Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Marketing, Perspective, Planning
I work in an industry that loves to make big deals out of everything.
Literally everything.
And yet, how many of those things were still being talked about a month later?
Or maybe a week?
Or even the next day?
The reality is that for all the work that claims to be revolutionary in its thinking/execution, the reality is few seem to be.
And the same is with agencies.
While it is difficult, the reality is any agency can hit the ad jackpot at least once in their life.
Maybe it’s a Super Bowl spot … or a Cannes award … or just something utterly, utterly brilliant/fun/funny/emotional … but for me, the true test of greatness is not about having done it once, but having done it on a consistent basis.
I don’t mean in terms of getting a headline in the industry press – however nice that is – I’m talking about capturing the mood and imagination of a nation.
Years ago I met someone who kept telling me about the time they ‘achieved something big’ in their career.
What they were talking about was admirable and certainly worthy of feeling proud about, however this thing was 15 years in the past.
Fifteen.
Don’t get me wrong, the person in question should absolutely feel they achieved something few do because they did … but if you are living 15 years in the past, you’ll never be able to move on into the future.
And that’s why one of the best bits of advice I ever got was to always be known for something in every job you have.
It doesn’t matter if you did something amazing over a decade ago, be known for having done something good things in the present.
Whether I have done that is questionable, but that advice has meant I have always gone into new adventures with the desire to make a difference. That should sound obvious, but you’d be amazed how many people try and live off their past.
So for me, it’s always about trying to find something I can improve, impact or instill … something that will last longer than my time there.
Now I appreciate you can easily fall into some post-rationalisation of achievement, because – let’s face it – when you’re judging yourself you’re rarely hard on yourself, but most people accept nothing worth doing comes easy so if they see you as having consistently done positive things wherever you have worked, it not only separates you from the lucky ‘one-off’s’, it lets you look at your career in terms of what it can still be, not just what it was.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Insight, Marketing, Martin Weigel, Planners, Planning, Point Of View
Martin Weigel.
The professor.
The planners planner.
The miserable bastard that never returns your emails.
Well he might be all of those things, but to me, he’s my mate.
What’s more, I think I’m his mate too – which means he’s not nearly as clever as everyone thinks he is.
But the reality is, he has his place as one of the best because he is. That simple.
Not just because he’s as smart as shit … but underpinning his intellectual ramblings are very simple, but powerful, beliefs that benefit everyone he is interacting with.
I say this because I recently heard his answer to the question, ‘What should a planner do and care about?’ to which he responded with this …
That’s it.
4 lines.
But those 4 lines cover so much.
Vision. Creativity [Not advertising]. Innovation. Cultural Resonance. Ambition. Action. Focus.
In other words, strategy that is designed to liberate rather than play nicely with others.
It’s what makes him so good and the work he does so great.
I should hate him, but I can’t …
And it’s not just because I bloody love his bloody lovely other half.
The reason I say this is that one of the things I’ve been shocked about in America is the standard of planning.
There … I’ve said it.
No, it’s not because I’m a snobby Brit.
No, it’s not because I don’t understand the cultural differences.
It’s because a lot of it is bad.
I’ve spent a lot of time exploring what is out there and in many cases it’s either strategy that the individual has used for pretty much every client they’ve worked on regardless of the situation, or at worst, it’s a snappy worded version of the client brief.
Or just bad taglines that say nothing and mean nothing.
In other words, packaging rather than planning.
Now of course there are some epic planners here – I am fortunate to have a bunch who work with me and there’s a bunch who I wish would work with me – but there has been a bunch who I’ve met/spoken to who have just underwhelmed.
I recently met one who said their main approach to strategy was ‘owning the social platform’.
I had to ask 3 times if I had heard right, and I had.
And when I said they weren’t the sort of planner I wanted in my team, he said I didn’t know what I was doing.
OK, there’s probably more than an element of truth in that, but even my worst planner skills is better than that.
And yet this individual was a senior planner in a good agency.
In other words, he was responsible for helping brands decide the direction they were going to invest millions of dollars in.
MILLIONS!
The World has gone mad.
There is a craft to planning.
You can’t outsource it all to data and media.
Of course those people have a place – and an important one at that – but the hard work is still done by those who realize it’s not about the ad, but the direction, tension and opportunity for the brand and culture.
The one’s who can think of ideas that aren’t really just an executional idea.
Which is why we need more Weigel’s than Gary V’s.
Because flash means nothing if it doesn’t address what I now call, Weigel’s ‘Four Principals Of Worthiness’.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Equality, Innovation, Insight, Marketing Fail, Perspective
Originally this was going to be a post about patience.
