Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Comment, Culture, New Zealand
I appreciate the title of this post is scarily Oprahesque, but hang in there.
When you get to my age, you can feel all the surprises of life have passed you by.
OK, thanks to Otis I get to experience a bit of it through him, but generally – there’s a feeling all the weird and wonderful has gone.
Well how wrong I am.
A few weeks ago, I went to some black tie event in Auckland.
Given I don’t own a black tie and even if I did, I couldn’t have worn it because my stuff [at the time of writing this] still hasn’t arrived from the UK – I went in exactly what I would wear anyway … a jeans and a hoodie.
Little did I know that this event would prove to be one I’d remember forever.
As I walked into the venue [where security asked if I was at the right place – hahaha] I was met by a mass of beautiful people in beautiful clothes … as witnessed by the photo at the top of this post.
And as you can see from this photo, it was utterly packed …
At some point in the evening, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned around to hear a man say he had to talk to the person not in the black tie.
He wasn’t saying it to be nasty, it was a genuine sense of curiosity.
But that didn’t matter, because there was something far more interesting to me.
IT WAS NOEL FUCKING EDMONDS.
I know.
I fucking know.
If you gave me a trillion guesses of who I might meet in a business conference in Auckland, New Zealand … I still wouldn’t have said Noel bloody Edmonds.
I didn’t even know he lived in NZ.
But he does.
And he was at this event.
And he wanted to say hello to the weirdo in the Anti Social Social Club hoodie.
What’s hilarious was he was genuinely shocked when I knew who he was.
Not as shocked as I was that he has literally not changed.
As I told him, I used to watch him on Swap Shop as a kid and here he was, 60 odd years later looking exactly the same.
It was one of the most bizarre and random events of my life … and I include the time the singer Pink told me she liked my Def Leppard Christmas jumper in LA.
But wait … there’s more.
Because if meeting Noel Edmonds wasn’t enough, I then got to meet NZ PM, Jacinda Arden.
OK, maybe it was less of a surprise to see her at a NZ business award thing … but I can tell you she was surprised when I ignored all protocol and just did what every other person in the room wanted to do but didn’t – which was go up to her, interrupt her conversation and tell her she’s ace and could she be PM of the UK.
Amazingly her security didn’t arrest me.
They didn’t even stop me.
Instead, she held my hand and gave me a hug. A HUG!!!!
Seriously, as evenings go, this was definitely a bit bonkers.
But wait … there’s more.
No … seriously. There is.
Because then they announced one of the winners and it was James Cameron.
Terminator, Titanic and Avatar James Cameron.
OK, I knew he owned a place in NZ, but I didn’t realise he lived here.
I certainly never expected him to be where I was.
And while Noel and Jacinda were bloody lovely, Cameron came across as a bit of a twat who lacked all self awareness [which is probably what ex-wife, Linda Hamilton would also say] … but that aside, to be in a place on the other side of the world … in a pandemic … and randomly meet a UK childhood TV star, one of Hollywood’s most successful film directors and the best PM in the whole wide World reminded me of a lesson that’s kinda been the foundation of pretty much all I’ve ever done …
When you’re open to everything, anything can happen.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Film, Fulfillment, Guns
I love Nicholas Cage.
Yes, I know he’s become a caricature of himself.
Yes, I know he’s not made a good movie in an age.
But my god – whether the movie is good or bad – you remember him.
One of my favourite movies with him in it is one of my favourite movies.
Lord of War.
It is arguably the last great movie he made.
It’s the story of a global arms dealer – Yuri Orlov – however the reality is the lead character, played by Cage, is an amalgamation of a number of real life ‘Lords of War’ with many of the scenes in the movie being based on true stories.
In fact, the way they made the movie – specifically the tank scene – is worthy of its own film.
But that’s not what this post is really about.
It’s about the opening scene to the movie … one of the best opening scenes ever made.
People talk about the opening credits of Seven … or Limitless … but while they set the mood, they don’t tell a story … and this does it brilliantly. The story that set ups the story you’re going to watch.
I can’t remember how they previewed the movie, but I hope they just ran this because it is better than any trailer they could ever have come up with. Mainly because it doesn’t attempt to tell the whole story, it tells just enough to make you want to find out more.
As a trailer should, but generally never.
OK, it’s not totally perfect.
The CGI is not as good – or as impactful – as it would be if they made it today … however the idea of showing the life of a bullet is a masterclass in storytelling.
And film making.
And creating anticipation.
And proof that occasionally, Nicolas Cage, makes the best decisions of anyone.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Comment, Creativity, Culture
… but all idiots do idiotic things.
