Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Effectiveness, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, Empathy, Fake Attitude, Government, Insight, Internet, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Nike, Planners, Point Of View
OK, I’m back.
Again.
And this time, I’m not going to be going away for …. hmmmmm, actually let’s not go there.
Let’s move on shall we?
So before I start, there’s 2 things to say.
1. Some may have seen this before, because I accidentally put the wrong publish date on it.
2. This is a week of long and – for me – serious posts. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The good news is that on Friday, you’ll be rewarded for it, with some news that benefits you as much as it does me.
Kinda.
Maybe.
OK, so one thing that drives me nuts is when brands talk in totally different voices to different audiences.
But there’s something that gets to me more, and that’s when the brand in question has tried to position themselves as some sort of ‘brand of the people’.
Case in point, Reddit …
I really like Reddit.
I think their ‘front-page of the internet’ is a brilliant place to play.
And then I saw this …
‘Where Engagement Meets Results’.
What the fuck is that about?
Oh I know what some will say …
“They’re trying to reach business people who discount Reddit as a commercially valuable platform”.
And maybe they are. But the irony is the easiest way to discount Reddit as a commercially valuable platform is having clients on there who only can communicate in the corporate monotone of the meaningless mission statement.
How insincere is a brand who speaks to their customers one way and business another?
How crazy is it that some think business people are a different species to ‘normal’ people?
How badly will Reddit’s audience react to work from companies who only speak business?
Now some may think I’m going over-the-top … they will remind me that we all ‘change’ our tone and personality dependent on who we are talking to.
And that’s true … to an extent.
But this isn’t a tonal change, this is character.
I read that and it’s a brand I don’t recognise …
Feels more like they should be called Beigeit rather than Reddit.
The ability to adapt your voice to different audiences shouldn’t mean changing who you are.
People who play golf have a dramatically different view to sport than those who play football … but Nike still do it in a way where you know and feel it’s them. Just like CTO’s in major corporations has different requirements to those who want a laptop for home … but you never feel Apple changes who they are to communicate with them.
Brands who fundamentally change their personality in a bid to engage different audiences literally don’t know who they are. Worse, their customers may start to question that too.
Reddit are amazing.
Their audience is diverse, engaged and productive.
And while I appreciate some in business may not understand that, if you have to alter who you are, do you want them anyway?
Years ago I was doing work for Triple J … a government funded, youth radio station in Australia.
Unlike other ‘government funded’ media, Triple J was someone with real credibility, driven by championing and breaking new artists, discussing topics commercial radio wouldn’t touch with a barge pole and absolutely no advertising.
So when they came to us asking for help, we knew straight away that whatever we did had to ensure their current audience didn’t feel Triple J was selling out by advertising for more listeners.
While you may think this meant we went niche, we did the opposite.
Built off an idea we called, ‘enemy of the average’ … we went into mainstream media with messages that challenged audiences about the mediocrity they were engaging with.
Radio.
Newspapers.
Cinema.
Magazines.
Nightclubs.
Television.
Wherever mainstream audiences were, we were there too.
And while many hated our work [it was even discussed in Australian Parliament] it not only attracted the largest audience increase in Triple J’s history, it reinvigorated their existing audience because they saw the brand they love stay true to who they are, despite wanting what they didn’t have.
I get we’re in different times.
I appreciate the idea of any risk is unpalatable for so many.
But nothing is as dangerous as changing who you are to attract people who aren’t your audience.
The brand voice is more than how you talk. Or look. It’s how you look at the world … and if you’re consistent with that, then you can express yourself in a million different ways and always be yourself.
But too many brands, despite what they say, don’t want to be distinct.
They see it as having the potential to alienate an audience.
To which I say this …
While you may think being something to anyone means you can engage more people, the fact is, the most power to build the value of your brand is when you are everything to someone.
Filed under: Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Cannes, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Experience, Fake Attitude, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Point Of View, Professionalism, Relationships, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Toxic Positivity | Tags: om
Obviously I have a soft spot for Google.
From cynic to Colenso, they’ve been a constant in my professional as well as personal life.
They are intimately involved in so much of what I do every single day and I appreciate the possibilities they have enabled me to embrace because of them existing.
I know … that sounds unbelievably gushing doesn’t it.
That doesn’t mean there’s not stuff that drives me nuts …
From the way some of their products work [Google Slides, I’m looking at you] through to the passive behaviour they are increasingly showing in the face of challenges that their smarts/money/tech could fundamentally change for the benefit of millions – if not billions – of people. However even with all that, it pales into comparison to this:
What. The. Hell?
Not only is it an absolutely terrible attempt to make a terrible pun, I still don’t know what ‘the new way to cloud’ is. Or means. Or why I should give a second of attention to it.
For a company so full of smart people, how can this happen?
Seriously, this sort of work does the absolute opposite of what Google want.
It makes people question how smart the company is.
It makes people ask if Google know how to talk to people.
It makes people wonder if Google know how to make tech that understands our needs.
It makes people ask if this is the sort of organisation we should trust to shape our future.
Sure, it’s just a random billboard … but for a brand that once represented humanities hope for ensuring technology enabled and empowered a better, brighter, more equal future for all, this work feels more like a politician pretending to smile while they’re busy oppressing us.