We live at a time where the urge to rush to judgement seems omnipresent, however we often forget that each of us is going through personal situations that can affect how we behave and so what we experience may not be who the other party really is.
There’s this quote that says something like, “if we knew the troubles that weighed on the minds of the people we talk to, we might react to what they say in a very different way”.
And that quote is right, however in our rush-rush, myopic state-of-mind, we rarely stop to even consider that – let alone explore it – so the results we get might never be as positive as they could be if we had just stopped for a beat and thought of the other person.
That’s what this post was going to be about but then something happened.
You see recently I discovered someone betrayed my trust.
The irony is what they told another party was incorrect.
But that doesn’t make it any better.
And then I remembered that quote that says, “the worst thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies” and they’re right.
I liked this person.
I still do.
But for some reason they thought it was right to do something that was wrong.
And right there, things got damaged because trust is everything in a relationship … whether that’s with a loved one, a colleague or a client.
Trust means you can disagree without any lasting damage.
Trust means you can let people explore things you don’t understand.
Trust means you can let teams go to the wire before they reveal their work.
Because trust is about believing the other person has your back … that their standards, goals and expectations match yours.
That doesn’t mean you’ll always like what they’ve done, but it does mean you can be honest about it and they’ll listen to you and you’ll listen to them. Not because you want to necessarily have a ‘compromise’ on the outcome, but because you want to make sure what you’re doing is the work the person best placed to make that call wants to make.
The work that excites them … or makes them laugh or simply shit-their-pants.
And while it would be nice to think trust happens simply by spending time together, it doesn’t.
The reality is trust comes slowly.
It tests you.
It see’s what you’re made of at the most vulnerable times.
But when you have it, it’s the most amazing feeling you can have.
It liberates you.
It lets you literally get to places bigger that you could ever get to on your own.
And that’s why I am always willing to let someone I trust make mistakes, but never when it’s to save their own neck.
Which is why trust is so hard to earn and so quick to lose.
Because as they say, united we stand divided we fall.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, Donn, Friendship, Insight, Planners, Planning
When you start a new adventure – be it a new country or company – it can be daunting.
Of course no one starts a new adventure without there being a reason for it, but that still doesn’t mean you don’t find yourself being pulled into looking at what you are losing rather than what you could gain.
But good things can – and do – happen, of which one of them is meeting new people who make your new adventure more fulfilling and exciting.
One of those people is a guy called Donn Rohn.
I never knew Donn before I started at Deutsch. In fact on my first day at work, when I saw him, I thought he looked a bit of a dick, despite the fact a guy who used to work with him told me he was good.
But once I got talking to him, I realised almost immediately that it was only his walk that made him look an asshole [I’m serious, his walk is a cross between Dirty Harry and John Wayne] because the truth is, he’s as honourable a man as I have ever met in my life.
Smart.
Defender of his team.
A leader not a manager.
Committed to doing the right thing.
Empathetic, passionate, a dry sense of humour that drives brilliantly evil turns of phrase … he’s just a great human being and that’s before I mention how great a colleague, friend, husband and father he is.
I say all this because he leaves us today.
As sad as that is – and it really is – he’s off to do something that will change the path of his life so I’m genuinely happy and excited for him and his family because they deserve nothing but good things.
While I would have loved our time together to be longer, I’m grateful I met him and even more that I get to call him a mate so while he leaves a huge hole behind – especially in his ability to rock ‘grandpa sweaters’ that take no prisoners [his leaving present is the picture accompanying this post] – he also leaves a legacy of how to be a good human in a business that often tries its best to destroy that in all of us.
Thank you for everything Donn, never change.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture
Banter.
That thing that shows how much you like someone by how much you take the piss out of them.
Of course the key is what you’re taking the piss out of them for.
It has to be personal but it can’t be malicious.
A moment of stupidity is fine.
A physical quirk is more than acceptable.
An unfortunate result is OK … but only if it didn’t result in long-lasting pain or discomfort.
These are the signs of friendship – at least in the UK – and that’s why I am so happy a colleague took the piss out of me.
I work with a creative called Zaid.
He’s a Brit creative who – like me – also worked at Wieden.
This is what he looks like …
So last week I received an email from an industry site showing the judges for some upcoming award show.
One of the judges was Zaid – however rather than showing him in his full beardy-wonder as you see above – they showed him like this …
Spot the difference?
So being a dick, I sent an all agency email suggesting that the Zaid in our office may not be the person he claims to be as he looks nothing like the handsome, young man in the industry press release photograph.
Moments later, I received this in response.
For me, that’s not just a great comeback, it’s more proof why I think the World of Zaid.
Which – when I come to think of it – highlights that the British are really rather strange.