Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, April 1, Comment, Reputation, Resonance, Strategy, Stupid, Television, Wieden+Kennedy
God, that’s a heavy title for a post isn’t it.
Especially when it’s not about the state of the World, but the fact it’s April 1.
A day – like International Women’s Day – where brands put out work in an attempt to show another side of them.
The human side … as defined and written by the AI system they outsourced thousands of people’s jobs too.
Anyway, with all the shit going on around the world, I don’t know if any joke is suddenly going to make humanity feel better … unless of course, they reveal we’ve all been living in a real-life version of that episode of 80’s TV show Dallas, where – after a whole series exploring ‘who shot JR Ewing’ – they revealed it was all just a bloody dream.
[Look it up, it’s wild]
Soooooooo … instead of going through the effort of trying to write an April Fool post that won’t fool anyone and certainly won’t make anyone care, I thought I’d just point you to the best one I ever wrote.
A post that not only fooled a few people – who obviously didn’t read it all the way through – but was picked up by some international media as a ‘new methodology to the planning discipline’. Hahahaha.
It was even more pleasing than the time The Times newspaper in the UK quoted the fictitious research company we set up – Halibut Fisher – to highlight how badly Chinese society was being represented and understood by Western media. You can read some of the ‘insights’ we wrote about on Asian Yang – the blog we set up to commemorate how blinkered, gullible and lazy so many organizations are when dealing with cultures outside of their own.
Anyway, with that, have a great April Fool Day and enjoy reading about Leon and his introduction to Method Planning™ …
For the record, Leon still – amazingly – talks to me.
Even more amazingly, he has an important gig at a tech company.
Which means [1] even my best efforts couldn’t undermine his talent and [2] tech companies don’t check all the data they steal from everyone. Haha.
Oh, and if you’re so inclined, you can waste even more of your time reading some of the other April 1st posts I’ve written which some people also fell for … which I’d love to think was due to my brilliant writing, but was likely due to the fact I was in a totally different timezone to them so it wasn’t April 1 for them. Damnit.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, AC/DC, Advertising, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Bands, Before Fame, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Career, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Consultants, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Delusion, Distinction, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, EvilGenius, History, Honesty, Interviews, Leadership, Legend, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Meetings, Music, Perspective, Prejudice, Process, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Status, Stories, Stupid, Success, Teamwork, Trust, Truth
Once upon a time, a man – who lived and worked in Newcastle, England – got a phonecall.
When he picked up, he heard a woman with a German accent on the other end, who asked “Are you Brian Johnson?”
He replied in the affirmative, to which the mystery caller said,
“You need to come down to London for an audition next week”.
Now Brian was a singer. In fact he’d once had a hit record with his band Geordie – but now he had his own business fitting car windscreens so it was a pretty left-field call to receive. Still, he was intrigued to which he asked the caller, “Who are you and who is the audition for?
There was a pause before the German voice informed him they worked for a music company – who had to remain nameless, just like the band he was told he had to audition for.
Brian was getting a bit fed-up at this point so pointed out in his thick accent,
“I’m not going all the way down to London for an audition unless you tell me who it is”.
Immediately, they were told that was not possible.
“Can you give me a clue … even if it’s just the initials of the singer or band?”
There was another pause – as if the caller was weighing up which would get them in more trouble: giving them a clue or not having Brian come to the audition – before they said,
“OK … here are the initials of the band, but I can give you no more information whatsoever. The initials are A, C, D, C”
The rest is history.
Brian did go to London and he did audition to replace the recently deceased Bon Scott, as the singer of AC/DC.
He got the gig and the first song he wrote – in fact the first song he EVER wrote – was You Shook Me All Night Long.
Then he wrote his second ever song, Back In Black.
Then his third, Hell’s Bell’s.
And not only did all these songs appear on the first album he recorded with the band, it went on to be the best selling album of the bands career. In fact it get’s even better than that, because the album, Back In Black, sold so many copies it become the best selling album OF ALL TIME [at that time] and even now – 46 years later – still ranks the 2nd best ever seller, with 50 million albums sold.
All this because Brian – through luck and persistence – got a key piece of information that made the difference between him choosing to go down to London or telling some random German female caller to “Fuck Off”.
Now it’s fair to say AC/DC were a known quantity at the time. A relatively successful quantity at the time. But who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t done the audition.
We wouldn’t have those 3 songs for a start … 3 songs that are not just iconic for AC/DC fans, but iconic fullstops.
The point being, one of the most important things you can do, to increase the odds of success is be transparent.
