Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Context, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Documentary, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Management, Marketing, Music, Perspective, Provocative, Purpose, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Respect, Standards, Strategy, Stubborness, Stupid, Success, Teamwork
A while back, I did some work for the rock band Journey.
The ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ mob.
Anyway, without going into too much detail – though a lot of what I’m going to say is common knowledge so I’m not contravening my NDA, and trust me, I asked – it was a rather tension-filled experience.
Not Red Hot Chili Peppers – or should I say Anthony Kiedis – levels of tension, but definitely not chill, put it that way – hahaha.
This time though, it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with 2 of the band members being at loggerheads.
As I said, the fracture in their relationship has been well documented – and I had been warned before hand – but by the time I was involved with them, it was bordering on toxic.
At this point I feel I should point out they were nothing but kind and considerate to me, but like a guest at a dinner party hosted by a couple who had obviously had a major row prior to your arrival – you could feel the tension in every interaction.
But this is less about that and more about the management teams amazing ability to facilitate and negotiate a truce.
Obviously I can’t go into the specifics, but I watched something magical literally unfold in front of my eyes,
Think of it like a cross between the lessons in the hostage negotiation book, ‘Never Split The Difference’, and Kim Papworth.
For those who don’t know who Kim is, he’s the brilliant ex-ECD of Wieden+Kennedy London – and longtime partner to the brilliant-but-bonkers Tony Davidson – who had this incredible ability to keep ideas he believed in on the table … even when clients were initially protesting against them. But here’s the thing about him that was so good.
It was never through bombastic actions.
Never through threats or intimidation.
Never through pandering or false promises.
But always through listening, then gently providing context, clarity, understanding and perspective.
Nudging them forward, rather than pushing them back.
This is similar to what I saw with Journey, with the result of this approach being this:
I have to say the ability to achieve this outcome was inconceivable to me..
Let’s be honest, you can tell from the tweet that it was not something that was easy. Hell, you can tell from the tweet it was not something even the band members expected to achieve.
But it happened because of the work of the management team – who happen to also be Metallica’s long-term management, so are well versed in knowing how to deal with ‘human differences’ as well as musical ones.
Anyway, having seen this happen up close and personal, I can tell you it is more than a skill, but an art. Well, that and starting the whole process with the steadfast belief there was a solution to be found, even if it no one knewwhere, how or when it would happen.
[I wrote another post about this sort of mindset, also involving hostage negotiator, here]
But it is these two criteria that allowed them to help take opposing forces on a journey they likely never imagined they could go on, let alone initially want to. But to achieve that and then get them to be thankful for it while never feeling pushed, cornered, provoked or bullied … is, to put it bluntly, fucking incredible.
I say all this is because I feel too often the way our industry deals with conflict is with more conflict. Or, alternatively, just putting our collective heads in the sand.
Sure, there are occasions – and individuals – where you have to be aggressive.
As Gloria Allred – the powerful US lawyer, of which there is an interesting documentary about her – once said: “Sometimes, power responds to power”.
But that has to be the exception rather than the rule.
In the vast majority of cases, the goal should never be one person gets battered into submission by the other. The key objective has to be ensuring you have properly listened and understood the issues causing the friction … because with this, you can then help both sides appreciate, value and identify what a mutually advantageous outcome could offer for both parties so they feel positive about taking a step closer towards each other.
I say this like you are an intermediary, but I also mean it when you are the one in the conflict.
Now of course this approach won’t always work, but too often our default setting is ‘submit or savage’ and frankly, no one really wins when we adopt either stance.
I appreciate for some people reading this, they’ll be thinking I have a hell of a nerve writing all this when I can have an argument in an empty house – however, over the years I have [slowly] learned that if you want to increase the odds of making great work actually happen, it’s not just about being good at your job … or having taste … or identifying and valuing a good idea you fine tune with craft … you need to know how to deal and address conflict.
Doesn’t matter what job you have.
Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing it.
Doesn’t even matter what level of role you’re in.
The fact is, great opportunities are born more from unity, than friction.
So if you want to ensure you keep the tension in the work, rather than the relationship … learn the art of conflict resolution, because that will do more to help you actually create great work, brands and careers than any marketing process or ‘alleged’ mini MBA.
There’s no blog posts till Monday as there’s another holiday in NZ [I know, I know] … so have a great weekend and try not to get into any trouble.
