Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, AI, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Crap Campaigns In History, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Humanity, London, Technology
While I was in London, I saw this:
What the actual fuck?
The worst thing is I can imagine they’ll get lots of enquiries … probably from companies who are very vocal on saying ‘their staff are their greatest asset’.
But as we know, the companies that shout the loudest about their people are often the ones who are the worst offenders of them. Like some supercharged gaslighting trick, except everyone knows what they’re doing.
The bit I find confusing though is who do these companies think will be their future customers if they are shedding jobs in favor of AI?
Who is going to have the money and why the fuck do they think those who do, will spend it with them when there is a distinct lack of customer care, craft or consideration?
AI has incredible possibilities, but the scary thing is most companies like it because they see it as being able to do the same things they’ve always done, just cheaper or faster.
That’s it.
What these companies fail to realise is that if their products and operations can be replicated this easily, then they may not be that good in the first place.
I’m seeing this everywhere – especially in advertising.
Agencies and clients banging on about how they have used AI to create an ‘ad’ that would have cost millions before – without once stopping to realise that not only is it something we have seen millions of times before, but while the ad may be visually rich, it is also fucking shit.
Sure, it’s early days … but that so many people are focusing on the optimization of the technology rather than the possibilities of it is tragically sad. But then – as I’ve talked about a bunch in the past – I have always been more alarmed by the people behind the tech than the tech itself.
Maybe this is why my client – the biggest investor in luxury and street culture fashion on earth – believes the future of luxury will be built around personal service. Not the illusion of personal service … but the engagement and interaction with real humans.
Highly trained, highly experienced, specialists.
That doesn’t mean they don’t see the value and power of AI … they do. It’s just they recognize that you can’t claim value when you’re doing everything you can, on the cheap. And yet so many brands forget that … mistaking a premium price for a premium product. Until they find out by the actions, choices and behaviours of the people.
Technology is amazing and nothing is possibly more amazing than AI.
It has the power to liberate opportunities we’ve never imagined.
It can enable and facilitate whole new ways of working and creating.
It will provide an outlet for people who have been overlooked for decades.
This is all incredible and important stuff.
But if companies increasingly see it as a way to cut costs to drive short-term gains … then frankly, not only do they deserve all they will get, they need to realise they are the embodiment of Artificial Intelligence.
So to the people behind Artisan … go fuck yourself.
Said with love. Human love.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Community, Context, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Happiness, Harmony, Humanity, Inclusion, Japan, Love, Perspective, Resonance, Respect
Over the years, my wife has told me all she wants me to do is listen to her when she faces challenges, rather than try and fix them for her.
I suspect she is not the only woman who has had this conversation with a man.
And while she knows the reason we do it is out of love, she finds it annoying-as-fuck.
Fortunately we’ve been together so long that its finally got in my thick skull, hence I now listen rather than automatically run to ‘fix’ mode.
The point of this is that I think a lot of advertising needs to adopt this trait.
Too often we think we can solve everything.
Marketing.
Politics.
Poverty.
World hunger.
You name it, our ego believes it can solve it.
But there’s something quite magical in embracing problems rather than trying to solve – or go around them.
Sure, we’re paid to help clients move forward … but that doesn’t always have to be from tackling issues head-on … sometimes, it comes from realizing some problems don’t – or can’t – be solved.
Recently I read something that embodies this perfectly.
A ‘solution’ that doesn’t fix the issue, but deals with it with dignity and grace.
It’s not unique, I’ve seen things like this before and have written about some in the past … but where they tended to be addressing issues in a private environment – such as care homes and parks in the Netherlands – this is something where the public are actively encouraged to be part of the solution.
Except it’s more than that.
Because they benefit as well.
In connection. In understanding and – at a time where there seems to be less of it about – in humanity.
It’s not just magical and beautiful, it’s important. For everyone.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Chaos, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Entertainment, Fear, Individuality, Music
We’ve all been there.
At school, work or home … where you realise what you have done is not what you thought you had been asked to do.
And when that happens, your mind switches off from everything around you to intensely focus on all the possible scenarios of what is going to happen next.
The shouting.
The insulting.
The feelings of stupidity.
The need to find time to fix something you haven’t allocated any additional time to fix.
Basically, it becomes a catastrophization-fest.
Now of course, more often than not, the disaster you imagine doesn’t eventuate.
That might be because you’re able to make your case for the work you did … or you’re able to adapt your work on the fly, to meet the expectations of the meeting you’re in or you just come clean and discover that – in most cases – people are reasonable and just ask you to sort it out as soon as you can.
But even though most of us will have gone through this situation countless times, the feeling of trepidation when you sense you may have messed up, never goes away.
I say this because I recently saw a video that captures this experience at a magnitude that – fortunately – few, if any, of us, will ever experience.
Pianist Maria João Pires stepped in as a last-minute substitute for the conductor, Stephen Hough.
Because of the timing of the concert, there was no rehearsal time, but having talked to the conductor over the phone, she felt confident as the piece – Mozart’s Concerto in A major [K.488] was something she had performed at a concert previously.
Except she hadn’t.
Because as the orchestra struck up the introduction to the piece – in front of a paying audience at a full concert hall – Maria discovered the piece she was expected to play was in D minor [K.466] … not only a fundamental difference to what she knew but also how to play.
The video just shows the utter panic she experiences, amplified by the fact there was a room full of people all staring at her, waiting for the moment where she begins.
And you know what, she pulls it off.
Because after the feelings of trauma, drama and death that no doubt went through her entire being, she realized she had nothing she could do except trust her talent.
Which she did.
Flawlessly.
Even though the appreciative audience will never realise just what she did for them.
