4 Fuks Saké

Cheers Fred

In this post-Brexit era, one thing you’ll never take away from Brits is our ability to take the piss. Absolutely world class leadership right there with #WalkersWave.

Obviously you’ve seen it. The automated, boy-ish enthusiasm of Lineker (here in the Peter Beardsley, No 10 role) sets you up with cheer, positivity and warmth. He puts it on a plate – and bang – there’s the punchline. A smorgasboard of the world’s most depraved criminals – Fritzl, West, Britain’s most prolific sex offender Savile™, asking us to buy crisps.

As a self-appointed ‘industry leader’ – part two of this article should be 100 words about ‘lessons being learned,’ and “obviously our thoughts go out to the families involved.”

The real reason for the absolute glee of this isn’t the pain of the Walkers and client and agency team. God bless them, they’ve suffered enough.

The joy is in puncturing the pomposity, horrendous phrase ‘thought leadership,’ the pointless conferences, the every-Thursday-night award ceremonies, and second screen, hot-air bullshit that exists in creative marketing.

Inviting people to go to a football match in order to sell crisps ISN’T important. It isn't a real job. I should know I’ve been doing it for twenty years.

The brief. The strategy. The best practice workshop. The creative presentation. The amends. The PO. The build. The “we’re at crunch time,” panic. The sign-off and the eventual release. My “washup” would say that #WalkersWave is three, four, five months of tunnelled, bunker thinking – ignorant of a world beyond meetings rooms, and a Metro/iPhone on the tube.

We are privileged.

We are well paid.

Our jobs are fun.

We steal the tickets at festivals and Cup Finals.

We don’t save lives.

We don’t put our bodies on the line.

We think we know it all.

Fred West waving for Walkers is a gleeful wedgie to anyone that represents corporate brands/general Soho bell-endry; and a reminder to recognise to place our work in the real world.

Cheers Fred.

It's Intelligent To Dumb Down

Here’s a picture of Benny.

His owner Richard tweeted his picture, and Bob’s your uncle, Benny’s “the world’s most famous dog.” (Mail Online). Mail Online, is the world’s biggest English language newspaper site. Benny’s been shared 697 times. A story alongside on it, on the reform of the British welfare system is shared 243 times.

Without stating the bleeding obvious, or building on what Siobhan Sharpe might say; there is, what is often referred to in a patronising manner, "a lesson here."

Agency planners are paid, and build their careers on their intelligence. It is in their personal interest to build their personal brands with the trappings of that evidence. Data, intelligent publications, tweeting Economist and Harvard Business Review links to clients all do their bit to build credibility and sell an idea. Creatives too, lean heavily on culture for commercial gain. Work emanating from art, design and theatrical studios in cities across the world, end up in diluted form for commercial gain within 12 months.

None of that is to be sniffed at – just as long as the intelligenzia that help to shift consume products recognise the power that comes from the lowest common denominator. It’s a world where the written word is simply not needed. The copywriter becomes surplus to requirements.

An image that makes you laugh, fantasise or cringe, is your passport to worldwide fame and access to eyeballs. Benny is living proof and by dint of statistic, cannot be ignored.

The ingredients of imagery - useful for any creative session - include:

• Cats & dogs (Benny).
• Animals displaying human qualities (PG Tips, meerkats, page 3 of Metro every day).
• Physical disfiguration, (Cheryl Cole, C4’s Undateables, war).
• Wealth extremes (Kardashians, Benefits Street).
• Class divison. (Binge drink vomiting montages, Ladies day at Aintree, Kardashians).
• A bikini (Every newspaper site, notably Mail Online’s sidebar of shame).
• Cleavage (ditto).
• Attractive women in dresses (ditto).

In the search for intelligence – it’s best not to overlook what stares you in the face every day.

Cyrus, Jacklin, Higgs & Dignity

There are three stories from the past couple of weeks that are worthy of pulling together.

Cyrus / O’Connor

It’s been seven hours and fifteen days (approximately) since Miley Cyrus and Sinead O’Connor exchanged open letters on the subject of mental disintegration. Within a couple of weeks, Cyrus has transformed herself into a breathing version of Razzle, and reached the global Premier League of celebrity. Hard work? Music? Forget it. The 'tits out and trend' strategy pays an instant dividend, even if she’ll end up in rehab on Sinead O’Connor’s old ward in a year or two. 