I know this isn’t the case, but bloody hell, it’s rubbish.
Which leads me to this.
I don’t know who is behind it. I don’t know if it’s an agency or an internal group. But I have to believe this was made because senior people mandated it or influenced it. Either directly, or indirectly. Which serves as a really good reminder about the dangers of corporate structures.
As Martin, Paula and I said in our Cannes talk, toxic positivity is ruining brands and people.
The idea that ‘team’ is now interpreted as blind complicity and conformity is insane.
But it’s happening. We all see it or have experienced it.
Worse, there’s an underlying attitude that the only way to get ahead is manage up. What I mean is that rather than do the right thing for your audience, you do the right thing by your boss. Doesn’t matter if it makes no sense. Doesn’t matter if it actively confuses the people it is actually designed to communicate to. As long as it hits the ‘cues’ your boss likes, you’re good.
As I wrote recently, toxic positivity is leading to the systematic destruction of knowledge and experience. Great ideas and people are literally being moved out of organisations to be replaced by conformists and pleasers.
Yes, company culture is important.
It has an incredible power to achieve great things.
But here’s the thing too many companies just don’t seem to get.
If you’re mandating it, you don’t have it.
Because real company culture is born from the people within the company. Yes, the people at the top shape and influence it – often through beliefs and a way to look at the world – but the moment you try to dictate or define it, you lose it.
But here’s the thing …
Even when a company gives you something to believe in, they know the real key is to give every employee the power to feel they can be themselves. That they trust them to want to make things better, rather than break things apart.
Which is why they encourage debate.
They value different opinions and ideas.
Because as long as it’s not in a self-serving, divisive manner … it’s almost the ultimate demonstration you want to help make things better.
There are a lot of companies who get this.
There’s sadly far more who don’t.
And everyone loses because of it. Because if companies stopped thinking of company culture in-terms of efficiency and optimisation – and more about standards and quality control – we would all get to better places faster.
Or at the very least, less ads that say everything by saying absolutely nothing.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Embarrassing Moments, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Music
First of all, this is the last post for a week.
I’m away next week for a talk – I know, I know – and not back till Thursday evening so you can go into the weekend with an extra big smile on your face. Assholes.
Anyway, back to the post.
Over the years, this industry has shown an alarming lack of judgement in how it presents itself.
However, of all the terrible ideas, the absolute worst has to be when they decide to show how ‘fun’ they are through the art of song.
There’s been so many examples.
Sapient Nitro – remember them? – started it with something I can’t remember.
Then Mindshare Amsterdam got in the act saying they ‘work hard for your money’.
Not to be left out … Leo Burnett Sydney did – I think – a Sister Sledge song for a pitch.
Then Ogilvy Athens wrote a ‘ballad’ dedicated to David Ogilvy.
And then – one of my car-crash favourites – the Singapore Media Development Authority did a rap that, rumour has it, almost stopped Eminem wanting to continue his career. Maybe.
Despite having written a few times about these symphonies of shit, the reason there are so few links is because over the years, the guilty parties realised it made them look like a bunch of lunatic impersonator ‘entertainers’ appearing on a revival of Stars in Their Eyes.
Which is why I’m so happy that someone has decided to revive the trend with an epic re-write of Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’ … filmed where the original video was shot. Cannes.
Better yet … at Cannes while I believe the festival was on.
Now, to be fair, it is way, way better than the other films mentioned and shown in this post.
That doesn’t mean much given they were worse than the worst musical duo on Britain’s Got Talent musical duo in history, but beggars can’t be choosers.
But I still can’t grasp why anyone would do this.
Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to take yourself seriously while still taking what you do seriously … but to decide you have to ‘show’ you’re fun outside the context of how you’d actually interact with a client seems crazy. Almost as crazy as thinking this shows you’re ‘fun’.
And remember, this is coming from me … who did iPod Singing and wear birkenstocks!!!
So with that, let me send you off to your weekend with this rendition of I’m Still Standing … which still you might think is a joke but I can assure you isn’t as bad as sitting in the Majestic during the festival and watching people pour 2 grand bottles of champagne down their throat while publicly banging on about the economic crisis facing them and their clients.
Happy weekend.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Colenso, Colleagues, Context, Culture, Dad, Distinction, Dysgraphia, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Fatherhood, Football, Jill, Leadership, London, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, My Fatherhood, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents, Perspective, Police, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
I hope I’m a decent leader.
While I know there will be some people I’ve worked with, who definitely won’t hold that view … I hope the majority do.
Because – believe it or not – I try hard to be.
Sure, I make some mistakes.
And I can definitely be a pain in the ass.
But I am committed and invested in being the best boss I can be.
I consider myself fortunate because over the years, I’ve had incredible ‘teachers’.
From my parents to mentors to some old bosses … and of course, a few who were so shite, they taught me what not to do, haha.
And while there are many things I believe, adopt and hold dear, one of the most important is: always back your team in public and resolve disputes in private.
It sounds obvious … and it is … but it’s not always followed.
