Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Devious Strategy, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Unplanned
One of the things I love is building a planning team who is like a gang.
A bunch of intelligent misfits who all have unique ways of looking at the World but share a common philosophy in terms of what we want to do, change and impact.
I don’t care how people approach their challenges, I don’t mind if people aren’t the best of friends … but it’s important we have each others back and are open to offering opinion, advice and help if needed, even if individually, there is a healthy level of competition to do the best work of the team.
Of course, this is easier to achieve the longer you stay in a company as you can truly stamp your personality on the department but it’s not totally necessary … you just have to be clear in your beliefs, consistent in your actions and lead by example.
Now whether I’ve achieved any of this is something you’d ultimately have to ask the brilliant people who have worked with me at my previous agencies, but as I’ve started a new job at R/GA, I wanted to rally the team around a set of beliefs and language that can start unifying us more closely so I decided to make us all a set of stickers.
Yes, stickers.
I know … R/GA is an agency that wants to make the future … but apart from the fact we’re about creating stuff that comes from culture rather than ignores them, I have a new laptop that needs ‘customising’ so I thought stickers would be a perfect way to kill 2 birds with one stone.
With that in mind, each member of the team has received a set of the stickers above.
17 stickers that convey our philosophy on such matters as what we believe, how we work and what we want to do.
Some are obvious, some are maybe a bit more esoteric … but even if people absolutely hate them, at least I can say I’ve made something that truly has stuck – even if that is literal rather than philosophical – which, I’m sure you’ll agree, makes a pleasant change.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, China, Comment, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, Differentiation, Food For Thought, Goodbye China, Hello America, Insight, Internet, Interviews, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, My Fatherhood, Otis, Paul, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Pretentious Rubbish, Relevance, Resonance, Social Media, Standards, The Kennedys, The Kennedys Shanghai, Unexpected Relevance, Unplanned, Unprofessional Professional, Wieden+Kennedy
How is your 2018 going so far?
I know it’s still early days – but is it looking good or bad?
Well, if it’s looking positive, I’m about to ruin it for you and if it is looking dodgy, I’m going to help you solidify your opinion.
Why?
Well, a few weeks ago, a nice guy called Paul McEnany asked if he could interview me about my career.
While I’m sure his reasoning for his request was to help planners learn what not to do, my ego said yes even before my mouth did … and while the end result is the bastard love child of rambling randomness and base-level swearing, it’s the perfect way to justify your pessimism for 2018 or to ensure your optimism for the new year doesn’t get too high.
So go here and errrrrm, enjoy [if that’s the right word for it, which it isn’t] and after you’ve heard my crap, listen to the brilliant interviews with people like Gareth Kay, Russell Davies, Richard Huntingdon, Martin Weigel and the amazing Chris Riley because apart from being hugely interesting and inspiring, you’ll get the added bonus of [1] undeniable proof I’m a massive imposter and [2] the knowledge that if I can have some sort of semi-successful career in advertising, you certainly can.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Empathy, Insight, Marketing, Planning, Unplanned
I know … I know … I really did write that blog post header.
And yes, I really am talking about James Blunt, the man that can make a choir on Songs Of Praise [is that still going] look like Black Sabbath in their prime.
But don’t forget, this is a guy who is disarmingly self aware.
A guy who uses his self-depreciation to turn you from a hater into a fan.
OK, not a fan of his music but – as I wrote here – a fan of who he is.
And recently I saw something that just makes me like him more …
Yep, that’s James Blunt on Tinder.
A man who people think has got laid more than a $2 crack whore in a room of drunk and horny jocks.
OK, so getting laid a lot is part of the ‘rock star’ cliche, but I still find this move to be brilliant.
Not just because he has found a way to make money from his perception.
Not just because he partnered with platform that is the epitome of his perception.
But because he has shown that when you deal with the commentary others have about you directly, you don’t just rob them of their ammunition, you give yourself a chance to change that perception.
I’ve talked about this a lot – I called it the 8-Mile strategy, after the Eminem movie, specifically the end rap battle at 6 minutes 40 seconds – but it’s also something else I wrote about.
The power of unplanned planning.
Unplanned is where a brand speaks in seemingly obvious terms.
Not in terms of what they do, but in terms of what people think you do.
For example, when Scalextric – the model car racing brand – embraced the perception the only reason men want their little boys playing with Scalextric is because it gives them an excuse to play it for themselves.
Did you click on the link?
