Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Law, Marketing, Marketing Fail
Whenever I am in the US, the thing that always shocks me – regardless how many times I’m there – are the pharmaceutical and lawyer ads.
Pharmaceutical on TV.
Legal on billboards.
They’re everywhere … forcing themselves on you like double glazing salesman who senses a moment of weakness in your resolve.
And while you tend to ignore the pharmaceutical ads – because they’re boring as fuck, long as hell and then filled with disclaimers that try to write-off ‘death’ as a casual side-effect – I am transfixed by the lawyer billboards.
Loud. Egotistical. Blustering in confidence.
They’re almost a parody except they’re deadly serious.
My Dad hated the US legal system … because according to him, it made a mockery of the law. Designed either to ambulance chase for quick wins or keep big cases going to maximise fees.
Anyway, recently on a trip to LA, I sat behind a bus with this:
On first glance, I just saw the URL and thought ‘Lemon Daddy’ may be a euphemism for some sort of sugar-daddy dating service. [I know, I know]
Then I saw the line ‘why are you still driving that piece of shit’, and it made me properly interested … especially when my taxi driver told me the guy in the pic was the basketballer, Austin Reaves, who plays for the Lakers.
Soon after that, I saw the name of the law firm ‘Drake’ and it all made sense – or should I say more sense – and by checking out the URL, I saw it was an ad for a law firm who specialise in taking on cases relating to faulty cars.
Frankly, the website reinforced what my Dad thought about a lot of American law … it’s a hard sell masterclass, but I still couldn’t work out why the NBA player was there unless:
1. It was just another way to try and get noticed.
2. Austin had a financial interest in the company.
So I did a bit of digging and – to be honest – the answer was more complicated than the most complicated law case. Have a read of this.
Now for someone who has been in this industry and worked in a lot of countries – including LA, where they’re based – but I’ve never heard of Black Llama creative. But that means fuck all. However – and I appreciate the snobbishness of this comment – I have been in this industry long enough to know what good work is and frankly, I have opinions about the claims they make about themselves:
Black Llama, a renowned creative advertising agency recognized for its innovation and expertise in brand development, played a pivotal role in the inception and execution of Lemon Daddy. Black Llama’s exceptional creativity, coupled with their strategic prowess, ensured that the Lemon Daddy campaign resonates with consumers, captivating their attention and generating engagement.
To be fair, they definitely achieved the latter part of their claim … but not by their innovation, expertise in brand development or exceptional creativity, but because they put a swear word in the headline and – for me – some random dude holding a basketball.
Look, I’m all for people having a go – and I appreciate everyone thinks they have something to offer that no one else has – but confidence means little when it’s so obvious you live in a bubble where you are the only one who judges what is great.
[One look at their website may highlight this is the case with them]
Good on them for making this happen.
Good on them for getting an NBA player involved.
Good on them for working with a client that seems to have a good idea.
But if I was Austin, I’d be online looking for SueMyManagementForBadEndorsementDeals.com
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: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Culture, Effectiveness, Linkedin, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Professionalism
Did you have a good Valentine’s Day?
Did you get loads of cards … flowers … money?
Nah, neither did I and frankly, I’m still in shock at how positive I was about it so let’s get back to normal with a rant.
About Linkedin.
Specifically people on Linkedin who seem to think they can do whatever the fuck they want.
I’ve come to the realisation that Linkedin is full of people who used to write posts in early Facebook days that said, ‘like this post if you want to end World hunger’.
I say that because the modern equivalent is when someone stupidly accepts an invitation and within a second, they’re in your ‘inbox’ flogging their advice and/or services and expecting you to want to desperately book a meeting with them to hand over your cash.
Except their emails tend to have a couple of fatal flaws.
They often have absolutely nothing to do with what you do.
Or they have everything to do with what you do, but they don’t realise that.
And they are written with such an attempt at casual professionalism, you know the same email has been received by 10,000 people that day.
Recently I got one within minutes – LITERALLY MINUTES – of absent-mindedly accepting a request.
It said this:
God, I have so many issues with this.
Even the first paragraph pisses me off.
Yes … I do mind them asking me that question. Any question.
I especially mind that they don’t give a fuck because they just launched into it anyway.
And then there’s a matter of that question.
