Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Chris Jaques, Collegues, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Hong Kong, Imagination
One of my old bosses – the incredible Chris Jaques – told me about the time he took his kids into the office on a Sunday. As he showed them around, they said,
“But Daddy, where are the other kids?”
He was a bit confused and asked them what they meant.
They looked at him equally confused because they were in a building filled with all manner of kid paraphernalia – from toys to magazines to pictures to weird furniture – so who else would be there other than children?
I love that story for so many reasons … one of which being a reminder of the importance of environment, either to encourage creativity or to protect it, but mainly for this.
Happy bloody Monday.
Filed under: Corona Virus, Dad, England, Family, Italy, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Otis
So on Sunday, it would be Mum’s 92nd birthday.
Now of course, she has been gone 9 years … however despite that, I still feel deeply connected to her birthday so for me, that number still feels very real to me.
I often wonder what life would be like if she was still here.
I say that, because had she still been alive, I don’t think we would be in NZ.
When COVID happened, we would have brought her to us in London … so she would be kept safe, cared for and loved.
I would imagine it would have been quite the challenge to get her to agree because she was always fiercely independent … but apart from the fact Otis would have been the major draw card, the fact is that towards the end of her life, she had accepted she needed some help. Not much, but a little. Even if that was just so she had someone to talk to every now and then, despite loving her own company.
And if that was the case there is no way we would have left the UK.
If anything, we would have been more likely to move to Italy … so she could be back in her homeland, near her sister and nieces.
Not that she would have expected us to do that – oh no, she was adamant I had to live my life, not look after hers – but that was a [gentle] tension we endured throughout our time together.
Her wanting to look after me by never demanding anything of me.
Me wanting to look after her by being protective and supportive.
Fortunately, towards the end we had found a calmness in how we dealt with it.
She’d accept what I sent her, and I’d accept she’d do nothing with any of it. Hahaha.
I know that might sound like some weird kind of ‘truce’, but it worked for us and I presume many other families work in a similar way. Acceptance, compromise and convenience … not because it ‘keeps the peace’, but because ultimately, you know the other person is doing it with love, even if it’s not exactly as you wish/hoped they’d act.
My Mum was the master of seeing the love.
Or dealing with challenges with love.
I can’t help but feel we’d all be better off if we followed her way of living rather than the self-serving, myopic, populist, egotism that the world is riddled with these days.
While I’m glad Mum didn’t have to endure the challenges of COVID, I’d have been so happy if it had meant she would be with us. I’ve written before how one of the worst of times was – thanks to my huge privilege – very special for me. By that, I mean in terms of COVID allowing me to be with my family 24/7.
They may have been sick of it, but I utterly loved it. Treasured it even.
But the reality is Mum had died years before, which meant NZ became a real option for us. And what a move it has turned out to be for the family. And while we won’t be here forever, we have valued and enjoyed every minute … which is why on top of thanking Colenso and the country for making it what it is [which is Otis’ FAVE EVER country, hence I’m going to ruin his life again one day in the not too distant, but not close, future] I also need to thank my Mum for kinda making this happen.
Or said another way … thank her for looking after my best interests even when I don’t fully realise that until later.
What a human. What a Mum.
Happy Birthday Mum, I love you.
Big hugs to you and give Dad a big kiss from me.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Dad, Design, Jill, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Paula, Perspective, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Women
I know it’s Halloween, but how I’m choosing to ignore it because I wrote this post ages ago and I can’t be arsed to write a new one to celebrate the ghosts and ghouls.
Hey, at least I’m being honest.
So anyway, I love design.
In fact, I would go one further …
I think design can see opportunities most strategists could never pull off.
This is not because my wife is one.
And some of my closest friends.
It’s because design can make the impossible, happen.
It can make a teetotaler buy alcohol.
It can make static images move.
It can make you want to pick up a specific product on an aisle of identical products.
It can open possibilities to people who have been denied for years.
