Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Authenticity, Cannes, Comment, Communication Strategy, Content, Creativity, Culture, Daddyhood, Embarrassing Moments, Equality, Fatherhood, Friendship, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Holiday, Home, Innocence, Innovation, Insight, Jill, London, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Metallica, My Fatherhood, Nottingham, Otis, Paul, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, R/GA, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, WeigelCampbell, Wieden+Kennedy
So this is it, the last post of 2019.
Congratulations, you made it.
Yes, I know it’s early given there is still a couple of weeks to go in the year – including the inaugural R/GA London Planner Pie-Off – but despite what you may all think, I’ve had a big year and quite frankly, I need a rest from here as much as you do.
When I look at 2019, it’s been pretty good.
Of course there have been a few sad events – my dear Aunt Silvana dying and Justin’s wonderful wife, Ella – but overall, things have been positive.
Even the Beijing Hotel incident was amusing.
But most of all, the fact my family are good, healthy and happy makes it a good year, especially when you think of all the changes that have happened in our lives.
For Otis in particular, he has embraced all of it like a champion and watching him have his first day at ‘proper school’ made me feel incredibly emotional and very, very proud.
Quite frankly, the fact we have managed to stay in the same country for over 12 months is something we feel like celebrating – but not as much as my bank managers is doing – and we’re super excited that we have bought our first family home, even if we’ve not yet moved into it and it meant saying goodbye to the home I spent the first 25 years of my life in.
In fact ‘settling in’ has been a great plus of 2019.
We have a house, cars, some friends and finally feel part of a community … I’ve got to be honest, it’s a lovely feeling … and while I know there will be other changes in our life at some point in the future, this is a time I’m eternally grateful for.
There’s other stuff I’m grateful for too …
Without doubt, doing the Warc talk at Cannes with Martin was a wonderful highlight.
We were quite nervous about it but it seemed to have gone down well and I will always remember it and for that, we owe a debt to the wonderful Mercedes – Martin’s fiancé – who told us to get on with doing our school because she was sick to death of hearing us talk about doing more things together.
Love you Mercedes! And Martin. But more Mercedes.
Another thing – which is a bit weird, but seems to have helped some people – is when I wrote my post about being bullied at work. The response was phenomenal which led to Corporate Gaslighting. And while the amount of stories people are sending in – or agreeing to have published – on there has reduced, I know it has helped some people and I am happy I did it and will continue to do it.
Then there’s the fact I’ve been able to spend a bunch of time visiting China.
I love that place. In fact I would regard it as my ‘home’, despite having left there over 2 years ago.
To be able to spend so much time there and be energized by the city while connecting to new – and old – clients, has been magnificent.
Talking of returning to old things, having Otis’ beloved Elodie visit from LA was awesome.
Seeing them fall into their old, caring friendship was wonderful.
As I have said previously, taking him away from her was one of the hardest things about leaving LA – and while I know distance makes things harder, technology has obviously allowed their friendship to continue, which is the best ad for tech I can think of.
While I understand being emotional about Otis and Elodie being back together, I was surprised how emotional I felt when I went back to LA – especially when I visited Otis’ old kindergarten – but I suppose even the shortest time living in a place, leaves its mark on you.
There’s a bunch of other stuff I’m grateful for this year …
Nottingham Forest … for actually making me start to believe again.
I know it will end in tears, but it’s a nice feeling all the same.
There there’s the Brian May Guitar I bought after only 35 years of waiting.
Seeing Rod Stewart and Concorde were nice, as was getting a comment from Queen producer, Mack, and his son on the post I wrote about Freddie Mercury going to a birthday party dressed in the outfit he wore for the ‘It’s A Hard Life’ video.
That the gods of metal, Metallica, decided to extend the project that I’m doing for them for another THREE YEARS was a major plus. To be honest, I’m still not sure what I’m doing for them or if they like what I’m doing for them, but it keeps Otis in free Metallica t-shirts, so it’s worth doing.
I also got a bunch of new people in my life that I did not know previously.
From the brilliant students at the Brixton Finishing School, to the talented – but totally bonkers – creatives of Dayoung, Mike and Sam and not forgetting the wonderful Joel, Erika, Amar, Megan, Ed and Hannah who all stupidly decided to become members of the delightfully talented gang of planners at R/GA.