That patronising, overly-simplistic, bullshit question that’s expressed with the sort of casual confidence of an arrogant junior planner who spouts all over Linkedin that they know the answers to why every brand is/isn’t successful, despite having never worked on them, their competitor or their category and yet they still don’t find that a hinderance to talking like they’re the CEO of the brand and their ‘newsletter’ [which claims to be read by people working at major brands, despite the fact it’s likely the intern] holds the secrets to untold fortune so you really should sign up for it NOW.
Breeeeeeeeathe.
And then after that question is their follow up ‘facts’.
And I haven’t even started on the fact what they’re saying is literally my job and frankly, its more insulting than the time I met Phoebe Philo of Celine fame wearing a T-shirt with my cats face on it. Despite her being a bloody awesome and beautiful cat.
I cannot tell you how much I hate this shit.
How over I am of all this bollocks.
Because while I’m all for people having a go, at least put in a bit of effort.
By all means fail gloriously but don’t do it because you’re lazy as fuck.
Jesus, I’m more professional than these fuckers.
Me.
And I went to a meeting with Phil Knight wearing a pair of Birkenstocks.
And as laughable as that, it’s still not as funny as getting an unsolicited email from someone proudly proclaiming they can help me get ‘a deeper understanding of my customers’ while inadvertently demonstrating how they have absolutely zero fucking understanding of the person they’ve just peddled their bullshit too.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Complicity, Confidence, Contribution, Creativity, Culture, Fake Attitude, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Perspective, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance
When I first worked in Asia, I was struck by how many people attended meetings.
More than that, I was struck by how many people attended meetings and did/said nothing.
Now I am all for exposing young talent to stuff like this – it’s interesting and valuable and I realise how helpful and beneficial it was to me when I experienced it – however the longer I lived there, the more I realised it had nothing to do with ‘education’ and everything to do with ego and pandering.
Ego in the sense of ‘look how many people I’ve got working for me’.
Pandering in the sense of ‘look how important you are to us’.
And while you may think clients would look at this and question why they are paying for that many people – albeit at that time, talent was very cheap in comparison to other markets – the reality is they were also playing the game, so the inflation rate of ‘meeting attendance’ was worse than Russian currency circa 1984.
Over my time there, I managed to kill this attitude – at least with the meetings I had – reducing the numbers present to just the essential people and maybe one ‘observer’ for exposure and education … which is why you can imagine my surprise when I left Asia and found the West had now also adopted the ‘loads of people in attendance’ protocol for every internal/client meeting.
And for exactly the same reasons.
ARGHHHHHH.
While I appreciate every bit of work takes a village and clarity, communication and collaboration play a vital role in making great things happen … you don’t need everyone to be in every meeting. And yet some people find a way to always be there. To inject themselves into processes without ever actually doing anything … just seemingly looking like they are.
Which is why this piece by George Tannenbaum so good.
Tragic in it’s truth, but so good in its observation.
And while it is on companies for allowing this behaviour – which is madness, given how challenging times are for business right now, and how they could be better supporting/paying those people who are actively contributing to the work rather than hiding behind it – it is also indicative of how some organisations value complicity more than different opinions.
Now I appreciate there will be some people out there who will think the idea of being a piece of parsley sounds great.
You get paid.
You pretend to be important.
You attend the big meetings.
But the reality is – as George points out – everyone knows you’re pointless.
A bit of garnish always left to the side.
Nothing distinctive.
Completely replaceable.
Lacking any taste or value.
Or said another way, a life of complicity, not respectability.
And while George writes it as if parsley is still a necessity, I feel differently which is why I would say if you want a career … one of the best pieces of advice I could give is always look for ways to be the steak.
Doesn’t matter what job you do.
What level you’re at.
Add value, not just garnish.
It may be simply doing what is needed when it’s needed. It may be bringing new ideas to old problems. It may simply be being interested in what others are interested in.
Because while that might sound harder work than being parsley, it’s not as hard as the effort it takes to look busy while producing nothing. Let alone the strength of character it requires to ignore the fact you know your colleagues know exactly what you’re doing and they’re showing you the exact amount of respect that your attitude deserves.
And if you want proof, read Matt Beaumont’s brilliant book, E.
Specifically the actions, behaviour and response of the ‘head of account management’.
