Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, China, Cliches, Clothes, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Consultants, Context, Craft, Crap Products In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cynic, Delusion, Distinction, Equality, Fake Attitude, Imposter Syndrome, London, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Professionalism, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Wieden+Kennedy
This is a post about naming strategies.
Yes, I know I’ve talked about this before.
A lot of times before.
The processes.
The considerations.
The complications.
… but mainly it’s been about how certain branding consultancies charge an absolute fortune to come up with some utter nonsensical bullshit that they back up with 1000’s of pages of self-serving pseudo-science bullshit and still end up creating something pants. Kind of like the explanation of the Pepsi rebrand from 15 years ago. Or most Linkedin ‘guru’ pontification.
But the other side of this is when people choose to put no effort in whatsoever.
Hiding their recommendation behind terms such as ‘colloquial context’ or ‘cultural vernacular’.
Don’t get me wrong, there are times where a stripped back approach can be powerful.
A way to connect to society by taking their cultural references and contexts head-on.
Hell, cynic used to embrace an approach that we literally called, ‘unplanned‘.
However, while this was about removing any element of pomposity, it still had to elevate how people saw or connected to what we did. Any fool can churn out lowest common denominator stuff … but it takes a certain amount of skill and flair to develop something that not only connects and engages the masses, but does it in a way where the value of the product/brand is increased and improved to all.
We used to call this ‘massperation’ … which still makes me feel sick even today, hahahaha.
I say all this to justify something I saw recently.
Or should I say something Otis saw recently.
You see down the road from us there’s a house being built.
It’s in full-on construction mode and as it is on the way to Otis’ school, he passes it every day.
Anyway, one day he came and told me he’d seen the building site loo and was shocked with its name.
It was this:
That’s right, it’s called the ‘Shitbox’.
To be honest, I’m not sure if Otis should have been more surprised at the name or the fact it proudly states it’s a ‘high viz’ toilet box.
HIGH FUCKING VIZ!
Is the toilet going to be walking along the street late at night? Do builders have such bad eyesight they can’t find a 6 foot high toilet without it being painted bright orange? Are construction workers such bad drivers they need to be warned of where the portaloos are so as not to hit them?
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?
Anyway, I digress.
The point is that while calling the portaloo a ‘shitbox’ may make sense … I can’t help but feel it is also playing into the builder cliche. Sure, cliches happen because they represent a common behavior or attitude that is played out over a sustained period of time … but often this is only a ‘perceived’ behavior or attitude [usually promoted by an individual or organisation who have found a way to monetise the acceptance of this view] that victimizes anyone who does not live upto the cliche.
I appreciate you may think I’ve gone full-on woke … but apart from the fact I don’t think considering others is a bad thing, I see this behaviour over and over again.
Hell, even Jaguar – with their ‘interesting’ rebrand did it by revealing their new concept cars in pink and blue.
PINK AND FUCKING BLUE.
They made such a big deal about how they ‘delete ordinary’, ‘break moulds’ and ‘copy nothing’ and then they actively, loudly and proudly reinforce the most basic of gender stereotypes. On the World fucking stage!
I totally appreciate you can go over-the-top with this stuff – especially given this whole post was inspired by a building site portaloo. I also get people may think I am suggesting we should name products/brands with words that offer no defining characteristic to avoid any potential stereotype. But neither of those are what I’m trying to say.
All I am attempting to point out is that words matter. And while I fully appreciate naming is a difficult task, I find it fascinating companies spend millions on ‘solutions’ that tend to fall into either pompous, basic or made-up.
Or said another way, names that define, limit or pander rather than celebrate those who use them and the reasons they do.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, New Zealand, Tourism
I’ve written a bunch about how poor ‘nation tourism’ campaigns generally are.
A mass of vignettes that try and cram in every possible activity/sight in a desperate bid to appeal to literally everyone … while failing to understand they inspire no one because they’re the same as every other bloody nation, regardless of climate, geography or economy.
Of course, there are the odd exceptions … but apart from the original NZ Tourism ‘100% Pure’ campaign [which was the only nation tourism work that had a real, long-term, sustainable idea in it – rather than a good one-off execution – and even that has now been diluted to boardroom acceptable cliché and contrived blandom] it’s all pretty uninspiring, cookie-cutter stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I know how hard these campaigns must be given the amount of ‘committee pleasing and politics’ that must go on, but it still amazes me how much an economically important category ends up being treated like some superficial toy by governments who don’t have enough understanding of their own people, let alone the people of other nations they wish to attract.
Which is all my way of saying I found this idea by Mauritius interesting.
And I mean the idea of it rather than the execution – which is, to be honest, pants.
It’s like a cross between a tourism campaign, a wealth sovereign fund campaign, a timeshare campaign, a retirement campaign and a nomad visa campaign. And while that might sound like a mass of messy audiences … they’re very clear on who they are targeting, why they are targeting them and the benefit this audience – and the nation – will get from doing it.