Jacklin

Tony Jacklin – a man who would feature prominently in a review of the 20^th Century of European golf – wore purple glitter and was humiliated in front of nine million people watching Strictly Come Dancing. Richard Gillis, who in his own words "likes to take a          (pause)                 (arch eyebrow)                ‘sideways look’ at the sports industry”; picked up on a Tony Jacklin Q&A in Golf International magazine. “I’m told that these days you need to keep on reinventing yourself, to let people know you’re still alive and kicking.”

Higgs

Peter Higgs of Higgs-Boson has won the Nobel Prize in Physics. His response? To go on holiday, leave his mobile on the kitchen table and tell no-one where he’s gone. We won’t be seeing him in the Jungle this winter.

Questions. What has happened to the concept of dignity in the entertainment business? Is it possible for people who crave attention to still do so, and retain a sense of self-worth?

If your output is shit, perhaps it’s a struggle. A listen to the incidental part of Cyrus’s career – her music – would explain why she’s got them out.

Jacklin however, has stories no-one should tire of listening to or learning from (ref: Birkdale, Lytham, the Belfry, Seve). These carry value. The last thing that man, or any of us need, is reinvention. My advice Tony – take a look at the example being set to you by Peter. Less is (commercially) more.

Publicom And The Fatberg Of Online Self-Importance

Ten days ago two rich advertising men - closeted by a small, sharkish cabal of investment bankers sniffing a wedge - cut a deal. Ten days later, a fatberg of online bilge has spewed from hundreds of thousands of online sources in over sixty countries. Sift your way through all the opinion, comment and knowledge and two dominant terms emerge: “I” and “my.” No-one knew. But did that stop the advertising and comms industry telling you it knew? (Rhetorical).

Advertising and comms is an insecure and paranoid business. There is an endless race to be the ear that the CEO whispers an insight into, in the hunt for competitive and financial advantage. PR fares little better – in fact, the industry is fairly overt about it – whinging about its inferiority – rather than acting on it.

Perception and reality are two different beasts – as one would expect from an industry whose business is perception. On day two or three of Publicom, what began to grate was reading a stream of links from people roughly one hundred steps removed from the Wren/Levy meetings; giving their own seals of approvals on smartphones, thousands of miles away. 

“The more I see of this Publicis-Omnicom deal the more I like.”

“Here’s the downside to the Publicis-Omnicom merger.”

“Publicis-Omnicom isn’t a surprise for five reasons.”

“Wren’s been smart here..”

Wren and Levy’s surnames were dropped into posts with the ease and intimacy of football managers doing a deal over a £10million “Macedonian misfit,” or a “wantaway striker.”

The reality? No-one knew. Senior clients. Senior staff. Genuine rivals. David Jones memorably tweeted 48 hours before signature that “pigs might fly.”

My advice to the Radian 6, Sysomos and Adobe Socials of this world: for your next update, build in a bullshit filter for us. I’d upgrade.   

Snacked To Death

Hectoring cabinet ministers and your gran have always promoted the virtues of three square meals a day. Get yourself a good nutritious blend of protein, carbohydrates and whatever’s in broccoli. Good nourishment, leads to a healthy body and mind. 

Just don’t snack.

All we want to do is snack. We want snack-sized content intravenously dripped, 19 hours a day. Pictures please, with as little copy as possible. News stories no more than 100 words. Is a 15 second video clip or a 6 second video clip the best length? Feed me loads of this stuff whenever there’s a gap in the day.

The phrase ‘snack-sized content’ is utterly ubiquitous in marketing and content forums. There is a nuancing to ‘snack-sized’ content though, that brands attempting to woo punters into their domains would do well to adhere to.

There is unhealthy snacking of course. Tessa Jowell tells you not to eat crisps and biscuits but you know – you’re drawn to the cupboard. Beer brands know it. Exion’s research tells us that whether we like it or not, blokes can’t resist visuals of chests or some mild misogyny.