Which is my way of saying as bad as things can sometimes feel – as long as you’re not in your situation because of laziness – there’s 4 things to remember:
1. Believe in your talent.
2. Remember you’re not in as bad a situation as Maria.
3. Whatever situation you’re in, it’s not the end of the World … it just temporarily feels that way.
4. The most powerful moments of creativity are often born out of adversity.
Check it out below …
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Context, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Education, Effectiveness, Emotion, History, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, R/GA, Wieden+Kennedy
In his iconic Ted Talk speech, ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity’, the great Sir Ken Robinson wondered what Shakespear was like …
When he was a child …
At school …
In English class.
I still remember how it felt when I heard him say that, because frankly … I never had thought of Shakespear as a kid.
Hell, in many ways, I didn’t even think of him as a real person, as my only exposure to him had been through books and films … which all reinforces what the great Bob Greenberg, co-founder of R/GA, used to say, which was:
“People know you how they’re introduced to you”.
It seems obvious, but we continually forget it.
It’s why there’s a whole generation who know Jordan as a shoe brand more than an iconic basketballer … know Wieden+Kennedy as a brilliant ad agency rather than the outcome of two brilliant – but spotlight-reluctant – humans coming together to make anything but ‘ads’ … and know the Mona Lisa as a painting, rather than a portrait.
This last one is especially pertinent because I recently saw this …
… and yes, like Sir Ken’s comment on Shakespear, I was faced with the realization that the Mona Lisa was a person before a painting.
Too often we base our viewpoints on the mistaken belief that history only starts when we discover it … which may explain why there’s so much stuff spouted on Linkedin that suggests a person has just created something radical, when in reality it’s just a new take on an old lesson.
Which is why it may be useful if we all followed the advice my Dad always encouraged when exposed to something new.
In essence he asked himself – or others – 3 questions.
What do you know about them?
What do others know about them – that you don’t?
What can you know about them that will tell you who they are or how they got here?
It ensured he was always able to talk from the context of history and present … ensuring his viewpoint was grounded in truth but wrapped in modern contexts and perspectives. Which means, for someone who wasn’t a strategist, he was a fucking brilliant strategist.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Age, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Management, Marketing Fail, Relationships, Respect
Growing old is an interesting experience.
A mixture of highs and lows … good and bad … challenging and delightful.
It will happen to us all, but one thing that I have found interesting is how quickly the industry you have worked in – regardless of duration – is happy to leave you behind without barely a second thought.
On one hand, I get it.
+ Time never stops.
+ New people are always coming.
+ Fresh thinking and ideas are being born.
+ And your work only really mattered in that moment. To the people you did it with and for.
But it’s still tough when you realise all you did – all the hours, the effort, the toil, sweat, the successes, the failures – mean nothing to those still in the heart of the industry you work/worked in.
I have experienced this – or at least, I’ve felt it – and it can sting [mainly to your ego, hahaha] but what forced me to write this was a conversation I had recently with a friend of mine.
He doesn’t want me to name him, so let’s just call him Rich.
Rich – along with 2 close colleagues – started a company in the 80’s.
With their name on the door, they experienced huge success almost immediately.
Within a matter of years, they were one of the dominant players in their industry.
Better yet, they were seen as one of the most progressive, creative and innovative companies in their category which led to them attracting all manner of people, clients and press coverage … resulting in them opening more offices around the World.
For 20+ years, they were incredibly successful until one day, he and his partners decided it was time to cash-in.
Not because they weren’t passionate about their business anymore, but because they felt they were not able to run it with the energy they once had and that they felt the business and its employees deserved.
Fortunately for them, they were not only a highly desirable company for purchase, but they had an excellent ‘success management’ structure in place … meaning they were able to leave the place they founded feeling positive and wealthy.
All good then?
Yes … kinda.
You see, within a few years Rich felt the itch and wanted to start another company.
This wouldn’t be in the same field he’d worked in previously, it would be helping people who want to start their own thing.
And guess what, it flopped.
Not because his viewpoint had no value or his prices were too high … but because too few people cared about what he had done.
I should point out his company – with his name on the door – still exists and is still successful, but because he had chosen to step out of the spotlight for a few years, the industry he had worked so passionately and diligently in, stopped thinking his opinion mattered. Or in some cases, didn’t even know who he was or what he’d done. And instead, were hanging on the every word of whoever the new, young, thing in his category was saying and doing.
I should say that when he was telling me this, he was laughing …
Apparently the ‘icing on the cake’ for him was when he met someone at a conference – who worked at the company he founded – and he realized that not only did they not know who he was, it was obvious they didn’t care who had started the company in the first place.
Contrary to what some may think, this is not a rant against younger people in the industry.
Nor is it saying we should revere those who once achieved so much.
The point of this post is to remind people like me – read: my age – that we did exactly the same thing that many of us are experiencing today.
A desire to invent, not repeat.
A focus on what’s happening now, not what happened in the past.
A belief we’re inventing, rather than understand we’re generally just re-creating.
We all did that. Hell, some of us are still doing that.
So while people with experience/history may still have plenty to offer, we have to remember we were also all complicit in what we’re currently going through.
That doesn’t mean it can’t hurt.
Nor does it mean it shouldn’t frustrate.
But it does mean you can’t bitch and complain that others are basically doing the exact same thing you once did to the people before you.
So smile. Encourage. And know one day they will likely also discover the annoying reality that while they can [hopefully] feel proud of what they’ve done, they’re not as original or important as they thought/wished or once were.
Which is possibly the best reminder to focus more on what makes you happy, because at the end of the day, that’s what counts and is remembered the most, if only by ourselves.