Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Emotion, Film, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Point Of View, Provocative, Queen, Reputation, Success, Succession, Television
This is a long post.
Proper long.
And given I overwrite everything, that is probably a scary thought.
But I hope you hang in there, because it’s something important – at least to me. And who knows, it may trigger some thoughts – or hate – and I’ll consider that a win. Maybe, ahem.
So I don’t know about you, but I miss the TV show, Succession.
I miss the characters … the writing … the inconvenient truth how companies – and some families – work.
And while there are many articles and reports dedicated to explaining what ‘worked’, I recently read something that captured how it worked.
I love that write up.
I love it for a whole host of reasons … of which one is acknowledging that to make something that can capture so many people’s attention for so long, is an act of creative magnificence.
And while we may all nod our heads in agreement, the thing is we forget that.
We forget the challenge of keeping millions engaged and interested over a period of time.
Or maybe more specifically, we have forgotten HOW to do it.
Let’s be honest, the attitude of many brands is ‘keep things the same’ or ‘don’t fuck it up’ … while not realizing the biggest risk to achieving what they want to achieve is literally doing the same thing, in the same way, over-and-over again.
Of course, a big reason for their attitude is their quest for attribution.
Where the brand is synonymous and attributed to what they do/say/communicate.
However, rather than achieve this by doing interesting things that audiences value and can engage in – which is literally, the fastest, most effective way to build active, interested, engaged and committed attribution – we see more of the lazy approach. An approach sold by people with methodologies that mistake repetition as reputation.
Hence, we see countless campaigns featuring ‘consistent fictional characters’ doing variations of the same thing no one really cares about or relates to as if they’re trying to do a homage to the ‘Gold Blend’ coffee ads from the UK. WHICH CAME OUT IN THE 1980’S!!! Or the modern equivalent, where every element of every piece of communication is plastered with cues of whatever colour a brand is associated with. All the while ignoring the fact what it actually does is pull people out of their engagement with the communication because they’re questioning/wondering/laughing what sort of person drives a red car, lives in a red house – with red wallpaper – and only eat red vegetables. But even that isn’t the lowest of the low. No … that belongs to the work that shoves a watermark of the brand logo/name into the top left-or-right-hand-side of all their work … as if acknowledging their communication is so boring that the only way to know who it is from is to literally shove it in front of their faces.
I’m not saying ‘brand assets’ aren’t a thing … but they only become that with creativity.
Over time.
Continually reinforced … expressed … added to.
Without that, you end up with things that are more like weights than rockets.
And that’s the problem I have with so a bunch of the marketing practice being peddled …
Because they fail to appreciate the difference between recognition and value.
Or meaning.
Or resonance.
Or connection.
As I said to a client recently, just because I know what the swastika is, doesn’t mean I want to be a Nazi.
But that’s where we’re at right now … repeat, repeat, repeat.
Which is why that comment on Succession is so important.
Because they understand the importance of constantly adding to the narrative, not repeating it.
Keeping viewers not just interested … but on their toes.
Which leads to them engaging with the show, even when they’re not watching it.
Talking, discussing, sharing, commenting, deducing, arguing.
A program where none of the characters had many redeeming features, kept millions around the world coming back to them.
To learn. To listen. To grow. To hate. To debate.
Is that hard to do?
Of course.
Is it impossible to do?
Nope … especially when you hire proper talent and let them do what they’re great at, rather than value talent on how little they cost and then tell them what to make. Even though you don’t have experience in knowing how to make things people want to engage with.
But as a friend said to me recently, there were no conversations about ‘attribution’ with Succession were there!?
Nope. Not one. Not even from the first episode.
And maybe that was because they didn’t start the show with the intent of creating the lowest common denominator of recognition … then repeating it over and over and over again. No … their intention was to make something interesting … and then keep adding to that so their audiences would keep giving a fuck.
Look, I have no problem with marketing practice.
It is important and has a real role and value in building brands and driving effective marketing.
But that role and value is only released when it is done well and honestly … and right now, it feels there’s a lot of soundbites and not a lot of depth.
Selling systems that promise simplicity but ultimately are outsourcing responsibility.
Outsourcing responsibility to people who can profit from it, despite having no experience in actually creating it.
The irony is we all want the same thing.
Hell, we all need the same thing.
