Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Cunning, Design, Distinction, Packaging
Toblerone.
The chocolate you only see – and buy – at airports.
The chunky triangular pieces that are guaranteed to give you lock jaw.
And while you may think nothing has changed with that chocolate for 10,000 years, a lot has.
Not in taste.
Not in ingredients.
But definitely in reputation.
You see in 2016, the Swiss chocolate brand quietly increased the gaps between the pieces so they could use less chocolate and maintain their price.
On one hand, that’s a smart way to do it.
However on the other, by not telling anyone that’s how they were doing it, left Toblerone’s owners – Mondelez – look like they were trying to pull a fast one.
A year later, Mondelēz went a step further and reduced the number of triangular peaks in each pack from 15 to 11.
But that’s not what this post is about …
You see, Mondelez shifted a large amount of Toblerone’s production outside of Switzerland.
However, in 2017, the Swiss Government passed legislation that restricts use of Swiss provenance. To be able to market yourself as ‘made in Switzerland’, 80% of raw ingredients must be sourced from the country and the majority of processing take place there.
For milk and milk-based products – ie: Toblerone – the required quota is 100%, with exceptions for ingredients that cannot be sourced in Switzerland, like cocoa. Apparently products branded as ‘made in Switzerland’ can command a 20% premium compared to other comparable goods from other countries … with this rising up to 50% for luxury items.
Given the extortionate prices of all things Swiss, none of this is a surprise.
Anyway, because Toblerlone no longer meets the criteria to use Swiss iconography in its marketing, they have to replace the image of the Matterhorn mountain that has been a mainstay of their packaging for over 100 years.
The Matterhorn was used because of it’s near symmetrical pyramidal peak that mirrors the shape of the almond-and-honey-laced chocolate bar.
Anyway, in a perfect example of diversion marketing justification, just take a read of what an Mondelez say’s to explain this change …
I mean, I know they’re not wrong … but their ability to ignore the reason WHY they are changing the logo is the sort of corporate-toady that I both admire and loathe in equal measure.
Admire … because the willpower needed to be able to publicly sell-out your own morals and standards for the good of your employer is almost impossible to fathom.
Loathe … for exactly the same reason.
I have no problem Toblerone are producing their product outside of Switzerland … but I have a lot of problems with them trying to hide that fact under the guise of some packaging redesign.
But then that’s modern marketing these days.
Rather than opening up opportunities for more people to consider buying you, now it is increasingly about hiding the reasons people might not.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Awards, China, Creativity, Culture, Equality
This is an open letter to Little Black Book, The Drum, Campaign Brief, Campaign, Adweek, Cannes, Warc … basically every industry publication or award show around the world.
Please …
Pretty please …
… can you stop awarding English speaking agencies – especially those only with offices in English speaking nations, only producing work in English – titles like ‘Best APAC agency’.
I get they may have won more awards than any other agency in the region.
I get they may have topped more categories than any other agency in the region.
I get they may have been recognised more than any other agency in the region.
BUT at best, they’re the best ENGLISH SPEAKING agency in APAC.
That clarification is important …
Because apart from it being factually correct, it stops devaluing and demeaning the companies, agencies and people who don’t speak English as their native language.
Which in terms of the APAC region, is the vast majority.
Years ago, an agency who had been named APAC Agency of the Year, put something out that said something like:
“If you’re a company in Japan who are ambitious, then the APAC Agency of the Year would love to help you fulfil your goals”.
Now I get recognition is important.
I also get being named APAC Agency of the Year is utterly epic.
But … but …
Hell, it wasn’t even written in Japanese … which suggests they didn’t think it mattered if you don’t speak the language, don’t know the culture, don’t have an office in that country, don’t have any Japanese employees, don’t work in Japanese … you can teach them a thing or two about great work.
I mean, can you get more Colonialist than that???
Hell, even if they meant it in terms of expanding outside of Japan – rather than inside the country – it’s still pretty arrogant.
That said, I used to see this shit all the time when I was in China.
