Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Creativity, Culture, Experience, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Purpose, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Wieden+Kennedy
Let me start by saying this post may sound harsh as fuck – especially if you’re relatively young, but hang in there.
If you can be bothered.
So a few weeks ago, I saw a chart by Edward Cotton that was designed to help planners identify their ‘super power’ to enable them to better identify their strengths and be more focused in their professional development.
It’s a generous thing to do from a generous person and yet I decided to question it.
Like a prick.
And why did I decide to do this?
Because I don’t know if people can self-define their ‘super power’.
I don’t know if people have the objectivity to be able to identify that.
More than that … I find the term ‘super power’ both misleading and potentially dangerous because what he was really helping people identify was ‘where they felt the most comfortable’.
Now I appreciate there is value in identifying – and validating – that, however it doesn’t necessarily mean that makes you good at what you do.
Which is why I challenged his chart … because as much as I appreciate it was done for absoluely good reasons, the entire industry seems to be moving further and further away from what strategy is supposed to be about.
Moving away from enabling change and creation to being a discipline that celebrates ‘self-serving, personal intelligence’.
It blows my mind how many people are writing how to do stuff without having actually ever done stuff.
Or at least, stuff of note.
To use a shit analogy, anyone can kick a ball, but few have won a European Cup.
And while everyone is entitled to an opinion, you don’t get to express it with the confidence of God when you have neither the experience or the objectivity to make an informed judgement.
But that’s where we’re at these days.
Everyone is an expert.
Everyone has ideas, opinions and viewpoints expressed as fact, law or established protocol.
Hell, even the acknowledged experts often lack the experience of making something great. Oh they’ve made stuff … but few have achieved something with gamechanging significance, and yet somehow they are positioned as commercial rockets when in reality they’re insurance salesman.
There’s nothing wrong with that except when you don’t admit that. But even then, they’re still waaaaaay better than the self-defined god.
On one level I get it.
The industry is rewarding popularity and ‘thought leadership’ [ahem!] over those who actually make stuff and so there’s a massive incentive to say/repeat interesting stuff rather than do interesting stuff … and nothing highlights how fucked our industry has become than that.
Just to be clear, I know not everyone is like this and contrary to what it may sound like, I am cool with anyone expressing their opinions and ideas.
I’m excited about it actually.
My issue is when it’s expressed with an attitude of self-righteousness.
Where any other opinion is a lesser, incorrect opinion.
Strategy is in danger of losing clarity on what it’s here to do and how we should be evaluating it.
We’re more obsessed with writing theories than doing stuff … resulting in us being in danger of becoming a discipline of paper pushers. Producers of endless digital landfill consisting of decks and newsletters that – in many cases – are not fit for purpose or usage. A back-slapping group of co-dependency … with a focus on achieving industry status rather than making work of note and change.
Now it has to be said that while it’s easy to blame the discipline, the reality is the lack of training that is being invested by agencies and companies that is a big driver of this situation.
Rather than invest in the knowledge, skills and quality of their people, they are – at best – outsourcing to 3rd parties or – at worst – leaving their people to find and fund their own development.
Seeking standardised approaches rather than valuing independent thinking.
What rubs salt into this already ugly wound is that many agencies either give away the strategy they do for their clients – preferring to make money on time and production rather than expertise and value – or acting like shit consultancies/corporate lawyers, creating endless ‘process loops’ so they can profit from keeping the problem alive rather than helping them move forward to a better place.
What the hell?!
Add to that the people agencies are outsourcing training to are often ‘teaching’ methodologies that are both generic and self-serving. And don’t get me started on the planners selling their ‘training’ when many never achieved a standard that justifies their right to teach … demonstrated by them constantly using examples they never made, post-rationalised or simply copied from those who actually did the work.
I get that sounds harsh, I get any training has some value … but this is serious stuff.
Standards matter.
Experiences matters.
Truth over harmony matters.
The reality is anything is easy for people who haven’t done it or don’t have to do it which is why I’m so enamoured with talent like Maya Thompson, Joel Goodhall, Priscilla Britton, Ayo Fagbemi, Tarik Fontenelle and Carina Huang – to name but a few – because where so many choose outlets that reinforce what they want to feel about themselves, they’re about putting themselves in situations where they’re pushed to push the work they want to create.
As I mentioned, the biggest problem here is the attitude companies and agencies have towards training and development. No one – especially junior planners – should ever have to pay for this and the fact many have to, or feel they have to, is outrageous. Almost as outrageous as those planners and experts who exploit them for personal gain.
