Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Diversity, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Fear, Fragrance, Human Goodness, Humanity, Management, Men, Perfume, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Prejudice, Professionalism, Provocative, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
So this is the last post for a week as I’m travelling for work.
I know … I know …
And while you may claim it’s another freebie holiday, it really is work. Albeit this time, it’s work that is mental in terms of crazy and exiting … which I hope I can talk about someday as it’s definitely one of those moments I’d like everyone to know about because its huuuuuuuuge bragging rights, hahaha.
Anyway, given I’ve probably already screwed my NDA, let’s get on with this post shall we?
A while back I wrote a post about the fragrance naming of Tom Ford. Specifically, the ‘Vanilla Sex’ variant.
Someone commented they found it interesting that I – and likely all men – would immediately interpret this as ‘boring/average sex’ when vanilla is the most universally accessible scent so it could easily mean the scent represented ‘sweet smelling sex’.
I responded by saying that while it is true vanilla is the most universally accessible scent, it is also widely accepted that using that word in association with ‘sex’ had very different connotations … and that interpretation had nothing to do with gender, but maybe age.
They deleted their comment.
I am unsure why they did, but I can guess and that is disappointing.
Of course, I appreciate men make A LOT of interpretations, associations, and confident claims about things they know little about. They are the undisputed champions of arrogant stupidity.
I also appreciate get utterly fucked that is … especially when they wade into subject matters that exclusively revolve around women, or more associated with women or people who identify as a woman.
You see it a lot – in fact, it happened to one of the brilliant members of my team last week – Meg – when she wrote something on Linkedin about a Bumble campaign … and was immediately hit with men not just telling her she was wrong, but then telling her what she should be thinking.
Which is why when that shit happens, they need to be called out.
But when that isn’t the case – or you realise it isn’t – then deleting your involvement doesn’t help.
Of course I get why people do it … but it doesn’t help build connections, understanding and bridges.
And frankly, we need more of that.
The divide in our industry is insane.
People are actively looking for the wrong in what others say or interpreting any alternative perspective as a personal attack.
OK, sometimes that is justified, especially on platforms like Linkedin … but not always.
The reality is people make mistakes.
We all do.
Hell, in the league table of misadventure, I would definitely be in the top 10.
But the key – at least for me – is about context and intent and my belief is the vast majority of people don’t want to be assholes. More than that, they want to actively learn and grow.
Now I appreciate it may not always seem that way … I get some people are trolls who, for reasons I will never really understand, get off on being violent with their words on all platforms of social media [though it confuses me even more when they do it on Linkedin, given we can see who they are], but I’m pretty sure most people aren’t like that. I think most people are decent but that can only be seen when there is an openness and calmness to debate and discussion. From both sides of the debate.
Sadly, men also find this incredibly difficult to achieve.
Especially men who seem able to permanently reside on the social media platforms.
And while some of them are egotistical, judgemental pricks – literally and metaphorically – the majority aren’t and that is why I feel the best way we can help the industry unite and evolve is if we lose the ego and apologise when we’re wrong and not gloat like dicks when we’re right.
To actively encourage and embrace the new, even if we don’t understand it.
To be open to challenges but in the spirit of curiosity and growth rather than destruction.
And to be open to be wrong and own it rather than try to disown it.
Of course, this is a two-way street, but given men are probably the reason for the vast majority of this behaviour – or ‘normalizing’ it – it’s only fair we take the lead in trying to change it.
Or said another way … take the lead in creating the conditions that let everyone else feel safe to discuss, debate and disagree.
And while that may sound very fucking Disney – especially from me – the reality is if we don’t do that, then for all the cleverness we claim our discipline offers– we’re showing we’re not that smart.
Worse, we’re acting as a barrier to brilliant people entering the industry, wanting to enter the industry or being able to thrive in it.
And yes, I appreciate how ridiculous the heaviness of this post is given it was inspired by a comment about a perfume called Vanilla Sex … but sometimes the craziest things create crazy outcomes.
Which is why maybe Tom Ford could launch a perfume for the strategy discipline entitled ‘vanilla debate … a scent designed to put our focus on creating work that leaves a lasting aroma rather than a discipline that’s starting to smell a bit like a sewer.
And with that, I’ll see you on June 4th, because – bizarrely – New Zealand has a day off on the 3rd for King Charles birthday. Which is great, but also stupid given what Colonialism did to the rightful people of this land. But before I digress into another rant, I’ll leave you with one teeny bit of information about the 4th June. And that is it will be 8 days before my birthday … so if you send your cheques now, they should reach NZ just in time for my special day.
You’re welcome.
See you soon.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Chaos, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Imagination, Logic, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Martin Weigel, Paula
Just to be clear, I am not anti-logic.
Of course not.
But I am anti-blinkered logic.
Where anything outside of established rules or norms are discounted because they’re outside of established rules or norms.
It was the foundation of our Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative talk, last year at Cannes.
And ironically, if I thought it was important then … it’s become even more important now with people like Jon Evans waxing lyrical about ‘System 2’ thinking.
Have a look at the functional benefits he is stating:
+ Facts don’t care about your feelings
We all know how unreliable our feelings can be so why would you make a large business decision based on what people feel about it?
