Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brands, Context, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Customer Service, Devious Strategy, Effectiveness, EvilGenius, Experience, Management, Northern, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Provocative, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Standards, Strategy, Stubborness, Wieden+Kennedy
Maybe it’s because I’m British …
Maybe it’s because I’m naïve …
Or maybe it’s because I’m privileged …
But I’ve always been pretty shit when it comes to ‘negotiating’.
That changed quite dramatically when Metallica’s management taught me both ‘the value of value’ and how procurement is a game … but even now, there are situations where I feel weird to push back.
Ironically, the thing that snaps me out of it is not confidence, but disgust.
Recently a company sent me a bill that was 49% more than the previous year.
My situation hadn’t changed.
I was a long-term customer of theirs.
I had not used their services any differently than any time before.
And yet they sent me the invoice without explanation or consideration.
And I was pissed. Properly fucked off.
And while I could have just walked away, I wanted to play them at their own game.
I should point out my goal was not to get a price reduction; it was more so I didn’t feel a mug just blindly accepting their shit.
I wanted to feel I’d pushed back …
That I wasn’t a pushover …
And while I suspected they wouldn’t care – or maybe even notice – what I was doing, it was important for me that I did it.
Short story is I rang them up and ‘had a chat’ before ending up with all the price increase being removed.
Every last penny.
And while you may think that means ‘I’d won’, the thing is my definition of ‘winning’ had changed … which is why once I got the reduction, I informed the company I wouldn’t be working with them anymore and why.
Petty?
Sure.
Pathetic?
Possibly.
Pointless?
Maybe.
Unprecedented by me?
Errrrm, no.
But as my old Wieden boss – the great Jason White – once told some people, I’d asked him to meet,
“Be true. Be transparent. Believe they want to do the right thing with the right intentions. But if you suspect they think they’re hustling you … make sure you’re hustling them right back”.
Which is why, if you want to know the real art of ‘strategy’ – both in terms of effectiveness and creativity – don’t follow the methodologies or tools flogged by the never-ending list of Linkedin Pundits, study cats or petty bastards.
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, Attitude & Aptitude, Brands, British, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Distinction, Family, Fast Food, Innovation, Luxury, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mum & Dad, My Childhood
When I think of the ads I saw when I was growing up, there are so many for categories I just don’t see – or don’t see much – any more.
Cream Cakes.
Carpet Stores.
Digital Watches.
Stranger Danger Campaigns.
Maybe they’re still happening and I don’t know it because I don’t watch much TV … but given I work in the industry and I don’t hear about them – let alone see them – it does feel they are campaigns of a bygone age.
But of all these category of ads, one that is burned into my mind is Smash.
Smash was a mashed potato brand.
It came in a packet and by adding boiling water and stiring vigourously, you’d get masses of creamy mash.
The original ‘fast food’.
This approach to food prep was space-age technology back in the day … which is why the ads featured alien robots who were so impressed with the technological advancement that Smash represented, they chose not to invade Earth because they felt they couldn’t compete with our innovation, despite the fact the humans they had been secretly watching were – to put it lightly – thick as shit, given their traditional choice for mashing spuds.
I know. I know … sounds bonkers doesn’t it, so have a look at this early ad to see what I mean:
OK, so it was bonkers.
But as you can tell, it was all most definitely tongue in cheek, however – as demonstrated by the fact I am writing about them decades later – the alien robots soon became iconic in British society.
Still are in fact. At least for people of a certain age.
But despite this – and despite being 54 years of age – I’ve never eaten Smash.
Not knowingly, at least.
Not because I don’t like it or don’t like the idea of it … but because my parents never allowed it in the house.
Just to be clear, it wasn’t because they were against such manufactured ‘convenience’ food – we used to eat Angel Delight for fucks sake – but because compared to boiling some spuds and mashing them, it was too expensive.
I say all this because recently I walked past a Prada store and saw this.
Now I am sure they didn’t intend to create the ‘luxury version’ of the Smash alien robots, but they’ve created the luxury version of the Smash alien robots!!!
And while this decision could open a lot of conversations about a lot of different subjects – from the changing definition of luxury, the influence of nostalgia, generational creativity and the overall decline in the quest for originality – the biggest thing it did for me was prove my parents were right in believing SMASH is an expensive indulgence for people who want to short-cut their way to satisfaction rather than earning it.
Or something like that. Probably without the judgement on the character, motivations and aspirations of those who would bung it on their evening meal plate.
Still would give my left arm to eat some.
Which is why Prada would probably be disappointed to learn that their ‘robots’ have made hungrier to eat SMASH mashed potato than to buy and wear their clothes. Or worse … anyone seen wearing a Prada coat can be called a ‘Jacket Potato’.
In terms of branding disasters, that has to be up there with these classic [bull]shitshows.
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.