[Which is why I must reiterate what Edward did was for entirely good reasons because he gives a shit, even if I disagree with what he did on this occasion]
However I cannot stress enough that if you want to grow, follow the advice I was given recently by a very successful football manager that I found myself interviewing.
He said: Learn from winners, not players.
I wrote about it here.
Just to be clear, this is not about age. It’s about people who have done stuff.
Who have tried, failed, explored, experimented and ultimately achieved.
At the highest level. Preferably more than once.
Now I’m not saying it’s easy.
And I know for a fact it’s not comfortable.
But it is most definitely worth it.
Because rather than feeling good about who you are and how you think, you’ll discover what you can do and who you can become.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Alcohol, Apathy, Asia, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Beer, Campaign Magazine, China, Chinese Culture, Content, Context, Craft, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Effectiveness, Empathy, Environment, Fake Attitude, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Resonance, Shanghai, Singapore, Strategy
I have a history of working on clients I don’t really have a right to work on.
Sport.
High Fashion.
Female Haircare.
OK, so I have a real relationship with sport, but I think the reason I have been able to [even though I say it myself] be so successful with the other categories is that I get so into what I am working on. I get kind-of obsessed with learning and understanding everything about it and throw myself into reading all I can about the culture, history and category before I then interview everyone I can meet who is authentically connected to it.
No outsourcing to superficial focus groups … it’s about graft. Working with the people who create and push the category rather than those who simply buy the product.
It’s served me well – underpinned by clients who care about their audience rather than just see them as walking wallets and me being being self-aware enough to know my perspective is from an outsiders point of view, so I need to explore everything while assuming nothing.
I say all this because one of the other categories I’ve worked on that I shouldn’t, is alcohol.
Why shouldn’t I?
Because the last sip of booze that passed my lips was in 1985.
NINETEEN EIGHTY FIVE … so 39 years ago!
And yet over that time, I’ve worked on everything from Heineken, Guinness, Johnnie Walker and the development of Blackened, for Metallica.
Beer advertising in particular is fascinating because there tends to be 2 states:
Sponsored jokes or pretentious bullshit.
Now I get why it falls into these 2 states because client/agencies tend to either want to reaffirm their beer is ‘fun and social’ or ‘important and crafted’.
But for every Guinness Surfer, Carlton Draft Big Ad, John Smiths No Nonsense, DB Export Brewtroleum or going right back, Heineken Refreshes … there’s a whole heap of contrived, lifestyle rubbish.
Lazy headlines placed over generic Getty image photography.
One I saw recently was this from Tiger.
Now I appreciate the photo does not do it justice, but the headline reads:
Tiger Crystal.
Ultra Low Carb.
Extra Refreshing.
The reason this does my head in is two-fold.
First is you have to understand Tiger is very close to my heart.
Not only was it one of the first brands I worked on when I first moved to Asia, I also won the worldwide account – literally on my own – against 4 network agencies back in the early 2000’s.
Apart from that allowing me to work with some brilliant people on some brilliant assignments, it also resulted in Campaign Magazine featuring me on their front page in all my sweary glory, which is obviously a career high, hahaha.
But the other reason is that copy makes no fucking sense.
What the hell does ‘extra refreshing’ mean?
Oh I know how they’ll justify it …
With less carbs, the beer tastes even better to the drinker. Not literally, but emotionally.
And while there may be an element of truth to that … it doesn’t make it EXTRA refreshing. More drinkable maybe, but not extra refreshing. But here’s the thing, if it’s that good, why don’t they make ALL their beer like this?
Why don’t they bring their ‘extra refreshing’ premise to all their products?
I’ll tell you why, because it’s bollocks.
It’s lazy marketing … another example of vacuous superlatives being churned out to sound exciting without any thought, consideration or any excitement. An act of arrogance, demonstrating how important the brand thinks it is and how little they think – or understand – the audience they literally serve.
Now I appreciate some may say, ‘why does it matter, no one will pay much attention to it’?
And I get that … except that’s the point really.
Our job is to try and make people pay attention.
To give a shit.
They’re not going to think it changes their life, but they shouldn’t blindly ignore it.
It’s this sort of arrogance that demonstrates the lack of self-awareness that has permeated the industry. A blind belief that everything we do is great simply because we did it … despite the fact in the real world, all we’re doing is adding to the social landfill and social pollution of shit advertising.
Where is the pride in who we are, what we do and the intelligence of who we engage?
Where?
We’re so much better than this. And just to be clear, I’m not solely blaming whoever did this awfulness, it’s also the clients, procurement and ‘for profit’ research companies who created the environment where this ends up being deemed ‘worthy’.
I swear the biggest problem the industry has is every department and discipline has its own agendas and metrics for success.
There’s no alignment.
No agreement on what we want and need to make.
Just distain, distrust and self-interest.
Of course not everyone is like this – thank god – but if clients want to see the potential of their brand and agencies want to push the possibilities of their creativity, there has to be a moment where we stop hiding awfulness under the blanket of marketing justifiable rationales, because for all the NPS, system 1, best-practice approaches we may proudly shout about, there are two questions that trump all.
Is it true and does it make us give a shit?
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Chaos, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Imagination, Logic, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Paula
Just to be clear, I am not anti-logic.
Of course not.
But I am anti-blinkered logic.
Where anything outside of established rules or norms are discounted because they’re outside of established rules or norms.
It was the foundation of our Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative talk, last year at Cannes.
And ironically, if I thought it was important then … it’s become even more important now with people like Jon Evans waxing lyrical about ‘System 2’ thinking.
Have a look at the functional benefits he is stating:
+ Facts don’t care about your feelings
We all know how unreliable our feelings can be so why would you make a large business decision based on what people feel about it?
+ Measure Everything
I never understood at System1 why we worked so hard to reduce it down to a few key metrics. The results also came in this super easy online report rather than PowerPoint. Now you can have every measure you ever wanted in a shiny PowerPoint presentation with our ‘minimum page promise’ of 93.
+ Infinite personalisation at scale
We have finally achieved the holy grail of marketing reporting namely infinite personalisation at scale. With so much data at your disposal whatever conclusion you need to make we can provide it. We also present it in such a scientific way that no-one will be able to challenge your conclusion. Imagine that!
+ The Price is Right
One of the reasons you employ McKinsey is because they charge a lot of money and therefore must be making a huge impact on your business. We have followed this immutable logic to ensure this is the most expensive research you will ever pay for because, well, we’re worth it.
Now on one level, a lot of what he’s saying isn’t wrong. But by the same token … it’s also not entirely right.
The reduction of everything to a quantifiable – and historical – measure ultimately means you’re advocating, at best, for incremental change or, at worst, following a model of ‘best practice’ without remembering that best practice is past practice.
Of course some will love it. But then, some love beige office furniture.
Which is why this old ad kind of sums up my concerns with myopic approaches based on models designed to not fail rather than liberate possibility.
History is littered with once great brands and ideas that fell foul of ‘the research says no’.
What makes it even worse is often that research is based on the lowest common denominator of audience versus – say – the highest.
Resulting in commoditised mediocrity, hidden under ‘effectiveness and optimisation’ justifications.
Or said another way, outsourcing your cowardice to ‘for profit, external organisations’.
I am not saying what Jon is saying is wrong.
I am not saying using facts and data are wrong.
I’m saying his view – as I say about many people who sell their specific processes/programs as guarantees of success’ – is.
[For example, as the very brilliant Lee once told me, “if you’re measuring everything, then you don’t know what is important”]
As I wrote a while back, there’s many examples of brands who buck his view.
Hell, I work with a bunch of them, including:
SKP-S … the most profitable luxury retailer on the planet.
Gentle Monster … the fastest growing and selling eyewear brand across Asia.
Metallica … the 2nd most successful American band in music history.
… to name but 3.
The point is, for all the cleverness of Jon Evans – and he is very clever and I respect him, what he does and how he does it – the implied suggestion, whether intentional or not, that his way is the only to be successful, is wrong.
As is his new statement around ‘system 2 thinking’.
I get why he says it … just like I get why many people in that industry say it … because it’s as much what they believe and how they make money.
And while that is all well – plus they’re very good at what they do … especially with organisations who are conservative and/or have people with little formal training – they’re services are more like insurance products than business accelerators.
Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re not claiming otherwise.
Which is why it’s important to remember – to paraphrase what Martin and I also said at our ‘The Case For Chaos’ talk in 2019 for WARC at Cannes – logic might give you what you think people want, but chaos gives them what they’ll never forget.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relevance, Resonance, Review | Tags: 15
OK, so after the ‘hilarity’ of yesterday’s April Fool post, let’s get back to the tragedy of this blogs traditional banality.
So as many of you know, I love rock music.
Loud rock music.
I mean, I like other genres too, but rock/metal/blues has always been my first love – no doubt influenced by the fact it features the guitar upfront and centre and I play [or more correctly, played] the guitar.
So it should come as no surprise that when I was younger, I was a weekly buyer of heavy metal bible – Kerrang!. [Don’t forget the exclamation mark, ha]
There were many reasons why I loved it …
Sure, it was the only mag at that time dedicated to my favourite music, but I also loved the tone of the writing. It was both in-depth and humorous … gave equal measure to new bands and classic and asked questions to rock stars that were both incredible deep and incredibly stupid.
It was magic.
Every Wednesday morning I would go to Helen Reid’s News to pick up my copy … and have her shout at me saying, “this is a newsagent, not a library so you better buy what you’ve touched”.
And after I bought it, I’d go to a cafe and read it over a bacon or sausage sandwich while pretending I was at a client meeting. Which I am confident no one believed but no one questioned … mainly because I was so low level, being out of the office was probably less hassle for them than being in it and having to deal with my endless questions about how they approached their job, hahaha.
But of all the things I liked about Kerrang! – and there was a lot, including all the great reviews they gave of my band when we were reviewed by them [see above for 2 of them] is that they didn’t just see their role as telling the stories of the genre, but to protect the integrity of the genre.
I’ve long thought that is where a lot of industry has gone wrong. Not wanting to offend anyone and seemingly giving out endless ‘participation awards’ to all who do something, regardless of quality. And while there is definitely a need for us to be supportive to others, it’s getting ridiculous we see people more focused on getting the acclaim of the industry without making any work of note within the industry.
And no, a personal newsletter that offers ‘tips on how to make great work’ doesn’t count … especially when you didn’t have anything to do with that work and you keep trading off the clients that worked in the agency you were at, rather than you worked on at the agency’.
And that’s why this review I read from Kerrang! in 1995 really hit me.
OK, so Nickelback are an easy target.
And I appreciate everyone has different tastes and views.
And – as I said – I know we need to support each other.
But that still doesn’t take away the joy I felt reading a sharp, objective review by someone who had the knowledge, experience and desire to protect the discipline from exploitive, populist imposters – acknowledging that is as much about the record company as the band.
It all feels like a bygone era.
A time where there was debate and challenge not endless echo-chambers of like minded people slapping each other on the back. I suppose that’s why I loved the crap I copped on this blog … because among all the [hopefully well intentioned] abuse, I did feel people wanted me to just expand my perspective and view.
And while that didn’t always happen, it did in a lot of areas and subjects and having this blog to remind me how far my opinion evolved is a great reminder of the importance of perspective, experience and depth and breadth of knowledge, delivered by people who want to help me grow not want to bury me alive.
But we’re not in that era anymore.
We talk a lot about ‘cancel culture’ but it feels we’re more at ‘cancel challenge culture’ … where any opinion that questions perspective, regardless how well intentioned it may be, is met with pile-on abuse.
Which is why there must be a lot of people in adland who feel very fortunate they don’t live in the days of Kerrang! ‘feedback’ … so they can carry on spouting their self-defined genius on Linkedin as if they’re the bastard love child of Steve Jobs, Dan Wieden, Elizabeth Warren and Rihanna.
I appreciate this sounds angry and pissed off.
I guess I am.
Not for me – because I know how fortunate I’ve been in this industry, even if I have worked bloody hard for it [despite what you think, hahaha] – but for the truly phenomenally talented people I know, have seen and have met who don’t and won’t get anywhere near the acclaim or respect they deserve, simply because they spend their time making great work rather than living on social media telling everyone how great they are.
If only certain members of the industry press had been more about protecting the integrity of the craft of the industry rather than just reporting, fluffing and profiting from it – then maybe we wouldn’t fall so easily to hype over substance.
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This is the last post of the week as tomorrow is Anzac Day and then Friday is a ‘why don’t we take it off and make it a long weekend day’ … so till Monday, see-ya!
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Comment, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Effectiveness, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Research, Respect, Stupid
One of the things I find fascinating is how everything these days is ‘a sprint’.
The urgent need for an immediate solution to enable a brand or business to move forward.
Except it’s not true is it? Not really.
I mean – I get that there are occasions where circumstances demand an extremely quick response.
A terrible event.
A moment of opportunity.
An act forced by an aggressive client.
But in the main, these ‘sprints’ have nothing to do with that.
They’re for a new product launch.
A brand campaign.
An annual event.
If they need a sprint for those, then surely that means they haven’t [or just as likely, their bosses, bosses haven’t] got their shit together because those things don’t ‘just happen’ do they? It’s not like the Paris authorities are going to wake up on the 1st of July and suddenly realise they have to hold the Olympics in a few weeks time so need construction companies to engage in ‘a sprint’ to knock up a few stadiums in time.
Now if my Dad was alive and found himself in this situation he would say – as I often heard him tell clients who had failed to plan appropriately – “your emergency is not my problem” … however in adland, we tend to jump in and try to help.
Yay us!
Except quite often, when we do this, we’re made to feel like we’re the reason they’re in this mess and so rather than see us as someone trying to help, we’re seen as someone holding them back.
It’s so weird.
Even more so when they then question our hours and fees.
Which is why my attitude is that unless there is a real reason for the urgency – and a respect for what you’re asking people to do – you should probably say no. I get it may be unpopular, but you’re not going to win in this situation.
And don’t get me started when companies brief agencies before a major holiday.
OH MY GOD.
I used to see this in China a lot … and we [as in Wieden Shanghai] would always say no.
Sure, if it was a client of ours who was in a pickle for legit reasons, we’d do all we could to help them … but if it was about ego or mismanagement, we’d politely decline.
And yet, from what I see and hear from others – and occasionally experience – this situation seems to be happening more and more often … the defecto rather than the exception.
What’s even more bizarre is that the supposed urgency for a solution gets more and more delayed as additional contexts, mandatories, and approval processes get added to the list of deliverables … resulting in you wondering how urgent this really was as a supposed ‘sprint’ turns into a marathon.
Of course, the reality of these situations is it’s actually about money and time.
Or said another way, the desire to reduce it.
I get it, developing work can be time-consuming and expensive … but here’s the thing, shortening the time doesn’t automatically mean it makes it the work better.
Cheaper, maybe.
But not better.
In my experience, there are 3 main reasons this situation continually and persistently occurs:
1. The client doesn’t value creativity.
2. The client doesn’t understand creativity.
3. The client doesn’t actually know what they want or need.
For far too many, creativity is seen as expressing what you want people to know about your brand/product before adding ‘some wrapping paper’ around the messaging to make it ‘creative’.
I’ve talked about the folly of this ‘wrapping paper’ analogy before … but that perspective continues to grow. Worse, some agencies actively reinforce it in an attempt to show ‘they get the client’ or they ‘get business’, all the while undermining their single most valuable asset.
Which means that maybe they don’t know business as much as they think.
Don’t get me wrong, it is entirely possible to spend too much time on something. But there sure-as-hell can be too little. And when you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know what they want – so use creativity to try and work it out and then judge it as if its your fault – then any length of time is too much time.
And yet it feels like ‘quality’ has now become defined by the speed it takes to create rather than the effect it creates … often reinforced, as I said a couple of days ago, by ‘for profit’ research companies and gurus who focus on clarity not interest.
No wonder so many clients are asking agencies about what their AI approach is.
Now as I said at Cannes, I think AI – and tech as a whole – offers a whole world of possibilities and opportunities for brands to evolve, grow and connect. Hell, we just did it with our Pedigree Adoptables campaign that literally wouldn’t be possible without it. But that’s not what a lot of clients mean when they ask that, they’re looking for cheaper and quicker output. Optimising the optimized.
The great irony of this is that when you talk about AI affecting their business – especially if the competition embrace it against them – many react like you’ve just tazered them.
They’ll say there’s no comparison.
That their product price-point is based on the value of their expertise, craft and innovation.
And for some, that’s true. But it’s some … not all.
Which is very similar to the post I wrote a while back about how many brands like to think of themselves as premium, but their actions and values are all about how cheap they can be.
A while back I spoke to someone who is one of the most influential luxury expert in the world.
They own, invest and consult with the best of the best … new and old, classic and innovative.
And they said to me they believe the future of luxury will be about recognizing the value of humanity.
The custom, craft and care.
Because in a world that is increasingly about speed, scale and optimization, the brands who will command the greatest value, influence and price will be the ones who offer their customers the most human interaction, engagement and service experience.
It’s a fascinating thought … one that could separate the real from the wannabes.
Or, said another way, the companies who those who talk about valuing their brand and audience and those who actually do. Because one only cares about the sprint, where others appreciate the jog.