Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Context, Corporate Gaslighting, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Nottingham, Standards, Stupid
Last week was a week of pissy posts, so I thought I’d write something a little less intense.
Recently I was in Nottingham and while on one of my walks, I passed this …
“What is it?” I hear you cry.
Well, it’s a notice about the busses.
Tied with a crappy piece of string to a branch of a nearby shrub because – I assume – the people who had to put it up thought it would take too much effort, cost or complexity to attach it to the actual bus stop.
You know, so passengers could maybe actually see it.
Now I appreciate Nottingham County Council is basically bankrupt so they can’t be spending money willy-nilly … but what the fuck is the point attaching a notice to a shrub that isn’t even next to the actual bus stop???
It all smacks of someone having to hit their KPI’s …
Where the focus is being able to say you did what was asked rather than did what was needed … even though you know what you did wasn’t in the spirit of the original request.
And while you could blame that on the clarity of the brief, it’s still an exercise in deliberate ignorance.
Or arrogance.
Or idiocy.
It reminds me of the toilets I wrote about in Singapore way back in 2006.
Another example of someone ‘executing’ rather than ‘accomplishing’ …
Also known as ‘modern business practice’ … where it increasingly feels like a job well done and well crafted is viewed as an unnecessary cost, when it can just be churned out without any consideration.
Or worse, when someone does that and then tries to hide their laziness behind ambiguous language or claims of cost efficiency.
Which is why I keep going back to the words a father of an old colleague of mine once said:
“If you haven’t got the time to do it right at the start, when will you have the time?”
When will companies realise that if they treat their customers like fools, they’ll value them accordingly?
The older I get, the more I believe the only thing we have are our standards … and while not everyone will appreciate them, you can be sure they will notice them when everyone else shows they don’t have any.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Marketing, Marketing Practice, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Rick Rubin, Rigor, RulesOfRubin, Standards, Strategy
When I spoke at the conference in Berlin, I talked about rigor.
The main reason for doing that was because while our discipline talks a lot about rigor, more often than not – it seems the emphasis is far more on the adoption of marketing science principals rather than putting in the time and effort to really get under the skin of our clients situation and the context and understanding of the audiences they need to embrace.
The obsession with ‘sprints’ is part of the problem …
Because it seems clients care more about having fast answers than they do right answers.
Oh, I know they claim to give us all the information we need to move forward, but – as Dan Lyons pointed out in his brilliant book, ‘Disrupted’ – too many companies don’t know ‘who they are, who they’re for and what they do’, so the result of that is we are encouraged to make work that appeals to who they wish they were, rather than who they are.
Hence the need for rigor.
To be given the time and space to understand what the hell is going on.
Now of course, I appreciate time is money … and what we do can cost a lot of it … but while you can definitely take too long to do things, you can also not take long enough, which is why briefs need to be more about what we need to change than what we want to say.
And while there’s more data out there than you could ever use, the reality is nothing – and I mean nothing – has the impact of spending time with the people who are deeply entrenched in the category/product/brand that you’ve talking about.
They’re the ones who know what’s going on.
They’re the ones who see the challenges and problems.
They’re the ones who evolve what and where things can go.
And while they may well be at the far edge of where the category is, more often than not – they’re also the people who bring the masses along with them.
Or said another way, they’re the ones who can help you listen and understand like a fan. An educated fan.
Because the more you do that, the more you are exposed to the textures and nuances that reveal the truth, power and possibilities of what you are dealing with. Truth, power and possibilities that – in the obsession with speed – often get overlooked or devalued in favor of quick wins and convenient answers.
It’s basically how Rick Rubin has always approaches his job …
Understanding the artist’s truth and pushing/elevating it, rather than simply having a singular format that he adopts regardless of who he is working with or the situation they are currently in.
And before you dismiss this, there’s 2 important things to remember:
1. What he is doing is basically strategy.
2. What he has achieved – by any criteria you want to measure him by – is beyond almost anything any strategist in our industry has.
Now it is important I point out that I don’t have a problem with marketing science …
It has a place in the strategic process and has lessons/considerations that are valuable and important.
My problem with it is far more about how it is presented, specifically by the people who have a vested interest in promoting their ‘methodology’ … because they suggest it is the only way to liberate a brand’s potential when that is not the case and – generally – it is designed to not go wrong, rather than to elevate how far you can go.
Which is why we need to stop confusing ‘marketing science’ as strategic rigor when it’s more strategic 101. Valuable, but foundational.
It’s also why, I have a sign in the Colenso ‘strat’ department that reminds everyone that true strategic rigor requires us to be …
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Contribution, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Pride, Standards
Good enough.
Two words that trigger the fuck out of me.
Truly press every button I have.
Not because I’m some perfectionist who never gets things wrong.
Nor because I’m a myopic tyrant who only cares about what works for me.
But because I don’t have the time to waste on things – and people – who don’t share the same standards as me.
That sounds massively condescending, doesn’t it?