Seriously, you should – it not only demonstrates what I’m blathering on about, it’s a great ad.
Great because it’s funny. Great because it’s relatable. Great because it doesn’t fall into marketing bullshit.
Can you tell I really, really like it?
So why do I think this approach works when the industry is seemingly so obsessed with talking about bigger purpose stuff?
Because in my opinion, it’s easier to nudge people’s perception of you if you talk in the context of how they already view you rather than spending millions trying to convince them that who you are is totally different to what they believe or are willing to accept.
It is, in some ways, the ultimate demonstration of honesty.
A lot of brands could learn from that.
Ten years ago today, I started this blog.
TEN YEARS.
That’s longer that 99% of Hollywood marriages!!!
Now while I’ve experienced a huge amount of things in that time …
I’ve lived in 4 countries.
I got married.
I got a cat.
I had a baby.
My mum passed away.
I sold both my companies.
I got to travel the World.
I qualified as a bloody teacher.
I bought countless amounts of tech rubbish.
I managed to still stay employed.
Got to do some of the best work I’ve ever done.
I had the best holiday of my entire life.
I had the most needed holiday of my entire life.
… and so has the World …
Global economic collapse.
Olympic Games in China and London.
The re-emergence of global terrorism.
The first black President.
[Yes, I know there’s a ton more, but my memory isn’t what it used to be]
… the fact is, the standard of my writing and my posts subject matter have remained pretty much the same.
Want proof?
Here’s the very first post I wrote.
Now you might think that I’m dissing myself by highlighting this fact, but when you take into account I’ve written TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED POSTS [I know, mad eh!] I think it shows a level of consistency and reliability than Volkswagen would be jealous of.
According to the stats, there’s literally been millions of idiots who have supposedly visited this blog – but the fact is, the majority of comments have come from pretty much the same small group of people as it always did.
Sure, some have come, some have gone … some have even gone and then come back … and even this blog supposedly closed down only to start up again because I’m a sad, sadomasochistic fool … but the fact is I have to admire their commitment and industriousness because they’ve managed to write over SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND comments between them.
Or should I say 64,000 insults.
OK, of that 64,000 … at least half are by me trying to protect my honour, but that’s still impressive.
Of course, it could be argued that the reason so many people now check out my rubbish is because there’s less blogs now than there used to be.
Back in 2006, every man and his dog had one … but in the past 10 years, it appears people have grown up and decided it’s better to live a life rather than write about one. Or they simply moved all their complaining over to Twitter.
While some may say the reason I have continued writing when everyone else has left is because I am always a few years behind the times, I prefer to think of it as me winning the ultimate game of [blog] survivor.
Except by me winning, it means humanity has lost.
But despite everything … despite all the good, bad and indifferent stuff that has happened on this blog … I feel this blog has made a powerful difference in my life.
Not because of the rubbish I write – though it has been interesting to debate and learn from people as well as see how my viewpoints have evolved/changed in the past decade – but because it’s introduced me to a whole host of wonderful and interesting people.
The reality is there’s now a bunch of people in my life that are here because of this blog.
Sure, some of them I knew already.
In fact some of them I worked for – or with.
However there’s a bunch that I only know because of this thing I write every day.
I’ve been fortunate to meet many of them – but there’s still a few who have managed to stay away [well done Northern and Marcus] – but the fact is I’m super grateful to have them in my life and despite their cheek and mischief, I know that when the shit hits the fan [as it did last year when Mum passed away], they are watching out for me.
That’s pretty wonderful for anyone, even more so when it’s the byproduct of starting something simple because I wanted a place where I could release – or store – my brainfarts.
God knows if this blog will have another 10 years in it – I know you hope it doesn’t – but the first decade of it ended up being pretty damn awesome. At least for me. So thank you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, China, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Consultants, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Differentiation, Diversity, Empathy, Honesty, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Social Media, Standards, Technology, Unplanned, WeigelCampbell
A few weeks ago, the lovely/stupid folks at WARC asked me to be part of a conversation to discuss whether strategists were well equipped to embrace the opportunity that clients valued brand strategy more than any other discipline.
If you’re a WARC member, you can watch the whole discussion here, but all the panelists were asked to give a 5 minute introductory talk about their perspective on the issue.
I used no slides, but if I had, I’d have used the image at the top of this page that comes from a presentation I recently gave to Rockstar Games. Not because it’s arresting, but because if no one paid any attention to what I said, they’d still get a good idea about where I stand on things.