Transparent on where you are.
Transparent on what is needed.
Transparent on who is involved.
Transparent on the facts, timing and money.
Transparent on roles, rules and responsibilities.
Transparent on what the definition of success is.
I say this because there is not enough transparency right now – if anything, we operate in a world of opaqueness, which not only fucks up the potential of what can be created together, but breeds distrust and unhelpfulness.
Sure, things can change.
Sure, not everything may be known at the time.
But the more you hold things back, the more you’re not just fucking others over, you’re fucking yourself.
The greatest demonstration of respect in any partnership is transparency … so if your ego, need for control or fear stops you from doing that, then it doesn’t matter what you claim or who you blame, you’re the problem.
That doesn’t mean everything will fail, but it does mean you’ll never create history.
Or said another way …
If that German woman who rang Brian Johnson way back in ’79 had refused to give him any information on the name of the band she wanted him to audition for – as were their orders – then AC/DC may be a band few people would remember and Brian Johnson would be the graveliest-voiced car windscreen repairer in the North of England.
Of course, there will be some who say if that had happened, we’d never know what we’d lost.
And they’d be right, but they’d also be something else: someone incapable of creating or achieving anything truly significant.
In fact it’s worse than that … they’d be someone incapable of even aspiring to something truly significant and would actively goes out of their way to stop others from achieving it, claiming they’re ‘just looking out for the business’ when really it’s about their fear, ego, power and/or control.
No wonder my dear and clever friend George calls them, ‘commercial assassins and happiness vampires’.
Don’t stop someone finding your Brian Johnson because you think transparency is weakness.
It’s not, it’s rocket fuel.
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: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audacious, Authenticity, Comment, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planning, Play, Point Of View, Process, Provocative, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Stupid, Success, Work
So I have good news.
This is the last post for a week.
Yep, I’m away. Again.
Not because of whatever happened with the result I wrote about yesterday – but something else. Though if the result wasn’t good yesterday, the week away for me is going to be very bitter sweet because something that should be full of crazy wonderfulness is going to be infected by sheer fucking panic. But let’s stay positive shall we and ignore the fact I started a company called cynic – hahaha.
[I also, let’s not forget, started a company called Sunshine, which proves I am the living embodiment of a ‘gemini’, haha]
Anyway, I say you have ‘a week’ rest from this blog but I have written a post for next Friday because it’s Halloween and I couldn’t resist posting something truly horrific.
A blast from the past that no one needs seeing again but still makes me laugh.
So apart from that, you’re free from me for one whole week.
What a way to see in the weekend …
So with that, I’m going to leave you with this …
I saw the above recently and it reminded me of a meeting I was in once, where an HR person talked about ‘cultural fit’.
Now I get what they meant – from a theoretical place – but it was what they were trying not to say that bugged me.
Because in essence, they were saying they valued the complicit and consistent over the interesting and challenging.
They didn’t care that people who questioned or pushed were actually doing it because they wanted to help the company be even better … to them, they saw them as ‘problems’ who they could discount or disregard under the guise of being a ‘wrong cultural fit’.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate good companies have strong cultures … a set of principals, values and behaviours that the people within shapes who they are and how they act. But too many organisations mistake this for control and complicity when in reality, it’s about expression, standards and possibility.
And it’s why I loved that piece But here’s the thing, these people make great shit a possibility.
Sure, I get they often need to be surrounded by those with the skills and abilities to both interpret what they say and action it … but without them, you are forever lost in the middle.
Yes I get for some that is exactly where they want to be … but for those with hunger, ambition, a desire for originality, craft and possibility, that’s literally the worst place you can find yourself positioned.
And yet too often, it’s these ‘big talking companies’ who have embraced protocols and processes that filter these people out immediately … replacing them with an endless stream of plastic and beige puppets. It’s why as much as these sorts of individuals can cause all manner of headaches and mayhem – and I say this both as someone who fits this description as well as someone who seeks out people of this description – they remain the individuals who I love to work with and hire the most.
And there’s a reason for that …
Because not only do you never know what they’ll come up with – and often they don’t know wither – you can be sure it will be smart and impossible to forget.
Or to be more poetic …
They are like comets flying across a night sky. They might not stay around for long, but boy … do they always shine bright.
Which leads to something else.
Recently London School of Economics [LSE] asked me to write a piece for their business management and strategy curriculum.
I don’t know if was because they thought my perspective would educate their students or serve as a warning of what NOT to do, but it was lovely to be asked.