Believe it or not, I don’t mean it to be … but the fact is, time is precious to me. More precious than it has ever been. And – as I’ve written in the past – when you find yourself in this position, you realise you’re in a race.
That may sound over the top … exaggerated even … but I assure you it’s not.
For a start you know all the things you want to do won’t happen. Just won’t be possible.
Then to make matters worse … the more you do, the more you discover and that adds to the list of things you would love to explore and experiment with.
So you end up having to try and choose what matters – or intrigues or scares you – the most and when you have done that, you go into them like a freight train.
Hardcore.
Total commitment.
Focus on being as brilliant as you think it can be and you hope to be.
Or at least I do.
And that’s why when you find the people around you are in a different place in life … or have a different set of expectations or standards … that can be hard.
It’s not that they’re wrong, it’s just that they’re wrong for where you are at right now.
Because you have no time for casual.
You have no time for not being utterly focused.
And anything that shows a lack of consideration feels like a knife in your back.
I appreciate this may not be a popular perspective – especially on a Monday morning – but as a friend of mine’s father once said:
“If you haven’t got the time to do it right at the beginning, when will you?
The reality is standards are all that sets you apart in this industry …
That doesn’t mean everything you do has to be a hit … but it does mean everything you do has to feel you’ve pushed for it, cared for it and fought to make it as good as it can be.
Not simply outsourced to a system or framework.
Not simply doing what others have done quicker, cheaper or bigger.
Not simply following what’s popular or hyped.
But standards, efforts and taste.
Because the reality is anyone can be lucky occasionally, but real reputations are born from standards over time.
Where you are known and seen for continually making and pushing things to better and more interesting places, time and time again.
That’s what gets the calls from the clients and people who care as much about what they put out as why they are putting things out.
Of course it’s not easy, but it’s worth it … or at least worth more than churning stuff out you wish didn’t have your name attached to, even if others are OK with it.
Because when your time is running out – but your ambition, hunger and curiosity isn’t – the problem isn’t the fear of failure, the problem is giving your time to people who don’t value what you can do with it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apple, Attitude & Aptitude, Auckland, Brand, Brand Suicide, Clients, Clothes, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Craft, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Design, Details, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, Fans, Fashion, Film, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Science, Media, Mediocrity, Metallica, Netflix, New Zealand, Premium, Privilege, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Respect, Standards, Steve Jobs
For 50 years, I never dressed particularly fashionably.
I had a ‘style’, but it was never one people looked at and thought, “I want to dress like that”.
Questionable t-shirts, ripped jeans and a pair of birkies tend to have that reaction.
Part of this is because growing up, I was never exposed to anything ‘fancy’. Despite my Mum being Italian and going to Italy a lot … my version of designer clothing was stuff from Burton’s and C&A and nothing more.
But over the years, I got more and more exposed to the high-end fashion houses.
Projects with Prada and Chanel introduced me to people, stories and experiences that taught me there was far more to who they were than big prices and even bigger pretentiousness. But even that was not enough to convince me this was something for me.
Hell, I still remember the utter shock I felt when I heard a mate tell me they’d spent 70 quid on a t-shirt.
Sure, this was a 1000 years ago, but back then I didn’t know how that was even possible.
T-shirts were 3 for a few quid from Asda so what on earth could justify 70 pounds for a single tee???
And that was how things carried on for decades until 2 events happened in my life:
I got healthy and I started working for the most successful and influential luxury and street-fashion investor on the planet.
And with those 2 things, everything changed …
I got to go behind the scenes of the highest level of the industry.
I got to talk to the creative directors of the houses and labels who define global fashion.
I got to meet the people who create, curate and craft the experiences that define how fashion makes us feel.
But most of all, (1) I could now actually fit in their clothes and (2) my client sent me shitloads of them for free.
Of course, I appreciate how lucky I am for that – and I massively appreciate that they were doing it to ‘keep encouraging me on my health journey’. But – and I say this with utter love and respect for them – I can’t help the real reason is because they didn’t want me turning up to their big meetings and fancy events dressed like a trainwreck. What maybe triggered this was the time I found myself sitting next to Phoebe Philo, ex-creative director of Celine and founder of her own label, who – on seeing my t-shirt, featuring a cat logo – said:
“I love this, who is it by?”
To which I replied:
“My son made it, and that’s our cat”.
To be fair, she was brilliant but I can’t help but imagine she was also thinking, “who the fuck is this nutter I’m next to?”
Bit like the time I was in the lift with members of the Prada family.
They were – literally – the best dressed people I had ever seen in my entire life.
Me? I was wearing ripped jeans, some Nike’s and a hoodie probably from Asda.
Again, they were kind, warm and welcoming – and never once did I feel judged, in fact the opposite – but it was not long after that I started receiving a lot of fancy clothes – hahaha.
But the point of this post is not that I am more fashionably dressed person than I’ve ever been in my life.
Nor is it that I am one of the luckiest bastards on the planet.