And it can make you pay a premium for something that does exactly the same thing as everything else.
This last one is exemplified by something I saw when I was recently in China. Specifically this:
How lovely is that?
Yes, I really am talking about IT and mathematical equipment.
And while I assume the manufacturers are trying to attract a female skewed buyer – given its lipstick pallete inspiration [Don’t shout at me, I said skewed, not exclusively women because I totally appreciate the role cosmetics play across culture] – it’s such a refreshing change from the old, lazy, sexist and conformist ‘just make it pink’ bullshit that so many marketers used to think was the most efficient and effective way to engage the ‘female customer’.
Like this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
But it’s not just because it’s an update on the lowest-common-cliche we’ve seen – and still see – from brands. No, what I also love is the craft and consideration that has obviously gone into all of it.
It’s wonderful.
It’s refreshing.
It’s something I bet few planners would ever come up with, because one of the biggest problems we have as a discipline is our desire to reveal our self-appointed ‘intellectual superiority’ and frankly, creating a set of IT equipment that has been inspired by lipstick palettes is probably something the vast majority of us would see as ‘beneath us’.
And that’s problematic for a whole host of reasons.
From the fact we prefer to give answers rather than gain understanding right through to our motivation seems to be more about impressing our peers than doing things that actually change outcomes. Not in reality, but theoretically. Hence we read so many ‘hot takes’ about what’s wrong with work from people who have never made anything of note whatsofuckingever.
It all reminds me of something my Dad used to say, which – because I love the Lucille Ball quote about the same issue – I’ve paraphrased to this:
A person who wants others to know how intelligent they are may be smart, but they’re not very clever.
And that is why I adore what my wonderful and brilliant friend, Paula Bloodworth, recently spoke about at a conference when she said, ‘the smartest thing a planner can be, is stupid’.
Happy ‘trick or treat’.
Filed under: Comment
Did you write a successful novel the first time you picked up a pen?
Did you achieve a World Record time the first time you went for a run?
Did you win an Oscar the first time you took a video with your phone?
Without wishing to be presumptuous, I’m guessing the answer is a big fat no … and yet it seems that is what clients expect to buy any new idea.
To make matters more complicated, you have to be able to prove it BEFORE they do it … because if there’s any element of doubt, then they’ll say it’s all off.
Now I understand marketing is important and also very, very expensive – so you can’t take the piss – but I tell you what else costs a lot of money: doing the same bland stuff you – and your competition – have always done and expecting to achieve something special.
But this is where we increasingly find ourselves …
The dismissal of anything unknown or that has the potential of a flaw or holds the potential of alienating anyone – even if they’re people who would never consider you in the first place – while all the time talking in soundbites of ‘wanting to be great’, wanting to ‘disrupt the market’, wanting to ‘make something iconic’.
Forget great is achieved through the lessons of failure.
Forget great is decided as much by the audience as the creators.
Forget great is about taking a leap rather than a small step forward.
Forget great is more cost effective than spending millions on blanket media.
We’re now in a world where the industry is trying to redefine the rules for success through a process that is designed to create average … in the middle … to fit in, rather than stand out.
And that would be OK if we were honest about it, but no one is.
We have gurus selling their processes as if they’re rockets rather than insurance policies.
We have companies pushing optimization as a liberator rather than an efficiency generator.
We have people claiming marketing practice is an MBA when it’s very good ‘Marketing-101’.
We have brands thinking process complicity is a differentiator when it’s a duplicator.
We have strategists believing popularity is a sign of their smarts rather than superficiality.
We’re literally proving the Emperor’s New Clothes is more documentary than children’s story … and yet we continue to favour those who talk about their systems, models, processes regardless of the fact many of them have never, ever made anything good. I don’t mean that from a subjective perspective, I mean it in terms of many of the people with the loudest voice and opinions have literally not made a single thing.
Zilch.
Nada.
Zero.