Or if you do, use the context from this post to practice getting out of it, haha.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Humanity, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
As its the start of a new week, in the first month of a new year … it’s pretty safe to say we can expect another year of endless ego, humble-bragging and self-righteous bullshit … and that’s just the stuff you get from me.
So while I am the last person you’d expect this to come from, I thought I’d use this post to try and remind us what professionalism really is … why we desperately need to treat people as humans rather than ‘consumers’ … and why a job well done doesn’t mean having/creating/using AI driven, friction free, optimised sales funnels, powered by parity brand assets … meaningless marketing practice certificates … grandiose PR statements … and endless statements about all the awards we ‘won’ from increasingly obscure media publishers. [not forgetting all the posts we put on all social media platforms telling everyone about them, while conveniently choosing to ignore how actively we were involved in lobbying for them]
And how will I do that exactly? With this:
You’re welcome.
Here’s to having a good week.
And a less bullshit producing/polluting new year.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brands, Collaboration, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Fulfillment, Love, Music, My Childhood, Pearl Jam, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
Following on from yesterday’s post about Duran Duran, we have another musical post.
Except this isn’t about exploitation and re-definition, this is more a ‘blast from the past’.
I know this is going to make me sound old – it will also make me sounds a total hypocrite given I’ve always loved music for its melody, rhythm and vibe rather than its lyrics – but I got sent this clip of a crowd at a Pearl Jam gig from a few years ago and I love it.
OK, so part of it is because I like Pearl Jam.
Another part is because I have always loved the song they’re performing – Black – which is on what I consider their finest album, Ten.
God, that album is magnificent. I remember being blown away when I first heard it – probably in the Tap and Tumbler, around the corner from Rock City where anyone going to Friday Rock Night would head before a night of head-banging.
But whereas back then, my favorite song was ‘Alive’ … the lyrics of Black pulled me in over the years.
“I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life
I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky
But why, why, why can’t it be
Oh, can’t it be mine?”
Maybe it’s because I became more of a sentimental, romantic fool … but I find them so beautiful. And as I said, I’ve never really been a lyrics guy … hell, I can’t even remember lyrics to songs I wrote back in the Bangkok Shakes/Virgin Records days. But those … oh I fell in love with them, probably the first time I saw Pearl Jam live [1992] and heard the crowd sing them, like in the video above.
For someone who is not religious, when I hear a crowd sing, it becomes very spiritual for me. A transcendence into something I can’t quite explain. A feeling of deep connection with those around me with a deep belief we’re creating something special together. It’s why I also love pentecostal music … except, like most music for me, it has little to do with the words, and more the vibe and emotion.
But ‘Black’ is different …
Probably because it reflects a specific time in my life where I was balancing joy and pain in equal measure. Coming into a time of my life of freedom and exploration but also deeply aware of a darkness that was seemingly trying to engulf all that was important in my life. With that in mind, I can’t think of a more perfect band to create the soundtrack to your life like Pearl Jam.
And while watching that clip does take me back to those times, it is superseded by a general feeling of joy. Watching the crowd not just witness something special, but being an active participant in the moment. Acting like their own instrument. A crowd infected by audience members scattered all around who show and lead the way for them to form an impromptu orchestra of vocal harmony and cacophony. It’s fucking beautiful … amplified by the fact there’s few camera phones. Not experiencing the moment through a screen. But a total connection and presence.
Hey, I’m as guilty as the next person for videoing and photographing gigs … it’s a way to capture a significant moment you can enjoy for years. But I do wonder if it is ever quite as significant as you would get just being there, lost in nothing but the sounds and emotions you’re all creating and feeling together.
It’s why I find it interesting more and more artists are saying their concerts are ‘smartphone free zones’. Not because – like in the 80’s – they had sold the photographic rights to concert images to a 3rd party, but because when an audience looks at them through the screen, they feel there’s a barrier between them and the energy they get back from the crowd.
As I’ve written before – both here and here – it’s a two-way street.
And while some may say, “it’s not my job to make the band feel good because I’ve paid them money to make me feel good” they’re missing the point.
Because while it’s true money ensures you receive a certain level of passion, consideration, commitment and effort from the artist in their performance … the more you contribute to the experience, the more you all get out of it.
It’s why the best creative work isn’t made for clients who dictate and judge, but those who appreciate they play an important and integral role in creating the conditions for it to go – and get to – magical places.
In the creative journey, there is no room for passengers.
And yet, too many carry energy vampires and toxic stowaways.