Yes … I know it’s daft.
Yes … I know it was potentially different.
But my god, these are the stupid things that makes this industry fun.
The weird, the wonderful, the daft and the ridiculous.
I get it – it’s unprofessional and immature – but it also connects and unites. Reminds people they’re not in a corporate job. Gives you memories that you still smile about years later.
I’ve seen, experienced – and probably engaged – in a bunch of stuff that represents this.
OK, there’s some I regret – and a couple I can never, ever tell – but the reality is no one ever got hurt and those moments helped create an environment where everyone felt there were no limits to what was possible.
Hell, one of those stupid moments led to an idea where we created a rollercoaster inside a house in Shanghai for Heineken.
And while I appreciate a bunch of you who read this will see it as some bullshit attempt justify acts of stupidity, seeing a plaque made for someone who swallowed a coin creates a much more inspiring and memorable place to work than the the painfully efficient, contrived and soulless, multi-agency brand buildings favoured by so many these days.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Probably me.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colenso, Comment, Confidence, Consultants, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Fake Attitude, HHCL, Imagination, Immaturity, Love, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Only In Adland, Planners, Relationships, Resonance, Respect, Uncommon, WeigelCampbell, Wieden+Kennedy
This is a plant in our office.
I have no idea who owns it.
I must admit I don’t even really like it.
But that sticker …
Oh I like that.
I like it a lot.
Sure, to some it may be stupid.
Or even disrespectful.
But to me, it shows a company where the people within it have a mischievously creative spirit. The sort who spot creative opportunities to do something people will notice, or relate to or just feel for a whole host of reasons.
In just a single word, they found a way to make anyone who sees that little sticker not just see a plant, but a hard-to-please, always demanding, never content, forever dissatisfied pain-in-the-ass plant diva.
In short, they gave a plant a personality.
In one word.
Yes I know I have a ‘history’ with dodgy stickers – and I also loved the time someone at Wieden Shanghai put the sticker ‘freedom’ next to the ground floor button in the lift [which was promptly taken down, probably by the same person who still goes mental when they discover another of my Wieden leaving stickers hidden somewhere in the building despite me having left years ago, hahahaha] … but I particularly love this one.
I love someone thought it was worth doing.
I don’t care they may have given it no thought whatsoever – in fact that makes me like it more – because it’s those little, pointless things that reveals the most important thing you could ever want to know about an agency.
Are you entering a place that has a culture of creativity or a business that sells efficiency processes under the label of creativity?
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Corporate Evil, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Differentiation, Distinction, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Relevance, Resonance, Talent
I still remember buying a movie soundtrack only to discover none of the songs had actually featured in the movie.
When I looked at the cover, I saw “songs inspired by the movie” … in other words, the film company couldn’t get the rights to release the actual music, so they got some two-bit band to write some nondescript music supposedly after watching the film.
It wasn’t as bad as those albums where they got a covers band to sing a well known song – rather than the actual artist – but it was close.
The reason I say this is that I’m seeing a bunch of ‘write-ups’ of ads that seem to adopt the same position.
“Inspired by”.
“Influenced”
“Reinterpreted”.
Now there’s nothing really wrong with this … it’s something that’s been done by all manner of industries for centuries … however while there’s a common belief that ‘genius steals’, the counter to this is ‘lazy borrows’.
I know … I know … I’m being deliberately assholey, but the beauty of our industry is when we allow creatives the freedom to create.
To allow their crazy minds to take us all to crazy intriguing places.
But instead … thanks to budgets, timelines, dictatorial research, corporate fear, layers of management – and countless other things – we don’t.
Which is why we see so many pieces of work that are replications of a film, a meme, a song, a TikTok idea … basically a version of an album of popular songs that haven’t been played by any of the original artists.
Our industry is capable of brilliant things.
But we’ve sold creativity down the river in a bid to make things easier for people who don’t even value the power of creativity.
Nothing smacks of madness as much as that.
Meanwhile, culture leads change of behaviour, attitudes and choices through its endless energy to explore and express.
So while being inspired is one thing, duplicating is another and when certain brands expect people to spend hundreds or thousands on their products, it blows my mind they want to under-invest in the way they actually present themselves in their communication.
Oh they won’t see it that way.
They’ll talk about the celebrity they hired to front the campaign.
Or the music they licensed.
But underneath it all, they’ll they’re taking shortcuts.
They’ll kid themselves it’s working with charts on optimisation or efficiencies … but the reality is they’re trying to work out how long they’ve got before it all falls apart, because the difference between leading and chasing is not about spend, it’s about attitude.
Or said another way …
You either make music or you’re just a cover band.