+ Measure Everything
I never understood at System1 why we worked so hard to reduce it down to a few key metrics. The results also came in this super easy online report rather than PowerPoint. Now you can have every measure you ever wanted in a shiny PowerPoint presentation with our ‘minimum page promise’ of 93.
+ Infinite personalisation at scale
We have finally achieved the holy grail of marketing reporting namely infinite personalisation at scale. With so much data at your disposal whatever conclusion you need to make we can provide it. We also present it in such a scientific way that no-one will be able to challenge your conclusion. Imagine that!
+ The Price is Right
One of the reasons you employ McKinsey is because they charge a lot of money and therefore must be making a huge impact on your business. We have followed this immutable logic to ensure this is the most expensive research you will ever pay for because, well, we’re worth it.
Now on one level, a lot of what he’s saying isn’t wrong. But by the same token … it’s also not entirely right.
The reduction of everything to a quantifiable – and historical – measure ultimately means you’re advocating, at best, for incremental change or, at worst, following a model of ‘best practice’ without remembering that best practice is past practice.
Of course some will love it. But then, some love beige office furniture.
Which is why this old ad kind of sums up my concerns with myopic approaches based on models designed to not fail rather than liberate possibility.
History is littered with once great brands and ideas that fell foul of ‘the research says no’.
What makes it even worse is often that research is based on the lowest common denominator of audience versus – say – the highest.
Resulting in commoditised mediocrity, hidden under ‘effectiveness and optimisation’ justifications.
Or said another way, outsourcing your cowardice to ‘for profit, external organisations’.
I am not saying what Jon is saying is wrong.
I am not saying using facts and data are wrong.
I’m saying his view – as I say about many people who sell their specific processes/programs as guarantees of success’ – is.
[For example, as the very brilliant Lee once told me, “if you’re measuring everything, then you don’t know what is important”]
As I wrote a while back, there’s many examples of brands who buck his view.
Hell, I work with a bunch of them, including:
SKP-S … the most profitable luxury retailer on the planet.
Gentle Monster … the fastest growing and selling eyewear brand across Asia.
Metallica … the 2nd most successful American band in music history.
… to name but 3.
The point is, for all the cleverness of Jon Evans – and he is very clever and I respect him, what he does and how he does it – the implied suggestion, whether intentional or not, that his way is the only to be successful, is wrong.
As is his new statement around ‘system 2 thinking’.
I get why he says it … just like I get why many people in that industry say it … because it’s as much what they believe and how they make money.
And while that is all well – plus they’re very good at what they do … especially with organisations who are conservative and/or have people with little formal training – they’re services are more like insurance products than business accelerators.
Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re not claiming otherwise.
Which is why it’s important to remember – to paraphrase what Martin and I also said at our ‘The Case For Chaos’ talk in 2019 for WARC at Cannes – logic might give you what you think people want, but chaos gives them what they’ll never forget.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Fashion, Fragrance, Luxury, Planning, Smell
A while back I wrote a post about the naming strategies of fragrance brands.
Or should I say the lack of them.
It wasn’t a dig, it was almost fawning respect for their complete disregard for logic and their blind commitment to visceral inducing, imagination.
To be honest, the self-awareness is inspiring.
An acknowledgement that in the big scheme of things, their product is kind-of ridiculous and so by embracing that, they can go wherever they want with their naming approach … which is how we end up with Tom Ford’s Noir Extreme … because in the business of smell, the darkness of ‘noir’ just isn’t dark enough.
However in their ‘anything goes’ mentality, they may just gone a bit too errrrrm, mental.
Have a look at this …
Vanilla Sex.
VANILLA FUCKING SEX!!!???
Jesus bloody Christ … they may as well call it, ‘Excel Spreadsheet’.
Now while I appreciate sex is seemingly going out of fashion, I’m not sure a scent that conveys ‘the most average 3 minutes of your life’ ignites aspiration.
Even among Monks or Nuns.
Or Billy. Hahaha.
For a category that loves to communicate its power of seduction, attraction, expression or self-confidence, Vanilla Sex pours a big bucket of cold water over all that and instead celebrates the idea of feeling like you’ve been fucked by a Tax Accountant from Slough.
At 3:17pm.
On a cold Tuesday.
In a Travel Lodge.
Located on the side of a Motorway service station.
It’s so utterly bonkers I don’t know if it is an act of brilliance, madness or just a desire to just see what they can get away with.
Or maybe it’s just proof they don’t give a damn because by the same token, they also have this …
It’s all kinds of amazing.
A case study for the power of strategy to take brands to places never imagined or, by the same token, proof this strategy stuff is all fucking nonsense because even when you ignore – and break – every rule of it, you can still be wildly successful.
But as amazing as all this is, it’s still not as amazing as the thought that two people could meet one day with one smelling like Vanilla Sex and the other being Fucking Fabulous.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Awards, Content, Contribution, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Happiness, Leadership, Legend, Loyalty, Management, Reputation, Respect
A few weeks ago, I received a bouquet of flowers.
That’s unusual enough, but it’s who sent them to me and why that’s the interesting part.
