Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colenso, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Imagination, Management, Marketing, Music, Provocative, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Success, Wieden+Kennedy
One of the things I’ve always rallied against is the view the advertising industry is in the ‘service industry’.
Sure, our job is to service our clients need to grow or evolve or deepen their relationships with customers and/or society at large – but that doesn’t mean our job is simply to do whatever our clients want.
In fact, what clients want is the last thing we should be doing – it should always be focused on what they need – but nothing highlights how the industry has fucked itself by adopting ‘subserviency’ as its business strategy.
Or said another way, ‘pandering for pay’.
What makes it worse is this approach – albeit with toxic organisations – tends to work, which is why I think Succession connected to so many people. Because while it was filled with the egos, power plays and delusional drama of the wealthy, the underlying message was ‘those who enable them, benefit from them’.
Which is fucking depressing isn’t it.
But it’s not all bad news because not all people are like that.
Colenso live by the belief of ‘truth over harmony’.
Wieden adopt an attitude that ‘transparency is a demonstration of respect’.
And just recently, I wrote about an artist I’m working with who was evaluating an offer to perform at a major global event based on whether they felt they could do something that would challenge them rather than simply do it for the exposure and/or cash.
Which leads me to the point of this post …
Recently I saw a post by the band, The Pretenders. It was this …
Now I appreciate to some, this may read like they’re biting the hand that feeds them … but that’s not the case. In fact it’s the opposite, because the reality is ‘performing is a two-way street’ so what they’re actually doing is ensuring they can give the audience the best performance they can deliver.
It’s kinda similar to why Billy Joel refused to sell the front row at his Madison Square Gardens residency … because he understood performing to an audience who provide energy – rather than just take it – elevates how he performs because it positively effects how he feels.
Now I get this may all sound like some happy-clappy, hippy bullshit … but be it on stage or performing in an office, the environment you’re in, dictates the level of performance you give.
Or said another way, the less oppressed you feel, the further you can go.
Sure, I get we all have a responsibility to deliver certain standards – especially when it’s your job – but contrary to what many management consultants or C-Suite execs believe, oppression and control doesn’t drive standards, it limits them.
It demands you focus on what’s been done before than what could be next.
It makes you play within the limits of the company mindset rather than culture.
It encourages you to aspire for C-Suite acceptance than debate.
It pushes you to play small, than risk swinging big.
It reinforces bad behavior, than challenging it.
Which is why I have such a problem with the whole ‘service industry’ analogy … because the underlying message is ‘conformity over creation’ and conformity doesn’t seem to take us to many places where we can show what we’re capable of delivering, changing or enabling.
And while tension can unlock the doors of possibility from a creative perspective, it’s as destructive as fuck when it exists between artist/agency and audience/client … because when that happens, you’re not working towards where you could be, you’re working on where you’ve been before.
Resulting in a culture that mistakes:
Busyness for productivity.
Acceptance for success.
Efficiency for effectiveness.
And you know who wins with this?
No one.
But do you know who wins when everyone is excited by what you can do and be together?
Everyone.
Because even if things don’t quite go as well as everyone hopes, you’re still further ahead than you’d be if you simply did what others expected or demanded.
Musicians get this.
Musicians know who you play for impacts how you play.
Which is why I find myself saying [once again] that we should follow the ‘paraphrased’ advice of The KLF – which is focus less on giving clients what they want, and focus more on giving their customers what they’ll never forget.
Or to quote Rick Rubin from my RulesOfRubin series from a few years back:
“If you’re not enjoying it, and there’s not much love in it, how can the work be good?”
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Packaging, Planning, Point Of View, Positioning, Relevance, Resonance, Strategy
This is a shop near where we live.
Now I appreciate the above is basically an adoption of the TK Max strategy – reframing ‘random stuff’ to the joy of discovery and exploration – but I love it.
I especially like that it offers a far more compelling reason for people to keep visiting than simply saying ‘cheap stuff sold here’.