I still remember an exec from a UK-only based agency telling a room full of Chinese business leaders “we can help them be successful”, despite that being the very first time they had been in China … or the social media ‘guru’ who told people at Unilever China why Twitter was so powerful, not realising Twitter was banned in China.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t tragic.
I should point out Colenso has been crowned ‘best APAC agency’ in its time … and while that before I was here, I still find it wrong and would openly say it was.
Sure, they didn’t suggest they were going to colonise the whole region with their approach to creativity, but they also didn’t say they weren’t … which still suggests some sort of superiority, intentional or not.
Look, I get the titles are a byproduct of how the awards are calculated … and I get it also reflects who enters and how many times … but given the vast majority of the judges are English natives – with Western frames-of-reference – it immediately benefits those who come from similar backgrounds.
This is not a new issue for me.
I said it when I got Chaz from BBH to do a co/presentation with me/Wieden in 2012 … I said in back in 2013, when I was invited to speak at Mumbrella about Asian creativity and I said it every time I was spoke at an Asian awards where the lead language was – bizarrely – English.
Asian creativity has a terrible reputation.
I know there’s issues of scam advertising, but that’s not unique to Asia. Remember Peggy?
The reality is the Asian region has used creativity in innovative ways for thousands of years.
For fucks sake, this is where paper, printing, money, gunpowder, wheelbarrows, coffins, chopsticks, toilet paper, holistic health and TikTok originated.
Sure, the creativity produced today may not always follow Western market approaches … and their contexts of life may be very different to other countries … but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy, valuable, creative or interesting.
We can all learn from others.
There is so much to gain from hearing how other countries approach things.
Being the best English speaking agency in APAC is still a wonderful achievement.
But there’s enough ego in this industry without us adding to it by handing out titles that have more in common with colonialism than creativity.
Over to you industry award and magazines …
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View
Somewhere along the line, the strategy discipline went from judging what we did by what it achieved, to what process was followed.
I get it, process matters – but as I pointed out a while back, the vast majority of strategic models out there say and do the same thing, just with additional layers of complexity and/or ego huff-puffery.
But as much as purposefully making things sound like it’s rocket science is tragic, it’s the one’s that are patronisingly simplistic that are almost even more offensive.
Recently I saw one that left one of the worst tastes in my mouth.
It’s called, ‘the beef burger’ strategy.
Here it is …
Terrible eh.
I mean, proper horrific.
But that’s only the aperitif, because each one of those shapes is ‘an ingredient’ and the creator of this has written out a recipe of how it ‘all goes together’.
I should point out, I have purposefully removed the name of the person who developed this.
I don’t know them.
I don’t know the background to them.
I don’t know if they’ve come to their senses and disowned this.
Plus I accept their reason to do it was to try to help and that is worthy.
However …
Look at that.
Look at it.
And what’s worse, I can imagine LOADS of people liked it.
Probably said “it makes sense of the complex in ways that are ‘digestible'”.
Well it does if you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. The overly simplistic definition that lets people immediately think they’re experts when they’re literally going to miss the point of each and every ‘layer’.
And what’s worse is there’s a lot of this stuff out there. Portraying accessible expertise when it’s really just Emperor’s New Clothes.
Strategy is in danger of forgetting what it’s supposed to do, which is see the future.
A future of commercially valuable opportunities.
Stuff that’s not been made yet, but can be.
And yet these days, it’s treated like some superficial, ineffective glue.
A superficial, ineffective glue used to lightly hold some creative bullshit ‘wrapper’ on whatever blinkered thinking a company has convinced themselves is Einstein standard of brilliance.
And everyone loses because of it. Everyone.
Especially strategy.
Because instead of helping companies take giant leaps, it’s just shuffling it’s feet and it’s stuff like the ‘beef burger strategy process’ that is bringing it down.
Playing to the lowest common denominator rather than the highest.
Letting certain organisation claim they’re developing their teams skills when they’re really destroying their potential.
Allowing ‘guru’s’ who have built their own brand more than they’ve ever built anyone else’s, churn out Morph-strength, strategy landfill.