Before I end this utterly boring – but important [for me] post, I just want to say thank you to 3 more people.
First is the wonderful Paula Bloodworth not only got engaged – to a man from Nottingham no less [hahahaha] but she got asked to move to Portland to run strategy for NIKE globally at Wieden.
She will be brilliant.
More than people know – and they already know she will be brilliant.
I have had – and have – the great privilege of being able to call Paula a friend. I’ve worked with her, argued with her, laughed with her and caused havoc with her and through it all, her talent and humanity has shone through.
Wieden are very lucky to have her. Nike are very lucky to have her. I am very lucky to be able to call her a friend.
Second is the brilliant Severine Bavon.
Sev has been a part of my team from the beginning and this month she leaves us to strike out on her own.
Not as a freelancer … but to start a company that offers a new model for creativity and strategy for agencies and clients.
I’ve said many times that everyone should start their own company at some point and I am incredibly thrilled and proud that she is going to do just that.
Of course I’m going to miss her.
She’s brilliant, tenacious, smart and a million things I am not.
But I believe a bosses job is to help their people go on to bigger and better things. Bigger and better things they may never have imagined. Bigger and better things where they are chosen for who they are not just what they do.
And while I don’t think I did anything specific to help Sev make this decision, I have a vested interest in watching her do her thing and cheering her as she does it.
Which she will.
Sev, thank you for everything … believe in your talent, follow your gut, burn everything down that stands in your way.
So that leaves the final person … and as usual, it’s anyone and everyone who has written or visited this blog.
Ranting. Arguing. Swearing. Complaining. Caring. Debating.
It’s all meant a lot to me and after this length of time of writing basically the same 5 posts over and over again, I don’t take it for granted that you pop by and pass on your wisdom/insults.
I hope you all have a great festive season and may 2020 be epic.
Hopefully not as epic as I hope mine will be, but epic all the same.
I’m off to Australia for some sun and warmth and I’ll see you on Jan 6th cold, miserable and wondering how the holiday season passed by so fast.
Ta-ra.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Embarrassing Moments, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning
Let’s be honest, I’m a prick.
Especially if you have the misfortune of working with me.
I know all the things I do wrong as I’ve had them told to me 10,000 times.
I distract people from their work.
[But get pissy if they distract me]
I take a steady stream of horrible instagrams of colleagues.
And revel in posting them. On EVERY social media platform ever created.
I buy stupid, passive-aggressive, humiliating gifts.
I have opinions on seemingly everything. And everyone.
I can get needy and emotional.
Basically, I am a liability and yet – despite this endless stream of work violations – I have been blessed with amazing colleagues and team mates who, despite all I do to them, give me nothing but support and their talent back.
Idiots.
But every now and then they fight back.
A photo of my stupidity here.
A shitty/wonderful present there.
And while they think it teaches me a lesson, the fact is I love it.
I love it for a bunch of reasons …
I love it because of the effort they put in to it.
I love it because it means we have an openness that allows it to happen.
I love it because it means we see each other as humans, not one dimensional robots.
Which is all a convoluted explanation of the picture that heads up this post … created and given to me by one of the R/GA strategists – Divya – who felt it was the scariest thing she could produce for Halloween and – lets face it – she was right.
I still stupidly hope that one day in the future, all the people I have worked with can come together and chat – not because I want them to compare notes of what a prick I am – but because I’ve been very fortunate to have brilliant people in my life and I would love to see them all together and witness the magic they could create together.
As long as it’s not a class action against my professional exploits.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Immaturity, Professionalism, R/GA, Resonance
Last year, when I joined R/GA, I wasted my sons inheritance by having an array of stickers made for the team.
Of course I did it under the guise of expressing our planning philosophy and approach, but really it was so they could cover their laptops in them like the vandals I wanted us to become.
Or something.
To be honest, even as tools towards hooliganism, they were still better than the stickers and badges I have had made previously. Even the one’s I did to say goodbye to America.
Well a year has passed and I’m still here [fools] so I thought I’d waste a bit more of Otis’ inheritance by having some old-school tech made for them.