And while the idea of ‘a place to relax, enjoy life and not work’ is possibly the most cliched holiday destination proposition you could get, when it’s offered as a life – as opposed to a holiday destination – it becomes so much more. Because for 50+ year olds, with a bit of cash who are thinking/starting to retire … this isn’t just about having a chance to escape where they are, but a chance to escape who they are – the gift for easy reinvention and exploration – and as invitations go, that’s far more compelling than ‘spend 2 weeks somewhere you haven’t.
Creatively smart.
Culturally smart.
Economically smart.
And from a government. Who knew …
Have a look at it here:
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Ambition, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audacious, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Cannes, Collaboration, Comment, Confidence, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Differentiation, Distinction, Emotion, Fast Food, Food, IMU, Innovation, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Paula, Planners, Provocative, Qantas, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Smell
Over the years, I’ve written a lot about collabs.
The good.
The bad.
The ridiculous.
But recently there has been one that has somehow achieved all three. AT ONCE.
That’s right, the glorious, overpowering flavor of Pickled Onion Monster Munch and Heinz mayo.
It’s the combination no one asked for … no one expected and no one imagined could work.
And it doesn’t, and yet it does.
It’s possible the unhealthiest and most unpleasant thing you could ever put in your mouth and yet – if you’re like me – and love Monster Munch, it’s something you could not possibly resist from trying.
Hell, when we moved to London back in 2018, it was literally the first ‘British’ food item I got Otis to try – literally the morning after we arrived – and the fact he liked them [at least he did, then] made me burst with so much pride, I could overlook his development of an American accent. Just. Check it out below..
But here’s the thing, similar to when the Absolut Disco Ball packaging made me buy alcohol, despite having not drunk anything since I was FIFTEEN YEARS OLD, this collab made me go to absolute lengths to get it into my hands.
You see you couldn’t buy it in NZ so I had to adopt different means.
I wrote to Heinz.
I joined their ‘fan club/DTC’ service.
I explored supermarkets in both America and Australia.
I contacted courier services about getting it and delivering it to me.
In the end, a plea on social media was answered by the incredible thoughtful Jestyn on Twitter/X … who not only got it for me, but sent it to me as well.
And while I would not get it again … the fact is I was not only more excited about it than 99% of brands out there, but I went to greater lengths to get my hands on it than I would for 99% of brands despite the fact I knew it was overtly bad for you and I’m Mr Healthy these days so I was perfectly aware that I’d only ever taste it once.
While there are many possible lessons we could learn from the creation of this, albeit, novelty product – be if fandom, communities or unexpected relevance – the real lesson is to follow, and then protect, the excitement.
The stuff that captures the imagination.
The stuff that changes the conversation.
The stuff that keeps people on their toes.
The stuff everyone keeps referring back to, even when logic tells them not to.
Because as Paula, Martin and I explained at our Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative talk at Cannes back in 2023 … the greatest strategy doesn’t start from a place of logic, it finds the point of most excitement and works back from there.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Career, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Fulfillment, Linkedin, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Strategy, Stubborness, Success, Talent
Every new year, people tend to re-evaluate their plans and ambitions.
What they’re doing.
What they want to do.
How they can achieve it.
How they can stop doing what they don’t want to do.
So given it’s still – just – the first month of 2025, I thought I’d try and help by offering some advice that may or may not be of use to anyone evaluating where they are or where they’re going in their career.
I appreciate this sort of thing can often come across as patronising or condescending as hell, so the way I’m approaching it is to simply give the 4 pieces of advice – out of all the advice I’ve received over the years, whether I asked for it out or not, haha – that I have genuinely found valuable, useful and usable.
1. Be known for being really, really good in up-to 3 specific areas of your job.
That could be the work you create. That could be for the new business you win. That could be for how you can deal with problem clients. In many ways, it doesn’t matter … you just need to build your reputation around some specific things rather than try to be known for everything.
2. Make sure you do things of significance in your current role rather than always having to refer to something you did in the past.
By that I mean don’t think you can sit on your laurels because you achieved something of note at one point in your career. Reputation – at least one with contemporary value and momentum – is forged by repetition rather than singularity.
3. If you want to earn money, focus on being good at one or more of the 3 ‘R’s’.
While it would be nice to think you move up the career and salary ladder by performing well in your job, the reality is companies place disproportionate value on 3 things.
Relevance: your reputation is in areas that are enjoying a period of commercial topicality.
Relationships: you have close connections with people in positions of commercial significance or importance.
Responsibility: you are willing to deal with complex or sensitive issues. Or said another way, you are OK with letting people go.
