So this week is my first official ‘thanksgiving’.Like many of the American holidays I’ve experienced so far, I’m pretty sure it’s going to make me feel weird.
July 4th set the tone by asking me to celebrate the day America kicked England’s ass.
Then there was Halloween … where America goes more over-the-top than a Versace, Disneyland collaboration.
And so we come to thanksgiving … a day that is arguably, even bigger than Christmas here.
Where you get together with those you love and express what you’re thankful for while tucking into a turkey dinner and eating pie.
OK, so the eating bit is going to be good, as will the days off … of which you also benefit as this is the only post of the week … however, before you start taking the piss that I’m always on holiday, please note I’ve not had any personal time off this year annnnnnd this holiday makes up for the fact I didn’t get to enjoy the annual national October holiday in Asia for the first time in over 10 years.
Better? No, didn’t think so.
Anyway, to ensure the whole holiday shebang gets off to a good start, I’ve organised the inaugural Thanksgiving Deutsch Planner Pie-off for later today where we all bring in our handmade masterpieces and do battle for the ultimate accolade of Prince/ss of Pie.
Think Great British Bake-off with more swearing, threats and stomach aches.
And pie.
However despite all that fun and frolics, the other bit of Thanksgiving will be bloody awkward … by which I mean the whole ‘what are you thankful for’ bit.
Not because I’m not thankful for a whole bunch of stuff, but because I have absolutely no desire to share it with people I vaguely know.
Maybe it’s my British genes coming through.
Or maybe it’s because I hate being told to do stuff that others want me to do.
Which I guess is additional evidence that I am an only child … hahaha.
So I will end this post with the same response I gave when I was recently interviewed by a magazine and asked, ‘what do yo love about being in America’.
“Your bacon and free soda refills.”
They didn’t find it funny either.
So Happy Thanksgiving everyone, see you in a week.
… and given it’s Friday, I’m pretty sure you’ll be living this mantra.
Especially at 11pm as you leave the pub.
Have a great weekend.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Chinese Culture, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Innovation, Insight, Nike
One of the things that bothers me about my industry is how they always talk about creativity when most of what they create is advertising.Of course advertising has creativity within it – sometimes, incredibly creativity – but often, the approach is to communicate the problem rather than solve the problem.
OK, so there are occasions when the biggest problem is a lack of awareness, but that is most definitely the exception rather than the rule.
I’ve written and talked about this so much over the years.
From my PSFK talk back in 2009 to my distain of Cannes scam to my adoration of designers and an absolute shedload in-between … and yet I continue to see briefs where the goal was obviously to ‘make an ad’ rather than ‘create a difference’.
This is not purely the agencies fault, in many cases it comes from the client.
Sometimes it’s because they need to support the retailers.
Sometimes it’s because their KPI’s are based on executional delivery.
Sometimes it’s because it would affect their remuneration structure with their agencies.
Sometimes it’s because they are not empowered to do anything different.
Sometimes it’s because they don’t actually care about solving, just producing.
And yet even in some of those approaches, there’s an opportunity to create a solution rather than make some noise if only they’d asked the right questions.
A while back, I had a client that briefed us on an ad campaign.
Got to admit, as much as I love them, it kind-of annoyed the hell out of me.
For me, that was like going to the doctor and diagnosing your own illness and solution.
So we asked why they wanted the campaign and they said they needed parents to let their kids do sport which was hard as they were worried their precious [only] child may get hurt.
And so we said, “If we can find a way to get parents to feel good about letting their kids do sport, are you open to it?”And when they said ‘yes’, it gave us the right to create bandaids that worked as badges of honor and comic books celebrating the power of sport.
Don’t get me wrong, if we had done a TV campaign it would have been a brilliant TV campaign.
But by asking a simple question, it allowed creativity rather than advertising to be the solution.
Or said another way, it opened possibilities rather than closed them off.
The reason for all this is that I recently saw a brilliant creative solution to slowing traffic down.
This is something that has been done in many ways over the years, including the brilliant Speed Dial by Colenso [video here] … but this was something even simpler.
This.
[Or if you’re too lazy to click on the link, the picture at the top of this post serves as a clue]
Now I know you might argue that once you know it’s not ‘real’ people won’t slow down, but I’d challenge that given the way the brain works.
But regardless, I will be interested to see what the data says after it has been in operation a while, but compared to a multi-million dollar ad campaign, or even the prices of stationing a copper there with a speed gun, I’m guessing it will be more effective.
And that is why our industry has to truly embrace creativity rather than just want to make ads.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Crap Products In History
I’ve written a lot about Facebook over the years.
Good stuff.
Bad stuff.
Questionable stuff.
But the reality is that for all the shit it gets thrown in its direction … for all the talk of it losing its relevance … it’s still super popular and influential.
But as we have all read recently, it has been susceptible to communicating false news.
False news that has enabled bad things to happen … either because it encouraged people to react to things that didn’t require a reaction or encouraging people to believe that everything was OK when everything was absolutely not OK.
To be fair to Facebook, they have openly stated they don’t want this to happen and are taking steps to stop it.
Of course people say it’s too little too late but the fact is, when you have over a billion users, it’s bloody hard to manage all that content and data. But that said, sometimes things happen that are so obviously #FalseNews you have to wonder how the hell they let it happen at all.
Stuff like this …
Come on Facebook … what the hell were you thinking letting this happen?
While anyone who knows me will think it’s bollocks, the fact is even I don’t believe it and I’m as delusional as they come.
For your own sake, you need to understand that while people are willing to accept mistakes, when you let something as stupid as this occur, you’ll find their patience is very thin.
You can thank me later Mr Z, preferably with a cheque for $10,000,000.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment
Monday.The start of another long week.
A week of deadlines, expectations and disappointment.
What happens on Monday’s sets the tone for how the rest of the week will turn out.
To make it worse, this blog has come back after giving you almost a week of peace.
If the thought of all this depresses you, then I might have something that can help you.
You see instead of me ranting about something no one cares about – even me – I’ve decided to show you a video of someone starting their journey in the worst possible way. Suddenly all the things that could trip up your Monday and ruin the rest of your week have just disappeared.
You’re welcome.