No, it’s that the last few years have completely changed my perspective of the industry.
Where once I may have just seen it as pricey and poncy, I now have a deep appreciation, understanding and respect it..
The creativity, the craft, the inspiration, the statements, the history, the details, the obsession.
Put simply, the belief that EVERY detail matters, no matter how big or small.
Steve Jobs once talked about the importance of ‘painting behind the fence’ – the belief that even if no one ever sees or recognizes the care and consideration you have put into your work, you know and that matters – and in many ways, he could have been describing the luxury fashion industry.
You only has to watch the Netflix Documentary ‘7 Days’ – specifically the episode about Chanel’s couture catwalk show – and you’ll see how much thought goes into how every single detail is presented.
Not simply because image is important to them, but because they want to honour the work they have created.
Make sure it is represented, seen and felt exactly as intended and created.
It is a similar approach Metallica have to their music.
It’s why they bought the best vinyl printing plants in the World.
It’s why they invested in the best live concert sound-system in the World.
It’s why they own the rights to all the music they create and have ever created.
It’s not ego. It’s not hyping. It’s about ensuring they honour the work they’ve made so everyone experiences it exactly as intended, versus letting someone else determine that.
So where the fuck is this all going?
Well, it’s because recently I saw this.
Yep, it’s a billboard for the movie Devil Wears Prada 2.
BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THAT IMAGE???
How is a movie centered around the world of luxury fashion and media using such a badly designed, stretched and distorted billboard like that?!
Looking online, I can tell you that’s not the official image – at least as far as I can tell – plus I should point out the image has accentuated the lines of the digital billboard, which weren’t visible to the human eye.
But that aside, the image used looks like someone at the local distributor, media agency or billboard company decided, for reasons I don’t understand, to create – or adapt – their own version of the official artwork; the result of which is a visual that makes Devil Wears Prada 2 seems more Poundland than Prada.
Which highlights two very important reminders:
1. Everything communicates who you are and what you value.
2. For the best result, make sure all who work for you – or with you –know who you are and what you value.
I’m not saying price or speed doesn’t matter, of course it does … but what price does sloppiness, misunderstanding or a need-for-speed end up costing?
And to those who say that doesn’t matter, because no one cares … I say this in return.
Not only do you not understand marketing …
Not only do you not care about your company …
You sure as shit don’t understand your customers.
Which gives us one final thing to remember …
For all the systems, processes and marketing practice methodologies you can use … if you forget who its for and what its for, then you’re truly wasting your money.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Clients, Collaboration, Comment, Conformity, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Curiosity, Delusion, Imagination, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Marketing Practice, Marketing Science, Mediocrity, Packaging, Perspective, Process, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Strategy, Systems, Technology, Transformation
One of the scariest, awesome things is starting a new project.
Especially a new project where you are given the freedom to take things to new places.
Scary, because there’s always the risk. you might fuck it up.
Awesome, because you can – in theory – go wherever the hell you like.
I love these moments.
I love exploring all the possibilities and then seeing where everyone’s energy is at.
I love the drama, the challenge, the breakthroughs and the crafting.
But most of all, I love the creation.
Seeing something come to life that wasn’t there before.
But to get to a place that excites rather than appeases, is emotionally draining and stimulating.
The process – if that is what you want to call it – is one that tests you more than tests the idea you’re developing.
And frankly we don’t talk about that enough.
Instead, we celebrate precision, perfection, optimization and logic.
And while there may well be elements of all that in all we do, they sure-as-shit don’t happen at the beginning of the process … and if you think they do, then you’re either kidding yourself or you haven’t tried hard enough.
But what’s scary is a lot of the way the industry is structuring themselves is to kid themselves or not try hard enough.
Too many people running our industry are people not from our industry – so they don’t understand how it works.
They see the rabbit holes we need to go down as a waste of time.
A costly exercise in the delivery of our ‘product’.
And while I appreciate you can take too long on things, you can also take too little time …
But that’s where we’re heading … where effectiveness is defined and determined by ‘delivery timelines’ or ‘fitting in’ to pre-determined definitions rather than trying to do something new … something different … something better.
Which is why it’s so funny so many brand and management consultancies talk about ‘brand transformation’ … because you can’t transform if you stick to predefined and predetermined rules, processes and logic. But then – as Lee Hill once told me – they’re not really transforming anyone or anything. What many are really doing is helping old and slow companies catch up with what everyone else in their category has been doing for an age. It means the consultancy can profit from articulating the learnings from the more progressive companies – rather than develop new possibilities and processes of their own – and wrap it up in expensive language that benefits both parties.
Or said another way … ‘catching up’ is sold as innovation and ‘duplication’ is sold as expertise.
OK, I’m being a little harsh there, but the point is … anyone who says creativity and progress can be delivered via a consistent, precise and stable process is either lying to themselves or lying to you. So don’t see the rollercoaster of the creative process as a cost, see it as people who want to make sure they do something really special for you.