Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Effectiveness, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Mischief, Relevance, Resonance
In April, I have been asked to speak at a conference in Croatia.
Croatia! What a country … I cannot bloody wait.
I know … I know … I can hear you all from here, screaming ‘another holiday freebie’. And while I accept this is a terrible misjudgement on their part, does the fact I have to take 3 planes over 24 hours to get there from NZ make you feel any differently?
No … didn’t think so. Doesn’t for me to be honest.
Now this conference is apparently a big deal with some very big names appearing so when they asked what I would be talking about, I thought it best to honour the occasion while representing my abilities, which is why I told them this:
There are many ways I could describe this talk. I could say it’s an investigation into why so many brands fail to connect to audiences despite having more data, research and marketing investment than at any point in history. Or I could take a more controversial path with ‘What if the tools and processes of modern marketing are wrong?’ And while both of those questions will feature within this talk, the real narrative is if you want to be culturally, commercially and creatively powerful … please stop being so bloody boring.
And to double down on that premise, here is slide 2 from the upcoming preso …
While I fully appreciate this seems like I’m not taking things seriously, I am.
Very seriously.
Because the industry seems to only have 2 settings: serious or stupid.
Or said another way, purpose filled or sponsored comedy.
And while they can both work in the right context – and with real talent creating it – it’s all got so expected that it wins by relentless repetition, rather that intrigue and interest.
At least with agencies like Mischief – who I adore – they are painfully aware of who they are, what they do and how they do it.
They’re less ad agency of brand communications, and more meme agency of the internet. And they do it so, so well.
But even they run the risk of their approach ending up being expected. A bit like brands who ‘hijack culture’ … which has now got so common, you have to ask if it is hijacking anything.
Thank god in Mischief’s case they have the brilliant and irrepressible Greg Hahn at their helm – someone who not only is phenomenally creative, but also can read and play with the pulse of culture – so just when things get expected, he takes people somewhere new and interesting.
Or said another way, he kills boring before boring takes hold.
But the reality is what Mischief do is not new.
There are many brands – even industries – who have been doing this sort of thing for decades.
Fashion. Gaming. Hell, even certain TV shows have been doing it.
[Albeit, to different degrees]
And they do it in ways that builds their brands role and position in culture more than just gaining a moment of space for it to be seen and discussed in culture. [That sounds like a diss, it’s not meant to … it’s just my bad writing because Mischief already have achieved more than companies who have been around a century]
The real issue is that in our desperate need to be validated by business, we’ve forgotten what business we’re in.
Because to use creativity just for short-term sales goals robs creativity of it’s true commercial value and power for brands, products, tools and services.
To be intriguing … enticing … interesting and inviting.
Because as the title of this post, stolen from my beloved Martin Weigel so perfectly states …
“You can be relevant as hell and still be boring as fuck.”
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Childhood, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Design, Differentiation, Distinction, Effectiveness, Emotion, Football, History, Individuality, Legend, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Resonance, Respect, Sport
Over my career, I’ve had a lot of ‘annual reviews’ and in all that time, there’s been a couple of topics that have made regular appearances in my bosses observations.
I am sure you can guess a lot of them, but one is that I approach every brief like a chance to change or impact everything.
Sometimes it was said in a positive tone.
Sometimes it was said in a less than positive tone.
And they were right.
They still are.
Because whenever we/I get a brief, my starting point is ‘what excites me about the brief’ … quickly followed by ‘how insanely big could we make the idea’ … quickly followed by me getting ridiculous excited about the potential, totally ignoring the fact that all they wanted was a shelf wobbler. Or something.
You think I’m joking don’t you? Well I am, but only just.
My strength/weakness is I always dream massive. Proper massive.
Sometimes it’s paid off – creating the first 4×4 on 2 wheels for Peugeot Mopeds in Vietnam.
Sometimes it’s been a total and unmitigated disaster – trying to get Porsche to bring rally car culture to China.
But pretty much all the time I’ve been able to look in the mirror and know I gave them what they needed, albeit in bigger, more provocative ways than they may have wanted … imagined … or expected.