Pick up the Sunday Mirror supplement this weekend and flick to the lifestyle pages. You’ll find something in there about good, regular snacking. “Feeling peckish? Try a handful of nuts and pulses” is the answer every weekend if you can’t wait for your lunch of skinless chicken and a glass of tap water.

Smart brands spot the smart snackers. Busy, well-informed, nimble, researched-to-the-back teeth punters who dart from bite-sized gobbets of content to form an overall picture of a company, brand or product. Is this revolutionary product any good? A fleet-footed nip across a variety of social networks captures dozens of well-articulated opinion in a matter of minutes.

At the end of the day, we are what we consume. Rubbish food and content leads to rubber bodies and brains. Brands that succeed respect their customers in the new social channels. Those that combine pace with intelligence and empathy for their customers – via the vehicle of ‘snack-sized content’ - will ultimately prevail.

Work. Produce. Make Money.

A creative director quits and £40m is wiped off the value of a company. This is no egotistical bell-end packing up his moleskin and flouncing off for a Nicaraguan flat white. It’s Emma Hill of Mulberry who called it a day last month. Hill’s departure indicates the value in real terms – of real creativity. Of creating real products with real value.

In an interview last year, Hill said; “I’m from Wales and my family are bakers and miners, people who did things with their hands.” Ask Hill what she does and I suspect she’ll say “I make handbags.” You produce something, someone else values it, and they exchange money. Her arrival at Mulberry in 2008, heralded a five-fold increase in its share price.

Hill’s words and actions have a purity and a clarity about them that the marketing and communications sectors could learn from. Conferences, round tables and essays grapple with measurement and evaluation of campaigns – but it may be better to start at source and be a little clearer with what it is we are attempting to achieve, doing and producing in the first place.

I was once introduced to a female friend’s new boyfriend. She teed him up with the words: “he’s not that bright. He doesn’t have a job like yours.” The bloke was an aviation engineer, and tweaked freshly landed 747s at Heathrow before they flew out again. Pretty smart, and pretty clear I reckon. I’d certainly value that product. On the flipside, on any given day, I could counter with “I’m a strategist, a planner, a managing partner, a social media consultant, a content producer, experiential marketer or brand partnership consultant.” No-one in the real world has any idea or interest in what I’m talking about.

There are two elements to what we – as in you and me operating in this industry bubble -  do. We create demand and we create sales.

Walk into an Ogilvy office anywhere around the world and you’ll never be more than a minute’s walk away from a “We sell or else,” quote. Businesses only walk through the doors of agencies to grow their own businesses – no other reason. So if you can’t articulate how you’re going to grow a business, you’re unlikely to be much use to them.

Second, we create demand. This is where we learn from Emma Hill and start using our hands. Nothing can be said to be certain in this world other than death, taxes, Google and bullshit. If someone tells me that this is the best thing since sliced bread, I’ll be searching online and very quickly I'll find out whether I'm being bullshitted. What I need to find are things that make me go ‘wow’ or ‘hmmm.’

So we – the agencies - need to make those thingswith our hands. An app here. A film there. Something that makes your life easier when you’re about. Something that demonstrates what a brand or a product can do for me, when I’m hunting for info or sat on my arse on the sofa. In short, we make things that sell products. All we need now is a trade union, and the reintroduction of statutory fifteen minute tea breaks. 

(Pic: Kat B on Flickr)

Clarks Give The Rest A Shoeing

(Clarks and others brands in less 'meaningful' use). 

The 2013 edition of Havas Meaningful Brands is out today. It operates on a simple premise. Brands that make things better, lives easier, give you a bit of fun, or make your Mum happier will sell more stuff. Here is a shit load of smart methodology and research that proves it.

In the UK Clarks are in at number one, and an eyebrow raising ASDA at 3. (If you will set your stall out to drive prices as low as you can go, then expect to be popular).

Tuck in to the global and UK lists, plus a hub on The Guardian.

"Do Me A Favour Instagram. Oh, You Have."

5 times a week I'll use the phrase 'Oh for fuck's sake." It's been eight months since I've done that and then felt compelled to write something on my blog with the same name. It's Instagram again.