Now I get on face value, reframing is easy to do – but based on a bunch of effectiveness papers I’ve read – it isn’t.
Right now, the basic approach to a lot of strategy appears to be either ‘state the bloody obvious’ or ‘live in a dream-world’.
Logic or fantasy. [Though it’ll be called ‘laddering’ to make it sound smart]
But what I love about the Opportunity Shop is that it does neither of those.
What they’ve done with that name is take something inherently true and then convey it in a way that opens possibility.
Elevation rather than explanation … helping you connect to it because it doesn’t ask you to reject your perceptions, but invites you to interpret them in a new way.
It’s part of the reason why I loved living in Asia so much … because there was so much that operated in similar ways there.
When we lived in Singapore, there was a market near our apartment on Club Street.
A bric-a-brac place … full of stuff like single shoes or jigsaw puzzles with pieces missing. Totally random stuff.
But one of the reasons it was popular was because of the name it had … the ‘thieves’ market’.
How great is that?
A name that not only defines the weird shit you will find there, but also gives you a reason why you would want to keep going there.
A proper reframe. Not trying to associate with stuff they wish they were associated with but acknowledging the starting point of how they’re actually seen.
Emotional self-awareness rather than blinkered ego.
And that is why most companies get ‘reframing’ wrong …
Because they want to hammer home how they want to be seen.
So they repeat it ad nauseum … regardless of perception, reference, context or reality.
And the irony of this approach is rather than capture people’s attention, imagination and emotion, they kill it.
Pushing people away rather than inviting them in. Kind of like a lot of the effectiveness papers I’ve read.
Where I have to keep re-reading them to try and work out what the hell they’re trying to say.
What their idea is.
Why it’s right.
How it worked.
A constant stream of explanation which – ironically – never really explains.
And while I appreciate effectiveness papers require a lot of information, there’s 2 quotes that I feel everyone should think about when defining an idea, be it for an effectiveness paper or to get a client to buy.
The first is something we heard from a chef when doing research for Tobasco who said: “The more confident the chef, the less ingredients they use”.
The second is even more random.
It’s from ex-US President, Ronald Reagan, who said, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing”.
[You can read about them more here and here]
Think about those and you’re basically being given the rules to develop a reframe that can change minds, behaviours, and outcomes rather than build cynical – or just indifferent – barriers through rationality, fantasy or bullshit association.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Design, Jill, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Paula, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Women
I know it’s Halloween, but how I’m choosing to ignore it because I wrote this post ages ago and I can’t be arsed to write a new one to celebrate the ghosts and ghouls.
Hey, at least I’m being honest.
So anyway, I love design.
In fact, I would go one further …
I think design can see opportunities most strategists could never pull off.
This is not because my wife is one.
And some of my closest friends.
It’s because design can make the impossible, happen.
It can make a teetotaler buy alcohol.
It can make static images move.
It can make you want to pick up a specific product on an aisle of identical products.
It can open possibilities to people who have been denied for years.
And it can make you pay a premium for something that does exactly the same thing as everything else.
This last one is exemplified by something I saw when I was recently in China. Specifically this:
How lovely is that?
Yes, I really am talking about IT and mathematical equipment.
And while I assume the manufacturers are trying to attract a female skewed buyer – given its lipstick pallete inspiration [Don’t shout at me, I said skewed, not exclusively women because I totally appreciate the role cosmetics play across culture] – it’s such a refreshing change from the old, lazy, sexist and conformist ‘just make it pink’ bullshit that so many marketers used to think was the most efficient and effective way to engage the ‘female customer’.
Like this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
But it’s not just because it’s an update on the lowest-common-cliche we’ve seen – and still see – from brands. No, what I also love is the craft and consideration that has obviously gone into all of it.
It’s wonderful.
It’s refreshing.
It’s something I bet few planners would ever come up with, because one of the biggest problems we have as a discipline is our desire to reveal our self-appointed ‘intellectual superiority’ and frankly, creating a set of IT equipment that has been inspired by lipstick palettes is probably something the vast majority of us would see as ‘beneath us’.