And you know what, I’m good with that … which probably explains why the quote from the KLF – ‘Don’t give them what they want, give them what they’ll never forget’ – resonated with me so hard.
Anyway, the reason I say this is because waaaaaaaaay back in 1973, this ad appeared in the good, old Nottingham Evening Post.
It was an ad to design the Nottingham Forest Football Club badge.
If that sounds strange, wait till you hear the reason.
Originally, the Forest badge was the Nottingham Coat of Arms … it’s the emblem featured in the middle of the ad.
After discovering they could not copyright it, they decided they had to come up with a new badge and – for reasons no one has really got a good answer for – they decided to run a competition in the local paper, recruiting two lecturers in art and design as advisers.
Despite this being before the glory years of the Clough era, and a prize of just £25, the response was massive.
There were 855 entries from as far away as Australia and Germany … with one man submitting 27 designs.
After a judging process, David Lewis was crowned the winner with this …
David was 29 at the time, working as a graphic designer and lecturer at Nottingham’s College of Art.
He was a football nut and fancied a shot at winning the cash, but there was one problem … one of the judges, a man called Wilf Payne, was the head of the department where he worked.
David said …
“I didn’t think that any design I entered could have been judged fairly if he knew it was mine, and I also didn’t want to embarrass the judges. I did want to enter, though, so I decided to use my mother’s maiden name to hide my real identity. My mother’s side of the family were Italian immigrants and her maiden name was Lago. So I submitted my design as Lago and it wasn’t until afterwards that the judges found out my real name.”
Thank god he did that, because otherwise he may not have won and football – not just Nottingham Forest – would have missed out on one of the most beautiful and distinctive football club logos of all time.
Simple, yet powerful.
Accessible, yet iconic.
Universal, yet truly Nottingham … thanks to the tree representing Sherwood Forest, the wavy lines reflecting the river Trent [where the City Ground stands next to] and the red/white colour formation to reflect the club colours.
Forest’s badge has remained unchanged ever since David’s design – except for the addition of 2 stars to celebrate Forest’s back-to-back European Cup triumphs in 1979 and 1980.
Hell, the club is known to fans as ‘the tricky tree’s’ thanks to the logo.
And a few years ago, an American magazine ran an article on the most memorable and liked sports logos across the world and Davi’d design was in the top 10.
THE. TOP. TEN.
The point is, David Lewis could have approached the competition ‘pitch brief’ as many approach real pitch briefs.
Giving them exactly what they ask for in ways they would expect or feel comfortable with … which in this case would be a badge that represents Nottingham Forest and takes design cues from the existing logo.
But David thought bigger than that.
He wanted to create a design for Nottingham Forest that would be known, respected and revered across all sports and across all countries. A badge that could play outside the lines of the game and into culture.
A designer badge. Literally and figuratively.
And he did it. Beautifully and brilliantly.
Which is why the next time you get a brief – whether for a pitch or an existing client – just remember this story, because the whole industry could do with being more David Lewis.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colleagues, Comment, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Honesty, Insight, Management, Mum & Dad, Parents, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View
When I was about to begin working for the first time, my Dad sat me down and said, “be generous, be kind, but never be a pushover”.
What he was basically telling me was I should always listen and learn … but I shouldn’t blindly follow what someone has told me without asking questions and exploring or voicing my own thoughts and ideas.
Nothing reinforced this than my first ever client meetings.
I was 19 and in a room with very senior and experienced clients.
After it happened, my boss called me in to ‘have a chat’.
He wanted to know why I’d been so quiet throughout the meeting when normally – as my Dad had told me – I kept asking questions as I wanted to learn more and to start to form my own perspective on things.
I told him I was worried I’d say something stupid so felt it best to keep my mouth shut … and that’s when he gave me 3 pieces of advice that not only changed my career, but that I pass on to anywho who feels in a similar situation.
1. When you’re young you’re not expected to have answers so you should exploit the chance to ask whatever you want while you’ve got it.
2. You’ll find out if your views are stupid or valid by speaking up … and you’ll find out from the most qualified people in the room, which is worth its weight in gold.