The sooner clients get this, procurement departments get this, marketing practice ‘guru’s’ get this, media agencies get this and ad agencies get this … the sooner we will all be able to create moments that deeply connect to rather than just shout and bore.
It’s down to us.
It won’t happen by itself.
So what happens next is down to all of us.
One by one. Job by job. Meeting by meeting.
It won’t be easy, but my god … it will be worth it.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Environment, Holiday, Home, Jill, Love, Loyalty, Management, Miley, New Zealand, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Professionalism, Resonance, Respect, Strategy, Stupid, Success, This Blog, Toxic Positivity
Happy 2025 and welcome to year 19 of my rubbish.
I trust/hope you had a good break … even if that is simply because I didn’t write a blog post for a few weeks.
I had a great one.
Not just – as I’ve written before – because New Zealand does the ‘holiday season’ better than anywhere on the planet, but because this year was so different to the year before.
And just to reinforce how much better it was, the day I landed back in NZ I was rushed to hospital as my ‘good eye’ decided to basically stop working.
I say ‘good eye’ because when I was 21, my right eye got a detached retina [from picking up a bag of bloody coal, like some cliched Northerner from the 1800’s ] and while they managed to reattach it – which was touch and go due to some complications – it resulted in it having very bad vision out of it. However, thanks to my left eye being good, I’ve never had to worry about my sight beyond how much it costs to have for lenses that don’t look like I’m wearing beer bottles on my face plus the general protection of my head and eyes.
Even though it has been like this for 33+ years, I’ve never taken my sight – or the protection of my eyes – for granted, so you can imagine how freaked out I was when suddenly my good eye basically stopped working a day before we flew back to NZ from Asia.
Now it’s not totally sorted, but I have been assured it will over the next couple of months [which is handy as you can see from the photo below, I look bloody weird with different sized pupils which means people are even less inclined to look at me] and yet despite all this, I STILL CONSIDER THIS HOLIDAY BETTER THAN LAST YEARS.
Let me explain why …
You see back in December 2023, I started work with a new private client.
They had asked me to do a big project for them with a first check-in date of mid-Jan.
I knew it would take a couple of weeks or so to write things up but stupidly, I decided I’d do it over the holidays rather than before.
There was some rationale for that decision …
+ I had a bunch of stuff to finish before the holidays.
+ I had a bunch of reading to do relating to who this client was as a person/artist.
+ I was exhausted and wanted a break before I got stuck into things.
+ It was the bloody festive season and that’s a time I wanted to spend with family.
But the problem was that even though I had a plan for when to do the work, my brain wouldn’t let me forget about it.
So each day, the thought of the work I had to do would nag and niggle at me.
Slowly upping the volume and pressure.
So as each day ended, all I could think about was how I had even less time to relax before I had to start work, which resulted in me not being able to fully enjoy or relax until – in what felt like the blink of an eye – it was time to get started.
When that happened, the annual break I was so looking forward to, wasn’t just over … but never even had a chance to properly start. So instead of being relaxed and ready, I was tired and anxious.
Add to that, that the holiday season the year before had also been rather a traumatic – with Otis and I both ending up in hospital and my dear friend Chelsea, passing away – I was a shattered, emotionally not just physically.
The result of this was that the first 3 months of 2024 were, in all honesty, one of the most stressful times of my life. Not necessarily because the project was hard – though it was certainly demanding, albeit incredibly exciting – but because I had not allowed myself the break I needed to be ready for a completely new challenge.
The good news – if you can call it that – was the impact of these choices and decisions was very obvious to me and I knew I would never, ever let something like that happen to me again. Which is why before the most recent holidays started, I wrote to all my clients – both my private ones and Colenso’s international ones, who don’t have the same holiday duration as our local clients – telling them I was out.
Not ‘out unless you have an urgent requirement’ … but out.
Nada. Zilch. Gone.
And you know what?
No one minded. Not one.
Now, you could say that’s because they find me an absolute pain-in-the-ass to deal with, but I think – or should I say, hope – I believe it is because they respected my time and respected the efforts I’d put into their business over the past 11 months.
I get not everyone has that opportunity.
I get being able to have a break of this duration is a privilege.
But the reality is a break is the greatest investment you can make in yourself or your people.
It gives them a chance to decompress. To think. To let shit go. To get excited again.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a checkout operator or an old bastard, advertising strategist.
It’s why I hate how some companies treat ‘holidays’ like it’s a gift … something you can only have if it suits the organisations needs, timelines and ego.
