Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Ambition, Attitude & Aptitude, Career, Creativity, Dad, Mum, Mum & Dad
What is success?
Is it the job title you have?
The salary you are paid?
The area you live in?
The company you work for. Or with?
The satisfaction you get from whatever it is you do?
The strength to leave a job that is hurting you, even though they are paying you?
The health and wellbeing of your family?
Your friendship circle?
The number of talks you’re invited to be a part of?
Of course, the reality is its different things for different people … made up of many elements, rather than just one … and yet when you look at Linkedin, it appears the only metric worthy of success is one that reaffirms your professional status.
I get it, Linkedin is ‘supposedly’ a professional network … but the myopic view of success is tiring and, arguably, unhealthy.
An obsession with being seen as a ‘thought leader’ … a person who is ‘changing the industry’ … a person who is in an endless stream of ‘leadership positions’.
Don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of work to achieve that, but there’s 3 issues.
A lot of the ‘thought leadership’ or ‘changing the industry’ being spouted and promoted is – on closer inspection – simply reciting old rules with new terms.
A lot of what the industry calls success is about what is said, rather than what is created.
A lot of the focus is on celebrating an individual, rather than acknowledging the group.
While I fully appreciate that even with this, there’s a lot of effort and commitment people put into it, not to mention it is not their fault the industry chooses to focus on points 2 and 3, rather than them actively pushing it – though some do – my issue is it not only sets a weird definition for success, it also means anyone entering the industry is being told the secret to their progress is not about quality of work, but how popular they can become.
But arguably, it is even worse than that.
Because it also says that the only success worth caring about is professional achievement.
Forget personal fulfilment.
Forget professional development.
Forget health, happiness and family.
If you’re not getting the likes, you’re not living a successful life.
This doesn’t mean you can’t be proud of what you do.
Or who you do it for.
Or even what you get because of it.
But myopically defining success in terms of salary and status is about as toxic as you can get – especially when there are so many people doing so many amazing things across the industry but are universally ignored because they don’t court fame or don’t play the game that the industry increasingly demands you play.
Our industry is a special industry, that can do special things … but we’re in the shit right now, fighting for our relevance, value and impact … and if we’re not careful, we’re in danger of focusing so much on elevating false gods and prophets, while we sink without a trace.
Doesn’t have to be the case … but it will require us to value those who make change rather than are popular for talking about it.
Or as my old man use to say to anyone who joined his firm:
“Be aware of those who need to let others know how smart and successful they are. They’re rarely as good as they like to think they are and elevate themselves up by bringing others down. They pretend they’re saints but behave like devils.”.
There’s a lot of people out there like that these days.
Worse, they’re getting rewarded handsomely for it.
Which is why – whether you are an old hand in the industry or new – it’s worth remembering something my Mum once said to me:
“Money doesn’t define success, it just lets you buy better groceries”.
We all have aspirations and ambitions.
It’s important we don’t confuse them with doing OK in life.
Especially when you remember so much of what many in the industry define as success, is as much down to luck, as it is talent.
OK, enough sanctimonious Paula Abdul x Oprah talk from me today. Even I feel a bit queasy.
See you tomorrow.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Context, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Emotion, Fashion
There were a lot of stylish people at Cannes.
There were also a lot of try-hard people at Cannes.
But of all the folks I saw over the days I was there, one stood out.
Not just for how they looked, but for the statement they made:
About Cannes …
About the people at Cannes …
About the attitude and behaviour of the industry at large.
I don’t know who you are.
I don’t know what you do.
But if it were up to me, you’d be walking away with a Grand Prix Lion for owning a look I’ll never forget – which, where our industry is concerned – is what we once were brilliant at creating before we sold out the value of creativity in favor of making cash off process and being complicit to a set of rules developed by people who [1] have never actually made the stuff we’re brilliant at and [2] claim the rules for effective marketing are things like emotion, distinction and consistency as if that hasn’t been the case for 200 fucking years.
I suspect, that’s the emotional baggage she’s carrying with her.
It’s the same emotional baggage anyone who cares and creates work is dealing with as we watch certain individuals get wild applause from the broad industry despite the fact they continually demonstrate they either don’t know their history or are choosing to rebadge it so they can flog it off as a ‘proprietary systems for success’ despite the fact all their blatantly bloody obvious lessons have come off the back of the hard work the creative industry has been creating and making for decades.
Seriously, we’re in full-on, corporate Emperor’s New Clothes territory these days … and while there’s a lot of fools being taken in by it, we’re the biggest idiots for having let it happen and then standing by as they do it.