Let me take this opportunity to say that I will not be telling you who it was or the specific reasons why … but there is a point to me telling you this story.
You see, the bouquet was sent by someone pretty famous.
As in, globally pretty famous.
And they did it because they wanted to say ‘thank you’ for some work I did for them a while ago.
Now, I am under no illusion that [1] they will have done the same thing for a bunch of people and [2] it was no doubt organised by someone in their management team … but the fact they did it is amazing.
Let’s be honest, most wouldn’t.
Let’s be even more honest, even the one’s who should, still don’t.
Now I appreciate I have somehow ended up being the exception to the rule with things like Green M&M’s … a Wayne Rooney Man Utd shirt … a custom built cigar box guitar … a signed Rick Rubin and Beastie Boys photograph … a years supply of Coke Zero … the Metallica x Rimowa suitcase, as seen above … but while they are all amazing [and there’s others, including the best reference I’ve ever received], this is different.
You see with all those other things, they came from people/organisations I had long-standing relationships with.
Measured in years.
But this wasn’t.
This came from a couple of weeks work I did for them over maybe a period of a month.
Now I appreciate I wasn’t paid for it [I was asked to help them by someone else I work with, who paid my fee instead] but it was a joyful experience and I was glad they were glad with what I helped do.
Which leads to the second reason why these flowers are amazing.
Because while they were in relation to the work I did – which was pretty small and well over a year ago – it was kind-of giving me some credit for them winning a major award … which, frankly, is utterly preposterous.
I’m not humble bragging.
OK, I am, but I don’t mean to be.
Not am I trying to act all coy.
My involvement was only related to distributing their work, not creating it.
It’s like Spielberg giving me a gift because I told some friends ET was a good movie and they went to see it.
OK, maybe that is a bit too humble [haha] but the reality is their award was about their talent, hard work and quality of work, so for them to even consider others at this time, is testimony to how brilliant a human they really are.
And they are.
Proper brilliant.
Even more so given the first time we spoke, they asked why I didn’t like them, because the people who’d got me involved had told them that, ‘for a laugh’.
Pricks.
Which gets to the point of this post.
I know my role in their work was important, but – in the big scheme of things – insignificant.
But they don’t want me to think that way.
More than that, they won’t let me think that way.
They want me to know they see what I did. That they acknowledge and value it … and that’s amazing.
They have so many people in their life, but they looked out for someone they met a few times.
Talk about making me want to do more for them.
Talk about making me want to do all I can for them.
Talk about making me feel ten feet fucking tall because of them.
I get this may have come from their management more than them, but even then that’s amazing. Plus they signed the card so it’s not like this happened without their awareness … even if they have a million cards with their signature on it available to be used
Now I am not walking around expecting them to dump a pile of cash in my bank account.
I’m not even expecting to do any more work for them.
But I am thinking I want them to win.
Win in life. Win in their career. Win in everything.
They have a cheer leader for them, in me, for life.
Now you could say they’re pandering for popularity … that this is all some sort of ego trip.
And I get why you’d say that. But you’d be wrong.
Because they were tough and demanding.
Not just on people like me, but also on themselves.
Because this work was more than just ‘putting something out’, it was putting themselves out.
There’s a lot of backstory I could talk about to explain this, but that’s not my place … but what I will say is that there’s a lot of talk about leadership, but this may be one of the best examples I’ve ever seen or experienced in my life.
I’m glad they won that award.
They deserved it.
For their work. For their talent. For their vision. For their character.
And when was the last time you could say that about someone in a corporation?
So thank you to this person. You didn’t just restore my faith in humanity, you surprised it … putting aside that when I told Andy, he said if I got a ‘particpation award’, what did the people who actually played a real role in their success and achievement get.
Which is why if there’s an award for asshole, he would win every time.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Environment, Marketing, Relevance, Resonance, Respect
Hello. I’m back again.
And I think I’m back for a few weeks now … you must be so happy.
Cue: Evil laugh.
OK, let’s get on with it shall we?
So one of the things I’ve loved about getting healthier, is walking around my neighbourhood.
Going down random streets.
Seeing at new shops.
Just getting a better sense and connection to the place I currently call home.
And on my travels, I came across this.
I have to say, I love it.
People may see it as an old piece of paper stuck on their window, but I don’t see it like that.
I see pride.
Pride in where they come from.
Pride in what Pita created.
Pride in Pita’s craft and skills.
Pride in what Bob – and Charlie – continue to do.
Pride in how they approach their work.
Pride in their community.
Pride in their longevity.
Pride in their role.
I have no idea how long that piece of paper has been up – and given how faded it is, it would suggest a while – but at a time where so many people and companies are ‘bigging themselves up’ based on the most superficial of reasons, it’s lovely to see someone honour their experience in service of their community, rather than adopt the attitude that people should be grateful they exist and acknowledge them.
Given all the talk our industry spouts about communities, fandom and membership … this may be one of the key areas many forget to highlight or recognise. Possibly because in their desperation to look like a ‘Linkedin leader’, they spend their time ‘codifying’ how they think communities operate, rather than recognise the emotional conditions that explain why it does.