I’ve heard some shocking examples on Corporate Gaslighting … stuff that doesn’t just sound vicious, but the act of megalomaniacs.
But in terms of backing the team, there were few better than football manager legends, Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson.
Yes, I accept they may have had some usual ways of doing this – and demonstrating this – but players knew that unless something exceptionally terrible had happened, their managers would always back them should they face public or managerial scrutiny.
Of course, there was a cost for this …
A cost that was simple but exhaustive.
And it was that the gift of being backed was reciprocated with dedication, focus and effort.
And that – to me – is key.
It’s OK to make mistakes.
It’s alright to sometimes mess things up.
But it can’t be because you were lazy or distracted.
I’ve said it many times, but I believe my job is to ensure that when someone in my team leaves, as they all will at some point, they go because they have a better job than they ever could have imagined.
Chosen for who they are, not just what they do.
Known for what they’ve created, not how well they’re known.
Chased for what they’ve changed, not what they maintained.
OK, there are some exceptions to that – mainly personal reasons, like love or a chance to chase something they’ve always wanted – but I believe I have a responsibility to them to help develop their natural talent, find and release their distinct strategic voice and move things out the way so they can create the most interesting shit of their lives.
It’s why my absolute worst scenario is someone leaving for a sideways move.
Oh my god, I would honestly feel I’d failed them.
And that’s why I place so much importance in backing them and showing my belief in them.
That doesn’t mean it’s blind faith.
We have very honest conversations a lot.
From gentle chats to bi-annual check-in/reviews … but they’re in private and focused on being through the lens of me wanting them to win.
Whether I achieve this is something only they can say. I hope most would agree with it [even those when we’ve parted ways] but if not, then I can assure them I’m working harder to be better.
The reason I say all this is because I saw something recently that I thought was a perfect example of backing the team.
It’s from the British Police.
Now they are getting a lot of stick at the moment. A lot totally deserved.
But this time it’s not them trying to justify an indefensible act … it’s something that resonated with me, because of Otis’ dysgraphia.
It was this.
The British Police – or maybe it’s all Police these days – have a bad reputation.
It’s manifested in mistrust and a lack of people wanting to sign up.
And while I fully appreciate they have a tough job and want to get better [as we saw with West Midland’s Police hiring my mate, Kay, to be their ‘artist in residence’ to better understand and connect to youth culture] … it’s acts like this that are more likely to help the public see the human side of the force as well as the compassionate side.
Anyone who runs a team knows it can be a painful job.
Some days it can feel more like being a cat-litter tray.
But when they know you’ll back them, they’ll back you with their talent, focus and commitment.
Well done Carlisle Police … we need more backing of people with neuro-diversity. Because the more we back those who are different, the more they will show the difference they can make.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Context, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Differentiation, Effectiveness, Entertainment, Happiness, Innovation, Luxury, Mischief, Packaging, Planning, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance, Strategy
This is the last post for a week because I’m off again.
I know … I know … it’s getting ridiculous, but consider my jet-lag, your mental health.
Talking of mental health … I’ve not had a drop of alcohol for 38 years.
THIRTY EIGHT.
But despite that, I do find myself buying it on occasion … mainly when those occasions are an extremely rare dinner invite and/or a desire to show gratitude towards someone in particular.
And when that happens, I remind myself how easily influenced I can be.
Because as we saw in 2007, my biggest motivator is the packaging rather than the quality of the product.
Well, I say that, but it has to be a brand I’ve at least heard of – a brand I associate with some sort of quality – but fundamentally, it’s all about the packaging.
Recently I wanted to get something for our old neighbour in LA.
It was his birthday … he’s an amazing human … and he invited me to his dinner. [I was in town, so it wasn’t some totally empty gesture]
So I rushed to a bottle shop and was immediately hit with a wealth of choices and options and so what did I end up choosing?
This.
Yep, a bottle of Veuve in a pseudo orange SMEG fridge.
Frankly it looked ridiculous … hell, it is ridiculous … but it’s also my kind of ridiculous, despite even my low-class tastes thought that for 2 brands that are supposedly ‘premium’, the way they combined looked cheap and tragic.
But unsuprisingly, my inner Dolly ‘it-costs-a-lot-of-money-to-look-this-cheap’ Parton, took over and I handed over my cash and walked out full of smugness and slight humiliation.
Now I don’t know the background to this collab.
I don’t know the process they took to get here,
And while on one level it makes some-sort-of-sense, it also is completely and utterly bonkers … and that’s why I love it.
Because in a world of sensible, it’s nice to see ridiculous win.
Yes, I appreciate Apple’s ‘ceremony of purchase’ packaging strategy is next level … but in terms of what I call, ‘social luxury’, the use of ridiculous packaging – as seen in the fragrance industry – is arguably, the most sensible thing they can do.
For all the processes, models and eco-systems being pushed by so many people right now, it’s interesting how few actively encourage searching for the weird edges. Ironically, they build approaches where the aim is to filter these out before they even have a chance to see what they can do. Which is why as much as the we laugh at the superficiality of fragrance companies and some alcohol brands, they can teach us more about standing out than all these models that seem obsessed with making sure we all ‘fit in’.
So who are the stupid ones now eh?