But there’s a major difference between playing not to lose and playing to win so maybe there needs to be more conversations about that, rather than blindly follow people who present themselves as business liberators when really, they’re good insurance salespeople.
Of course, the reality is that, despite what some may say, there’s not one ‘all encompassing’ answer to all this.
I get how expensive everything is so the temptation to stick and stay with what you know and what is working for you, is high. But regardless who you are, it will not last forever and it’s far better to own the change than be left behind by it.
Just ask the Disney execs how they’re feeling as they watch their Marvel universe start to implode.
Building anything is a journey that goes through highs and lows along the way.
But it’s the people who think – or say – they can stop that, who end up creating branded mediocrity.
Or should I way, ‘mediocrity attribution’.
Which is why there is one final example of the commercial value of adding to a story rather than repeating it and that’s Queen.
Specifically their recent sale of their back catalogue for ONE BILLION POUNDS.
Whether you like the band or not, you can’t say that is not an impressive number.
And while even I – a massive Queen fan – accept that in 1986, they stopped being musicians and became entertainers [aka: ‘turned crap’] … it’s the music they made until that point that gave them their legacy, fans and economic value.
Because rather than basically repeat their first hit over and over again … they kept taking people to different and interesting places.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Cannes, China, Comment, Complicity, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Effectiveness, Honesty, Imagination, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Metallica, Nike, Paula, Planners, Point Of View, Provocative, Succession, Uncorporated, Wieden+Kennedy
When Tiger and Nike recently ended their relationship after close on 3 decades, there was a lot written about why.
Hot takes.
Wild ideas.
Conspiracy theories.
But among them all was a post by Tom Bassett – a brilliant ex-Wieden strategist who was there when so much of what became Nike folklore was written.
The reason his voice stood out is because it wasn’t WHY the relationship ended, but why it started.
At the heart of his story was the brief Phil Knight gave for NIKE Golf.
He said: “Get NIKE to be #1 in golf or we get out the category all together”.
Having had the errrrm, pleasure(?) to meet and present to Mr Knight a few times, I can literally hear him saying/barking this … and what I love about it is the stubborn, blinkered ambition.
We seem to live in a world where the majority of conversation is around optimization … efficiency … brand assets … and basically how to get the most out of what you’ve got.
There’s nothing wrong with that, except it’s all about not being wrong than being as good as you can be.
Or said another way, being comfortable with what you’ve got as opposed to being impatient for what you want to have.
Get to #1 is a proper goal. One where the evaluation criteria is very fucking simple.
No hiding behind incremental growth or internal metrics … #1 is a criteria that dictates decisions and investment rather than the other way around.
Sure, there are ways #1 could be reframed in an attempt to look like you’re doing better than you are . Let’s face it, we see this sort of shit in the ad industry all the time, especially around award time … but Phil Knight wasn’t about skewing results but going right at them … which is why he didn’t place any additional burdens on how to achieve goal, other than demand it was true to the sport and how NIKE see’s the athlete.
Sounds easy, but it isn’t.
To do that takes a lot of confidence.
Confidence in who you are … confidence in your team … confidence in what your company stands for and confidence your company is full of people who know what that translates to in terms of behaviour, consideration and action.
And that’s why we often undermine the value of confidence and right it off as bravado.
Of course it can be that, but it is also about trust, experience, knowledge and openness.
As a chef once told me when we were doing Tobasco research at W+K, “the more confident the chef, the less ingredients they use”
And that’s why I love the clarity of Phil Knight’s objective.
He could have added a million mandatories, but he knew that would add a million reasons why his objective would then be almost impossible to achieve.
At least in a realistic timeline.
Which is why, as difficult as the objective was, he increased its chances of success by being clear as fuck and – to a certain degree – open as fuck. Enabling the team to not just tackle the project head on – rather than tap-dance around politics and restraint – but to also place responsibility back on the company in terms of what it needed them to do to help make it happen.
Not just in terms of money, but action and change.
It is one of the many reasons why I loved my time in China … why I loved Branson’s brief for the Virgin lounge … why I love working for Metallica and Mr Ji.
Sure, in China’s case, it was often more the ambition and scale than the clarity … but for the others, it is/was the single-minded, stubbornness of their objective, the trust they placed in the people they were asking to help them do it, the commitment of the whole organisation to give it the best chance of making it happen and the willingness to walk away rather than accept a poor substitute of what they wanted to change.
