire Police are also demonstrating.
That said, the Tinder for kids names – developed by, I think, an ad agency creative – is sheer bloody genius.
I wish I’d known about it when we were choosing Otis’ name … though I doubt I’d of managed to convince Jill to go with Ziggy, even if she had flicked right.
Which she wouldn’t have.
Bugger.
So obviously this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. Hardest and most horrible.
On top of the pain and trauma of losing my Mum and having to make decisions that directly impacts my history and future … I’ve been fucked over by those bastards at HSBC [again] as well as needed an emergency root canal.
But through all the pain and horror I’ve gone through in the last few days, there has been some light.
Of course having my wife, son and closest friends near me has helped enormously.
Part of me wanted to just run away, roll into a little ball and cry and cry and cry … and while they have all encouraged me to grieve openly and proudly, their love, laughter, smiles and – in the case of my son – innocence has helped me see some glimmers of light amongst all the darkness.
Then there’s work.
They’ve been amazing. Everything you want to be true about Wieden+Kennedy is. They are people who care, genuinely care, and their compassion and understanding for what I am going through has been both comforting and breathtaking.
But I want to talk about something else.
A few days ago I wrote about how technology is making death harder for me to compute.
How the constant reminders of my Mum’s presence in my life was both a blessing and a curse.
And I still feel that, I truly do.
But it cannot be denied that technology has offered me something else in some of my darkest days.
Not just in terms of being an outlet for me to express all I am feeling but that it offered me a chance to see how many people cared about me and cared about my Mum.
In all honesty, I’m overwhelmed by the outpouring of support I’ve received over the last 5+ days.
People I know. People I know but have never met. People I don’t know and have never met. It’s been both amazing and unbelievably comforting.
I appreciate death is an awkward subject to discuss because no one can say anything that makes it better and most people are scared of saying something that makes it worse – and that is why I’m so touched by how many people have thrown aside concern and reached out to me in messages, comments and texts.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I have honestly appreciated every single word. Every one of them. Of course I wish you didn’t need to write them but I am overwhelmed with what I have received.
I am aware that as a 44 year old man – and a father to boot – I should be strong to tragedy at this point in my life … able to face adversity with strength and stoicness but I’m not. I’m a weakling.
I have cried rivers of tears and howled in emotional pain over and over again. I have done this both in private and, embarrassingly, in public as well.
I feel totally destroyed and shocked. I still can’t believe this has happened and feel that I’m living in either a dream or some weird parallel universe where on the other side, the other version of me is visiting my mum in hospital who is recuperating well from a successful operation.
It is all too complex and confusing for me to grasp and when you take into account that I need to decide what I’m going to do with my family home – a place where my dads ashes are scattered – the weight of expectation and pressure feels almost overwhelming.
And yet I am – in my own way – getting through things and a big part of that is because of all the love, support and compassion that has been thrown at me.
Frankly I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it. I know what my Mum did to deserve it, but not me. And yet people’s generosity of support has been amazing and I’m genuinely humbled and feel cared for by it all.
Media likes to present the World as a cold and miserable place. Where selfishness is the norm. They are wrong. The World is full of kind and caring people and I have been fortunate to experience this first hand at a time where I felt my whole World was collapsing around me.
So thank you to you and the people who made the technology that allowed you to reach out me.
Of course it doesn’t take all the pain away, but it stops everything looking so bleak and I can assure you that would be exactly what my Mum would want for me.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Marketing Fail, Pretentious Rubbish, Social Media
So a while back, I received this …
Now I have to be honest, I read it a few times and I still don’t understand what the hell it is going on about.
Of course, the fact they lied at the very beginning put them off to a bad start given none of my close friends work in advertising, let alone at Ogilvy .. but more than that, why would I even care about ‘where I ranked with my peers’.
Ranked based on what?
Hair on your head?
Birkenstock ownership?
Kebabs eaten?
If that wasn’t stupid enough, it then goes ultra-weird by talking about how I am comfortable mingling with ‘creative types’ and that the lifestyle we live is one the ‘mainstream’ crave … possibly because of a TELEVISION SHOW ABOUT A FICTIONAL AD AGENCY BASED IN THE 1960’S!!!
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK?
Then, to put the shit icing on the shit cake, they try and lure me in by suggesting my advice might be worth money.
Well guess what … it already is, I’m paid for my advice by clients. And while many of you may find that madness, it’s not nearly as mad as thinking a right-minded person would give me money for my advice on how to live.
And what advice would I actually give them?
The best takeout restaurant to order from?
The best IKEA furniture to buy when you’re too tight to buy something designer?
The average public transport costs to get to and from the airport?
Seriously, what is it about my life – or anyone else’s for that matter – that someone would find interesting, let alone willing to pay for.
And you know what, even if there was something … I’d rather shit in my hands and clap than be a part of this pretentious bullshit.
This industry is bad enough for being disconnected to reality without people actively trying to make it worse … and then there’s the issue that if someone is getting paid for ‘how they live’, that may influence them to live in ways that are not authentic, just because they think that will impress more people and get them more money.
Without wishing to sound horrible, the last people I’d like to spend my social time with are others in the industry.
Actually that’s not true.
The last people I’d like to spend my social time with are others in the industry who measure their value by being in the industry.
Everything about this email insulted me and I hope the people who are behind it – and are a part of it – leave me the fuck alone in future.