And that’s problematic for a whole host of reasons.
From the fact we prefer to give answers rather than gain understanding right through to our motivation seems to be more about impressing our peers than doing things that actually change outcomes. Not in reality, but theoretically. Hence we read so many ‘hot takes’ about what’s wrong with work from people who have never made anything of note whatsofuckingever.
It all reminds me of something my Dad used to say, which – because I love the Lucille Ball quote about the same issue – I’ve paraphrased to this:
A person who wants others to know how intelligent they are may be smart, but they’re not very clever.
And that is why I adore what my wonderful and brilliant friend, Paula Bloodworth, recently spoke about at a conference when she said, ‘the smartest thing a planner can be, is stupid’.
Happy ‘trick or treat’.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Auckland, Communication Strategy, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, New Zealand, Perspective
A few weeks ago, while going for my daily walk, I saw this:
I know there’s nothing new in this concept.
Let’s face it …
+ Solving problems are more powerful than communicating problems.
+ Talking to someone is always more effective than talking to everyone.
+ Changing contexts and perspectives helps change contexts and perspectives.
+ Being self-awareness opens up possibilities for who you can become.
… is well established and been practiced for years – such as this iconic piece from London’s V&A years back – but I still like it. A lot.
I know it won’t change the world, but it’s an idea that may change somebody’s … because to paraphrase Ferdinand Porsche, ‘its better to be everything to someone than try to be anything to anyone’
So to the Auckland Museum and the people behind it, well done.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apple, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Design, Differentiation, Innovation, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Perspective, Positioning, Pride, Purpose, Reputation, Respect, Steve Jobs, Technology, Values
I’ve written a lot about the bullshit of brand purpose.
Or should I say the hijacking of purpose by marketing departments and agencies.
Far too often, we see companies where their ‘purpose’ has no day-to-day impact on the operations or decisions they make beyond pushing their marketing messages and promotions. For these orgs, purpose is positioned simply as ‘something we hope might change’ rather than actively doing stuff that actively pushes it.
As they say in the UK, “the truth of the pudding is in the eating”, and a lot of corporate brand purpose tastes like bullshit.
That doesn’t mean the concept of purpose is entirely wrong.
Oh no.
However the reality is true brand purpose is born rather than manufactured – especially by a marketing department – so for every Patagonia, there’s a Unilever … which is why I find the easiest way to see who is talking truth versus shite is simply by exploring how much inconvenience they’ll accept and embrace.
Recently I saw an interesting example of a brand who not just embraced inconvenience, but demanded it.
An example which I imagine caused all manner of friction and tension throughout the company.
And yet, when you think about who the company were and – more importantly – who they wanted to become, you see it as absolute commitment to their beliefs and ambitions.
Take a look at this …
Now I appreciate some would read that and only see the problems … the costs … the disruptions … the impact on productivity … the C-Suite ‘bullying’. But they’re probably the same people who think purpose is about ‘wrapping paper’ rather than beliefs and actions … which is why I kinda-love this.
I love how much they were pushing it and how they pushed it.
It was important to them.
Not for virtue signaling, not for corporate complicity – though I accept there’s a bit of that – but mainly because a company can’t talk about technology, creativity and the future while asking your very own colleagues to embrace the cheap, the convenient and the conformist.
Just to be clear, this is VERY different to companies who mandate processes.
That’s about control and adherence.
A desire to keep things as they are rather than what they could be.
And to me, that’s the difference between those who ‘talk’ purpose and those whose actions are a byproduct of it.
Every day in every way.
Because as the old trope goes, it’s only a principal if it costs you something and the reality is – like strategy – too many talk a good game but will flip the moment they think they could make/save a bit more cash.
Apple may have a lot of problems, but fundamentally, they mean what they say and show it in their actions – both in the spotlight, but also in the shadows … where very few people will ever see – as exemplified by Jobs famous ‘paint behind the fence‘ quote.