We need more of that.
Creative work would be more amazing for that.
Effectiveness would be more powerful for that.
But sadly we’re in a world where it’s all about hedging bets, outsourcing responsibility and managing internal politics rather than being focused, fierce and open on creating change.
Proper change.
Real change.
Massive change.
It all kind of ties in with the ‘Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative’ talk Martin, Paula and I did in Cannes last year.
The obsession with playing to the process while being continually outsmarted by those who are focused on enabling the possibility.
And while some claimed we were being irresponsible, unrealistic and even unprofessional in what we were saying, the reality is we have – and are – in the incredibly fortunate position of working with brands/people who prove the most responsible way to create powerful and lasting change is not by hedging your bets, but being willing and open to fight for it all.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Business, Comment, Complicity, Confidence, Consultants, Context, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Fake Attitude, Imposter Syndrome, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Prejudice, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Succession, Toxic Positivity, Trust, Truth
I appreciate that at my age, the title of this post may suggest I’m going to whine about companies overlooking people of a certain age for younger, cheaper, hungrier individuals.
I’m not. I get it.
Not only that, while age and knowledge have some level of interconnectedness … I’ve met countless young people who are bloody brilliant [not relative to their age, just bloody brilliant] as well as plenty of people with ‘experience’ who, frankly, aren’t.
What I’m talking about is the blinkered confidence some companies place in their people simply because they’re their people.
On one hand I suppose I should celebrate it, given its not that long ago that companies overlooked internal capability for the external shiny and new.
And while this post does not reflect any of the clients I specifically work with directly, I am seeing and hearing more and more companies go to this other extreme and worse … enabling a level of arrogance in their people that results in any objectivity they face – regardless of the knowledge and expertise of the person delivering it, let alone the desire to help make things more successful – as a threat.
Complicity is the name of the game these days.
Blind acceptance that whatever the person ‘in charge’ says, is right.
A belief internal employees are better informed about every topic than people who are experts in specific topics … so companies can feel great about themselves.
Of course, the issue with this approach is that when things go wrong – or don’t go right enough – everyone else gets the blame. Not just by the person in charge [which you almost expect] but by the company they work for, despite the fact the only reason they gave this employee the project is because they knew a bit more about a subject than senior management, so they saw them as [1] an expert in the field and [2] a cheaper option that bringing in external expertise.
Now you’d think the fear of this outcome would ensure people would stand up for what they believe is right.
Not because they’re arrogant, but because they know their experience and knowledge can disproportionally benefit the end result.
And some do. At least the really good ones …
But even they are under increasing pressure to go along with the whims and wants of certain people/companies … because the whole industry is seeing more and more work being handed to people and companies who simply say yes to whatever is wanted.
Or said another way, convenience and fawning is more valued then expertise, knowledge and standards.
Now of course, it’s human nature to believe we can do more than we actually can.
We all like to think we are ‘special’.
We all like to be acknowledged as important.
We’ve all heard the ‘fake it till you make it’ philosophy.
But the truly special are the ones who know that however good they are, having people around them who are better than them – in different fields – can make them even more effective.
It’s why the World’s best athletes have coaches.
It’s why the World’s best musicians have producers.
It’s why my brilliant ex-NIKE/FFI client, Simon Pestridge, said: “middle management want to be told they’re right. Senior management want to know how they can be better”.
The reason I say all this is that I recently reached out to one of the best organisational psychologists in the World. They work with the CEO’s of some of the most respected and successful companies in the World including Apple, NIKE, Ferrari and Electronic Arts to name a few.
This is what they said when I talked to them about what I was seeing:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“I call them professional imposters and the reason so many succeed in corporations is because they target other imposters. It becomes a co-dependent relationship where they ensure their ego, status or promotion opportunities won’t be challenged.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To be honest, I was not shocked by their view, I was more shocked by the acknowledgment.
Of course, I probably shouldn’t be. It’s hardly a new phenomenon and we also had one of the most successful shows in TV history shine a light on it …
Succession was a celebration of the role of co-dependence and complicity within organisations.
As I wrote recently, Tom was the epitome of it.
But this post is about Tom before he ‘won’ [even though he is still a pawn to the real power] … this is about Tom when he just wanted to please to win favour. Where he thought nothing of being vicious and vindictive to those beneath him because he knew that didn’t just please the people above him, it let him feel he was above everyone around him.