It’s supposed to be a comedy, but it’s really a documentary … and a reminder that people may absolutely detest assholes, but they detest imposter assholes most of all.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Audacious, BBH, Colenso, Colleagues, Comment, Confidence, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Management, Marketing, New Zealand, Provocative, Relevance, Resonance, Ridiculous, Wieden+Kennedy
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with advertising awards.
Of course, it’s nice to have them … but for me, it’s always about who you are competing against and who the judges are who are deciding them.
Oh, and whether those who have won before, won with real work or ‘ultra-niche, ultra-limited edition’ one-offs.
Also known as scam.
You generally can tell when that shit happens because they tend to either:
1. Be a one-off from the clients normal approach to work.
2. Be a one-off from the normal output of the agency.
Fortunately, it is less than it used to be, but still more than it should.
That’s why the agencies who do it properly deserve more credit.
To win awards as a byproduct of the work you make rather than it be the focus of the work you make, is a noble cause.
There’s more of them than we often give credit for … and you can generally tell who they are by how long they’ve been able to play at that level.
A few years ago, I wrote about how W+K and BBH were brilliant examples of this.
How they proved the old adage ‘it’s easier to get to the top than to stay there’.
And it’s so true.
Because without wanting to take anything away from anyone who does well, being able to do it consistently is an even greater achievement.
I say this because I think Colenso is one of these places.
For over 50 years, we’ve consistently made work that has been recognised by the best in the world as some of the best in the world.
NZ has tended to do very well in this area … DDB, Saatchi, Special to name a few … but few have done it with the longevity and sustainability of Colenso.
And a big part of that is because of the culture it cultivates.
From our approach to the work we make to the people we hire to make it … at the heart of everything is a deep love and respect for the power of creativity.
Lots of people will say that.
Lots of agencies will say that.
But you find out who means it through the work that they consistently make.
And that is – like all the places who consistently do good stuff – one of the traits that reveal who we really are.
That doesn’t mean we’re the easiest place to work.
Because even though the place is full of good and talented creative people … it’s also a challenging, demanding, opinionated and provocative environment, because ultimately, we have 50+ years of standards and expectations to honour, live up to and try to push further.
As the picture at the top of this page – from 934843049 years ago – shows.
But what’s interesting is how we want those standards and expectations to manifest.
Because it’s not about playing to be accurate, it’s about doing the right thing in the most interesting, original and audacious ways.
Do we always get it right?
Nope.
But we always strive to get it right and that’s why we are consistently awarded at the highest level for work as varied [and effective] as turning beer into an alternative fuel for cars, creating a radio station for dogs, getting Rick and Morty to explain green energy to youth culture and making a radio campaign that doubled as an outdoor campaign that asked New Zealand to make a radio campaign … to name but a very few.
And while this post sounds unbelievably corporate toady … it’s my way of paying homage to my colleagues and, especially, my partners.
Now I could wax lyrical about Si – our CCO – because he’s not just horribly talented, he is possibly the nicest human I’ve ever worked with.
[Well, I say nice, but he has his moments of evil – but even then, he manages to deliver it with a niceness that makes every Disney character look like a bunch of pricks]
But the reality is, you’d expect the leader of Colenso to be brilliant … otherwise why the hell are they here.
Which is why who I really need to acknowledge is our MD – Ange – because she’s the Ringmaster of the whole Colenso circus.
It can’t be easy.
Not just because she has to deal with me – let alone sit next to me – she also has to work with a bunch of people thinking up ridiculous ideas that challenge and confront on every level.
Not just creatively … but in terms of time, simplicity and possibility.
Yet she manages it.
More than that, she would fight for the death to maintain it.
Which is why the thing that is often forgotten about the agencies who consistently make great work is not just the people behind it … but the people who make it possible.
The people who create the conditions for it to thrive.
From the MD’s and finance people to the IT and support staff.
But – and here is the critical thing – it’s more than them just doing their job well, it’s them doing their job through the lens of what the whole company is striving to do.
Because to paraphrase that famous story of the janitor who met President Kennedy …
They’re not working in a vacuum, immune from the needs and ambitions of everyone around them… they’re helping make the most audacious ideas get out the door.
Here’s to all of them. Every last fucking one of them.
With that, the first month of ’24 is done. And I can tell you, I’m as surprised as anyone that I decided to finish it in such an earnest, generous way.
Let’s hope February is less nice. Even I feel sick with it.