That’s them at the top of this page.
To be honest, I’m still trying to work out the reason for them but I think it has a lot to do with basically being cheap as chips [go on, say it, “like me”] … so cheap in fact, that I had some made for a Mike and Sam – a wonderful creative team here – who have the misfortune of sitting opposite me.
And they say I don’t know how to win friends and influence people.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Context, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Emotion, Empathy, England, Experience, Imagination, Innocence, Perspective, Prejudice, Relationships, Relevance, Research, Resonance
I went to Brighton recently and I have to say, I quite liked it in a try-hard-to-be-cool kind of way.
And while there was a bunch of things to see and explore, one thing stood out from all of them.
This …
I have to be honest, while I am all for sorting out your rubbish, a public bin just for BBQ food is pretty spectacular.
Especially as I didn’t spot a single place selling BBQ food anywhere near it.
But as I wrote about the bins in LAX airport, by not labeling it simply as ‘rubbish’, it did stop me in my tracks.
Made me look more closely.
Made me think.
Which begs the question, for all the logic we are approaching the challenges of the environment – maybe the best way to get people to actually think and reconsider is not to bathe them in facts about our self-created, impending apocalypse, but to use language and imagery that cracks the firewalls we have put up around ourselves to manage this sort of information on our own terms.
It might be counter-intuitive, but as the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Doncaster County Council grit machine campaign showed, sometimes the most sensible thing we can do to create change is to embark on utter madness.
Just like my Boaty McBoatface argument that I am absolutely not bitter about in any way, even thought they completely ignored it and dismissed it out of hand.
Oh no.
When will authorities appreciate that humans are hypocritical.
That common sense is often in the eye of the beholder rather than their being some uniform fire of how everything should be.
This is why we have rubbish ads, rubbish politicians and rubbish products … because while I appreciate we need certain benchmarks to move forward, so many of the things we rely on are as fake as the Emperors New Clothes.
Designed to hide our truth rather than to reveal it.
That doesn’t mean you should stop talking to people, far from it, it actually means you need to spend even more time with them so you can get even closer to them. Understand their realities, their contexts, their truths and dramas and all the nuances and personal rabbit holes they go down to manage what they think and decide to do.
People are fascinating, but it needs more than a fucking focus group or poll to discover it.
As I’ve said before, if you want them to respect your clients brand, start respecting them~.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, China, Comment, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relevance, Resonance
Welcome back.
How was it?
Full of festive cheer or headaches and disappointment.
Bet you’d swap it all again for today wouldn’t you.
Even when you like your job, coming back to work after the holidays is hard.
Getting up early.
Transport hell.
Going through the same conversations with everyone at work.
Thinking about what you were doing at that time just a few days before.
Why do we do it to ourselves? Oh I know … to pay the bills.
Well fortunately not only did I have a lovely time in Australia, I ended 2019 winning the inaugural R/GA London Planner Pie-Off competition with my [surprisingly] delicious Great British Bake Off Fry-Up Pie, so you’ll understand why I have high hopes for this year – with one of the biggest hopes being we might actually move into our new home after 6+ months of legal nightmares. We shall see.
But as we are back at work and no one wants to be here, I thought I’d start by writing a post that captures a sense of optimism for the new year.
It’s 2020.
TWENTY TWENTY!!!
That means we are post Blade Runner times … which has to be cool, doesn’t it?
No.
Don’t blame you … just typing that is enough to give me heart palpitations and it’s only Monday. So to calm us down and to get back to an issue I’m passionate about – especially in these client optimization obsessed times – here is why brand building is not a luxury, but a critical investment in building a sustainable future, especially in these highly competitive, increasingly turbulent times.
Or to quote a Chinese proverb, “a successful farmer plants their seeds and nurtures them in the knowledge that when it comes time to harvest, their crop is bigger and healthier. It takes time, but it is always worth it.”
Said another way … if you’re always trying to harvest, there won’t be anything left to grow.
Given the amount of brands who are openly admitting their focus on short-term sales has hurt their long term business, there may be hope for us all to get back to making work that builds rather than just takes.
See, 2020 isn’t so bad so far after all …