Happy fucking Monday. I’m up for a fight this week … Hahaha.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Bands, Brands, Cannes, Creativity, Delusion, Effectiveness, Grifting, Metallica, Miley, Mr Ji, Music, Paula, Planners, Point Of View, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Respect, Rick Rubin
When I was going to move to Australia, I was severely stressed.
Part of it was because it meant moving away from my beloved parents.
Part of it was because I would be leaving a job I loved and had worked hard it.
And part of it was because I was moving for a woman who I hadn’t known too long.
While I knew in my heart I wanted to do it, the risk of it was huge – personally, even more than professionally – so I went to see my first ever therapist to ask for help.
This was a big thing for a whole host of reasons – most of which was that ‘therapy’ was an American thing and not the sort of thing done widely in England. But I needed to talk to someone so having found someone relatively close, I went to them and explained my situation.
I’ll never forget his response.
“Yes, what I was thinking was full of risk but the highest risk always offered the greatest reward and I was going into it with my eyes wide open and I should embrace that fact”.
I’m not saying that was the comment that led to me doing it – having my parents support and encouragement was the most important thing – but it did help me feel more peace with my choice … and while my relationship with the woman I went there for, didn’t work out, I can honestly say that everything in my life to this day – bar my relationship with Paul and his ex-wife, Shelly – is because I went.
I say this because I read something that Jeff Bezos said recently that I loved. It was this:
Now I appreciate he is not suggesting you let go of all common sense in your business operations – and nor should you – but at a time where so many of the industry ‘guru’s’ are selling systems that claim to ‘guarantee success’ [when in all reality, they are promoting complicity and insurance] it’s a pleasant change to hear a positive take on being ‘experiment positive’.
Just recently I saw one ‘guru’ announce their new ‘success stack’ for effective marketing.
To great acclaim, they announced this is how you ensure your marketing is successful.
Now I am in no doubt there is value in what they’re selling, but the problem I have is their approach is so myopic, systemized and one-size-fits-all that at best, they’re simply ensuring you hit guideline metrics rather than achieve actual growth.
Add to that, they’ve never made any work of note and are simply analyzing work that has achieved success based on their definitions and metrics, that people should – at best – be treating it as a guide rather than a blueprint.
But no … our industry is so messed up right now, we value the words of – excuse the analogy, because it’s not a good one – the pundits rather than the players.
By that, I mean those who are paid to find fault versus those who create change.
As I said in our speech at Cannes a few weeks ago, it’s like saying that because music has mathematical contexts behind it, we should trust a school maths teacher more than an actual musician.
We’ve gone mad. Or at least, deliberately ignorant.
Of course I appreciate risk is scary for companies.
I also get the numbers involved are huge and the implications even bigger.
But for all the talk of grawth and effectiveness we, as an industry, are far too comfortable playing within the rules, systems and codes of people whose entire ‘for profit’ business model is built on igniting fear and judgement in what you do, when the brands and businesses that experience the greatest growth always allow creativity – in whatever form it takes – some space to play, explore and experiment.
Sure, it might be a relatively small percentage compared to their core business, but they do it and do it without the boundaries and limitations that we are continually forced to adhere to, because they see it as a commercially important investment rather than an act of marketing practice defiance.
And given so many brands are currently acting, looking and communicating the same thing in the same way – because of their blind adherence to certain people’s one-size-fits-all marketing practice protocols, I’d argue there’s less risk leaving space for experimenting than there is following the same systems as everyone else.
Or to quote David Richards – from Paula and my talk at Cannes – it may explain why ‘companies have consumers but artists have fans.
[Of course, the ‘factual’ reason behind my declaration is that I work for the the most profitable luxury Retailer in the World, the most successful fashion and street culture investor in global fashion, the fastest growing eyewear brand on the planet and – of course – the 2nd most successful American band in music history, among others]
As an aside, if you’re interested in hearing the talk Paula and I gave, drop us a line here. If there’s enough interest, maybe we can do it. Not because we think it what we presented is THE ONLY way brands should think, but to ensure no one is daft enough to think there is only one way fullstop.
Happy weekend.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Colenso, Creativity, Culture, Paula, WARC
I was talking to a friend of mine recently about the ad industry and the challenges it faces.
Specifically about how we are now bathed in for-profit processes and research methodologies that promise us access to ‘risk free success’ and yet we continue to struggle.
Why?
Well of course there are a lot of reasons for it.
+ Costs.
+ Technology.
+ Restructuring.
+ Holding companies.
+ Tech company power.
+ Procurement departments.
+ The rise of social influencers.
