Think. Story. Experience.

Think more about your thinking and you'll think better thoughts

I've just come to the end of Old School, a wonderful book by Tobias Wolff that combines literary criticism and insight with a brilliant portrait of the unique environment created by a great school.

One line in the closing pages jumped out at me, capturing a truth I have referred to previously, about the importance of disciplining, training, and thinking about your thinking...

"Teaching made him accountable for his thoughts, and as he became accountable for them he had more of them, and they became sharper and deeper." 

Aaaaaaardvark Plumbing

Once upon a time, someone (let's say a plumber) struck upon the clever idea of calling their company something beginning with A. That way, their company name (let's call it A1 Plumbing) would be the first to be listed in the book. Their strategy was not to be the best, the fastest, or the cheapest. It was simply to be top of the list.

But then someone else wised up to their ploy. They called their company AA1. And so on and so on. All the way to Aaaaaaardvark Plumbing.

It's crazy, obviously. Because this is now a world where lists are no longer bureaucratic and alphabetical. Lists are now user-created and hierarchical. They live everywhere from online to in recommendations. And they have no respect for alphabetical cuteness.

It's also a metaphor for the traditional approach to advertising...shout louder, shout more, aim to be 'top of mind'. Don't try to be better, just try to be noisier, more obtrusive, harder to ignore. Make it impossible for the opposition to be heard.

And that's crazy too, obviously. Which makes you wonder why so many brands continue to behave like that. Especially now when money is so tight. Go figure.

Care about something that matters

There's a profile on Sir Richard Branson today in The Australian newspaper's business magazine, the deal. One section of the piece really stood out for me...

"...he insists that he was never attracted to business - and he still isn't. Business, according to one of the world's best know businessmen, is about paying the bills, a necessary but important evil that lets him get on with his real passion."

""What I love doing is creating things that I'm proud of," he says. "I love people and I love surrounding myself with great people who have a passion for whatever it is we're going to create. Getting every single little detail right, making sure we create something we're really proud of, and all the people working on it are really proud of - it's likecreating a painting and getting all the colours right, getting every little detail on that canvas right.""

In these seriously challenging times it's going to be hard to remember that it's your passion for what you do or make that will secure your future, not your diligent attention to the bottom line. I'm not saying you don't have to care about the latter. It just can't be all that you do. If you don't believe me, listen to Branson.

Two enemies of good thinking

It sounds strange, almost silly to suggest, but two words that at first glance appear crucial to good marketing might just be two of the biggest obstacles. I’m talking about the words ‘campaign’ and ‘budget’.

The word ‘campaign’ is often used in my (experiential marketing) space as an aspirational term. “Think about a campaign not a one-off event”, we will tell our clients. And yet, in the more traditional world of advertising, the word ‘campaign’ has become a big part of the problem. Instead of referring to a long-term, strategic effort…a complex attempt to solve a complex problem…the word ‘campaign’ has come to refer to the media a brand can afford to buy.

So a typical description of an up-coming campaign might go…“it’s an eight-week integrated campaign, front-loaded with a prime-time free-to-air blitz, and supported by a strong online focus”. That’s not a campaign, that’s a media buy.

The problem with the word ‘budget’ is more subtle (and arguably more arguable). I get how budgets are necessary when your idea of marketing is making ads and buying media for those ads. But if you agree with me that good marketing today is about solving problems (whether they are problems of awareness, love, loyalty, experience, design, service, culture, or whatever), then it’s hard to see how allocating a ‘budget’ is the right way to go about doing that.

I just don’t see how the right solution can be so tightly disciplined to a dollar figure. By all means, recognize that a problem has a cost attached to it, and therefore the solution must be limited by that financial context. But that’s an argument for recognizing that a problem that’s worth solving for $5m will not be worth solving if it’s going to cost $50m. What it's not is an argument for why a solution that might cost $1m should be rejected in favour of a far less suitable option, simply because the pre-allocated ‘budget’ was $750,000.

