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, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Humanity, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
As its the start of a new week, in the first month of a new year … it’s pretty safe to say we can expect another year of endless ego, humble-bragging and self-righteous bullshit … and that’s just the stuff you get from me.
So while I am the last person you’d expect this to come from, I thought I’d use this post to try and remind us what professionalism really is … why we desperately need to treat people as humans rather than ‘consumers’ … and why a job well done doesn’t mean having/creating/using AI driven, friction free, optimised sales funnels, powered by parity brand assets … meaningless marketing practice certificates … grandiose PR statements … and endless statements about all the awards we ‘won’ from increasingly obscure media publishers. [not forgetting all the posts we put on all social media platforms telling everyone about them, while conveniently choosing to ignore how actively we were involved in lobbying for them]
And how will I do that exactly? With this:
You’re welcome.
Here’s to having a good week.
And a less bullshit producing/polluting new year.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Cakes And Pies, China, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, England, London, New Zealand, R/GA, Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
Over the years, I’ve introduced a number of behaviours and/or rituals into the places I’ve worked.
Some have been serious … like the cultural research studies and books I’ve done, such as Dream Small or America in the Raw [to name but two] and some have been errrrrrm, less serious, like the pie-making competitions.
I say less serious, but people don’t act that way.
In fact, regardless of whether I’m talking about the teams in Shanghai, LA, London or Auckland … they all reveal they’re as competitive as fuck.
And in some cases, delusional as hell. Hahaha.
At Colenso, I introduced the Fuck Off And Pie.
Basically we define a theme – or an ingredient – and people have to make something that reflects it.
It’s all blind-tested and then we vote on who is best over a number of categories before the overall winner is revealed to great fanfare.
Or some fanfare.
Anyway, last month the Fuck Off And Pie theme was ‘birthday’s’.
Over the space of 2 hours we witnessed – and ate – a glorious celebration of creativity, gastronomy, insanity and revenge. Put it this way, as bakers … we’re great planners.
From a personal point of view, I had a lot to prove.
Despite being my idea, the last 2 occasions had seem my submission come second-to-last. This was devastating, given I had won first place at R/GA with my totally breakthrough [cough cough] ‘Breakfast Pie’.
The good news is my entry – entitled, ‘Give Birth, Day Cake’ came a highly credible 3rd.
The bad news is I probably have another HR violation.
Here’s why … followed by some other pics of the day. A day that will long live in our memory, and our bowels.
[It’s a public holiday in Auckland on Monday – I know, I know – so see you Tuesday]
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: