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, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Insight
A few years ago, the APG asked me to do a presentation about how to get to interesting work and I summed it up by saying, ‘live an interesting life’.
While I appreciate that is a relatively superficial answer, there’s truth in it.
Put simply, what you find interesting is directly related to the experiences you have and the people you meet. The more experiences – and people – you have, the more interesting the possibilities.
But when I look around, it can feel like a cultural echo chamber.
Everyone reading the same things. Following the same people. Commenting on the same issues.
Sometimes I wonder if people even look at life outside of work. Hell, there were people over the festive season who used social media to only talk about ‘ad issues’.
WHAT THE FUCK?
Look, I get strategy means everything can have some sort of professional value … but there’s a big difference between looking at life with ‘professional blinkers’ and just doing shit for the sheer curiosity and interest of it.
It’s why I think there’s huge value in the messy stuff.
The weird … the strange … the ‘makes no sense’ …
That’s where you find the new and the different.
That’s where you gain understanding rather than answers.
That’s where you learn about people not ‘consumers’.
Of course it’s rare these days.
Now everyone is looking for short-cuts.
From online surveys to AI driven chat bots.
Optimise … maximise … squeeze every inch of efficiency out of what you’re doing.
And while some of that has value, it’s no where near as good as running with reality.
It’s why Wieden – despite being all about the work – has always been so good at strategy.
Because they celebrate those who are more than just professionally curious, but culturally.
The people who have a hunger and desire to get ‘in it’.
To get messy and lost in the opinions, behaviours, actions, viewpoints and nuance of the communities and subcultures they’re exploring and working with. Which is why they value being among them as much as reading every possible book about them.
A commitment to authenticity over advertising.
A commitment to adding to culture not just stealing from it.
A commitment to finding the interesting rather than repeating the tropes.
A commitment to fucking around and finding out rather than playing where you’ve always been.
Sure it takes more work. Sure it takes more time. Sure it probably adds more initial cost.
But putting aside the fact this helps get to better work – that plays to where the culture/subculture is heading rather than where it currently is, or worse, was – there’s the simple fact of doing things right. Because, as my Dad once said to me, if you’re not interested in doing that, then what’s the fucking point of doing it at all?
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture
One thing I love is working with creatives who – during a review – looks at the nuance of the idea, not just the excitement of it.
I don’t mean getting lost in the details … I mean understanding what the actual idea is behind the thought and seeing how it all works together.
Of course, knowing when to do this is important.
Too early and it kills the creative journey of exploration.
Too late and it just fucks and undermines everyone involved.
But done properly doesn’t just mean you gain clarity on what the actual idea is … but it highlights the nuances make the idea work so it can be pushed and elevated in ways that allow it to be consistent without ever being boring.
To be honest, it shocks me how little this stuff is talked about …
For all the talk of ‘brand’, it’s amazing how many people equate that to simply repeating a tagline a colour or a set of ‘brand assets’ without realizing the work they’re producing is slowly but surely moving further and further away from the premise of what the creative idea was built on or what the brand stands for.
What really brought this home was a post by the brilliant Trevor Beattie.
For those who don’t know who Trevor is, please go learn your creative history.
For those who do, you’ll appreciate why this is so good.
How good is that?
I particularly love how concise and articulate Trevor is in identifying the heart of the Specsavers idea.
“The comedic potential of not seeing clearly enough”
Clear. Definitive. Focused.
Opening creative possibilities without falling into creative ambiguities.
And then there’s the fact it’s delivered with such brevity.
No rambling. No ambiguity. A demonstration of someone who can see past the flash and see the core. Affording them the ability to give proper feedback … feedback that changes how people see the work and how they can improve it.
Simple. Valuable. Powerful.
Which – based on a lot of the work I see out there in the world – seems to be a dying art … lost to a sea of concepts without consideration or pithy headlines over random images. Or – as Trevor’s feedback also highlights – people interpreting ideas without ever really understanding them or giving them proper consideration so they end up dumbing it down and taking it to somewhere else. And while Trevor politely suggests that in the case of Specsavers, its a strategic pivot [laughing at stupid people] it’s probably more likely laziness, convenience and a lack of craft.
When we’re good our industry is a total fucking force … an infectious, impossible-to-ignore, emotion pleasure machine … but when we’re bad, we’re cheap wallpaper.
But while we have to take a lot of the blame, it’s not entirely our fault.
A lot of clients need to take responsibility for their contribution to this situation.
A situation that undermines their potential with all their mandates and demands.
Demanding simplistic and tactical than distinctive and definitive and caring more about what is said rather than what their audience will embrace and connect to.
If we think craft is dying in our industry, so is the understanding of what it means.
Too many dismiss it as time consuming or expensive.
An outdated concept from a time where advertising was a broadcast only medium.
But those people are wrong.
Because craft isn’t limited to execution, but in the nuance.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Complicity, Confidence, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Effectiveness, Innovation, Insight, Linkedin, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Relevance, Standards, Strategy, Trust, Wieden+Kennedy
There is a lot of talk about a new term in marketing, called ‘UBR’.
UBR stands for Universal Buying Reason and there’s a lot of people seemingly wetting their pants over it. In essence, UBR is when a brand owns a position within a category that arguably, anyone within that category could have had, but they were first or the most consistent or invested in making it their or were simply, the biggest spenders behind it.
If you’re thinking this is not exactly new, you’d be right … but many people seem to be more obsessed with being associated with new terminologies or methodologies than actually making stuff that pushes brands and business to new places.
That’s why UBR feels like the next terminology trope in a long line of terminology tropes …
Brand Assets.
Brand Eco-Systems.
Global Human Truths.
Overly simplicitic labels that promote conformity under the guise of effectiveness or efficiency.
[And yes, I know Dan Wieden used to talk about Global Human Truths … and as I told him, he was wrong. Because while all Mum’s may love their kids, a Mum in Wuhan shows it in very different ways than a Mum in Washington, and to ignore that nuance is to ignore truth for convenience and complicity. And as anyone worth their salt will tell you, often it’s the nuance that is the difference between doing things for people or about them]
Of course, like all trope trends, there’s some value in what is being said about UBR – after all, its hardly a new concept given countless brands and categories have used this approach for literally decades, from alcohol to jewellery.
But what some of the people pushing UBR are seemingly forgetting – or not understanding – is that even at the most functional level of category marketing, it requires depth and consideration to fully release its potential … and frankly the lack of discussion about that highlights the industries obsession with providing clients with easy answers/solutions rather than encouraging/pushing/provoking them to appreciate the rewards [and shareholder benefit, let alone expectation] of putting in the hard work to identify how they can consistently build their value, role and position.
What scares me most is that some of the people ‘fluffing UBR’ – but thankfully not all – are in jobs where they’re paid to help clients with their business … and yet they talk in incredibly generalistic and simplistic terms about something that has context and complexity.
Where the hell is their objectivity?
Where is the understanding?
Where is the nuance?
It all feels like a desperate play to be seen as an industry thought leader, where the goal is to highjack whatever seems to be getting industry traction and then aligning themselves to it.
What’s worse is we’ve seen how this approach works as more and more people value and aspire speed and status over substance and experience … and I don’t really care that makes me sound old, because it actually has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with valuing what our industry can do when we do it with craft, understanding and ambition.
What sums it all up [for me] is how one of the brands the UBR advocates bang on about is Tesco’s.
I get why, because on face value, Tesco’s is a supermarket like every other supermarket.
But …
All it takes is a quick look at Tesco’s history – from their foundation in 1919 through to the many acts and actions they’ve embraced and led over 100 years, from the ‘computers for schools’ program to challenging EU law to give their customers access to products at the same price as their European cousins and a million things in-between – and they’d see the ‘Every Little Helps’ position is not something ‘anyone’ could say, but something far more specific to them specifically … something they’ve continually reinforced and invested in through retail, customer and cultural innovation as opposed to just the repetition of a category trope.
It’s yet another example of people needing to know their history before they can claim they’re creators of it.
Or – said another way – why clients and the industry at large, need to get back to valuing those who have DONE and DO shit, rather than just talk it … regardless how popular or well-meaning they may be.
[OK, ‘talking shit’ is harsh, but it sounded good in that sentence, so forgive me]
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pushing knowledge and possibilities, I’m just not for people putting lipstick on a dead sheep and calling it Ms World.
And don’t get me started on how many of these people are ultimately downplaying someone else’s creative excellence to make it all about them.
Wow, that’s like a rant from 2010. Felt good. Thanks industry trope for waking me up.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comedians, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Cunning
Years ago I wrote a post about how Borat was deeply prejudiced and yet – because it was done for humour – it was totally fine to use the worst stereotypes to define and express a culture, heritage or community.
Now of course that’s something comedians have hung onto for years.
The ability to leave no subject on the table.
To let humour challenge myopic beliefs and attitudes.
And, to be honest, I’m a big believer in that – as I am with art – but sometimes you can’t help but feel some people use it as a convenient excuse to purposefully profit from notoriety.
Where instead of adding to the conversation, they just exploit it.
Taking rather than adding.
I say that because I recently saw this:
Yes, I know it does no one any harm.
And I appreciate that London is not the sunniest place in the World.
But it all feels a bit lazy … not to mention confusing given they have called yellow, ‘bumblebee’ when surely they could have named it, ‘LA sun’.
Or something.
But by the same token, I not only remembered it, I wrote about it – so maybe this highlights the reason we need to allow humour to challenge our perceptions and perspectives because maybe the biggest thing that this post has actually revealed is my English fragility, and I’m not even from London!
Wow, I’ve got whiplash from the turnaround of this post.