Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Design, Emotion, Happiness, Home
… then surely this door would win it for England hands down.
Yes, I am writing about a front door.
Is this a new low on this blog?
It just might be.
So this door is a few doors up from our house.
To be honest, in all the time I’ve lived there, I never noticed it … and then one morning, it’s pinkness shone bring like a lighthouse against the cold, miserable, darkness of Fulham.
I don’t know why, but it feels quintessentially British to me.
Maybe it’s because of the tiles that lead up to the door.
Maybe it’s because of the gaslight lamp attached to the door.
Maybe it’s because of that single milk bottle nestled by the door.
Or maybe it’s because I swear I’ve seen doors like that in movies like Four Weddings And A Funeral and Paddington.
Who the hell knows, but it came together enough to make me want a pink door at my house.
Seriously.
And I swear if you asked me what colour door I’d want before seeing this one … I doubt I’d have ever suggested pink in a million years.
And yet seeing it in the flesh makes me feel differently.
Not because it stands out from the typical blues and blacks … nor because it feels showy or attention seeking … but because as much as I see the colour, it’s what the colour makes me feel that is enticing.
You see for me, I feel everything behind that door will be lovely.
Charming. Comfortable. Warm. Inviting … all the things you would want your house to feel.
Which all goes to show, features on their own are nothing if they don’t stir your emotions.
Clients could do with remembering that like I could do with remembering never to write a post about a front door again.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance
So while going through my photos, I found this screen grab from Dave Trott …
To be honest, I wrote about this a couple of years ago but if it was relevant then, it seems even more relevant now.
There is more and more work that just seems to be a literal execution of the client brief.
Not even the agency brief … but the clients.
Literal.
Contrived.
Feature focused.
I can’t help but feel their strategy is to bore people into submission, and while it may be argued this approach is working – probably because all the competition are following the same thing – the reality is the value of the brand gets diluted and so the long term success of the brand ends up being based on factors like price or distribution.
Of course, price and distribution always have and always will play a critical role in a brands success, but the inherent value of it is elevated hugely when you are in a position that people actively want it and seek it out. Yet, as I wrote a while back, it appears many brand managers are only focused on sales today without any consideration for the sustainable value of the brand tomorrow and if you are constantly harvesting your good will, eventually it will run out.
The big issue is so many marketers still think people are waiting for them to advertise.
That they are sat on the edge of their seat waiting to hear from them and buy from them.
That they have nothing better to do and all that they do do, is based on rational logic.
This approach says far more about the people behind the brands than the people they hope will buy from them and while I appreciate creativity requires a leap of faith – something some marketing folk weirdly feel is an act of corporate irresponsibility – the fact is society respond to [authentic] emotion far more than rational argument, at least in terms of communication, and so if they want their brand to move forward, the only thing that can counter spend, heritage and distribution is to embrace creativity and to do that properly, it means being Lateral, not literal.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Authenticity, Chaos, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Innovation
Well I’m back.
The good news is it’s already the last day of the first full week back at work.
How good is that?
Well it’s probably too good, so let’s end it on a low.
I mean high.
I mean … oh who cares …
One of the things I’ve loved about British comedy is their ability to be utterly poignant.
I’ve written about this before but recently I was reminded of a scene in the last season of Blackadder that really got to me.
It’s from Blackadder Goes Forth … the series about WW1 … and it’s the final scene of the final show, as they are about to climb over the safety of their bunker to face certain death.
It’s not exactly the sort of scene you would expect in a comedy, and it’s not played for laughs, instead it captures the honor and bravery of the men and women who gave their lives for others wellbeing.
But as the scene ends, it crossfades to something else … something that both captures the tragedy of war, the futility of war and the sadness of war. It’s quite an amazing scene – especially given it’s quiet simplicity – and yet it works, which is even more remarkable given it was never in the script.
Originally the final scene was going to show the cast being gunned down and end – as previous seasons had – with their deaths, but a combination of factors meant the footage they took was so bad that it was almost unusable.
Without much time before the show had to be aired, they came up with an idea that didn’t require a rewrite or even new footage and yet it became one of the most famous and powerful conclusions to any show in British history.
As I have said before, sometimes the most powerful moments of creativity are born from adversity but when you know what you want to communicate, the reward can be something quite magical. Different … but maybe even more magical.
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 …
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Research
I’ve written about this – kinda – a long time ago.
As in FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.
It’s the situation where unless there is group consensus, nothing goes ahead.
Yes, I’m talking about that thing called democracy.
Now I’m all for democracy … even when it goes bonkers and votes in our current Prime Minister.
But when it comes to the issue of creativity, I am less inclined to support it.
You see creativity is pretty subjective … it is also pretty scary … so even though our industry is filled with highly trained, highly experienced, highly regarded experts in the field, the decision to make something often ends up being driven by a client asking themselves, “do I like it?”.
Actually, it’s probably not that and more, “will my bosses like it?”
Oh of course no one will admit that … they’ll talk about how their experience or their conversations with clients/colleagues/customers is influencing their decision, but more often than not the reality is they feel far more comfortable doing something that ‘fits in’ rather than ‘stands out’.
Fitting in is safe.
Fitting in doesn’t get the scrutiny.
Fitting in doesn’t upset anyone around you.
So we end up in a situation where many clients ignore the experts – the people who know how to capture the imagination of the public in a way that serves their clients best interests – and focus on what the people around them think.
Or said another way, their strategy to approval is to ensure they can mitigate blame rather than drive glory which is why they allow the decisions to be made by committee rather than by their personal commitment.
It’s similar to those marketers who let research make the decision for them rather than inform their decision.
It’s the abdication of responsibility.
Now of course not everyone does this.
There are some amazing clients out there … those who are clear in what they want to achieve and trusting in the experts who want to help them get there.
But it’s getting less and less which is why we are ending up in more and more situations where ideas are born from pragmatism, diluted through fear and then executed by committee.
And if you need more proof, here’ is a quote from Dave Trott …