I refer you to my April post, about Silicon Valley entrepreneurs' ingenuity at duping people who wear expensive trainers for their own commercial gain. This week, they've said they're going to sell photos of your kids to McDonalds, who'll in turn advertise Big Macs. That's what I've understood it to be anyway. 

Four things.

1. This bloke nails it, citing this collective sense of self-delusion. Search #coffee and look: there's your shot of a latte, filtered in Hudson, alongside 450,000 others. 

2. Your photo was rubbish. Instagram made it look nicer, so much so, that you felt compelled to share it with others. As far as I'm aware, you haven't paid them since you opened your account.

3. Instagram have been stupid. The more avid a user of social media you are, the greater your propensity to attention seek. So attention seekers (their core audience) pour through social T&Cs with the meticulousness of a Manhattan lawyer. They do it for their own benefit, not the crowd. I don't believe Facebook and Instagram want to sell pictures of my kids to Exxon, nor do I think lawyers will allow them to. If they can, who's the bell end for putting them there in the first place? Howevere, if they want to sell pictures of my uncooked ribeyes or empty espresso cups, that's a fair deal for me.

4. If you don't like it, vote with your feet. Go to Flickr's new app or the next photo sharing network you've yet to hear of. They'll end up doing the same thing to you.

"Hey Guys, I'm A Bit Uncomfortable You Made A $1bn. Let's Have A Diet Coke And Talk."

I've held an opinion for a while that a large proportion of people working in social media had sand kicked in their faces at school. Technology has always been 'nerdy' and there is a revelling in the outsider term 'geek.' Naturally, social media in its infant years attracted the types who worked their way up from Star Wars figures through to circuit boards. 

Woe betide anyone that leaves the geek crowd and gets accepted by the in crowd. Backs will be turned.  

Like Instagram. They had the audacity to take $1bn off Facebook. They have "sold out."  People get fucked off and talk of betrayal. The issue seems to be that:

a) They took money off the big enemy, Facebook.

b) That Instagram made the user feel special and important, and now they don't.

I would suggest the following.

1. People come up with ideas and go to work to try and make money. That includes the founders of Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and whatever a couple of people in San Francisco are working on right now, that we'll fall in love with later this year or early next.

2. People with relaxed dress codes, white teeth, and nice smiles from California, are adept at making geeks feel special. Like the Instagram "guys" pictured. Wouldn't you just love to have a Diet Coke with them? They give them things to play with. Coax personal information out of them to make money, and then persuade them to promote the whole process.

3. If someone makes $1bn out of something like nice pictures of babies, cats and food - rather than oil or guns, then that's a good thing. 

4. If you are uncomfortable with Instagram making money in the social media industry, stop doing it yourself. Stop walking into publications and/or businesses asking for much smaller amounts of money to advise on how to use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc...to make money. 

5. If you don't like Facebook, delete your account.

Congratulations to Instagram. I love your product, I love your work, and I'm glad you're making money. As Paul Carr, said "They didn't sell out, they just sold. They're a company, not the fucking Rolling Stones."

 

Tesco. Fat And Knackered.

I think they’re in trouble. Well, I say trouble. Tesco announced profits of £3.7bn in the UK this morning so they’re hardly in shit. More than we made last year. 

That said, shareholders aren’t going to take too kindly to days when the share price drops 16%.

The headlines say the supermarket's Christmas campaign failed to entice shoppers into store. This won't be a marketing issue, but an operational one. This is a company that is massive, bloated and listless. Its non-food businesses have done bonkers numbers in the last few years, and now occupy enormous acres of floor space. The shrinking core food business retracts apologetically, literally in front of the eyes of customers.

Its massive bloatedness and no doubt hideous bureaucracy, will be hampering clear thinking and communication. Its nearest and dearest rivals remain crystal in the conscious of the public. ASDA – price. Sainsbury’s – value. Waitrose – posh. Lidl/ALDI – cheap. Tesco? Huge and "I don’t know where everything is."

For a large of the population that’s the level of decision-making as the keys go into the ignition.

You've got to feel for CEO, Philip Clarke - the Wilf McGuinness to Sir Terry Leahy's Matt Busby. They’ve got a few issues in there, and they're not going to be fixed in a quarter. 

Pic: MrLomo/Flickr