+ A lack of ongoing, formal training.
+ Underinvestment in hiring/keeping talent.
+ Too much one-size-fits-all outsourced training.
+ The lack of influence marketing has within organisations.
+ The devaluation of experience in favour of social popularity.
+ A lack of understanding about how creativity works at a client level.
+ The gullibility of organisations that think there is a ‘risk-free success’ model.
But on top of that, there was another thing we touched on – how the amalgamation of all these issues is increasingly robbing the joy out of what we do.
Yes, I appreciate our job is about helping clients achieve their commercial goals so you may ask, “who cares if you enjoy what you’re doing”, but here’s the thing, joy creates commercial and creative possibilities.
I don’t mean that simply in terms of effort, I mean in terms of what comes out at the other end.
The stuff that people feel even if they can’t explain why.
Like this.
Or this.
Or even this this.
Now I should be clear that when I say ‘joy’, I don’t mean happy-clappy-hippy-shit … I mean a sense of fulfilment of doing something really well.
Not because you followed a ‘for profit’ dot-to-dot methodology by someone who has never actually made the work, but because of your vision and ambition that was shaped, crafted and influenced through the blood, sweat, tears, belief and laughter of what you – and other talented souls – made together.
And it was at this point I realized I’d made a terrible mistake with the presentation Paula and I did at Cannes for WARC.
Because while those 150+ slides [as seen above] claimed to be about ‘The Secrets Of Strategy From Artists Who Only Live Creatively’ … it wasn’t.
It was a talk on how to be creatively fulfilled …
Maybe we all need to talk a little more about that.
Not just because fulfillment can keep – and attract – the best talent to stay in the business for longer … not just because it actively drives and encourages commercial success for the clients we work for … but because for all the brilliant things AI can do, it can’t compete with the infectious, limitless, power and potential of fulfillment.
Because it will never understand it, let alone be able to do it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Dad, Education, Eye, Health
As some of you know, I have had a serious eye problem since the beginning of the year.
What makes it worse is that it has affected the eye that was once my ‘good eye’.
Over the past 6 months, I’ve had all manner of drugs, tests and specialist visits and unfortunately, it keeps finding new things wrong with it rather than fixing the things we knew were wrong.
It’s pretty shit to be honest, but one thing happened a few weeks ago that made me laugh.
So I’m at the surgeons and they discovered the pressure in my eye was at an extreme high.
In a matter of weeks, it had risen 300% without any clear indication why. They immediately took action, administering all manner of new drugs to try and bring it under control as the ramifications of leaving it could be permanent blindess.
In typical ‘Campbell luck’ fashion, when they first re-checked the results – post first medication – the pressure had actually risen. That really freaked them out and were getting ready to send me to the hospital for an operation to relieve the pressure. But after another check 20 mins later, they saw it was starting to take affect.
Slowly, but as my surgeon said, “any decline is a good decline”.
Eventually things calmed down enough for them to feel good to send me home for a few days before getting me in to check the results again. To increase the odds of things going in the right direction, they gave me some additional meds and said:
“They will make you very sleepy and increase the odds of you needing the lavatory”.
I burst out laughing and said, “that’s an unfortunate combination” to which they looked at me confused.
After what felt like minutes, they laughed before telling me they’d never thought of that before.
Now I am not knocking them – they’re amazing and doing all they can to save my sight – but it did remind me of 2 things I’ve learned over the years.
The first is that very smart people are often a bit stupid outside of their field of excellence.
The second is a quote by the actor, Peter Ustinov who said:
“The people who reach the top of the tree are those who haven’t got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom”.
So much in life seems to be focused on only valuing the ‘academically smart’.
I get it, we need them. They’re brilliant and can do things that few could ever do – regardless of the amount of training.
Doctors.
Scientists.
Engineers.
You definitely don’t want any Tom, Dick or Harry taking on work like that.
But by the same token, there are people who have another set of skills that are just as worthy of respect.
An ability to do things that a doctor, scientist or engineer could never do – and yet has real value and benefit to the rest of us.
I don’t mean ‘everyday generalists’, I mean people with a level of skill and/or craft that represents real ability.
In life we need both groups of people … the academically smart and [for want of a better term] the life smart.
Both offer value and skills to who we are and how we live.
Both do things that the others couldn’t do and probably couldn’t imagine doing.
At a time where more and more companies will only hire those with ‘a degree’, it’s worth remembering that while education is hugely important and valuable we should – like the ad industry – make sure we’re not forgetting to evaluate and value those by what they have done, not simply what they know, because as my old man used to say:
“Talk is easy, action is hard”.