But that’s where we’re at these days … the land of bonkers beliefs.
Where companies talk about the importance of ‘strategy’, then do the absolute opposite when there’s a chance to make more – or quick – profit. Where organisations talk about the importance of employees and loyalty, then treat them like disposable commodities when it suits their needs. Where marketing departments talk about forward planning, then keep briefing ‘sprints’ to lots of agencies to cover their lack of forward planning. Where research agencies talk about understanding customers, then invest in bots to ‘replicate’ human responses so they don’t not have to incur the cost of actually going out to ‘understand people’. Where media agencies talk about their expertise in reaching people, then sign contracts with big media companies that guarantee how much they will spend with them. Where ad agencies talk about valuing the creative product, then undermine the process to reach a figure the procurement department likes. Where brand consultants talk about brand experience, then sell processes designed to deliver ‘low-level consistency’ rather than seminal interactions. Where everyone goes on about valuing craft, then act like they know how to do the job better than a professional despite literally never having done that job in their life. Where CEO’s talk about responsibilities, then outsource their decisions to Management Consultancies. Where HR Departments talk about employee protection, then get rid of anyone who has the slightest difference of opinion. Where this list could literally go on for years because hypocrisy is continually being packaged to claim professional consistency.
Am I being extreme?
Yeah. But I’m also not being unrealistic.
We all know that. And yet so many keep doing it. Embracing an attitude of ‘deliberate ignorance’ to fulfill whatever it is they need or want. Be it job security, managing up or maintaining the illusion of power so you can keep reaping the rewards of the job that pays you more than you deserve or would ever get from somewhere else.
And while I understand why some have to do it, many others choose to … gaslighting others to hide their selfish complicity.
Which is why I love both images in this post.
A reminder that while systems, processes and practices have their place and role – they’re tools, not weapons – and anyone who blindly uses them for the latter … regardless of situation or circumstance, especially if they have nothing to show for it, other than arrogant egotistical behaviour … then maybe that highlights that rather than be the bastion of solution, they’re the fucking problem.
Or said another way …
So I’m back.
I won’t ask if you missed me as I don’t want to acknowledge reality.
Now you’d think having been away for 2 weeks I’d be back with all guns blazing. Bursting with inspiration and ready to drop some blog gold. Well, let me burst that bubble because I need to start this return to blogging with the news that this week features a series of posts that scrape the absolute bottom of the blog posting barrel. Yes, even by my standards. Things perk up a bit towards the end of the week, but the first couple of days a peak-low. To prove that [as if I needed to, haha] here’s a post about a chicken.
That said, I will be writing about the 2 weeks I’ve just had simply because they were one of the most magical, inspirational, provocative and challenging times I’ve had in my career and I feel extremely fortunate to have that – not just because at my age, that’s increasingly rare, but because in our optimised, efficiency-obsessed industry. it’s even rarer. But that’s to come down the line …
So a few weeks ago, our Ring cameras announced someone was at the door.
Off Jill went to see who it was, except when she opened the door, instead of a human she saw – you guessed it – this:
Now I get we live in New Zealand.
I get our house is a literal treehouse.
But a chicken???
Jill didn’t know what to do with it and as it wasn’t causing any damage – except pecking at the window – she let it roam and went to pick up Otis from school instead.
But when she returned, the chicken – named ‘Nugget’ by Otis – was still there.
So then they decided they had to try and help find its home, so after putting a message on the community Facebook page – where different people ‘claimed’ it was theirs – Jill decided to put Nugget in a box [with air vents, obvs] and see if she could find who owned it.
One neighbour pointed to a house that they said had chickens, so left it at their door with a note saying that the chicken had ‘escaped’.
An hour or so later, the owners wrote to Jill to say thank you as well as enquire where we lived as they wanted to see how far Nugget had travelled to which Jill replied – and I may never, ever forgive her for this – without once writing the immortal words, “now we know why the chicken crossed the road”.
Devastated.