But for those who want to know a bit more detail, this is what I said.
_____________________________________________________________________________
“We are in an interesting situation.
We have more flavours and capabilities in strategy than ever before.
We have more opportunities to learn the craft of strategy than ever before.
And – according to reports – we have more demand from clients for strategy than ever before.
That all sounds fucking fantastic for the strategy discipline, except we continue to see …
+ Strategic thinking being given away or discounted.
+ Tighter and tighter deadlines for strategy to be concluded.
+ The abdication of strategic thought to ‘whatever the data or platform owners say’.
+ More value placed on the process of strategy than the outcome of it.
+ A reduction in strategic training and development from agencies and companies alike.
+ Huge swathes of strategists being made redundant every single day.
+ A continued reluctance to hire people of colour or people born outside of capital cities
[and when we do, we tell them they’ll only be valued if they act exactly like the incumbents]
+ And from my view, less distinctive, disruptive and long-term strategy than we’ve seen before.
So when I compare the claims ‘the strategy future is rosie’ with the reality going down all around us, something doesn’t add up.
Which leads me to think there are 3 possibilities.
1. The strategy clients want is less about strategy and more about repackaging what they’ve already decided or simply don’t want to have to deal with.
2. The strategy companies/agencies want is less about strategy and more about doing whatever will keep the client relationship happy.
3. The strategy strategists do is less about taking lateral leaps forward and more literal shuffles towards the justification of whatever our clients want to have justified.
OK, I’m being a prick … but only partially.
Somewhere along the line we all seem to have forgotten what strategy is and what it is supposed to do.
To quote my planning husband, Mr Weigel, strategy should …
+ Make things happen
+ Move things forward
+ Create new possibilities
+ Create greater value for the audience and the business.
Or said another way, strategy is about movement, momentum and direction. Where the day after a strategy is engaged, the behaviour of the company or brand is fundamentally different to the day before. A distinctive, sustainable difference designed to deliver breakthrough results born from identifying a real business problem, nuanced understanding of the audience [rather than convenient generalisations] and commercial intimacy … by that I mean knowing who the company actually is, how they operate and how they need to in these modern times.
Prof Lawrence Freedman, the author of A History of Strategy … said it best:
“Strategy is about revolution. Anything else is just tactics.”
And we’re seeing a lot of tactics these days.
And while eco-systems, frameworks, brand onions, data, D2C, UX, creative briefs, ads and comms are all parts of the strategic journey, they’re rarely THE strategy.
Nor is creating endless sub-thinking for every decision, implication or possibility because, at best – they can paralyse the potential of the strategy and end up just creating incremental change rather than fundamental or – at worse – just cause mass fucking confusion.
And don’t get me started on optimisation or user journeys or white-label solutions or writing endless decks that go nowhere … because they’re often more about keeping things the same than moving things forward.
This discipline has been my life. I believe in it and I’m employed because of it. It can create incredible opportunity and value and has some incredible talent working in it and – more excitedly – wanting to work in it. But the reality is for all the people who have strategy in their title, few are setting the stage for brilliantly creative, commercially advantageous, progressive revolution … most of us are simply executing a small part of someone else’s thinking and then going off thinking we’re hot shit.
What this means is as a discipline, we’re in danger of becoming like a contestant on Love Island, initially interesting to meet but ultimately blunt, disposable and forgettable.
And while there’s many reasons for this – some beyond our control – we are contributing to it by acting like our own worst enemy. Doing things like arguing about which ‘flavour of strategy’ is the right ‘flavour of strategy’ for the modern age.
Apart from the fact most of the ‘new flavours’ are just re-badged versions of old strategic rigour – albeit with some more consideration and expression in it – this is just an argument of ego that’s distracting us from the real issue …
We can be so much more than we think we are.
We need to be so much more than we think we are.
But to realise this we need to stop thinking of strategy as if it’s engineering or simply the act of being able to think strategically … and get back to objective, distinctive and focused revolution.
I’ll leave you with one more quote from Prof Freedman:
“Strategy is getting more from a situation than the starting balance of power suggests”.
If we’re not doing that, then we’re not just kidding ourselves … but also our entire discipline and our clients trust.
And while they’re many reasons for it – as I have already mentioned – we’re all kidding ourselves a lot these days.
As with everything, what happens next is up to us. But I hope it results in us being strategically dangerous because when we’re in full flight, that’s when we’ll show how much value we can add to commerce, culture and creativity”.