3. Remember you were hired because we believe in you. So while you might not always be right, we trust any question or opinion you have comes from the right place and with a desire to be useful and make a positive difference.
And while I’d like to think that the response I got is what everyone would get, you just have to read the stories on Corporate Gaslighting to realise what I was being encouraged to do – by my boss and Dad – is not what many are encouraged to do.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say in many cases, it’s not even tolerated.
You’re called a trouble maker.
Not a team player.
A maverick.
Which, of course, is all kinds of rubbish [not to mention debilitating in terms of personal development, standards and reputation and quality of work] but it seems to be what a lot of modern corporate culture often expects – no, scrap that – demands.
But there is good news.
Because if you find yourself in this exact position, you can either read this post I wrote years ago about how to be Freddie Mercury in the boardroom orread the letter below and see how 97 year old Mary Grant proves it’s never to late to change.
We never needed more Mary’s.
Filed under: Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Consultants, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Emotion, Imagination, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Strategy
Don’t get me wrong, commercial creativity has a job to do.
It needs to create the cultural conditions for people to think/act in ways that benefit your client.
What ‘benefit’ means is both open to debate and individual contexts and needs.
But here’s where the problem lies.
Because for many companies, it’s no longer about creating the cultural conditions … it’s explaining EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT PEOPLE TO THINK, SEE AND DO.
What they think is ‘advertising’ is delusional dictator-ing. If dictatoring is a word.
And there’s 2 reasons why it’s delusional …
The first is people do what is in their best interests, not a companies. And so unless a company lets go of their fragile ego and God-complex, they’re never going to understand or resonate with their audience. Resulting in either being ignored, or forever ever having a utility style relationship.
The second is when your only focus is telling people what you want them to think, see and do … you often discover it’s exactly the same as what everybody else in your category wants people to think, see and do.
So you end up with this.
Brand gets a lot of stick these days.
Its whole role and value is being questioned.
But the irony is the problem isn’t with the value of brand, but the understanding of what some people think a brand is.
Because a brand isn’t contrived wrapping paper placed around a functional product feature … it’s an idea that is as distinctive for how it see’s the world as it appears in it.
That some people will find this shocking not only explains why we are subjected to such ugly noise day after day after day, but how little companies/venture capitalists/consultancies understand, respect and value culture.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Consultants, Corporate Evil, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Effectiveness, Fake Attitude, Grifting, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Relevance, Scam, Strategy
I’m all for people expressing their opinion.
I’m all for people being excited about things they see as having great possibilities.
I’m all for people trying to find new ways to evolve, grow and make money.
But come on …
It’s getting to the point where Linkedin should be renamed Disneyland given how much fiction and fantasy are going on.
What’s worse is among all the ‘consultants’ and ‘new business development people’ claiming expertise, are a bunch of strategists.
Now I know as a discipline we think we have the answer to everything … but we don’t.
Fuck, even the people who are developing the technology, don’t.
But what bothers me is the reason behind why so many people are claiming expertise.
OK, so I know some have a real understanding of the technology and its possible implications. And in that, I include certain strategists – we all know who those brilliant people are.
And I also appreciate some mistakenly believe that because they’ve used ChatGPT, they think they now know everything about the technology.
But others – and this is potentially the majority of them – are doing it because they see it as a chance to personally gain from it.
In essence, their perspective is that as long as a subject matter is highly topical and others – especially companies – don’t know about it, then they can profit from it because they can say anything because no one will know enough to tell them they’re wrong.
You can tell who this group are because they’re the one’s who are either the loudest to declare their knowledge or the first to say they had identified the trend … despite never doing anything with their ‘expertise’ or because of their ‘vision’.
Putting aside how this sort of behaviour can damage the reputation of real experts, disciplines and entire industries … the issue I have is how it is often justified as hustle culture.
I’ve written my issue with hustle culture in the past, but the fact is, this isn’t hustling … it’s grifting and the impact of it is not just damaging people and companies, but it killing the potential of technology before it has a chance to find it’s real possibility.
I appreciate this is quite a heavy post from what was just a piss-take image of Homer … but the best comedy is always based on a truth we often like to deny.