The one thing they wanted me to specifically talk about was how I have been able to build and lead successful teams wherever I’ve worked.
And without blowing my own trumpet, I have.
Whether it’s been at different agencies or different countries, I’m proud I’ve been able to help nurture strategically intriguing, creatively interesting teams. Where every place I’ve been, has enjoyed a period that has come to define the department, the agency, the client, the category, the work we create or – most importantly – the people who are there.
The reason that’s so important to me is that where strategy is concerned, you can never be sure if you’re making a difference or you’re just riding on the coat-tails of the talent that was – and is – already there.
Or said another way, are you good or are you lucky?
And while I’m definitely lucky – both in terms of where I’ve worked and who I’ve got to work with – I do believe I’m pretty good at developing people and gangs – and I choose the word ‘gang’ very deliberate.
You see the word ‘gang’ means you have a motley crew of different people with different talents and outlooks who are united by a common philosophy, enemy and planning identity … whereas a department tends to be a production line of similar people, doing similar things with similar backgrounds and expectations.
Or as Lee Hill, my mentor and friend once said, “you can choose to partner with people who find interesting ways to open possibilities or people who are only focused on keeping things the same”.
And while there is nothing wrong with being boringly expected, it’s not what I value or what drives the greatest commercial growth … which is why – as part of the piece I was asked to write – I wrote this:
[Click on the image above to read it properly]
_________________________________________________________________________
It’s why I always say you should beware of those who offer convenient answers.
Or solutions that are more complicated than the actual problem.
Because you may find they end up costing you far more than the people who challenge or push you in terms of who you are pr who you want – or could – become.
See you properly a week on Monday – via something stupid on Friday.
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Yes, it’s Friday.
And yes, it’s the first of May.
But neither of those things are as incredible as this …
You see, on Sunday, it will be 20 years since I started this blog.
TWENTY BLOODY YEARS!
That’s before the iPhone.
And Android.
And Facebook.
And the Kindle.
And the financial crisis.
And before Pluto lost its planet creds.
AND BEFORE WI-FI WAS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE … so a very long time ago.
I still remember why I started it …
It wasn’t for any attempt for notoriety or popularity, it was more to do with survival.
You see I’d got a job that – frankly – I was woefully under-qualified for, and because it demanded so much of my time and energy to make sure I didn’t completely fuck it up, I needed an outlet for all the ideas and thoughts that were going around my head that I just didn’t feel were right for what I needed to do at that time.
Not because I was sure I was going to use them later … more because I needed to feel I was still connected to the stuff I loved while also believing that if I didn’t find a way to get them out of my head, they’d maybe be no more space left for anything new to enter my head.
And so this blog was born.
Reading through the first few posts not only reveals the times we were living in, but also the headspace I was in.
Trying to balance making sense of stuff happening around me while also needing an outlet for stuff I was feeling or thinking … which, in many ways, set the tone for how this blog has been for over 2 decades.
Which George recently described as, “the blog version of TK Maxx”.
He’s not wrong … and in some ways, I really like that.
Sure, among the almost 5000 posts I’ve written, there’s a lot of [to keep the TK Maxx analogy going] cheap and nasty shit in there … but there’s also a few ‘designer label’ gems hidden amongst it all.
At least for me.
Stuff that made me think, challenge or question stuff in ways that I had not imagined or considered before.
Stuff that ended up impacting how I did things and how I still do things.
Stuff that forced me to articulate what I believe, not just what I feel.
Maybe those posts meant nothing to anyone but me. Hell, maybe no one even read them. But while every post I’ve written reflects something about who I was – or am – those ‘self-defined gems’ have a special place in my heart because they represent a moment where I felt I was growing and learning.
It’s why I always enjoyed the comment section, because for all the overwhelming piss-taking I received, the vast majority always ‘encouraged’ me to look deeper, wider or longer at issues I’d written about. And I loved that. I loved how the people who commented always kept me on my toes … which is why one of the unexpected pleasures of writing this blog for so long has been seeing how my opinion on certain subjects has changed or evolved over the years. It’s served as a great reminder about the importance of always exposing yourself to others perspectives, opinions, experiences and standards, even if the goal of it is simply to be really sure about what you think or believe.
In many ways, that’s the biggest surprise of 20 years writing this blog.
I never expected anyone to comment on anything I wrote, because I started it just for me.
A private place to express my thoughts and idiocy.
But then Andy discovered it and he sent an email to everyone at Cynic and some of our clients announcing it and then the mayhem started.