This is not an argument for disrespecting clients’ budgets. Instead, it’s an argument for respecting client’s brands, businesses, and objectives. It’s an argument that relies on the simple fact that creative agencies will often see solutions their clients can’t…that’s what they’re paid for. And, as a consequence of that asymmetry of perspective and insight, clients will often allocate funds inefficiently…at times too much, at times too little.

What’s my answer? Stop thinking about time-limited campaigns and dollar-limited budgets. Start thinking more in terms of the problems you have, when they need to be fixed by, and the dollar-value of getting them fixed. Hand those challenges and big-picture parameters over to your agencies. The truly smart ones will come back with truly smart (and dollar-smart) solutions. Far better surely than offering a specific budget and watching your agencies work hard to spend all of your ‘budget’, as fast as they can, in the name of an integrated ‘campaign’.

Thinking about creative stuff

Some nice quotes lifted from Life's a Pitch, by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity.

Akio Morita's definition of Sony's corporate philosophy...

"Doing what others did not."

Miles Davis on jazz...

"Don't play what's there. Play what's not."

Billy Wilder on making movies...

"There's one thing you never hear and it's this: "Gee! I must go and see that movie! I hear it came in under budget.""

Bob Dylan, to an audience unhappy at his playing an electric guitar...

"I follow no one."

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, on success...

"If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."

Sochiro Honda on the same subject...

"Success represents the one per cent of your work that results from the 99 per cent that's called failure."

The Changeling, the LAPD, and why you can never learn the right lessons too many times

Watching Clint Eastwood's excellent film, The Changeling, there are lots of lessons to be learned.

For many, the key lesson (from a film that shows elements of the LAPD of the 1920s in a terrible light) will be a familiar (and mightily important) one about the importance of human rights and the need to limit authoritarian power and watch any power creep or abuse with great vigilance.

For others, the main learning will be a reinforcement of the old truism that bad things happen when good people stand by and do nothing.

For me, a third lesson perhaps resonated the most, because what The Changeling exposes brilliantly are the impacts of systemic problems, cultural problems, poor communication and decision-making , and basic prejudiceon organisations and the people within them. Challenges, in other words, that exist in every major organisation around the world.

Facing up to those challenges is the only way to begin the journey to being a better business. Like any broken product, culture is something that needs to be fixed before you focus on promotion. It's just hard, so most organisations try to avoid it.  

Don't ask what, ask why

I'm writing this in the middle of final preparations for a couple of clients in advance of tomorrow's opening of the Melbourne International Motor Show.

Walking around the stands, watching brands putting the finishing touches to their displays and reveal moments, you become almost nauseated by the repetition and sameness. And it's not just about how samey everything is this year...it's about how similar this year's offerings are to every other year.

But then you think about the process brands go through in their preparations and you realise why the outputs are always so lacking in imagination and variety...everyone begins by asking the wrong question.

In short, most car brands approach Motor Shows by asking 'what'...what should we do at this year's event. Instead, they should start by asking 'why'...why do Motor Shows exist, why do people attend, and why do we spend so much money doing the same thing?

And, if they really want to start with a 'what', they should at least change the question...what would happen if we didn't do Motor Show at all?

Literal visuals

Love this chart from Wired, featured in this post from Chris Anderson.

As one of the comments says, all that's missing is a dip.

Good lessons from bad TV

If you're not careful, a Sunday afternoon working from home can quickly descend into a blur of bad television. Thankfully, although this nearly happened to me today, I still managed to get my work done, plus I learned something from one of the shows in the background.

The programme was about obedience training for dogs, with the expert repeatedly forcing the dog's owners to look at their behaviour from the dog's point of view. Very quickly, it became clear that the dog's aggression, disobedience, and erratic behaviour was simply mirroring the anger, inconsistency, and mixed messages coming from the owners.

It was total common sense (as with most good communications and marketing). And it was totally applicable to the workplace, where most poor employee behaviour can be traced back to poor organisational culture, communications, and leadership.

As always, not rocket science. Just smart, and simple. As long as you actually think.

It's a good idea, because

I heard something smart today.

Simple too, which makes it smarter.

It went something like this...

Anyone can have a good idea.

What makes it a strategic idea is the word because.