[Note: As someone who has experienced this from both sides, there are ways to let people go that are far more humane than many approach it. At the heart of that is focusing on transparency and sensitivity … so study how to do it, it makes a difference for the person it relates to. Still won’t be good, but it can be a whole lot less bad]
4. If you wait for perfect, you will wait forever.
This is ultimately about being proactive. Making good things happen rather than hoping they will. That does not mean cheating, manipulating or acting in stupid ways … it’s about using your impatience and/or frustration to actively learn, evolve and engage with those who can help you move forward. Said another way, it’s about taking responsibility for what you want to have happen rather than complain something didn’t – which helps explains why I’ve always adopted the attitude that if you’re open to everything, anything can happen. And I’ve been lucky enough to prove that approach works. Again and again.
That’s it.
4 simple pieces of advice that – along with ‘learn from winners, not players’ – have had more influence over how I have approached my career than almost everything else put together.
Whether you find that valuable is dependent on your context and whether you think I have had a career of value … but for a bloke from Nottingham who didn’t go to university and didn’t do very well in his school exams, I think I am doing OK.
[Note, present tense, not past – ha]
The best thing about this advice is that I was given it early enough in my career that I could embrace it and adopt it in my choices and behaviours. But even better than that, I was given it by someone who had truly achieved in theirs.
I should point out they didn’t say it with arrogance or bravado.
They also didn’t say it with an attitude that it would be easy to achieve.
They said it because – for some reason – they believed in me and wanted the best for me.
And while it offers no guarantee for success – and still requires large dollops of luck along the way – it has served me well.
While I’m firmly of the belief that the best advice for your own development is to learn from your our own successes, failures and fucked-up choices, I pass these points on because I’m fed up of reading certain individuals [some who have achieved certain degrees of success, by whatever criteria you wish to allocate to them, and some who have most definitely not] suggest the best way to experience career growth is through the blind adoption of their ‘for-profit’ tools, products, services and training … which begs the question, whose career development are those people really focused on?
As my old man used to say, knowledge may be power … but adherence is conceding control.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Comment, Complicity, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Diversity, Empathy, Government, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Politics, The Kennedys, The Kennedys Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
Recently I read a comment on a post Zoe Scaman had written about democracy.
Her point was – with social media companies bending to Trump’s will – we were witnessing the crumbling of established and vital democratic systems. Most people were in violent agreement until someone wrote this comment:
“Can you elaborate on ‘democratic systems are crumbling’ please? My in-laws were born and raised in Russia, and they believe Venezuela is doing great and Cuba is heaven”.
It was not just a good point, but an important point one. Not said to insult or embarrass, but to simply remind us that context is everything and rarely is it experienced equally.
I say this because it reminded me of a similar situation I experienced a few years back… except, unlike Zoe, there was no legitimate reason not to have considered this from the beginning given I’d been living in China for a long time.
You see, back when Trump was running for his first Presidency, I was running The Kennedys at Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai.
Because the election was a hot topic, I set them the challenge of creating a campaign to tell voters Trump was a monster.
For a few days The Kennedys went about researching more about who Trump was until one day they asked if they could have a chat to me.
“We don’t get the assignment” they said with genuinely confused and harassed looks on their faces.
I must admit, my first impression to this was consternation, until they added:
“Maybe Trump is a bad person but America gets to vote who they want to run their country and that seems amazing”
Basically, they couldn’t understand the task because as bad as Trump may be, the brief was still about democracy and democracy is good. Especially when you don’t have it.
[As an aside, a young, brilliant Chinese planner once described the Government as ‘Rock n’ Roll’ and when I asked why, they replied, “you told me Rock n’ Roll is doing what you like and not caring what others think and there’s no better description of the Chinese Governments attitude and behaviour”]
Anyway, when they said that to me, I realized just how badly I had fucked up – not them.
That I’d made the cardinal sin of taking my context for granted. That I’d assumed everyone understood and appreciated the context and situation I was asking them to embrace and communicate.
And I was obviously wrong.
I’d made the most basic of fucking mistakes – albeit one practiced by most companies and marketing departments around the World.
And I hated myself for it ….
But as they say, it’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it and I learned from it. Big time.
A lesson that I remind myself – or remind my colleagues/clients/researchers – literally everytime we talk about people, situations and contexts.
And while Zoe wasn’t as naïve as I was – because for her, it was more about how she phrased her point rather than being ignorant to the wider issue – she has also likely learned from it. A lesson that will make her even better than she already is – which is more than can be said about the people who voted for Trump again, even though I have far more understanding and even respect for why they did it rather than just assuming ignorance and racism.
Anyway, the reason for this post is that I recently saw a tweet that reflected how young Chinese people see Americans – in relation to the most recent election – and I found it fascinating. Because rather than viewing ‘democracy’ as freedom of choice, they now see it as something else … something that not only may be the best take on what modern democracy is, but also explains why all the social media companies have been so desperate to bend to the will of the new administration and why Trump [as much as I hate to admit this] probably understands how modern communication works more than most media and ad agencies.
Have a look at this and remember, what’s normal for you may be abnormal for everyone else.