At that point, blogging had become a big thing. A good thing. A community of people who wanted to help and contribute to what others were doing. A lot of this was down to the great Russell Davies and his iconic blog … a place that not only brought people from all over the world together, but inspired others to start writing their own as well.
It was a place that not only exposed me to a lot of brilliant people I’d never have known about without his blog – people like Gareth Kay, Paul Colman, Northern Planner, Rob Mortimer, Marcus, John Dodds, Lauren, Age to name but a few – it also brought people to my blog who helped add to the texture, lessons and perspectives I was writing about.
I will forever be grateful to Russell for that … especially as most of the people he inadvertently introduced me to, not only still exist in my life but I have met them all IN THE FLESH.
Alas the blogging community, like most things in life, has moved on with maybe only Martin and I still churning stuff out via that platform. [Well, he curates, I churn] And while technologies advances allows strategists to be even more connected in even more ways, the energy of the community is not the same as it was back in the early days of blogging.
Now it feels more aggressive.
More sharp elbows and self publicizing.
Wanting the spotlight on them rather than the work they do.
But then, the industry seems to value those who talk about the work more than those who actually make it … which kind-of highlights why the industry is in the state it finds itself in but refuses to acknowledge.
Emperor’s New Clothes anyone?!
Screenshot
That this blog is 20 years old blows my mind. I never thought it would last that long, mainly because I never gave much thought about how long I’d be writing the thing. It’s not always been fun – when I was receiving a lot of anonymous hate that resulted in me deciding to stop allowing comments was definitely a low point – but all in all, the whole experience has been pretty glorious.
In many ways, this is one of the longest committed relationships I’ve ever had.
And one of the most successful, hahaha.
The fact there are some people who have been reading it for almost as long as I have been writing it, is madness.
Have they no taste?
Have they got nothing better to do?
Or maybe they’re stuck in prison and this is part of their ‘sentence’.
The good news for them is there’s no way this will still be a ‘going concern’ in another 20 years … at least not in terms of how regular I’ve been writing posts for the past 2 decades. Not because I am running out of things to say [albeit Andy said I have only ever written 3 posts and just keep re-writing them in different ways] but because I’ll be – hopefully – doing other things with my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always be grateful to advertising … it has given me a life I never could have dared to imagine … but I am increasingly spending more and more of my time working and collaborating with artists and I feel that’s where my future may be. Not because I don’t love what I do, but because I find their definition and expression of creativity even more interesting, challenging, open, provocative and progressive than where our industry is choosing to head.
But that’s not going to happen yet. Hell, it may not happen at all – I could get fired by all the artists tomorrow for all I know – which is why for the time being, I’ll keep happily juggling my two ‘lives’ while churning out daily blog posts at the same time.
Sorry, hahaha.
That said, the point of continuing this blog is different to what you may think and why I originally started it.
Because while it has helped me grow, learn, make new friends and even help build my professional reputation [which is hilarious when you read some of the stuff I’ve churned out, like this!] … it delivers something that is even more important to me.
Connection to my family.
I know … I know … that sounds weird-as-fuck, but what I mean is this:
A few years ago, Jill said that while she rarely ever reads my blog, when she does – she can hear my voice because of the way I write.
Put simply, how I write is how I talk … so when she reads my posts, it feels like I’m with her.
And she liked that.
Add to this that I’ve shared deeply personal and important moments in my life – from getting engaged to getting married, to Mum dying, to becoming a Dad, to getting Rosie – and Bonnie – to saying a tearful goodbye to Rosie, to moving from Singapore to HK to China to America to London to New Zealand [so far] … which means moving from cynic/WPP to Sunshine to Wieden+Kennedy to Deutsch to R/GA to Colenso [not to mention all the other highs and lows that have impacted or been introduced to my life over this period, be it death, covid, friends, family, health, books, chaos, and/or multitudes of weird, wild, crazy shit] … and this blog is no longer just a place where I rant rubbish, it’s a place my family can have me close even when I’m no longer here.
That means a lot to me.
Not because I want them to need me, but because I like knowing they can access me should they ever need me.
Or if Otis ever wants to introduce me to whoever becomes important in his life.
It’s why I’m going to keep writing it and why I’m going to move it to a free domain again, to make sure it always stay up … because what originally was a place just for me, has become a place that offers connection to the most important people to me.
And with that, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has ever visited or commented.
Whether you meant it or not, you’ve given me far more than I ever imagined or hoped for.
Thank you. Love you. Grateful for you.