And so Tom eventually gets promoted beyond his capability …
Where the illusion of power and external fawning is more important to him than pay checks.
Where his belief is he is superior to all, regardless of knowledge or experience.
Where his understanding of situations is the only understanding of a situation.
Yeah, it’s bleak. It’s fucking bleak. Because while Tom was fiction, Trump got to be President of America. And what makes it worse is we all see it. Hell, we’ve probably all been exposed to it. And yet it goes on.
If companies truly want to be great, then they’ve got to kill and stop rewarding toxic positivity … because value will be revealed when they allow more people to say no to them and they say yes to more people.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Content, Context, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Culture, Individuality, Management, Succession, Television
For all the claims TV is dead, we’ve been living through a golden age of it.
Nothing sums that up more than Succession.
What a total masterpiece.
Writing.
Casting.
Acting.
Craft.
All absolutely stellar.
I am genuinely sad it is all done.
I am also convinced Jesse Armstrong is a genuine storytelling genius.
Obviously lots of praise has been rightfully heaped on the show, but I think Peter Friedman – who played Frank in the show – sums it up best …
“There’s been a degree of excellence that one should be wistful about, because I don’t know how soon each of us will find it again.”
Now I’ve had time to relax from the intensity of the final ever episode … I’ve realised there are certain characteristics that connect Succession to the few shows of it’s stature – for example, something like The Wire.
Attention to detail.
The need for the viewer to pay close attention.
The ugly truth of everyday reality.
For all the ‘twists and turns’ the show took you on, nothing should really have been a surprise. It was all laid out in-front of you when you looked at the character of the characters.
The greed.
The arrogance.
The ambition.
The ego.
HBO went to great lengths to understand how this manifests in real life by working with people who are genuinely from these backgrounds.
For example, no one wears a coat because billionaires are always delivered right to the door of where they are going. And no one bends down when leaving a helicopter, because they have spent their life traveling in them that no one fears for their head being chopped off by the rotor blades.
Little things we may not notice but somehow conveys authenticity through actions and behaviours.
It’s why I found Roman’s breakdown towards the end of the series so powerful.
SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT GOT TO THE END.
Watching him fall apart as he realises the person who enabled his arrogant … vulgar … depraved consequence free life is no longer there, was incredible. A car crash of character that you could not take your eyes off that somehow also ignited sympathy you never thought he deserved. And then the final moment … where you witness him recognising that he’s not just free from the bullshit that has fed his life and his vacuous meaning, but that he is finally a true equal with his siblings because of their shared ultimate failure.
It was inspiring.
The whole thing was depressingly inspiring.
And I’ll tell you why … because it was all based on an ugly reality we all know but choose to ignore, and that is the ‘needy crawlers’, win.
If a company has a choice between individuality and complicity, they will generally choose complicity.
Someone who will do their dealing.
Someone who will take the heat.
Someone who knows their place.
Someone who will be obedient.
Obedience is important …
It allows the abdication of guilt for all decisions.
It creates a layer between them and the anger of others.
It ensures they always have support for whatever they choose.
It removes the risk of being challenged, questioned or undermined by those close.
By choosing someone who has an insatiable need to be associated with power and influence, not only do you know they will sacrifice anything – and anyone – to be given access to it, but you can give them the highest of high-profile corporate positions, and be safe in the knowledge they’ll still be subservient to you.
It’s the ugliest of ugly truths.
The most vulgar of corporate realities.
And a perfect expression of what I saw when I lived in America.
People managing up, regardless of consequence or expectation.
People being paid vast amounts for their complicity rather than talent.
People creating fear to ensure they always stay in power and control.
Of course not everyone is like this.
And of course, this is not limited to just the US.
But what made Succession so powerful is that even though it was about billionaires, it reflected what most people have seen or experienced at some time. That regardless of wealth, standing, status or connections … there is always someone we answer to and those who are acquiescent to them will always be the ones they choose to progress.
Despite being a show filled with conniving, untrustworthy, unlikable, spoilt, greedy and entitled bastards … I’m going to miss Succession. Though what makes the loss more bearable is knowing that should I ever need another taste of it, all I have to do is turn to reality to witness the people and companies who trade values and morals for power and control.
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’.