Strategy is more than a bunch of bland and ambiguous terminology.
More than a condiment in a sea of condiments.
Strategy is imagination.
A way of looking forwards to see opportunity, possibility and value.
It’s not some shitty, unsatisfying burger made by instructions, regardless of context or hunger … and anyone who thinks that or eats that, deserves all the indigestion they’ll get.
Crikey, that’s some post isn’t it … and I’m not even in a bad mood.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Consultants, Corporate Evil, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, Effectiveness, Fake Attitude, Grifting, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Relevance, Scam, Strategy
I’m all for people expressing their opinion.
I’m all for people being excited about things they see as having great possibilities.
I’m all for people trying to find new ways to evolve, grow and make money.
But come on …
It’s getting to the point where Linkedin should be renamed Disneyland given how much fiction and fantasy are going on.
What’s worse is among all the ‘consultants’ and ‘new business development people’ claiming expertise, are a bunch of strategists.
Now I know as a discipline we think we have the answer to everything … but we don’t.
Fuck, even the people who are developing the technology, don’t.
But what bothers me is the reason behind why so many people are claiming expertise.
OK, so I know some have a real understanding of the technology and its possible implications. And in that, I include certain strategists – we all know who those brilliant people are.
And I also appreciate some mistakenly believe that because they’ve used ChatGPT, they think they now know everything about the technology.
But others – and this is potentially the majority of them – are doing it because they see it as a chance to personally gain from it.
In essence, their perspective is that as long as a subject matter is highly topical and others – especially companies – don’t know about it, then they can profit from it because they can say anything because no one will know enough to tell them they’re wrong.
You can tell who this group are because they’re the one’s who are either the loudest to declare their knowledge or the first to say they had identified the trend … despite never doing anything with their ‘expertise’ or because of their ‘vision’.
Putting aside how this sort of behaviour can damage the reputation of real experts, disciplines and entire industries … the issue I have is how it is often justified as hustle culture.
I’ve written my issue with hustle culture in the past, but the fact is, this isn’t hustling … it’s grifting and the impact of it is not just damaging people and companies, but it killing the potential of technology before it has a chance to find it’s real possibility.
I appreciate this is quite a heavy post from what was just a piss-take image of Homer … but the best comedy is always based on a truth we often like to deny.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Business, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail
A few weeks ago, I saw this …
… and I have to be honest, it’s had me thinking a lot.
Because while I acknowledge you can’t take things for granted, when you get lost in the weeds, you lose sight of what you’re working towards and how you do it.
And a lot of people are doing both of those things.
Nothing sums this up more to me than the issue of attribution.
The quest to minimise risk – or ‘optimise value’ – has resulted in brands forgetting that the easiest way to get attribution is to do something interesting.
But instead – reinforced by industry ‘guru’s – we have ended up with a continual production line of commercially responsible alternatives.
Be a one colour brand.
Place brand assets higher than a brand idea.
And – worse of all – have watermarks in your ads.
While colour and brand assets have a role – albeit not a primary role as so many people seem to suggest – if you feel the only way your brand will be remembered in your commercial is to place your logo all the way through it, then you either don’t know how people work or how advertising does.
Or said another way, you’re admitting your brand and your product are forgettable.
Seriously … why would you do that?
Why would you spend millions on something that positions you as uninteresting.
Worse, why would you spend millions on something that positions you as uninteresting and make sure people know it’s you by ramming your logo down their throat?
But somewhere, someone is measuring the ‘impact’ of this approach and finding a way to demonstrate its effectiveness to clients. Letting everyone feel pleased with themselves. Their choices. Their actions. Creating a precedent others will follow in the blind belief they’re being smarter … more optimised … more effective than all their competitors. All the time consciously and deliberately ignoring the critical fact that it’s undermining them rather than liberating them.
Which leads back to that tweet at the top of the page.
Because while knowing how things are going is important, nothing reveals how lost you are than measuring everything but valuing nothing.