Fuck that.
For all the talk companies say about ‘our staff being our greatest asset’, the second best demonstration of that – after being paid fairly – is valuing, encouraging and protecting their rights to a break.
And by that, I mean respecting their people’s right and need to have ‘proper holidays’ rather than attempting to hide their toxicity under the guise of bullshit like unlimited holidays … which not only aren’t ever true, but are something they actively go out of their way to ensure can never be realised.
And don’t get me started on the US attitude to vacations, with their 10 days a year allowance … meaning many people can’t have any break of significance without either years of sacrifice or days of unpaid leave.
It’s why I’m eternally grateful for Colenso’s attitude to holidays.
And why I’m eternally grateful for how NZ values and protects their ‘festive season break’.
[Though one unfortunate side-effect is people often don’t take a break in the rest of the year so they can save it all up for the end of the year, which can also contribute to people feeling and experiencing burnout]
And why I’m eternally grateful to my clients for appreciating and encouraging it for me.
Of course part of the reason for their generosity is because it’s in their interests … because a holiday increases the odds great things will happen for them thanks to your renewed energy, focus and inspiration. But hey, I respect they get this because we all win from it rather one person feeling indebted to the other for having what is their god-damn given right to have.
So hello 2025 … let’s see what you’ve got in store for me.
Or should I say, look out for what I’ve got in store for you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Comment, Complicity, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Diversity, Empathy, Government, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Politics, The Kennedys, The Kennedys Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
Recently I read a comment on a post Zoe Scaman had written about democracy.
Her point was – with social media companies bending to Trump’s will – we were witnessing the crumbling of established and vital democratic systems. Most people were in violent agreement until someone wrote this comment:
“Can you elaborate on ‘democratic systems are crumbling’ please? My in-laws were born and raised in Russia, and they believe Venezuela is doing great and Cuba is heaven”.
It was not just a good point, but an important point one. Not said to insult or embarrass, but to simply remind us that context is everything and rarely is it experienced equally.
I say this because it reminded me of a similar situation I experienced a few years back… except, unlike Zoe, there was no legitimate reason not to have considered this from the beginning given I’d been living in China for a long time.
You see, back when Trump was running for his first Presidency, I was running The Kennedys at Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai.
Because the election was a hot topic, I set them the challenge of creating a campaign to tell voters Trump was a monster.
For a few days The Kennedys went about researching more about who Trump was until one day they asked if they could have a chat to me.
“We don’t get the assignment” they said with genuinely confused and harassed looks on their faces.
I must admit, my first impression to this was consternation, until they added:
“Maybe Trump is a bad person but America gets to vote who they want to run their country and that seems amazing”
Basically, they couldn’t understand the task because as bad as Trump may be, the brief was still about democracy and democracy is good. Especially when you don’t have it.
[As an aside, a young, brilliant Chinese planner once described the Government as ‘Rock n’ Roll’ and when I asked why, they replied, “you told me Rock n’ Roll is doing what you like and not caring what others think and there’s no better description of the Chinese Governments attitude and behaviour”]
Anyway, when they said that to me, I realized just how badly I had fucked up – not them.
That I’d made the cardinal sin of taking my context for granted. That I’d assumed everyone understood and appreciated the context and situation I was asking them to embrace and communicate.
And I was obviously wrong.
I’d made the most basic of fucking mistakes – albeit one practiced by most companies and marketing departments around the World.
And I hated myself for it ….
But as they say, it’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it and I learned from it. Big time.
A lesson that I remind myself – or remind my colleagues/clients/researchers – literally everytime we talk about people, situations and contexts.
And while Zoe wasn’t as naïve as I was – because for her, it was more about how she phrased her point rather than being ignorant to the wider issue – she has also likely learned from it. A lesson that will make her even better than she already is – which is more than can be said about the people who voted for Trump again, even though I have far more understanding and even respect for why they did it rather than just assuming ignorance and racism.
Anyway, the reason for this post is that I recently saw a tweet that reflected how young Chinese people see Americans – in relation to the most recent election – and I found it fascinating. Because rather than viewing ‘democracy’ as freedom of choice, they now see it as something else … something that not only may be the best take on what modern democracy is, but also explains why all the social media companies have been so desperate to bend to the will of the new administration and why Trump [as much as I hate to admit this] probably understands how modern communication works more than most media and ad agencies.
Have a look at this and remember, what’s normal for you may be abnormal for everyone else.